BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abstract: A post-Marxist perspective is used in dissecting and evaluating the political and social philosophy of cyborgs, ecofeminists and popular culture texts to come up with a unified feminist ecological viewpoint. Ecofeminists, on one hand, are right in seeking to fortify the links between women and nature, with oppression and exploitation by the male gender as the binding element. They, however, may overemphasize the concept of a woman as mother which only leads to the reenforcement of patriarchal capitalism. Cyborgs, on the other hand, are dangerously close to destructive technophilia in their rejection of the links between women and nature.
Abstract: Cyberreal architecture enables architects to visualize a concept in order to obtain information about it. The design process and the final product are the same and the architect owns both. There are no boundaries in cyberspace so that new social environments can be devised. These experimental conceptions will enable individuals to communicate these new ideas about social and political environments to each other.
Abstract: Information technology presents new opportunities for the performing arts, including the appropriation of other works such as occurs in digital sampling and textual collages. Donna Haraway sees political freedom resulting from the technology, with boundaries breaking down to allow cyborg identities. Laurie Anderson embraces technology ahead of other performers and most uses the cyborg potentials as in her concert movie 'Home of the Brave.'.
Drama Review v37, n3 (Fall, 1993):196 (6 pages).
Abstract: The related metaphors of the frame and of theater have been applied to computers by Brenda Laurel in 'Computers as Theatre' and by Marvin Minsky in the essay 'A Framework for Representing Knowledge.' Laurel uses the theatrical metaphor in her discussion of computer interface design, to which she applies Aristotle's six elements of theater. Minsky instead develops a formalistic concept of the frame which explicitly resists the use of pictorial metaphors such as that of the camera obscura. The cultural history of the frame provides background for analysis of its recent application to the development of virtual reality.
Abstract: Cyperspace is defined, and its use by formation professionals is analyzed. There are three levels of cyperspace: a mental picture of information sources when using a computer, the interaction with other computers and people through use of a computer such as with bulletin boards or the Internet, and a future level whereby interaction will involve multiple senses. At this level cyberspace becomes virtual reality. Degrees of virtuality are experienced in libraries in the use of electronic access to information. The definition of the role of librarians is consequently changing.
Abstract: Complexity is found in technology, society, the neuronal organization of the brain, quantum mechanics and mythology. The 'jubilatory virtual' is a concept suggested by the meaning of the term 'virtual' as a dynamic source of possibility. Virtual reality offers a new possibility for onto-urgy, or the creation of being, in an attempt to satisfy the metaphysical needs created by the consciousness of death. The consciousness of death is experienced as a fissure which is both a wound and an opening to transcendence. Information is described as a form of alienated experience, an alienation which virtual reality attempts to overcome.
Abstract: The cyberspace of William Gibson's trilogy is notable for the deterritorialization of history and the creation of the 'space of encounter.' Humanist history that divides and guards the boundaries of civilizations and traditions also incorporates such practices into cyberspace. Virtual world, constructed in nonlinear time and space, will produce a cyborgian rather than humanistic artifact.
Abstract: Virtual reality is representative of the Western world's image culture which is focused on the production, distribution and control of images and information and which is destructive in its attempt to replace language with image as the medium of all communication. Such hegemony of communication would be open to abuse by those who control the images and the race for such control would be headed by the powerful and influential in the technoscience industry.
Abstract: Cincinnati's College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning assistant professor of fine arts Benjamin Britton announces plans for the first virtual-reality-based gallery tour of France's Cave of Lascaux. The tour will highlight the cave's famous wall paintings. Britton will incorporate his knowledge of touch screen and interactive videodisc technologies into the project. Virtual reality supporters contend that the technology can be a valuable teaching tool by enabling users to tour a model of a Greek temple, for example. Another virtual reality pioneering project is taking place at Carnegie Mellon University's Studio for Creative Inquiry, which is working to create the first networked virtual reality art museum.
Library Journal v118, n10 (June 1, 1993):128.
Abstract: Virtual reality and hypertext are two different computer concepts. While virtual reality allows direct experience and the inhabitation of a different world, hypertext emphasizes symbolic representation that is manipulable by the author or user. The possibilities of using hypertext in literary creation are infinite and the merging of virtual reality with hypertext may result in a phenomenal experience.
Abstract: The cyberspace world of electronic data in science fiction constitutes an alternate world or paraspace in which language becomes important. Samuel Delany defined paraspaces for science fiction but other fields such as movies contain them. Brian McHale's book 'Postmodernist Fiction' speaks of zones which are in fact paraspaces, which reveals the connection between cyberpunk science fiction and postmodern literature.
