Sociology of Virtual Reality

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Futures 1994 26(5) 519-528

CYBERCULTURE, CYBORGPOST-MODERNISM AND THESOCIOLOGY OF VIRTUALREALITY TECHNOLOGIESSurfing the soul in the information ageRalph Schroeder

The relation between humans and machines has come to assume a centralplace within the social sciences, particularly in debates about the role ofscience and about information technologies. Cyberculture plays a key rolein these debates, drawing its inspiration in large part from virtual realitysystems. This article examines the affinities between two aspects ofcyberculture: cyborg post-modernism, which revolves around the notionthat the boundaries between humans and machines are becomingirretrievably blurred, and the cyberpunk movement within youth culturewith its futuristic ideas about information and communication machines.While cyberculture may be far ahead of the current state of the technology,it is argued here that its new conception of the relation between politics,technology and art is an important reflection of changes within the culturalindustries that surround information and communication technologieswithin advanced societies.

Every need to which rea lity denies satisfac tion compels to belief.J . W. von Goethe 1809)

The idea behind virtual reality (VR) technologies, of a computer-generated simulatedworld which users can experience and manipulate, first surfaced in the 1 9bOs.2 Onlyrecently, however, with the increase in computing power, has it become possible toDr Ralph Schroeder is lecturer in sociology in the Department of Human Sciences, Brunei University,Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH, UK (Tel: +44 895-274000; fax: +44 895 232806). He is currentlyengaged in research on the social aspects ofvirtual reality (VR) technology. The author would like to thankThomas Osborne, Colin Blackman, and an anonymous Futures referee for comments on an earlier draft ofthis paper, and Warren Ciles and Bryan Cleal for their valuable fieldwork on VR. The research for thisarticle was made possible in part by support from the Brunei Research Initiative Enterprise Fund.

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it gives us this sense of being able to be who we are without limitation; for ourimagination to become shared with other people. Nevertheless, he cautions thatthere is a really serious danger of expectations being raised too high.

With Laurel we find a similar juxtaposition of other-worldliness and realism.With virtual reality systems, she writes, the future is quite literally within ourgrasp.8 It will blow a hole in all our old imaginings and expectations. Through thathole we can glimpse a world of which both cause and effect are a quantum leap inhuman evolution,9 a suggestive image even if it is not quite c lear what the secondpart of the sentence means. In a somewhat different vein, she writes: I think that wecan someday have Dionysian experiences in virtual reality, and that they will beexperiences of the most intimate and powerful kind . . Dionysian experience is theexperience of being in the livin presen eof not only the artist but also huge spiritualforces. Although, aga in it seems that there are some rather serious obstac les to beovercome before virtual reality can deliver the robust kinds of experiences that wefantasize about.

An extension of this vision is that Laurel thinks that there will be some kind ofmerging between VR machines and humans. Laurel refers to these human-machinesas fusion people.12 Here is one of the many points where there is a direc t continuitybetween the prophetic developers of VR and academic writing on cyberculture, andwe may therefore pursue the cybercultural worldview further in these writings.

Academic theorists derive their inspiration not so much from VR systems assuch, but from this human-machine fusion.13 Alongside a far-reaching vision basedon the possibilities of the new technology, we find here a systematized soc ioculturalprogramme. Metaphors abound in these accounts of the future. In Stones evocationof cyberspace, we find her describing the cybernetic act as consisting of the desireto cross the human/machine boundary . . . a desire literally to enter into such adiscourse, to penetrate the smooth and relatively affectless surface of the electronicscreen and enter the deep, complex, and tactile individual) cybernetic space or theconsensual) cyberspace within and beyond.14 But aga in, there are some

this-worldly obstac les to these other-worldly pleasures: No refigured virtual body,no matter how beautiful, will slow the death of a cyberpunk with AIDS.

