Index
Contents
PREFACE: Virtual Reality's Moment xi
INTRODUCTION 1
What Is It? 1; What Can a Book Do That VR Can't, at Least as Yet? 2; How to Read This Book 3; Meeting My Younger Self 5
1. 1960S: TERRORS OF EDEN 9
Border 9; Window 10; Trifecta 11; Mood 12; Spun 13;
Beyond Recall 14; Sound 15; Outlasting Cruelty 17;
First Experiment 18; Burned 20
2. RESCUE SPACECRAFT 22
Landed 22; Where in the Universe? 23; Whence 25;
Permission 26; Build 29; Habitat 29
3. BATCH PROCESS 33
From Atoms to Bits and Back Again 33; Access 34;
The Nasty Bits 36; Goats 37; Pixels in Real Life 39; Stacks 40;
Prize 41; Pestering Strangers About Ivan 44
4. WHY I LOVE VR (ABOUT THE BASICS) 47
The Mirror Reveals 47; Verb Not Noun 51; A Vice to Avoid 52; The Technology of Noticing Oneself 54
5. BUG IN THE SYSTEM (ABOUT THE DARK SIDE OF VR) 57
Paranoid Android 57; Terror Equation 58; Bipolar Bits 60
Vili | CONTENTS
63
6. ROAD
Dome Done 63; Film Flam 65; First Time in the City 66;
Down Spiral 68; Back in Flames 70; Aztec Outpost;
Wheels 73; Inquests 75; Consensus and Sensibility 77
7. COAST 80
Casual Enrollment 80; City on a Pill 82; Rainbow's Gravity 83; Protogoogle 84; Audience 86; Transcript 88
8. VALLEY OF UNEARTHLY DELIGHTS 91
El Paso del Cyber 91; Optimal Us. and Them 93; Finite and Infinite Games 95; Loop Skywalker 97; You Have to Get Awfully Weird to Avoid Becoming a Behaviorist 99; Grounded 100;
A Club That Would Have Me as a Member 101; Code Culture 102
9. ALIEN ENCOUNTERS 104
The Essential Bug 104; Rent-a-Mom 106; Young Guru of Loneliness 108; Realization 110; Despite Myself 112;
Math Against Loneliness? 114
10. THE FEELING OF IMMERSION 116
Woman as Social Stem Cell 116; Impossible Objects 118;
Triptych 119; Reality Engine Engine 121; Much Touch 123;
Haptic Antics 125
11. TO DON THE NEW EVERYTHING (ABOUT HAPTICS WITH A LITTLE ABOUT AVATARS) 127
Blind Bind 127; Hand-Waving Demo. Oigital Interface 128;
Passive Haptics 129; Bearing Arms 130; Haptic Lemonade 131; First VR Consumer Product 132; Interspecies Gastric Haptics 133; Octopus Butler Robot 134; Lick the Problem 138; Deepest Time Machine 139; Haptic Intelligence 141, As If One Obsession Weren't Enough 143- Harm and Heal 145
12. NAUTICAL DAWN
147
Other Sighs 147; Other Everythings 149; The Previous Everything 150; Stim City 155: Legitimacy. Hair, a Giants Shoulder 157; Oi*ie-Futurism 162; Ants on a Mission 163-On Track 165
13. SIX DEGREES (A LITTLE ABOUT SENSORS ANO VR DATA) 168
The Eyes Must Wander 168; The Brain Integrates 170-A Moving Experience 171; Sea Legs. Virtual Legs 174-'
Virtual Realism Versus Virtual Idealism 176
CONTENTS I lx
14. FOUND 100
Bite Before Hook 180; Peanut Sauce Gallery 182;
Dotted Lines 185; Round Horizon 186; Deputy Top Suit 187; Footprint 188; We Shipped! 189
15. BE YOUR OWN PYRAMIDION (ABOUT VISUAL DISPLAYS FOR VR) 192
Remembering the EyePhone 192; That Thing on Your Head 193;
When to Take a Pass 195; The Ridiculous Mistake That Floats in the Air All Around Us 196; A Gadget Spectrum 199; The Inner Extreme on the Spectrum 200; The Outer Extreme 201; Scope Is the Thing with Feathers 203; Étendue 204; The Duplex Problem 205
16. THE VPL EXPERIENCE 209
In-Spiral 209; Veeple 210; What VR Was For 213;
Surgical Training 214; Tradewinds 215; A Few of Our American Projects 217; Soldiers and Spooks 218; Characters 221;
Spin-Offs 223
17. INSIDE-OUT SPHERES (A LITTLE ABOUT VR "VIDEO" AND SOUND) 226
VideoSphere 226; AudioSphere 226
18. SCENE 230
Demolition 230; The Art of the Demo 232; The Art of the World 234; Advice for VR Designers and Artists 235;
Flags Planted 237; Moniker on the Loose 239;
The Party 242; Ricochet la Femme 243;
Dark Lineage 245; Flattering Mirror 246
19. HOW WE SETTLED INTO A SEED FOR THE FUTURE 249
Virtual Rights, but Not Virtual Economic Rights 249;
The Easy Road to World Domination 250; Microgravity 252;
The Invisible Hand Improves When It Is Made Visible as an Avatar Hand 254; Birth of a Religion 257; Love the Work. Not the Myth 264; Alien Virtual Reality 265
20. 1992. OUT 269
MicroCosm 269; VR. Trapped in the Movies 271; Voluminous Possibilities Lost 273; In Slickness and in Stealth 275;
The Sound of One Hand 276; The End of One Finite Game 279
21. CODA: REALITY'S FOIL 202 AFTERWORD 289
x I CONTENTS
Appendix One: POSTSYMBOLIC COMMUNICATION
(ABOUT THE REVERIES OF ONE OF MY CLASSIC VR TALKS) 291
More Transcript 291; Kind of Blue 294; Speak,
Tentacles! 295; PoTesis 296; Fascination Versus Suicide 297; Rue Goo 300
Appendix Two: PHENOTROPIC FEVERS (ABOUT VR SOFTWARE) 301
Mandatory Metamorphosis 301; Grace 302;
Picture This 303; Sleight 304; Editor and Mapping 305; Variation 306; Phenotropic Trial Run 307; Scale 309; Motivation 311; Role Reversal 311; Expression 313; The Wisdom of Imperfection 315; Resilience 316; Adapt 317; Swing 318;
Rubble Fills Plato's Cave 321; Many Caves. Many Shadows, but Only Your Eyes 322
Appendix Three: DUELING DEMIGODS 323
Not Artificial, but Imaginary 323; The Banality of Weightlessness 326; The Invisible Hand on a Multitouch Screen 328; The Absurdity of Demanding That Al Fix Itself 332;
The Humane Use of Human Systems 333
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 337
INDEX 341
