FORUM Short Paper

Memory of the Early Days and a View toward
the Future

Editors’ Note: To celebrate Presence’s 25th year of publication, we have invited selected members of the journal’s original editorial board and authors of several early articles tocontribute essays looking back on the field of virtual reality,from its very earliest days to the current time. This essay
comes from founding editorial board member Susumu
Tachi, who focuses on the idea of a ‘‘telexistence society’’and outlines ways in which that can help us address anaging society and ever-greater needs for us to communicate
globally.

1

It All Started at a Conference in Santa
Barbara in 1990

In 1990, from March 4 to March 9, virtual reality(VR) researchers (the name ‘‘VR researchers’’ was yet tobe coined at that time) from all over the world gatheredin Santa Barbara, California, to attend the Human
Machine Interfaces for Teleoperators and Virtual Environments Conference. Professor John Hollerbach, then amember of the Engineering Conferences Advisory Committee of The Engineering Foundation, consulted Mr.
Nat Durlach and Professor Thomas B. Sheridan of MIT,and with cooperation from Dr. Steve Ellis of NASA,
organized the first historic world conference that can beconsidered as having given birth to the field of VR.
Professor Sheridan, Steering Committee Co-Chair,
invited me to join the committee during the planningphase. In addition to collaboration in planning the conference, I presented a paper titled ‘‘Tele-existence and/or Cybernetic Interface Studies in Japan.’’ This presentation introduced a robot avatar system of telexistence,
which was conceptualized in 1980 (Scoică, 2015).
Figure 1 shows the cover page of the conference proposal. Researchers, not just from the U.S.A., but also
from Japan, Europe, and other parts of the world, gathPresence, Vol. 25, No. 3, Summer 2016, 239–246
doi:10.1162/PRES_a_00265ª 2016 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

ered and stayed at the Sheraton Hotel in Santa Barbara
where everyone presented their own research; the discussions continued throughout the day.
Joining me from Japan was Professor Michitaka
Hirose, a visiting scientist in the U.S. at that time. Participants from other countries who were considered VR
pioneers included Professor Dick Held, Professor Larry
Stark, Professor Blake Hannaford, Professor Tom Furness, Dr. David Zelter, Professor Fred Brooks, Mr. Jaron
Lanier, Mr. Scott Fisher, Dr. Elizabeth Wenzel, Dr.
Michael McGreevy, Professor S. K. Ganapathy, Professor
Bob Stone, Mr. Myron Krueger, and Professor Tony
Bejczy (see Figure 2).
In fact, at that time similar research was being conducted in various fields around the world. Even thoughstudies were being conducted in various engineering
fields, research was also being carried out in completely
different fields, such as arts and philosophy, psychology,
and medicine. Although the fields were different, theaim was the same. Expressing it in one sentence wouldbe, ‘‘employing self-projection in life-size three-dimensional space and using it interactively.’’ Prior to the Santa
Barbara conference, various terms such as artificial reality, telepresence, telexistence, cyberspace, and virtual environments were being used in different fields for VR.
However, as the conference progressed, an implicit
agreement was reached that all of these terms could becollectively called ‘‘virtual reality.’’In that sense, I think that 1990 is the year when the
VR Big Bang occurred. Thereafter, the participants inthe conference went back to their respective fields andSusumu Tachi
Professor Emeritus, The University of Tokyo
Tachi Laboratory, Institute of Gerontology
7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656, Japantachi@tachilab.org
http://tachilab.org/

Tachi 239

240 PRESENCE: VOLUME 25, NUMBER 3

Figure 1. Cover page of conference proposal.

Figure 2. March 9, 1990, before departure, after the Santa Barbara conference.

Tachi 241

Figure 3. Evolution and development of virtual reality.

carried on with not only conducting further research but
also promoting VR as pioneers. I described the aspect ofvarious fields converging to VR (Tachi, 1992; Tachi,2015) in 1992, as depicted in Figure 3. Moreover, I also
discussed that VR and telexistence essentially represent
the same concept (Tachi, 1992; 2015). Telexistence inreal space is telexistence in a narrow sense, whereas telexistence in computer-generated environments is VR.
Moreover, using the depiction in Figure 4, I also
explained that augmented telexistence is actuallytelexistence in a real environment through a virtualenvironment.
A science writer, Mr. Howard Rheingold, also
attended this conference and afterwards came to Japan
to interview me about research on telexistence. In July
1991, he published a book titled Virtual Reality: The
Revolutionary Technology of Computer-Generated Artificial Worlds—And How It Promises and Threatens toTransform Businesses and Society, that vividly depicted
the dawn of VR.