Bodily cyber-pursuits are a part, then, of the political agenda of cyberculture.One important aspect of this is gender politics. Haraway would rather be a cyborgthan a goddess.16 Her idea of doing away with the troubling dualisms7 within theWestern tradition and thus realize a utopian dream of the hope for a monstrousworld without gender rests on high-tech culture [which] challenges these dualismsin intriguing ways ,18 including, for example, that cyborgs might consider moreseriously the partial, fluid, sometimes aspect of sex and sexual embodiment. Inher cyborg manifesto . . liberation rests on the construction of the consciousness

of possibility . this is a struggle over life and death, but the boundary betweenscience fiction and soc ial reality is an optical illusion.2o Hence, her cyborg is notutopian nor imaginary; s/he is virtual.2

These ideas, then, are part of the programme of cyborg post-modernism, whichis sometimes also known as cyborg anthropology the name of one of the panels atthe 1992 annual meeting of the American Anthropological Assoc iation). Commonthroughout these writings is the notion that advances in human-computer interfacetechnology may provide the vehicle for new ways of life. The same premise alsoforms the basis for the atmosphere currently generated in cyberpunk nightclubs andcafes. If the liberation to which Haraway refers seems to take place at the level oftheoretical debate in scholarly books and journals, a similar change in consciousness

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and lifestyle seems to be emerging within certain strands of youth culture.At the Cyberseed club in London, for example, the compere, Brian Davis,

announc ing the evenings programme, enjoins the audience to surf the soul and tomellow out.22 Identifying himself and the audience as cyberpunks, the content ofhis brief introductory talk is designed to put his listeners in the right mood for theevenings entertainment. He proclaims that science is magic and goes on to explainhow the frame of mind of clubgoers should be informed by this insight. in a similarvein, Martin Kavanagh, leader of the UKs VR users group, outlines the groupsactivities and announces the activities of the Virtualitea sic) room of the club wherethe computers are located.

The programme itself consists of a live performance of J apanese new age musicas well as the clubs regular recorded rave music. The promotiona l leaflet promisesa ltered images, altered sounds, altered minds and altered states and lists among theclubs attractions VR machines, SEGA computer games, psychoactive cocktails,brain machines, cyber and VR demos, massage, tarot and guest cyber scientists andartists.

These attractions take place in three dark and interconnec ted cellar rooms, twoof which contain bars. In the largest of these rooms, various graphic andphotographic images are projected on to the walls, including colourfulcontemporary works of art and pictures of faraway places and peoples. These imageschange frequently and, since they envelop the room, they could be said to give theimpression of a VR-like experience. The second room features a bar withpsychoactive cocktails that is, drinks containing smart drugs) and is otherwisegiven over to massage and tarot. It is the third room, however, which features thecomputing element of the club. Here the clientele is gathered around three persona lcomputers, one displaying frac tal images, a second operating a computer game anda third called the brain machine. This machine consists of acomputer-synchronized stroboscopic light operated via head-mounted glasses andearphones. The user who wears these, according to the accompanying leaflet, canexperience deep relaxation, concentration/accelerated learning; a new sense of thebody; hallucinations and great visuals [and] true alterations of consciousness.

By midnight, attendance has reached between 30 and 40 young people whopursue the computer-related activities, dance or sit in a meditative state during thenew age music performance and talks. Although the audience is similar to that atother clubs in London, the atmosphere in the Cyberseed club is unique in so far asthe activities are more subdued or mellow. Rather than focusing exclusively ondancing, clubgoers wander around among the various attrac tions, seeking, it seems,to a lter their mood or consciousness.

But while the club announces itself as Europes First Virtual Reality C lub, theconnection with the technology itself is tangential. The way computers are used maybe unusual for a nightclub. Yet the main connection to actual VR systems here is thecommercial Virtuality VR entertainment machine produced by W Industries fl perminute of play) at the entrance of the club, which is available at a reduced price, asthe compere points out, for clubgoers.

At the Horseshoe Cafe in San Francisco,L3 the connection with VR is moreremote still, despite the fac t that references to VR feature prominently. On a shelfnext to the bar is an array of leaflets announcing forthcoming club attrac tions,including mind-melting visuals in the Virtual Reality club, look/see projectionsand hyperdelic video at the Carefree event, and live interactive adventures andmedia immersion at the 12 Hour mysterious Salad. The music announced for

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these events is similar to that which is playing in the background at the HorseshoeCafe itself.

