Tadeusz Miczka
Faculty of Philology
University of Silesia in Katowice
Poland
Virtual Reality as Utopia
Abstract: It is assumed, following Łukasz Zweiffel’s idea, that the development of the latest utopias, at least now, is inseparably connected with the ideas of openness and infinity. Former conceptions of closed utopias are replaced by conceptions of open utopias which are based on the belief in the meaning of human freedom and the variety of ways in which future societies may be shaped. The origin of this way of utopian thinking can be found in the theory and creative practice of futurism, artistic avant-garde which since 1909 has strongly influenced not only art but also people’s everyday life. In 1905 F. T. Marinetti wrote about futuristic obsession of freedom (“words-in-freedom”) that cannot concretize fully because “it possesses flexible extension of constantly growing desires.” It becomes common in the epoch of technopoly, especially in its last phase which is marked by an expansion of high technology. The article focuses on multimedia which are the culmination of development of futuristic thought and art and take the shape of new communication behaviour such as navigation, interactivity and virtualisation. The characteristics of virtual reality (image inclusion and rules binding in Second Life game), which offers multimedia users various forms of experiencing plurality, multidirectional character and especially infofreedom, allows us to consider basic theoretical and practical issues of contemporary studies concerning utopia. According to the author, virtual reality encourages a development of utopian projects but limits a development of eutopian thinking – alternative for the reality, still realistic but yet better than the reality itself.
Keywords: utopianism, virtual reality, infoactivity
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No. 36 (2018)
Published: 2018-09-28
10.31261/errgo
English
Język Polski