Chapter 2: Coming of Age in Secondlife
In chapter two in Coming of Age in Secondlife, the author talks about the history of how virtual reality started and how it has evolved into what we know about virtual reality today. The chapter goes on to explain that humans have always been virtual because when humans are creating a novel, having dreams or an imagination, or creating a play they are being virtual. With people’s own vision they are creating something that is sometimes not considered to be real in their or other peoples reality. Boellstorff claims that writing is a form of virtual reality because you can see this in computer games, where people come up with out of the box ideas in cyberspace. Altogether, the first signs of virtual were seen all the way back to medieval days where people began to notice that what people are creating is a gap betweeen reality and our messy diverse experiences (p. 34).
Another virtual reality that showed technology for the first time was when camera obscura and the printing press were created which allowed for others to see peoples expressions. This is where the forms of novels were expressed such as Robinson Crusoe were printed for a mass audience. Then other technologies such as the telegraph, telephone, radio, television, and finally the computer made it possible for others to create this virtual reality. This form of virtual reality is not actually the people but the spaces between the technology (p.36).
Finally, by the 1980’s is where we experience the growth of the Internet and video games such as Atari. Here these technologies would allow you to move and control your own screens, based on science fiction and fantasy to come up with different games. The success of video games allowed people to interact and create a different form of reality from the one they lived in. By 2000, SimCity and SimEarth were places that offered simulation of virtual reality. However, it is known that the first time of seeing something like Secondlife appear is in 1970 called Artificial Reality and the Metaplay that had a person on the screen with a couple of computer graphics.
Overall, the chapter goes on to talk about how Secondlife is a virtual reality in social forms that were created in the 1990’s to today. The author claims that a person can have a social life online or homocyber one and then a real life social life in which his physical self is a part of. He also says that Secondlife is a form of technique because life is a technique. Altogether Secondlife is a place were a creator and spectator can enter and both can get something out of it; claiming that virtual worlds have a techne that produces a gap bewteen actual and virtual in the realm of virtual (p.58).
After reading this chapter I think it is important to learn about how the history of virtual reality evolved. I know I did not really understand the concept of have a second reality online but once I understood that by playing video games or simply using the telephone that I was essentially being virtual a long. These histories helped me understand how people came up with these concepts and in a way promoted imagination to create other things such as movies and books, things that are not necessarily real but can entertain someone. Overall, history about Secondlife, to me, explains how people can socially connect to others who want to knows other people thoughts and ideas.
Some good things brought up in class about virtual reality is that it has real aspects because people are talking about their real life experiences. Not only that, it has people from around the world that have many different ideas that others from another country, for instance, would not know about. Virtual reality sets up a framework for others to talk about what that think and it does not matter where, what, or who they are. Sometimes it is hard to tell what is virtual or what is not but what the main point is, is that everything is virtual. For instance, talking on the phone is and not everyone thinks that way. Overall, virtual reality can be physical or non physical depending on what you are doing.