The main connection with VR at the cafe, however, is a personal computer in analcove towards the back of the establishment. The screen of this personal computeris built horizontally into a table with the keyboard on one side. Several people,dressed mostly in black with T-shirts featuring science fiction logos, are crowdedaround the table, their attention absorbed by the computer screen which is part of SFSan Francisco) NET, an electronic mail network or bulletin board) that provides a

forum for discussion among 18 locales in the San Francisco area at 50 cents for 20minutes). The Horseshoe Cafe is one of the focal points for this network, with otherparticipating cafes and locations listed in a leaflet next to the computer. It also lists avariety of discussion topics, including politics, environment, astrology,science/technology [and] philosophy. The leaflet announces that the informationage is upon us and it is not just a sterile world of numbers and statistics. It is also aworld of people and the amount of information each person represents.

The discussions on this information exchange network are explicitly identifiedwith cyberculture both by users and by the club owner, Wayne Gregori. Gregorirefers to those who send abusive messages as cyberjerks, while another user ornetsurfer, whose network name is C yber Monk, refers to his cyberfamily.

Apart from the difference in VR-related equipment between the two venues,there is also a different atmosphere at the Horseshoe Cafe. The cafe occupies a largeroom which faces the street with a large shopfront window and it is open not onlyduring nightclub hours but also during conventiona l restaurant business hours.Among the 40 or so customers, the beverage of choice is coffee, aga in of the moreconventiona lly psychoactive type but served in the large variety that is customary inthe San Francisco area. The main activity apart from conversation consists of readingthe newspapers and books that are lying scattered among the tables. Science fictionseems to be the favoured genre, although Lewis Mumford and J ean Baudrillard werealso in evidence. Despite the similarities between the young and fashionably dressedparticipants, by contrast with the Cyberseed club the Horseshoe Cafe mainly offersan atmosphere of relaxed conversation, whether electronically or in the moretraditional cafe style.

Aga in, although the connection with VR technology itself is limited, theHorseshoe Cafe clearly partakes in cyberculture inasmuch as the prefix cyber isused to designate non-material forms of communication via electronic media.5This sense of the term, which also evokes a vision of the future in which VR-liketechnologies abound, provides the theme around which the Horseshoe Cafe isbased. Compared with the Cyberseed club, which promotes altered consciousnessthrough arts-related activity, the Horseshoe Cafe seems to be more oriented toconsciousness alteration by means of bookish pursuits-but perhaps this is adifference in style rather than substance. If both clubs are drawing on the publicitysurrounding VR technology, their main connection with it lies in fostering thec onsciousness attendant on its future uses.

Even if technological innovations have on other occasions generated newcultural trends, the links between the developers of the technology, academictheorists and youth culture in this case seem to be particularly intimate. Laurel, forexample, acknowledges Stones work as an important influence, while Harawaythinks that the work of story-tellers exploring . high-tech worlds ought to informlate twentieth-century political imaginations. Or again, the politics of informationand of gender of the UK Virtual Reality Users Group Newsletter, which partly

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provides the inspiration of the Cyberseed club, bears a strong resemblance to thepolitics of the academic theorists and the visionary developers of the technology.Elsewhere, cyberpunks have been described as the shock troops ofpostmodernism. Meanwhile, Laniers and Laurels ideas about consciousnessalteration are closely in keeping with the themes of both VR-related venues-as,incidentally, are their styles of dress. These affinities and rec iprocal influencesamong the three groups could be added to at length. They all point to a commonworldview and a common way of life among the members of a cultural avant-gardein London and on the US West Coast, two global centres of the information andcommunication industries.

Virtual worlds and contemporary directions of world rejectionThe incorporation of new technological developments within the worldview ofculture carriers seems at first sight to be ill suited to a period in which there iswidespread scepticism about scientific and technological achievements. Yet, as wesee, cyberculture involves a fundamental reinterpretation of the importance ofscience and technology which, when it is placed in the soc ial context of its carriers,not only fits well but is likely to endure. This appea l of cyberculture can best beexplored by reference to Webers disenchantment thesis.

