Towards a Philosophy of Virtual Reality: Issues Implicit in "Consciousness Reframed"
Author(s): Stephen Jones
Source: Leonardo, Vol. 33, No. 2 (2000), pp. 125-132
Published by: The MIT Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576846
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....
GENERAL

ARTICLE

Towardsa Philosophy

Reality:

Issues

Implicit

Virtualofin"Consciousness
Reframed"
ABSTRACT

StephenJonesIn
July 1997 the Centre for Advanced Inquiry
into the Interactive Arts (CAiiA), at the University of Wales,
held the first "Consciousness Reframed" conference. About
150 people attended, most of them involved in different
fields of the media-arts: multimedia theory, web-site production and virtual reality (VR), painting, video and installation,
art history and architecture, philosophy and the social sciences and teaching and ethics.
What does "Consciousness Reframed" mean? No one had aset definition, but the term provided a great stimulus to explore ideas about consciousness: from neuro-physiology toartificial intelligence, from extra-sensory perception to shamanistic trance practices, from the Internet to VR installations and from constructed ways of seeing to the role of geometry in painting. Roy Ascott, the chair of CAiiA, in his
preface to the Abstracts for the conference, put it this way:
Interactionsbetween art, science and technologyare leading
to the emergence of new culturalforms, behavioursand values. It is within the field of Consciousness that this is mostmarkedand at the same time least understood. This conference has been convenedin orderto open up informeddiscussion of the issuesthis raisesand to examinewhatmight be describedas the technoetic
principlein art [1].
The term technoeticis the key. It refers to our use of technology in cultural production, and it also refers to the noetic,or
how we understand the world and our processes of being in
it. This suggests the exploration of how technology is changing our perceptions of the world. Certainly many of the papers and discussions that represented the huge diversity ofpractice in new-media arts focused on this issue.

HUMANIZING TECHNOLOGY
A primary issue confronting new-media artists is the politicoeconomic question of the human and environmental impact of
their work. This applies to all our technological activity.Modeling our ideas is an ancient and deeply human practice in which
we engage with the world in our process of understanding it.
Modeling leads to reflection on our productions, to new ideas
and inventions and may also lead to critical thought about what
we do. We need to pay more attention to the impact of our activities on other systems.To "humanize"technology, we have totake into account the biological and emotional aspects of ourbeing. Notions of feedback and self-organizationallow us to account for the consequences of what we do.
Char Davies addresses this techno-cultural problem in her
work Osmose[2]. A person entering the installation is pre-? 2000 ISAST

thefirst
Thispaperreviews
confer"Consciousness
Reframed"of artists'
works
ence.Anumber
inmediasuchas virtualandreality
aredisinteractive
installations
cussed,andvarious
issuesrelatartworks
areingto "technoetic"
raised.Theseissuesinclude
quesdehutionssuchas thepotentiallynatureoftechnology,
themanizing
transcendent
statesclaimedforcyberspace,
thenatureof immerandaspects
sion,
theproblem
son andaspectsof
ofthe
problemsented with images on two projection screens: on one is a silhou"of te p n" theteette of the person t "flying"
andwork (Fig. 1)
on the other,
the space that he or she is "flying"through (Fig. 2). It is an elegant
and evocative work, with the imof consciousness.Theauthorofage and music presenting a floatferssomesuggestions
regardinghowtechnoetic
artmighttackle
ing, wistful feel. One flies
suchissues.
through translucent underwaterlike jungles and crystalline spaces
as well as worlds of text and theunderlying computer code.
In her paper "Techne as Poiesis: Seeking Virtual Ground"
Davies speaks of Osmoseas being a poiesis or bringing forth,revealing our being in the world. The prime navigating tool
is the breath. On breathing in, one rises through the virtualworlds; on breathing out, one sinks slowly into deeper realms,
until one gets down to the core machine-code world. Davies
likens the experience to one of diving rather than dreaming.
The participant gains a sense of being removed from the everydayworld and "immersed"in some environment that does
not necessarily behave according to the rules of the known.
The conscious use of breath, combined with a feeling of balance in the immersant, undoes our habitualized everyday perceptions and leads to altered states of consciousness.
Through its use of the breath as a navigational tool, immersion in Osmoseproduces an emotional experience. This emotional character of Osmosebrings one to a new experience ofthe technological. Response to the experience of Osmoseis
often a feeling of its ineffability, its indescribable nature, "anunfathomably poetic flux of comings-into-being, lingerings,
and passings-awaywithin which our own mortality is encompassed" [3].
Thus, for Davies and many other new-media artists, humanizing technology involves a subversive generativity of ideas
and of methods for handling technological presence. It involves opening up, diversifying, re-connecting, so that anything we do with the techne, we can sidestep, redo, or recast
when it is put to inhuman tasks. The trap is that we just end
up feeding the business world with even more new things thatit can capture. But to stop, to relinquish the critical stance, tocease being generative is to degenerate and to cease to exist.