Abstract: Carnegie Mellon University Studio for Creative Inquiry research fellow Carl E. Loeffler is designing virtual worlds, with an emphasis on art. The system allows participants to collectively enter a network of virtual worlds. Loeffler does not feel that a virtual reality version can replace the traditional museum, but can complement it by introducing technological versions of art, education and entertainment that encourage greater observer participation in art exhibits.
SUBJECTS COVERED:--(sjc) general literature (lfe) text (lfe) virtual reality
Abstract: Cyberpunk genre uses traditional human logic and gender subjectivity to the concept of motherhood that is sought to be replaced. Women's 'nature' is reinscribed under the guise of enabling them to realize their innate need for motherhood. The maternal body, instead of being an enclosure, is transformed into an incomplete container which is connected to the world at many points.
SUBJECTS COVERED:(gen) genres (gen) fiction (gen) science fiction (lfe) hyperreality (lfe) culture (lfe) virtual reality
Abstract: Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr. La SF de la Theorie: Baudrillard et Haraway.--Avec l'expansion de la construction technologique de la vie sociale dans le monde postmoderne, SF cesse d'etre un genre artistique et devient plutot un mode de conscience quotidienne. Au coeur de ce mode se trouvent deux hesitations: 1. les transformations techno-scientifiques restent-elles seulement au niveau du concevable ou bien sont-elles vraiment realisables, et 2. quelles sont les implications de leur realisation.
Abstract: Virtual reality and interactive texts could change certain aspects of theater aesthetics. Virtual reality allows the viewer to experience some of the physical sensations of the characters, but has a limited number of plot narrations. Interactive theater allows the audience to become active participants in determining the outcome of the story. This raises interesting questions about how the new technologies will affect plotting and scripting. Viewers may become bored with dramas that have only one outcome.
Abstract: A virtual reality teacher made from neural patterns in a very large scale integrated chip assumes a human existence. He takes on human form and gradually ages himself for the sake of his pupils, until he is dissolved into random data.
Abstract: An Internet user tries to find spiritual and existential certainty by logging into the Church of the All Net. The church offers gods and saints of all religions but charges exorbitant hourly fees for speaking with deities.
Abstract: A computer user explores an obscure corner of a computer graphic and enters a cut-and-paste world full of historical figures, such as Richard Nixon and Abe Lincoln, and his own past. The dangers of the trip are too much for him and he must receive special care.
SUBJECTS COVERED:(sjc) dramatic arts (med) theater (lfe) performance art (lfe) radio drama (lfe) happening (lfe) virtual reality
Abstract: Evolving interactive technology such as virtual reality (VR) is important to computer-aided-instruction, especially in vocational education classrooms. It can be used for training students on office designing, repairing jet engines and other mechanical jobs such as welding. The decreasing cost of VR hardware has resulted in Virginia's Center for Interactive Educational Technology's plans to develop affordable and efficient VR systems. The CAD Institute in Phoenix is developing VR software that can be used on computer systems supporting computer-aided-designing.
Abstract: The Society of Literature and Science conference attracted scholars committed to studying science and the humanities as two facets of a single culture. Virtual reality was a dominant area of interest.
SUBJECTS COVERED: (sjc) literary theory and criticism (sjc) postmodernist literary theory and criticism (lfe) human body (lfe) acquired immune deficiency syndrome (scp) Cyborg theory
Abstract: American wars are being portrayed as action adventures in modern day television representations. The photographic images of the gruesome reality of war captured during the Civil War and the Vietnam War are no longer allowed. The military's active censorship during the Grenada, Panama and Gulf wars ensured that the American people did not see anything shocking. Hollywood has contributed to the distancing by making movies which have reversed the reality of the Vietnam war. Movies such as 'The Deer Hunter' and 'The Escape' have manipulated the image of General Nguyen Ngoc Loan shooting a Viet Cong prisoner.
Abstract: The concept of sexuality in cyborgs reflects the dichotomy between increased physical strength, masculinity and the inability to procreate. Sequences from the movie 'Robocop' show the rebirth of a cyborg with hypermasculine orientation, and killing is symbolic of the act of penetration. The unstable cyborg body reinforces the loss of self and identity as a human being. Cyborg characters undermine animal and human, physical and nonphysical distinctions and the resultant conflicts.
Abstract: Banff Center for the Arts began its Art and Virtual Environment project in 1991, and in the three years since its inception has concentrated on making use of virtual reality as an artistic medium. Efforts have included simulations that transform people into animals.