Incidentally, the academic journal, Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, was also conceptualized
from ad hoc discussions in the conference. It was firstpublished by the MIT Press in 1992, and celebrates its
25th anniversary this year. I participated in the discussions and remember that after long discussion, Dr.
McGreevy proposed the name Presence and it was
accepted with everyone agreeing.
2

What Happened in Japan after the VR
Big Bang

The following describes the VR activities that
occurred in Japan just after the VR Big Bang.
2.1 Research Committee on Artificial
Reality and Telexistence (from 1990 to
1997)
It must be noted that the VR Research Committee was formed in Japan at approximately the same

242 PRESENCE: VOLUME 25, NUMBER 3

Figure 4. Telexistence in real environment, virtual environment, and real environment through virtual space.

time. This indicates that the number of VR researchersin Japan was already comparable to the number in the
U.S. It was on May 15, 1990, immediately after myreturn to Japan from the Santa Barbara conference, that
Mr. Shinji Ishikawa from Japan Technology Transfer
Association (JTTA) came to me to discuss establishing
the committee. He was very much interested in myresearch on telexistence and wanted to establish a
research committee on it as the theme.
On June 23, on the way back from the ISMCR(International Symposium on Measurement and Control of Robotics) held in Houston, TX, I went to San
Francisco and met with Professor Michitaka Hirose to
discuss the Research Committee plan. As a result, theinaugural Symposium on Artificial Reality and Telexistence was held on October 19 at the Ruby Hall of Tokyo Station in the Ariake room on the 12th floor. On
that day, there was a large audience and the lecturesand discussions were marked by intense deliberations.
It was a start wherein there was an auspice that the fieldwould develop robustly. As the source, this committee
led to the birth of international conferences and con-tests, such as ICAT and IVRC, that are still growing
today.

2.2 ICAT: International Conference on
Artificial Reality and Telexistence(from 1991 to Present)
ICAT (http://www.ic-at.org/) started when
Nikkei Inc. began supporting the activities of the
Research Committee on Artificial Reality and Telexistence of JTTA and embarked on planning a VR international conference. Three people were involved in theplanning for the first-ever international conference inJapan—with me as the committee chairman, Mr.
Ishikawa from JTTA, and Mr. Kenichi Kaeriyama from
Nikkei Inc. Many other researchers, including Professor
Hirose, also collaborated in organizing the conference.
The first conference was held successfully on July 9–10,
1991, at the Tokyo Ryutsu Center.
Following the success of the first conference, ICAT
was held every year with support from Nikkei Inc. until
1996. The VRSJ (Virtual Reality Society of Japan) wasTachi 243

formed in 1996, and by 1997 the foundation had beenlaid for VRSJ to bear the responsibility for organizing aninternational conference, replacing Nikkei Inc. VRSJ
took over the responsibility for organizing a truly academic conference, deepening the academic aspect that
continues today.
Starting in 2015, ICAT merged with EGVE (Eurographics Symposium on Virtual Environments) and theconference began being jointly organized by ICAT–
EGVE. In 2016, the 26th ICAT and the 21st EGVE
was jointly convened under the ICAT–EGVE bannerand held in Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S.A. on December
7–9. Since its inception with the VR Big Bang, ICAT is
now the oldest international conference on VR in theworld.

2.3 IVRC: International-Collegiate
Virtual Reality Contest (from 1993 to
Present)
On July 6–7, 1993, ICAT’93 (3rd International
Conference on Artificial Reality and Telexistence) was
held at the newly built Tennozu Isle, commemorating
its opening. Starting that year, in tandem with ICAT,
the first International-collegiate Virtual Reality Contest(IVRC, http://ivrc.net/2016/en/), a VR contest for
students, was held successfully.
In 1991 and 1992, in association with ICAT, an exhibition of VR products was held and was widely
acclaimed. However, in 1993, in collaboration withReed Exhibitions Japan Ltd., it was expanded to a largescale exhibition as the IVR (Industrial Virtual Reality
Show and Conference). This led to planning for new
activities in place of product exhibition.
ICAT was beginning to grow as an international conference where the emphasis was on the academic aspectsof VR and robotics. Initiatives that would be appropriate
in this context and yet be more valuable than productexhibitions were painstakingly contemplated. As a result,nurturing young talented individuals, who will be responsible for the next generation of our society, wasbelieved to be the best initiative. At that time in 1992, it
was intuitively clear that VR is an important key technology of the future in the 21st century. However, in orderto objectively demonstrate that, more than anything else
it should be acceptable to the younger generation who
will be responsible for the next generation of our society.
It was felt that a new technology cannot be rooted unless
it inculcates interest in the young generation and makes
them passionate about it.
Based on that perspective, a virtual reality contest
between students was the most suitable plan. As a substitute for the exhibition, I proposed to the committee thatthe student contest would be planned, executed, andcontested by the students themselves; the proposal won
strong approval. This was followed by intense discussions. In this way the original purpose of ‘‘the contest of
the students, by the students, and for the students’’ wasachieved.
In accordance with its establishment in 1996, VRSJ
assumed the responsibility for organizing ICAT and
IVRC, and this continues to be an important organizing
activity for VRSJ even today. The students who were in
their 20s back then as participants in the contest are now
in their 40s after about 23 years, and are actively
engaged in academia, industry, and the art world, leading and exploring the new frontiers in VR, AR, haptics,
embodied media, human interaction, and telexistence.

