Virtual Realities and the Future of the Arts

Virtual Realitiesand the Future of the Arts The impact of simulation technologies such as virtual reality and, even- tually , holographic projections, will be as profound in the arts as in all other aspects of our social institutions and conventions. In the beginning, the changeswill be seen as mostly beneficial [11.For example, laser discs can bring the collections of the most remote museum-famous and obscure alike-to the remote-control access of potentially millions of viewers. The relatively near future will bring high-definition, large-screen,liquid-crystalor laser-projectedvideo displaysof lifelike resolution and scale; the entire history and world of art will then be available by “downloading” from optical storage libraries via direct broadcast satellites,fiber-opticcable or the Internet, so that nearly anyone can “directly”experience almost any work from almost any period at any time (along with expert analysis) at the touch of a button or a verbal command-as if the work itself were actually right in front of them. As the resolution of immersivevirtual reality improvesand costs decline over the next decade or so, the virtual art gallerywill provide the experience of visiting any availablecollection, including its environment, without leaving the media “cocoon.” Holographic projection of real images that recreate sculptures and paintings in lifesized ,volumetric three dimensions will eventuallybe common in holographic galleries and homes. Among the broad societal consequences of these simulation technologies may be that people, who will be able to travel in cyberspace or call up a hologram, will be less inclined to crowd thoroughfares and consume resources to visit what they can experience at home without the crowds and the expense. The bad news-at least the initialbad news-is that attendance at museums (and everything else) will likely suffer . And it could get much worse. A s the arts and their audiences continue to fragment, a decline in gallery attendance would limit both the audience for and the patronage of new work. Perhaps by then most new artworkswill be created-and appreciated-in cyberspace,by members of SIGs (specialinterest groups) who gather at electronic galleriesvia the Internet. “do their own thing.” It will someday be possible for anyone with consumer electronic equipment to create whole worlds (it is even now called “world-building”) , populated with electronic beings that are likewise of their creation. With this explosion of self-expression-folk art, if you will-what about the formal arts? Film theoretician Rudolf Arnheim wrote: “Artexists by virtue of its limitations.”What happens to art when there are no longer any limitations?Will formal art and its dissemination be a viable pursuit when nearly anyone can create nearly anything?What then can real genius do to distinguish itself?And who will tell us-who will know the score when there are no rules? And what of our technological offspring-computers?What happens to our creative sovereigntyif and (more likely) when they become self-aware,consciousor whatever it is that confers the urge to create? It seems likely that their works would Even more disturbing to the status quo will be the empowering of individualsto 346 LEONARDO. Vol. 28, No. 4, pp. 346347, 1995 0 1995ISAST represent “experiences,”“emotions”and “world-views”alien to our own. Their “reality ”may be more surreal to us than any of our most bizarre dreams. Indeed, at the most fundamental level, the issue here is “reality.”We have used technologyover the millennia to reflect ourselvesand the “real”world around us. Nearly all art-even abstractart [2]-has been a chronicle of the world and/or our reactions to it. But now we are about to create new realities that are viscerally,if not logically, indistinguishable in plausibilityfrom ordinary,objective reality: in fact, the brain uses the same mathematicsin reconstructing reality from sensoryinput as is inherent in the mechanics of holography.So,in our mind’seye, holographic illusions may bejust as good at conjuringup the environment as impressionsfrom any person or thing in the real world. And the mind’swillingnessto suspend disbelief,often in thrall of the simplestof deceptions,renders highly probable the prospect that holography and virtual realitywill put users at risk of being completelyimmersed and consumed in their own self-createdworlds-worlds in...