Abstract: Artist Joan Truckenbrod uses both IBM PCs and Apple Macinotsh computers to compose her cibachrome and heat transfer paintings and has also experimented with new computer technology in her works. Truckenbrod says she relies on her Macintosh more than the PC. Truckenbrod uses her PC with a 16-bit monitor, a digitizing tablet and Time Arts' Lumena software.Truckenbrod has experimented with teleconferencing as a medium for expression; she has found the use of teleconferencing in her art most noteworthy for its interactivity. Truckenbrod has also dabbled with virtual reality in an installation she did in Montreal.
Abstract: Myron Krueger is the father or founder of unencumbered artificial reality. He has been working for over 20 years developing interactive works that challenge the divisions between artwork and viewer, science and art; the viewer is part of the art. When he began working with interactive art in 1969, Krueger held the opinion that the most important aspect of the work was the viewer's influence on the piece. Krueger says participants in his works 'start doing things that look preposterous if seen separate from the screen.' He is interested in using the body as an input device and in the viewer's reactions to the changes in the graphics. Krueger calls his work an 'aesthetic approach to computers.'.
Abstract: Palac, 29, has recorded erotic material on three-dimensional sound compact disc and calls the experience Cyborgasm. Her pornographic magazine, 'Future Sex,' celebrates erotica. She looks forward to the time when computerized virtual reality sex will be possible.
Abstract: The Atlanta Ballet incorporated technology into the dance art form in its Dance Technology Project. The ballet 'Non Sequitur' featured a 30-second duet between ballerina Jenna Rae Lavin and a computer-generated virtual dance partner. This was accomplished by a team of computer scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology, using a graphics system that rebuilt an image of a real performer's movements based on a videotaped sequence.
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee -- Center for Twentieth Century Studies, 1989-90) Green Stacks CB428.W64 1989-90 no.8
Abstract: Interactive fictions, particularly computer-simulation games, engage the user as a co-creator of a fictional world. Recognizing that the interactive freedom he or she experiences even in the most complex of interactive fictions is a mirage, the user can become keenly aware of the teleology inherent in all fictional works. At their best, however, these interactive fictions are less like novels and more like children's games of make-believe in which objects and stories serve as props in an intensely creative world-building environment or as extensions of real life with gamelike qualities.
Abstract: Human interaction with computers is more readily accepted by the user when the interface is comfortable. The computer-controlled responsive environment is a space within which everything that is seen and heard is a response to something the human does. The interface can involve any part of the human body and is useful for kinetic studies. VIDEODESK is an implementation of the 2D VIDEOPLACE medium, an interface to two-dimensional and three-dimensional applications. The system allows the user to 'fly' through a graphic landscape. VIDEODESK can operate in 3D, though it is expected to be used for teleconferencing and traditional business documentation. A ceiling-mounted video camera is part of the system.
Abstract: The 1994 American Studies Conference sponsored by the German Association for American Studies discussed media culture in the US, which included various aspects such as popular film and video materials, cyberspace and hybertext. The conference included lectures on various topics such as media culture in Europe and the US, visual techniques and photography injournalism and the workshops focussed on the depiction of horror and violence in the media.
Abstract: Computer-aided design and other technological innovations including virtual reality (VR) technology, are now widely used in fiction. Readers and viewers of science fiction and television programs accept VR technology. Fictions based on virtual reality have no limits, and are primarily based on fantasy type fiction where one object easily transforms into another.
Abstract: The World Wide Web on the Internet allows online users to browse through museums throughout the world. Displays of art resemble a color newspaper page, and users can retrieve text, pictures, or sound. EXPO and LeWebLouvre are two Internet locations offering art tours.
Abstract: Music is generated with the use of a DataGlove in a virtual reality setting, using instruments created for the computer simulation. Instruments include the Rhythm Gimbal and CyberXylo. 'The Sound of Onen Hand' is being recorded by Point Records.c
Abstract: Virtual reality technology can be used to create a female version of the rollercoaster. Modern rollercoasters are somewhat androgynous but have masculine traits of violent aggression. Virtual reality devices use fiber optics, computers and 3D vision goggles to put a viewer into a world designed by the imagination, so a rollercoaster could be made to do anything in virtual reality, moving in any fashion that could be considered as a female style.
Abstract: Virtual reality (VR) advocates believe VR can help people understand reality better and so attempt to introduce VR into all aspects of life. However, this approach has a flaw in that it creates an autonomous cultural framework which will eventually expand to include all of reality. The ability to interpret reality rests in the existence of a subject which will be lost if VR becomes an accepted condition of life.