Seventy-five years ago, in the lecture Science as a vocation, Max Weber talkedof the disenchantment of the world by science, by which he meant thereplacement of meaningful worldviews by impersonal explanations of the world andof nature. Nevertheless, he recognized that intellectual strata would remainpredisposed towards endowing the world with meaning: he spoke of the need ofsome modern intellec tuals to furnish their souls with guaranteed genuineantiques . by way of [al substitute [for religion] . they produce surrogatesthrough all sorts of psychic experiences to which they ascribe the dignity of mysticholiness.

But what if these substitutes for religion are no longer available? What if,instead, certain advances within science themselves come to be seen as the key toproducing new forms of expression or new psychic experiences? Such notions of atranscendence of the mundane uses of technology and of transforming culture lie atthe heart of the cyberculture and of cyborg post-modernism.

One common feature of all the ideas and prac tices outlined above is that futureICTs will make possible new forms of human self-expression and that these, in turn,will herald a new technology-centred era which will release human beings from thematerial constraints of their current lives. Since the dehumanizing effects of scienceand technology are, paradoxically, among these, this worldview envisions a fusionof science and art, with the former providing the means and the latter the culturalends. Eventually, with the emergence of a soc iety in which communications withincyberspace become all-important, the pioneering carriers of this worldview maycreate a completely new culture.

There is, however, a central tension within this worldview. On the one hand, itsfuture promise relies on technological innovation, on purely technical orinstrumental advances within specialist fields of research and the production ofmachinery. On the other hand, real advancement of this vision of the future can onlycome about through cultural innovation, through new patterns of thinking and ofexperience-and these alone.

This tension stems partly from the high premium which is placed here on the

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sphere of culture. The fascination attached to ICTs typically derives from the fac t thatthey offer a seemingly endless supply of novel experiences, the consumption ofwhich plays an ever greater role within advanc ed soc ieties, particularly in thedomestic sphere. VR systems potentially provide a perfect extension of this trendsince they hold out the promise that human beings may one day be able to livewithin artificially generated virtual worlds limited only by their imaginations. If sucha way of life should come about, it would represent, in Weberian terms, acompletely re-enchanted world.

From a purely technical viewpoint, however, the capacities of VR systems are infac t above all a tool for manipulating human experience. This is because VR systemsare machines which stimulate the human sensory or perceptual apparatus. Theyconsist of computer-generated simulations which are designed to create theimpression that users are perceiving an environment with which they can interact.That is, they are means of creating artificial or virtual environments. Virtualenvironments are in this case generated by means of a computer and other technicalaids, such as head-mounted displays and data gloves, which allow the humanperceptual apparatus to recognize objects in a non-physical environment.32Ultimately then, the technical a im towards which the development of VR systems isadvanc ing is to establish how the senses operate and to re-create this process bymeans of machines.

If these machines are in the end able to reproduce the workings of ourperceptual apparatus completely, far from providing a limitless sensorium of theimagination, as the cybercultural worldview would have it, they may rather come toprovide an impersonally manufac tured and calculated stimulation of the senses.Instead of seeing them as a means of enchantment, they might become a means ofdisenchanting what was previously one of the last refuges from the disenchantmentof the world, namely human perception and experience. Science and technology inthis case would not only have come to dominate the external world, but could beable directly to manipulate the awareness that human beings have of the world,albeit an artificial one.

These possible consequences of VR technology are not spelled out here in orderto counterpoint a technocratic dystopia with the utopian elements of thecybercultural worldview. After all, how VR systems are developed and the uses towhich they are put is not subject to scientific and technical aims alone. The point isto contrast the technical problems that need to be solved within a particular area byvarious technological means, with the worldview to which this technology has givenrise and which consists of projecting on to the technology various human wishes forfulfilment. This tension, between mundane technical problem solving andextra-mundane visions of the future, or, to employ Webers terms again, betweeninstrumental rationa lity and value rationa lity, is one which we would expect toreproduce itself throughout the various manifestations which cyberculture may take.

New romancers33Having given a brief account of some ideas and activities of these three closelyrelated groups of culture carriers, we may now locate the cybercultural worldviewwithin a wider social and cultural context which, I argue, provides fertile soil for itscontinued appeal.

