I had a far ranging discussion today with some students about the future possibilities of virtual reality. The discussion went to some surprising places.
One of the tropes of VR is that everything has the possibility to seem incredibly real, because of the sense complete immersion. But one of the more interesting topics in our conversation this evening centered around just the opposite.
When you go to see a movie, or a play, you are not expecting to see a literal transcription of life. In fact, if a filmmaker or dramaturge were to attempt to show you such a think, you’d probably be very bored indeed.
Rather, each medium, as it has matured, has developed its own particular set of stylizations, uniquely suited to that medium. In any developing medium, it takes a while to work out what kinds of innovations really work, and which do not (talkies: good; color: not bad; smellovision: meh).
All of which is to say that when VR finally becomes a mature storytelling medium, I suspect that its successful innovations won’t be those that mimic literal reality. They will be those that deviate from that reality in interesting and powerful ways.