2.4 Japanese National Project,
Fundamental Study on Virtual Reality—
Generation of Virtual Space and Human
Interfaces for Virtual Environments(from 1995 to 1998)
The American Heritage Dictionary defines ‘‘virtual’’ as ‘‘existing or resulting in essence or effect though
not in actual fact, form, or name.’’ This definition also
applies to virtual reality (VR) per se. For VR users, ‘‘virtual reality’’ exists ‘‘in effect or in essence’’ although‘‘not in actual fact or form.’’
The Japanese national project of ‘‘Fundamental Studyon Virtual Reality—Generation of Virtual Space andHuman Interfaces for Virtual Environments,’’ waslaunched in 1995 and supported by the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Culture (Monbusho) as a Priority Scientific Research Area. The project is led by me(from the University of Tokyo), and joined by more244 PRESENCE: VOLUME 25, NUMBER 3

than 200 professors and researchers of the universities inJapan. The project tries to clarify how the human-madeenvironment can be made ‘‘virtual’’ for human beings in
the sense just defined (Tachi, 1997).
In this study, fundamental research on virtual reality
was conducted in the following groups:
1. Elucidation of perceptual and behavioral humancharacteristics in virtual environments (Group
Leader: S. Tachi).
2. Optimal design of interface devices between humanand virtual environments (Group Leader: M. Sato).
3. Establishment of virtual world construction
and/or representation methods (Group Leader:
M. Hirose).
4. Assessment of the influence of virtual reality technology on human society and/or human healthand welfare (Group Leader: T. Ifukube).
The course, until this Priority Research Area wasapproved, is described briefly. Since 1990, when the
Research Committee on Artificial Reality and Telexistence was formed, among the members of the committee there was strong intent to establish VR as an academic field. For the healthy development of such newtechnology, the existence of virtual reality science wasdeemed vital, and the members were convinced that thecreation of a new academic field that brings together theknowledge in Japan would be essential in that respect.
As a first step, an application for Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research for a research study was submitted. After it
was approved, the first meeting was held on October 4,
1991. In that research study, preparations were underway toward the creation of a new academic field. As aresult, the aforementioned Japanese National Project,‘‘Fundamental Study on Virtual Reality—Generation of
Virtual Space and Human Interfaces for Virtual Environments’’ was approved by Monbusho, leading to theestablishment of a new academic field.

2.5 Virtual Reality Society of Japan(VRSJ) (from 1996 until present)
A new academic field was thus created. However,in order to continuously develop such an academic field,

it was deemed essential not only to publish the knowledge structure in the form of papers and books, but also
to disseminate new ideas and to return the achievements
to society along with educating the personnel involvedin a sustained manner. Based on this background, on theoccasion of the first Executive Committee Meeting andthe first General Assembly of the Priority Research Area,
held on July 11, 1995, I (as the project leader), presented the proposal for founding an academic society; it
was strongly endorsed by the participating researchers.
In response to the decision to establish a society takenin the Executive Committee Meeting of the Priority
Research Area, the first establishment preparatory meeting was held on September 22, 1995. I gathered withprofessors Hiroshi Harashima, Michitaka Hirose, Hiroo
Iwata, and Toshio Fukuda to discuss a society journal/transactions newsletter, website creation, and the goal of
publishing IEEE Transactions on VR in the future.
Thereafter, eight more meetings of the preparatorycommittee and the assemblies of founding members
were held. On March 13, 1996, a Founders Summit wasorganized with 278 renowned virtual reality scholars as
the founders. Four more executive meetings were held,
and on May 27, 1996, the general assembly for establishment was convened, whereby the Virtual Reality Societyof Japan (VRSJ) was established (http://www.vrsj.org/english/about/).
Currently, VRSJ, with more than 1,000 members,organizes one annual conference every year, and publishes the transaction and the journal four times eachyear. It must be noted that for about ten years, startingin 1997, VRSJ and Presence maintained a collaborative
relationship.
3

Toward a ‘‘Telexistence Society’’At present, in Japan, people are faced with manydifficult problems, such as an increasing concentration of
population in the metropolitan areas, an increase in thenumber of elderly persons and decrease in the number ofworkers due to the trend toward smaller families, cultural frictions and worsening of public safety due to immigration, dilemmas posed by concurrent child-rearing
and work, and the fact that a great deal of time isTachi 245

