Virtual Reality Heterotopias (Pt 1)
- lucygardiner
- Jun 29, 2020
- 3 min read
Is a virtual reality a heterotopia? I would argue it is. When we enter Virtual reality we enter a space that is a different, to 'other' space that seems to hold many similarities with the criteria Michel Foucault outlined in his idea of a heterotopia.
Foucault uses the mirror as one example of heterotopic space. “In the mirror, I see myself there where I’m not, in an unreal, virtual space that opens up behind the surface.” the space in a mirror is “absolutely real, connected with all the space that surrounds it.”. It represents the world and space that we exist in yet in is elsewhere and somehow different. I feel this can be said also about virtual reality in most cases.
virtual reality takes what we know and think to be a usual space and flips it to become a disrupted space.
When entering a virtual reality space, you are still in this usual space, and the place you enter is somewhere else, and thats what you are experiencing, this other place. You exit the normal world, but enter a kind of mirrored world.
VR opens up another space, another world to the user, which creates a sense of freedom and liberation. The new space isn't real so neither are your actions whilst in this virtual world. However, it also constraining, for what you experience in the virtual world can only be accessed in the virtual world. You are also confined to the virtual spaces that have been created. The world that you enter and the experience you have is often created by someone else and therefore can be restrictive.
When thinking about heterotopias Foucault discussed how they question the reality of the normal spaces around these other spaces. When experiencing virtual reality does a point come where we loose sight of which reality is the ordinary and we question what reality is? Could the roles be reversed and virtual reality becomes these ordinary places? Perhaps this may some point become the case. it reminds me of the point in Avatar when the main character Jake Skully who is frequently putting his consciousness is the body of another being looses track of what world he really belongs to, his original body and life, or this new world that he has entered in a new body (although not through virtual reality).
Another way in which virtual realities may fall into the classification of a heterotopia is the way in which it is accesses and used. Under the fifth principle that Foucault outlined in his article Of Other Spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias (1984), he describes a heterotopia as having a "system of opening and closing that both isolates them and makes them penetrable". A virtual reality experience is very much isolated from the normal space in which you are situated, sight and hearing is shut off from it and you are left immersed in the virtual world. However, they are of course penetrable in the sense that you can enter the virtual world as and when you please through a set of actions.
These actions in order to enter a virtual reality are also fitting with those actions taken to enter a heterotopia. Foucault describes one scenario in which entry to a heterotopia is allowed but only through individuals having to 'submit to rites and purification' to gain entry. Following the actions needed to enter a virtual reality such as putting the headset equipment on, and ensuring a dafe environment around you might not be classed as a rite, however entering the mindset that you are to be shut off from the world around you to enter a new space and the above actions could certainly be seen as a ritual. Purification may not be applicable in most cases of entering a VR space, however it may in some circumstances, such as a public/ shared VR headset/ experience in environments such as galleries or school, where virtual reality is being used as a tool for art and teaching. These pieces of VR equipment will have to be cleaned and sanitised regularly if being shared. This though is especially prominent at the moment during a time in which hygiene is being talked about and scrutinised more than ever.
Reading List:
M,Foucault (1984) Of other spaces: Utopias and Heterotopias,http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/foucault1.pdf
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