- 314 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
About this book
Virtual reality is in the news and in the movies, on TV and in the air. Why is the technology-or the idea—so prevalent precisely now? What does it mean—what does it do—to us? Digital Sensations looks closely at how the "lived" world is affected by representational forms generated by communication technologies, especially digital and optical virtual technologies. Virtual reality, or VR, is a technological reproduction of the process of perceiving the real, yet that process is filtered through the social realities and embedded cultural assumptions about human bodies and space held by the technology's creators. Through critical histories of the technologies of vision, light, space, and embodiment, Ken Hillis traces the often contradictory intellectual and metaphysical impulses behind the Western transcendental wish to achieve an ever more perfect copy of the real. He advocates that current and proposed virtual technologies reflect a Western desire to escape the body. Because virtual technologies are new, these histories also address unintended and underconsidered consequences flowing from their rapid dissemination, such as commodifications and the alienation of new forms of surveillance. Exploring topics from VR and other, earlier visual technologies, Hillis's penetrating perspective on the cultural power of place and space broadens our view of the interplay between social relations and technology.
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Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access Digital Sensations by Ken Hillis in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Computer Science & Social Aspects in Computer Science. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction: Digital Relations
- 1. A Critical History of Virtual Reality
- 2. Precursive Cultural and Material Technologies Informing Contemporary Virtual Reality
- 3. The Sensation of Ritual Space
- 4. Sight and Space
- 5. Space, Language, and Metaphor
- 6. Identity, Embodiment, and Place—VR as Postmodern Technology
- Epilogue: Digital Sensations
- Notes
- References
- Index