Recent experiments in cross reality radically challenge traditional notions of naive realism and biophilia, with the sharing of digital artefacts (audio, images, video) reflecting a highly voyeuristic and technophilic desire ‘to watch’ and ‘be watched’. The ability of media to skew presence shows that while traditional 2D artworks may not support physical presence (with the exception of set designs and trompe l’oeil effects) immersive VR systems provide a more direct sense of user participation. This is achieved in two ways. First, by removing any mediating technologies so users can actively reconfigure their experience; second, by creating interactive multi-user platforms for shared content and user experience, e.g. as seen in the above ACME system by VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland.

Three modes of presence: LBEs (location-based entertainment), SVEs (shared virtual environments) and MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons)

A meta-analysis into the experience of being-there by Riva & IjsselSteijn concluded that presence is always mediated physically (bodily, technological objects) and culturally and that ‘physical’ presence is no more ‘real’ than virtual immersion: “Experiencing presence requires the reproduction of the physical features of external reality; the possibility of interaction and free action, and the creation and sharing of the cultural web that makes meaningful – and therefore visible – both people and objects populating the environment.”¹ While human-like robots and avatars are created to instil a rich sense of copresence that mimics corporeal presence, paradoxically, such rich experiences are not always desirable. For example, the most addictive social networking activity is also the most disembodied – ‘texting’ or ‘online chat’ demands that low levels of ‘media richness’  are more advantageous (users often prefer to remain anonymous while connecting with others). This response may be due to that fact that until recently, many machines failed to engage humans emotionally, although this seems to be changing with rapid advances of affective computing (voice and facial recognition). Avoiding the singularity debate on whether computers will eventually have the capacity to acquire super-intelligence, research into copresence increasingly reveals that by making machines more human-like via affective computing, humans are becoming more machine-like: “…as computer technologies are more and more integrated into the fabric of social life, social reality becomes increasingly virtual, and virtual reality increasingly social.”² Despite issues of reality distraction and privacy, Brother Industries plans to produce Retinal Imaging Display (RID) glasses for augmented vision suggest it is only a matter of time before full immersion virtual reality and augmented reality will revolutionize our perception of nature.

In his essay Nature is not Green, Koert van Mensvoort reminds us that environments have become ‘hypernatural’ extensions of nature, “a simulation of a nature that never existed.” Even better than the real thing, hypernature is prettier, slicker and safer than before, thus “the more we learn to control trees, animals, atoms and the climate, the more they lose their natural character and enter into the realms of culture.”³ The key argument from a hypernaturist perspective is that rather than be concerned about the disappearance and destruction of the natural world, humans will adapt for positive gain. This will undoubtedly happen, as the history of human evolution reveals. However, certain biological adaptation will have a subliminally harmful effect on human life. For example, a study in the 1980s by Gary Evans discovered that people who live with air pollution over a considerable time frame become conditioned to the polluted air quality, unable to recognize it even exists, condition which Peter Hahn coins environmental generational amnesia.

Hahn’s ‘amnesia’ confirms the desensitizing effects of media McLuhan predicted more than four decades ago. Environmental ‘anesthesia’ or desensitization has shown that while humans have adapted to extremes in light, noise and air pollution, such adaption has also imparted negative stressors upon our biological systems. Thus, contrary to popular belief, not all human adaptation is beneficial, as we directly sense via our love/hate relationship of the hypernatural environment. We crave fast food, fast cars and fast living, yet despite their economic advantages we also must accept hypernature’s negative polluting and intoxicating effects on cognitive health.

1. G. Riva et al., “Being There: Concepts, effects and measurement of user presence in synthetic environments” (Ios Press, 2003) Amsterdam, The Netherlands

2. Zhao, S., “Toward A Taxonomy of Copresence” from Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments archive Volume 12 ,  Issue 5  (October 2003) p.445 – 455

3. Mensvoort, K., “Real Nature is not Green”, Published in Vermeulen, (2006) Sun enlightment, States of Nature. Syndicaat, ISBN: 87-1762457-900-4