Essays

Looking like a cross between a T'ai Chi master, a navy frogman, and the terminator, [you are] harnessed to electronic leads fitted with a strange piece of headgear, dice everything is in place you can see the fuzzy, cut, coloured and recognizable, outlines of a cartoon version of an office. Hovering in space in front of you is what appears to be a spaghetti fork (the virtual image of the glove you are wearing). Wiggle your thumb and, sure enough, the fork wiggles. As you ponder the mechanics of the glove you burst noiselessly and effortlessly through a wall and into a burnt-sienna space that seems to, and probably does, extend into infinity. Without a registered thought, you find yourself pointing.

Matt Wielispach, of Cedar Rapids, IA, provides for us a concrete example of virtual reality furthering perceptions and reconstructing the reality of real life. He has been building airplane cockpits since age five. At the beginning, they were made only of cardboard boxes and any electronic equipment he could scavenge for greater effect.

Now, twenty-some years later, Mike is working on a precise, full scale, virtual cockpit, equipped with gages and monitors. Although Mike may not have a lot to do with drugs, his creation is similar to a substance such as LSD or Prozac, which would allow mind expansion. Others will one day be able to feel flight and dogfight using VR as Mike is able to.

A complete, virtual aircraft experience such as this, available to individuals, will undoubtedly expand minds and allow the impossible to become virtually possible. Computers have excelled to a level of performance which alludes our expanding frontier towards another realm; a different state of consciousness, usually higher, in which insight, and perceptions develop and harvest into new ideas which span the colorful horizons of infinite space.

Terence McKenna suggests that VR "is a technology that will not only allow -us to make more and better art; potentially it is a technology that will dissolve the boundaries between us and allow? Us to see the contents of each others' minds". Technology will help to recreate reality consciously. VR is intrinsically the basis of an entirely new form of communication, which previously has really only been possible with drugs such as LSD and DMT (a "designer drug" growing in popularity and known to be the most common cyber and drug).

However, the flip side of this issue can be gravely negative. If we are to consider virtual reality as a drug and view travels spent in Cyberspace to be much like a psychedelic trip, then we must be accepting of the repercussions that will accompany such associations. Most of America today is anti-drug. Today, psychedelics are still as popularly used as in the 60's but have become more strongly illicit. Issues of legality seem to have warped the general public's opinion of illegal substances.

The severity of caffeine or Frozac is discerned to be more relentless than marijuana, or LSD; when in fact all of these substances which enhance brain function have possible severe side-effects involving danger. Caffeine and Nicotine addiction can be a drastic problem that most tend to overlook, while assuming that the great dangers concern things like hallucinogenic drugs. William S. Burroughs avows in Naked Lunch, "And a smoking habit is as difficult to break as an intravenous injection habit".

Another negative aspect is that virtual reality is a strong proponent to depression, loneliness, isolation, and divorce, in the same way that drugs can influence one's life. Abuse not only comes in the form of substance abuse, VR being the drug, but also abuse in terms of abusing the system. Like any drug, VR can be immensely misused, as in instances of cyber-rape, and users cashing in on the anonymity factor, (most anything can be gotten away with). Like most drugs, whether it is DMT or caffeine, there is a high risk for addiction.

Consider this case study, for example. She is a thirty-year old, married woman from the Bronx. We'll call her "Wanda." While working for a medium-sized NY-based corporation, Wanda developed an addiction to the Internet, as she spent most of her time at work on-line, into various websites and chatrooms. She ran up the company's bill and subsequently was fired from her job.

Not long after, her husband divorced her because she was having an affair over the Internet. Her on-line partner may have also been cheating on their spouse and as young as a pre-teen or an old, lonely miser; but who would know, in Cyberspace? As is possible with any drug, in this case VR, Wanda may have went too far and crossed the line which separates   reasonable   consumption   with   abuse. We must look forward now, to the 21st century and realize the capabilities that our progressing technology will yield.

The past century was flogged by psychedelics while trends in mind-expansion grew in popularity. Perhaps if virtual reality can adopt a similar amenity as mind-expanding drugs have, then we will be able to further plunge ourselves into the technological abyss called Cyberspace and find new perspectives that will break down rudimentary assumptions about life and the individual's role in society; and henceforth, redesign reality. At last we will truly see what we actually mean, and we will see, what others are saying too, for Cyberspace will be a dimension where anything that can be imagined can be made to seem real.