Abstract: The introduction of computers into the fields of graphic arts, writing and film and video production has spawned new media forms such as hypertext, virtual reality-computer graphics and interactive cinema. Those wanting to capitalize on this should transcend the market's hyperbole to socially and aesthetically examine these forms. Such a theoretical analysis, which will address and interpret technological and aesthetic creativity of these forms, should be founded on concepts of hybridity.
Abstract: Tod Machover integrates high technology and traditional Western art music as director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. Machover is currently working on two operas: a virtual reality installation piece, and a more traditional opera on social themes for the Houston Grand Opera.
Abstract: Sony plans to test its plan to build high-technology themeparks by designing the first one for the San Francisco Bay Area. The park would be aimed at the older consumer, rather than families, and would offer stage productions, interactive/virtual reality rides and screening booths to preview Sony's products, including tapes, videos and films. Sony has successfully built adult amusement parks in Japan.
Green Stacks PN3503.M24 1991
Green Stacks PN3503.M37 1992
Abstract: Cyberpunk science fiction shares some of the poetics of postmodern literature. The main difference between the two forms is that cyberpunk reifies the metaphors of postmodernism, a continuation of the science fiction tradition of making literary metaphors real. Shared poetics include motifs of death, the centrifugal self and a 'worldness' which juxtaposes different planes of reality as in the cyberpunk concept of cyberspace.
Abstract: Virtual reality (VR) serves to blur the distinction between the performance of the user and the performance of the computer and other related hardware.This offers new insights for those concerned with the cultural ramifications of performance art and theater. VR allows users to interact in real time, via 3-D images, stereo sounds, hand controls and frameless edges, giving the impression of experiencing a world from the inside out.VR guides are often crucial to the performance experience. Details about various VR interfaces are given.
Abstract: Joseph L. Bates heads a research group at Carnegie Mellon University that wants to create believable characters in a virtual-reality setting. The group, which consists of artists, students and faculty, want to determine emotional and behavioral interactions between director and performers
Abstract: Cyberspace, which circulates information ranging from religious propaganda to adult entertainment, has accomodated the Thing, a network run by and specifically geared towards the art world. This telephonic computer linkup already exists in New York City and Germany, and acts as a debating platform, bulletin board, text library, and most intriguingly, graphics store of actual artworks. However, the network's potential in presenting such works is as yet untapped while other ethical issues remain unclear.
Abstract: Virtual reality may someday be capable of evoking a sensation of spiritual transcendence by electronically stimulating the brain. Neurophysiologists believe that a portion of the brain creates a sensation associated with meditation.
Abstract: Exhibits at the Siggraph 1993 art show used virtual 3-D, reactive, interactive and time-based technologies. The art was best appreciated by those with knowledge of computing concepts such as immersion, cyberspace, portals, coactive art, global behaviors and interactive dialogues. The 30 pieces could be divided into four categories. The first, reactive works, utilized sensors that could pick up the movements of the viewers and react with movement or a sound or a change in lighting. The interactive works were based on selections the viewers make in response to the computer's prompts.
Abstract: A recent exhibition achieved the experience of virtual reality by documenting the works of Jaron Lanier. The exhibition proved to be innovative and attractive in its multiuse of imagery.
Abstract: The implications of virtual reality are discussed, using books by Howard Rheingold and Benjamin Wooley as reference points. The authors are lauded for covering many aspects of the topic but are also criticized for not going deep enough in their analysis of virtual reality's social and political subtexts. In particular, the foresight of postmodern theorists such as Jean Baudrillard is considered as appropriate and relevant to the future of virtual reality.
Abstract: The relationship of the men's movement to environmentalism can be traced through the medium of popular movies such as Kevin Costner's 'Robin Hood.' The Wild Man myth invoked by Robert Bly and others in the men's movement can be interpreted as a response to ecofeminism's image of the Great Goddess, which contains tendencies to promote a fundamentalist prehistoric utopia as an escape from the contemporary ecological crisis. Donna Haraway's 'Cyborg Manifesto' is an ironic attempt to create an alternative mythology in which nature is personified as the trickster figure coyote.
Abstract: Brenda Laurel creates video games for Atari, and she has views on virtual reality and cyberspace. She considers the phrase 'virtual reality' a contradiction. As for cyberspace, she sees it as prohibitively expensive for most people for now, but it does have a positive benefit for children by revealing the construction of gender identity. She has also developed the 3D audio virtual reality project called 'Placeholder.'
