We stand on the precipice of a new future.
A future other than reality.
One that's virtual.
Except we've been here before with Virtual
Reality- all the way back in the 1990's.
Articles of the time were unsure of its future…
“What VR lacks in sophistication it easily
makes up in potential...
truly successful VR will require
the efforts of disparate disciplines ranging
from psychology to programming to filmmaking...”
and they questioned it's staying power.
“The potential remains unproven.
Corporations will not commit to virtual reality
efforts which will require major expenditures
of time, money, and man-months when there
is no immediate payback in sight.”
But they could not stop the imagination of
science fiction.
Today on DUST, we turn our satellites to examine
virtual reality as a science fiction artifact.
Hollywood was able to run wild with high tech
premises unrestrained by the bottom line that
corporations are forced to meet.
They could take all of these new exciting
ideas and present them as if they did work
and discard the ones that seemed wildly improbable
or outside the scope of acceptance.
“Virtual reality is an academic specialty,
but movies like "Tron" and "The Lawnmower
Man" are introducing the concept to mass audiences.”
If an audience could understand VR on the
screen and it made sense, technology in the
real world would eventually catch up.
Meaning Hollywood could and did promote Virtual Reality far beyond what the industry
could do for itself; taking the best ideas
and examining them from every angle without
worrying about the technology behind their
premise.
Just last year, the director of The Lawnmower
Man – a film known for its early depiction
of VR—said:
“It’s interesting to look back at the
film now and see that there are VR experiences
that are being created now that are similar
to some of the experiences we showed in The
Lawnmower Man.”
Hollywood, coupled with past visionaries of
VR, informed almost everything we're using
it for currently, more than twenty years into
the future.
But it took a while to get from here -- The
Sword of Damocles, a head mounted display
so heavy it was suspended from the ceiling
-- to now.
The term “virtual-reality” as we've come
to know it today was popularized by Jaron
Lanier founder of VPL (Visual Programming
Lab) who were the first to sell VR goggles.
Their starting price without computer?
Ten thousand dollars.
For obvious reasons, it was not aimed at the
average consumer.
But the promise of VR was everywhere, if only
for a brief moment.
'This was very fresh. It's a whole new technology and they call it virtual reality.'
The dreamers of science fiction pontificated
on what this fascinating technology might
offer as it seemed just around the corner.
In fact, the late film critic Roger Ebert
wrote in 1992,
“Virtual reality is still more theory than
practice, but for a movie critic, it holds
out fascinating possibilities.
What is a movie, after all, but a crude form
of VR, in which we see and hear what the filmmaker
desires?”
But even though console makers like Sega had
invested heavily in the technology, going
so far as to premiere a headset at 1993's
Consumer Electronics Show, the headset never
made it to market.
Coupled with the fact that most consumer uses
of VR were relegated to giant pods that cost
a 1990's arm and a leg to use, VR quietly
excused itself from public life.
But it would remain a staple of popular culture,
especially in Science Fiction, where the dreamers
and creators could run free... un-restrained
by the physical demands of technology.
So where did we run to?
They ran to films, like Lawnmower Man.
While the CGI in Lawnmower Man isn’t up
to contemporary standards, the ideas it portrays
are as relevant as ever.
The VR props in lawnmower man?
They were real VR hardware, cutting edge at
the time and straight from VPL.
There's a core idea in The Lawnmower Man about
using Virtual Reality for medical reasons
– predominantly for therapy.
And now we’re seeing this idea play out
in real life; some health practitioners are
now turning to VR instead of pharmacology
to supplement Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
and Exposure Therapy, which are incredibly
effective in helping treat anxiety, panic
attacks, phobias and even OCD.
The company Virtually Better tackles all sorts
of phobias from fear of heights to public
speaking.
They've even extended into treating PTSD,
a disorder that over 7.5 million people struggle
with, using an application called Bravemind.
Bravemind is at the forefront of VR therapy
in treating soldiers— going beyond sight
alone to generate smells like gunpowder, and
duplicating the rumble of explosions to help
veterans work through their issues developed
from war and conflict.
While clinical studies on efficacy are ongoing,
an early study showed therapy focused only
around VR was shown to be just as good as
VR therapy AND drug therapy combined, and
in some cases preferable due to pharmacological
side effects.
But VR isn't just about therapy…
'Combat training.'
It can also be used for training.
Military training has always focused on trying
to replicate that feeling of danger for its
soldiers without actually putting them in
danger.
To that end, the military has always dipped
its toe in modifying existing video games
and building out large scale real world environments.
But those environments can cost millions.
A virtual representation of the battlefield
can cost tens of thousands, be easily modified,
and can closely monitor stats to make sure
there's improvement.
These representations can be created in VR
faster than ever using
telegramatry and satellite data.
Meaning when these soldiers are deployed,
they're beyond familiar with the battlefield.
They've already been there.
There's a whole spectrum of virtual reality
focused on understanding what others are going
through, promoting advocacy through VR.
PETA uses a traveling exhibit to give people
a three minute taste of what it might be like
to be a chicken, concluding with your slaughter.
This is an idea The New York Times has embraced,
partnering with
‘Within’ to take you deeper into their
journalism in their “Walking New York.”
And Chris Milk, head of ‘Within’, has
lead the charge in this kind of advocacy,
even further partnering with VICE and the
U.N. for viewers to experience such encounters
as the Millions March and a twelve year old
Syrian girl's life at a refugee camp.
“VR is such a fascinating medium for journalism
because two huge factors of VR are the feeling
of transporting you to some place, and secondarily,
but just as importantly, connecting you to
the people inside of that place.”
But what about experiencing what someone else
has experienced?
Like in Brainstorm, or getting a taste of
what it might be like to be someone else,
like in Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days.
Often, sci-fi will take us to the lurid corners
of human darkness and desire.
In the real world 'The Machine to Be Another'
is trying to do something similar, but with
a far less salacious result.
Using VR combined with object interaction
and movement synchronization, they're able
to trick the brain and simulate the perception
of being inside another's body.
The hope being, this will allow for a greater
human understanding of Gender Dysphoria and
Implicit Bias, and helping others understand
or at least empathize what it might be like
to be someone of a different gender or a different
race.
Some of these real world applications stand
in stark contrast to the current wave of cynicism
around technology and social media and the
grim focus on the way it divides us.
Therapy, training, empathy all of these uses
are focused on making us better people- they’re
all uses that have been brought to us by Hollywood,
but only our humanity has brought the goodness in it.
'The good that will come out of this far outweighs the bad.'
And it's a reminder of the almost forgotten
hope that technology should enrich our lives
and understanding, not making us better users
but better humans.
A future that looks a little more Star Trek
and a little less Black Mirror.
'But through this machine we become more compassionate,
we become more empathetic,
and we become more connected,
and ultimately we become more human.'