The material basis of this worldview is the growing economic importance ofICTs in advanced soc ieties. This aspect of contemporary soc ial life is well

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consciousness suited to the new age.VR technologies are rapidly being developed by a growing number of research

institutes and firms for a variety of anticipated scientific applications and commercialproducts. On the basis of comparisons with similar technologies, soc ial science maybe able to identify which of these applications, if any, are likely to have an importantsocial impact. But it is hard to disagree with Elliss cautious conclusion that thesedevelopments are still some way off: It is difficult to foretell the future practicalmass-market applications for virtual environments . . some of the ultimatemass-market applications are likely to be unknown today. Possibly, once the worldis densely crisscrossed with high bandwidth, public access, fiber-optic informationhighways, mass demand will materialize for convenient, virtual environmentdisplays of high-resolution imagery?

Whatever the case may be in VR research and industry, VR technologies andnew beliefs about science and technology, particularly in the form of cyberculture,are likely for the various reasons outlined here to continue providing inspirationwithin contemporary culture. The reality of cyberculture, however, as I hope to haveshown, remains the Weberian one whereby beliefs reflect the predispositions of theintellectual strata which are their carriers, as well as the Durkheimian one wherebythe role of knowledge and belief mirrors more fundamental features of soc ial reality.Whether, in addition, we can discover the cyborgs in us all40 or experience hithertounimagined states of consciousness within our computer-simulated environments-lwill show you meaning in a handful of silicon chips, as T. S. Eliot might havesaid-remains to be seen. The conditions which have thus far sustainedcybercultural idea ls, however, whether technological, soc ial or cultural, may bewith us for some time yet.

Notes and references1.2.

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11.12.

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elec t ive A f f in i t ie s (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1971 (first published1809)), page 298.Ivan Sutherland, The ultimate display, Proc -eed ings o f in te rna t iona l Fed era t ion o f In fo rma t ionPro c essing C o ng ress, 1965, pages 506-iO8; see also the authors overview of the early history ofvirtual reality Virtual reality in the real world: history, applications and projections, Fut ure s, 25 g ),November 1993, pages 963-973.The use of the term cyborg in cyborg post-modernism does not necessarily correspond to the typicalusage in science fiction, where the term refers to a wholly artificially created organism or being.Instead, as we see below, it envisions some kind of fusion between human beings and machines, andparticularly electronic media.Steven Levy, Hackers: Heroes o f the Co m pu te r Revo lu t ion New York, Doubleday, 1984).The role of Lanier and Laurel in early VR development is detailed in Howard Rheingolds Vir tua lRea l ity (London, Seeker and Warburg, 1991). Lanier has since withdrawn from VPL, the VR companywhich he founded, while Laurel, who previously co-founded Telepresence Research, now works atInterval Research Corporation, a recent VR start-up company.Jaron Lanier, panel session on Virtual environments and interactivity: windows to the future,Computer Graphics, 23(5), December 1989, page a.jaron Lanier cited by Benjamin Woolley in Virtua l Wo rlds: A lourney in Hype a nd Hype rrea l ity(Oxford, Blackwell, 1992), page 20.Brenda Laurel, Co m pute rs as Thea t re (Reading, MA, Addison-Wesley, 19911, page 197.Ib id, page 198.Ib id , page 196, emphasis in the original.Ibid, page 186.Brenda Laurel interviewed by Jas Morgan in Brenda Laurel the Lizard Queen, Mo nd o 2000, No 7,1992, page 84.Although in some cases, it is hard to sustain this separation. Whereas Stone and Haraway seem tofocus on the relation between humans and machines, Kroker draws more directly on VR,

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28.29.30.31.32.33.34.35.36.37.