Figure 5. Telexistence society.

required for commuting to and from work and theresulting lack of personal time. If it were possible to create innovative technology that changes the conventional
conceptualization of movement by transferring physicalfunctions without this being accompanied by actual
travel, these difficulties could be overcome.
Working at home remotely to date has been limited tocommunications and/or paperwork that transmit audiovisual information and data, as well as conversations. It
was impossible to carry out the physical work at factories
or operations at places such as construction sites, healthcare facilities, or hospitals; that cannot be accomplishedunless the person in question is actually on site. Telexistence is a technology that departs from the conventional
range of remote communications that transmit only thefive senses, and it realizes an innovative method thattransmits all the physical functions of human beings andenables the engagement of remote work accompanying
labor and operations that was impossible until now.
If a telexistence society that can delegate physical functions were realized, the relationship between people andindustry and the nature of society would be fundamentally changed. The problems of the working environment would be resolved, and it would no longer be necessary to work in adverse environments. No matter
where a factory is located, workers would be assembled
from the entire country or the entire world, so the conditions for locating factories will see revolutionarychanges compared to the past, and population concentration in the metropolitan area can be avoided. Since

foreign workers would also be able to attend work
remotely, the myriad problems accompanying immigration as a mere labor force, separate from humanitarian
immigration, can be eliminated. Moreover, it will bepossible to ensure a 24-hour labor force at multiple overseas hubs by making use of time differences, rendering
the night shift unnecessary. Both men and women will
be able to participate in labor while raising children, andthis will help to create a society in which it is easier toraise children (see Figure 5).
The time-related costs due to travel in global businesswill be reduced. Commuting-related travel will become
unnecessary, and transportation problems can be alleviated. It is predicted that it will no longer be necessary
to have a home near one’s workplace, the concentrationof population in the metropolis will be alleviated, thework-life balance will be improved, and the people concerned will be able to live where they wish and lead fulfilling lives.
In addition, owing to additional functions of an avatar
robot, which is the body of the virtual self, even the elderly and handicapped will not be at a disadvantage
physically compared to young people, since they canaugment and enhance their physical functions to surpass
their original bodies, and thus they can participate inwork that gives full play to the abundant experience
amassed over a lifetime. The quality of labor will rise
greatly, thereby reinvigorating Japan. The hiring of suchspecialists as technicians and physicians with world-classskills will also be facilitated, and optimal placement of

246 PRESENCE: VOLUME 25, NUMBER 3

human resources according to competence can also be
achieved.
With a view to the future, it will be possible to respondinstantly from a safe place during disasters and emergencies, and this technology can also be used routinely todispatch medical services, caregivers, physicians, andother experts to remote areas. In addition, owing to thecreation of new industries such as tourism, travel, shopping, and leisure, it will greatly improve convenience andmotivation in the lives of citizens, and it is anticipatedthat a healthy and pleasant lifestyle will be realized in aclean and energy-conserving society.
In this manner, it goes without saying that the realization of a ‘‘telexistence society’’ that makes it possible forhuman beings to virtually exist in remote places is anextremely high-impact challenge technologically. One
can even conclude it that it is a noncontinuous innovation that differs from novel improvements involving progress of existing work equipment and environments
insofar as it radically alters both the nature of labor per
se and people’s lifestyles.
4

VR Moves in 30-Year Cycles

Needless to say, VR is an activity that pursues the‘‘virtual,’’ or in other words, ‘‘the essence of things.’’ Itis ‘‘a design theory that puts the human being itself and
not the artifacts at the center of all events, an idea, anart, and an academic field.’’

It is often said that history repeats itself and it has been
analyzed that 3D and VR moves are in 30-year cycles(Tachi, 2013). Now that VR has again regained theexcitement of its early days, I hope that it will encourage
further growth, which in turn will greatly change society
and keep on contributing to humankind.

References
Rheingold, H. (1991). Virtual reality: The revolutionary technology of computer-generated artficial worlds— And how it
promises and threatens to transform businesses and society.
New York: Simon & Schuster.
Scoică, A. (2015) Susumu Tachi: The scientist who invented
telexistence. ACM Crossroads, 22(1), 61–62.
Tachi, S. (1992). Artificial reality and tele-existence—Present
status and future prospect. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Artificial Reality and Tele-Existence,
7–16.
Tachi, S. (2015). Telexistence (2nd Ed.). Singapore: World
Scientific.
Tachi, S. (1997). Elucidation of perceptual and behavioral
human characteristics in virtual environments—Toward theelucidation of a sensation of presence. Proceedings of the 7thInternational Conference on Artificial Reality and Tele-existence, 33–40.
Tachi, S. (2013). From 3D to VR and further to telexistence.
Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Artificial
Reality and Telexistence, 1–10.