Abstract: The relation between humans and machines has come to assume a central place within the social sciences, particularly in debates about the role of science and about information technologies. Cyberculture plays a key role in these debates, drawing its inspiration in large part from virtual reality systems. This articles examines the affinities between two aspects of cyberculture: cyborg post-modernism, which revolves around the notion that the boundaries between humans and machines are becoming irretrievably blurred, and the cyberpunk movement within youth culture with 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 cultural industries that surround information and communication technologies within advanced societies. (Reprinted by permission of the publisher.)
Abstract: The exhibition Through the Looking Glass: Artists' First Encounters with Virtual Reality was a forum for projects and experiments showing how artists are bridging the gap between hardware, software and people. There was a large range of works displayed using interactivity, computer-generated models, virtual imaging, 3-D spatial environments, artificial realities and cyberpunk esthetics in general.
SUBJECTS COVERED:(sjc) general literature (lth) cyborg
Abstract: Sociopsychological issues on virtual reality are explored. Reality evaluation under virtual reality conditions may be a problem since humans are evolutionarily conditioned to accept things as real if there is no time to verify if the perceptual and cognitive conditions under examination are vivid enough. Judgments on reality will be more taxing in that there will be two world to examine. Immersion into a virtual reality environment may provide moral and ethical dilemmas. Perceptual richness nad thought cues are theorized to enable people to distinguish between reality and virtual reality.
Abstract: Cyber SM has developed a virtual reality product that simulates S&M sex and allows players to communicate from distant places. Players stimulate each other using 'sensation' suits, fitted with sensors hooked up to erogenous zones, and 3-D screens that can be manipulated to create body composites.
Abstract: Users of hypertext systems require some form of navigation aid or 'browser'. Typically these have been produced as schematic representations of the hypertext network. The advent of 'virtual reality' technology, and particularly less costly forms of this, offers new possibilities for hypertext navigation whereby information can be presented in the form of a virtual environment. Users can then move around the virtual world in much the same conceptual fashion as they move around the real world. Based upon an extensive review of hypertext navigation problems and the aiding systems proposed to deal with these, four different types of navigation aid have been built; these are schematic and spatial representations in two and three dimensions. Of particular interest is the 3D spatial representation, built as a virtual environment in Virtus Walkthrough; the proposition is that such a virtual world navigation aid will offer substantial usability advantages for hypertext databases. COPYRIGHT Butterworth-Heinemann Ltd. (UK) 1993.
Abstract: Morphing technology is used to filter or render invisible any uncomfortable conflict of sentiment. Genetic techniques are the means of reorienting biologic and linguistic morphologies in cyberpunk. 'Xenogenesis' takes into account the dominant role of violence in a relationship, but does not depict it as unpleasant. The credibility of many objects in cyberspace is based on marketing considerations and their similarity to models that have universal appeal.
Abstract: Lesbian author Susanna Sturgis is one of few fantasy and sciene fiction writers who consistently and innovatively address sexual and gender issues in their works. Fortunately, her sexual orientation and her habit of including gay and lesbian characters in her writings have not turned off her editors and publishers. Since 1984, the prolific writer has produced 11 novels and many short stories. Her latest work is 'Trouble and Her Friends,' which is st in cyberspace.
Abstract: The traditional differences in socialization between men and women are reflected in the ways they use computer systems. Men are more interested in dominating the machine and spending hours on arcane facts, whereas women like to use computer applications and E-mail.
Abstract: William Gibson's novels on cyberspace owe their construction to the Gothic and Romantic tradition of literature. The trilogy composed of 'Neuromancer', Count Zero' and 'Mona Lisa Overdrive' all share elements of the Gothic Romantic tradition by their concern for the sublime, the demystification of the infinite, the relegation of the supreme being to technology and the transformation of the pursuit of the sublime into a pursuit for personal gain.
Abstract: The exhibit entitled 'Virtual Reality: An Emerging Medium' held from Oct.23-Nov. 1, 1993 at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, NY, was a joint venture with Intel Corp. The occasion was totally different from traditional exhibits because it used a computer network to present works of virtual art that transported viewers to aginary past and future locations. Intel provided the hardware while WorldTookKit took care of the software. High-tech equipment were used to project the images. Virtual reality was evoked as, for instance, an image of a string quartet could be made to play music at the poke of a finger. With the installation of both the network and the hosting of the virtual reality exhibit, Guggenheim has strongly indicated its intention of keeping up with technology.
Abstract:The Cave Automatic Virtual Environment at the University of Illinoisenables scientists to study a variety of things by making them enter an
environment of three dimensional images. It is more comfortable than the helmet type of virtual environments. Users wear light-weight, high-tech eye glasses instead of the problematic heavy helmets, and many people can participate at the same time for a longer time. However, such a system is very expensive as only the computer costs approximately $800,000.