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characterizing the age in which we live as the Age under the Sign of the Will to Virtuality andidentifying virtual reality as the dream of liberal fascism (Kroker interviewed by Sharon Grace inCodes of Privilege: Arthur Kroker, Mo nd o 2000, No 11, 1993, page 62). He asserts that thedominant form of consciousness in the world today is television and viewIs television now asalmost a preliminary phase in preparing the masses of humanity for virtual reality i b id , page 64).Liberation is nevertheless possible: I would say the most radical action is saying No while sayingYes to technology+r in critically distanring yourself while drowning your body in high tech.Cruising the electronic frontier at hyper-speed with a copy of Nietzsches Will t o Pow er in yourvirtual hands i b id , page 65). While Krokers inspiration may be overtly Nietzschean, he also hints atthe Feuerbachian roots of his ideas: I do most of my writing at McDonalds i b id , page 63).Alluquere Rosanne Stone, Will the real body please stand up?: Boundary stories about VirtualCultures, in Michael Benedikt (editor). Cyb ersp a c e: First Ste p 5 (Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1991),pages 108-109./ b i d , page 1 13.Donna Haraway, A cyborg manifesto: science, technology, and socialist feminism in the latetwentieth century, in her Simians , Cybo rgs and Wom en (London, Free Association Books, 19911,page 181.Ib id , page 177.Ib id , page 177./ bi d age 180.Ib id , page 149.Donna Haraway, The promises of monsters: a regenerative politics for inappropriate/d others, inLawrence Crossberg, Cary Nelson and Paula Treichler (editors), Cu l tura lStud ies (London, Routledge,19921, page 329.All quotations refer to the authors visit on 24 June 1992.The authors visits took place on 4 and 5 August 1992.Cited by Katherine Bishop, The electronic coffeehouse, The New York Tim e s, 2 August 1992,page 21.On a second visit to the Cyberseed club In London on 3 December 1993, the various activities weresimilar to those on the previous occasion. It was noticeable, however, that the use of the prefixcyber had become more common: the cyberfashion show, for example, was preceded by a sessionin which the compere demanded that members of the audience conveyed their ideas about whatconstitutes cyberstyle and cyberculture to other clubgoers by means of a microphone. As thisevent, unlike the first, was covered by television, these pronouncements were also intended for morewidespread consumption.Laurel, op t i t , reference 12, page 84.Haraway, op t i t , reference 15, page 173. A selectIon of cyberpunk stories and commentaries oncyberpunk fiction can be found in the volume edited by Larry McCaffery, Storming t he RealityStudio:A Ca seb ook o f Cyb erpunk and Postmo de rn Sc ienc e Fic t i on (Durham, NC, Duke University Press,1991).On the back cover of McCafferys volume, see reference 27.Max Weber, From M a x We b er: Essa ys in Soriolog y (London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 19481,page 155.Ib id , page 154.See, for example, the essays in Roger Silverstone and Eric Hirsch (editors), Co nsum ing Tec hno logies:Med ia a nd in f o rma t ion in Dome st ic Spa ce s (London, Routledge, 1992).Roy Kalawsky, The Sc ienc -e of Vir tua l Rea l ity a nd Vir tua l Envi ron m en ts (Reading, MA, Addison-Wesley, 199J), especially pages 43-85.This is a variation on the title of William Gibsons science fiction novel Neu romance r New York,Berkley, 1984) which makes use of VR-like technology.For example, James Beniger, The Co nt ro l Revo lu t i on : Tec hno log ica l an d Ec ono m ic - Or ig ins o f thein fo rm a t ion Soc ie ty (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, 1986).Randall Collins, On the sociology of intellectual stagnation: the late twentieth century inperspective, Theo ry, C ul ture and Soc iety , 9, 1992, pages 92-94.Paul Feyerabend, St ienc e in a Free Soc iety (London, New Left Books, 19781, pages 100-l 05, 120.For an overview of recent arguments, see Steve Woolgar, Sc ienc e: The Very ide a (Chichester, EllisHorwood, 1988).Philip Elmer-Dewitt, Cyberpunk , Time (US edltion), 74 7 6), 8 February 1993, page 59.Stephen Ellis, Nature and origin of virtual environments: a bibliographic essay, ComputingSystemsin Eng inee ring , Z 4), 1991, pages 344-345. Information highways in this quote is a reference to theuse of this term by the US vice-president, Al Gore. Some of Gores ideas about electronic media andVR are described in Schroeder, op t i t , reference 2, pages 969-970.Gary Lee Downey, Human agency in CAD/CAM technology, Anth ropo logy Tod a y, 8151, 1992,page 3.

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Sociology of Virtual Reality

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