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Title: Virtual Realism by Michael Heim ISBN: 0-19-513874-0 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $21.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (4 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Virtual Landscapes More Significant Than Real Landscapes!
Comment: Michael Heim, in Virtual Realism , "dedicated to those minds at large who find no home in the established schools", explores the many ways in which virtual reality is increasingly influencing our lives. These techniques are both challenging the content of the normative design arts, and extending the boundaries of thought.
VR realism mixes traditional aesthetic criticism with aditional questions of immersion, interactivity, and information intensity. Virtual realism steers a course between the idealists who believe computerised life represents a higher form of existence and the down-to-earth realists who fear that computer simulations threaten ecological and local values. Further, a spacemaker is a designer of cyberspace constructs like a filmaker.
Riley, in The Visible, The Visual and The Vicarious, comments, "The real landscape often gives rise to an internally experienced landscape that is far richer that the "real" landscape. Such fantasy landscapes are open-ended in interpretation and may define the boundaries of postmodern existence."
Virtual, imaginary, and film art landscapes are more numerous and perhaps more significant than real landscapes.
Copyright 1998 Robert Hotten
Rating: 5
Summary: A meditative investigation of the impact of virtual reality
Comment: This is the latest in a series of books by Michael Heim on the human changes, both good and bad, wrought by the introduction of computers. Virtual Realism in particular seeks to find a balance between a retreat from technology and the wholesale embrace of it without regard for the consequences. He starts out defining the technology of virtual reality in such a way as to understand the strong reactions to it. He follows with a series of essays seeking to find the balance implied by the title. This is an accessible but always interesting book not requiring an extensive technical or philosophical background. His analysis is not exhaustive or linear, but that is not his intent. He brings up and ponders the big issues involved with human adoption of and adaptation to a powerful new technology.
Rating: 5
Summary: A most interesting and thoughtful discussions of VR to date.
Comment: Michael Heim's "Virtual Realism" is a critical yet pragmatic exploration of the present state and future evolution of virtual reality (VR) technology. Unlike much of the predominate rhetoric of VR theory, Heim's does not situate himself as either a VR idealist or alarmist, but instead offers a strategy for reconciling these polar positions by way of a critical, yet pragmatic analysis called "virtual realism". What is most is interesting about this book is the eclectic array of examples Heim's uses to support and illustrate his strategy. By drawing on examples as diverse as interactive art exhibits, the music of Glenn Gould and Jim Morrison, and extending to nuclear waste sites, he envisions a not only better ways to live with technology, but ways to make technology more humane. Heim's writing is both eloquent and accessible making "Virtual Realism" an insightful study for anyone interested in the impact of technology on our social and physical environment.
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Title: Nexus: Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks by Mark Buchanan ISBN: 0393041530 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: 01 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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