Stephen Jones (artist, engineer, theorist), 387 Riley St., Surry Hills, NSW 2010, Australia. E-mail: <sjones@culture.com.au>.

LEONARDO, Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 125-132, 2000

125

VIRTUALREALITY:DREAM
Fig. 1. Char
Davies, shadow
screen silhouette(video still) fromvideo work Osmose,
1994-1995.
(? Char Davies/
Immersence Inc./
Softimage Inc.)

Fig. 2. Char Davies,"Rocks," real-timeframe capture fromvideo work Osmose,
1994-1995.
(? Char Davies/
Immersence Inc./
Softimage Inc.)SPACE OR SHAMANISM?
The affective experience in Osmoseandother VR works reconstructs our relationship with technology. Davies opens
up an issue pointed to from many different sources during the conferencenamely, what exactly is cyberspace/VRspace? Is it a dream world? Is it some
sort of trance space? And is the artist/producer of cyberspaces akin to the shaman in tribal culture? For many, VR has
acquired dreaming or shamanic characteristics, largely because one is removed
from the world when taking on the helmet and harness of the VR installation.
Margaret Dolinsky in her paper"DreamGrrrls:A World of Virtual Reality"
speaks of VR as being an active or "lucid" dreaming. Her work Dream Grrrls
was developed for the CAVE, a display
system developed at the Art Institute ofChicago. The CAVEis an immersive virtual theater, a 3-meter square, high-resolution, stereo video/audio projection
environment. The spectator walks
around wearing stereographic glasses,
interacting with objects in the virtual environment in an experience similar to
dreaming. Dream Grrrls "is a journey
through five different environmentsthat present an opportunity for exploration and self-reflection...

in new anddynamic ways, much like an active or lucid dreaming" [4]. Navigation is more
about encounter than control, as one
experiences the elusive nature of the
dream world. Paths meander, allowing"the participant to create a personal performance by learning to interact withthe environment and recognise its plasticity" [5] (Figs 3, 4).
Dolinsky provides active dreaming
spaces where one can explore desires
and dream versions of oneself. The options provided by the artist allow the audience into realms to which they may ordinarily have only secondary access (e.g.
reading) but to which they do not normally have primary experiential access.
Beyond dreaming are the trance statesof the shaman. British artist Kathleen
Rogers in her paper "Viperscience" explores Mayan shamanism through the
mythology of the snake. She "draws on
the work of the unorthodox anthropologist Jose Diaz Bolio from Yucatan,
Mexico . . . author of The Feathered Serof Cultures" [6] to explore thepent-Axis

role of the rattlesnake in Mayan art andreligion. Rogers "proposes that theplumed serpent in the image of therattlesnake embodied the essential physi-

126

Jones, Towards a Philosophy of Virtual Realitycal resonance, energisation states andvortex mechanics to become a living psychic software" [7]. The priests of the
Mayan culture used the "harmonic geometry of the snake skin as mask forscrying [i.e. divination]" [8] and similar
shamanic activities.
For Rogers, the snake represents
spiritual energy
many things-from(e.g. the Kundalini in Hindu Tantra) tothe creation spirits of indigenous Australians to the double helix symbol of
DNA in the modern West. Her intention"is to re-activate this complex model of
Mayan consciousness" [9]. Using VR immersion and multimedia to emulatethese trance states, she produces an "interactive mythology" as a cognitive archeology of the snake in its representation of spiritual energy as well as thecyclical notion of time held by the Maya.
Brazilian artist Diana Domingues inher paper "The Desert of Passions andthe Technological Soul" also presents
the potential for VR to bring out
shamanic states. She likens the screen of
VR to the idea of the desert as a place
for losing the self, a screen onto which
our dreams and desires may be projected, thus giving it a role in the
shamanic practice of ancient cultures asmuch as it has a role in contemporary
culture (as evidenced by the many films
in which the desert features almost as acharacter). For Domingues, creative
production is a way of losing the ego.
She makes "interactive installations forpeople to experience consciousness
propagation in an organic/inorganic
life. Electronic interfaces and neuralnetworks provide intelligent behaviors,
managing signals of the human body insensorized environments" [10]. Electronic ritual and trance, interfaced withelectronic memory as "virtualhallucination," thus produce a shamanic experience through an interactive work (Figs5, 6). Participants become

Fig. 3. Margaret Dolinsky, "Labyrinth IV," from Dream Grrrls, computer automated virtualenvironment (CAVE), 1996. (? 1996 Dolinsky, Sehmisch & EVL/UI)

rent relationship to cyberspace is analogous to our primary ancestors' relationship with language and with their world
at the time when their cultures were still
isolated. It is as though cyberspace provides a dream-like, almost hallucinatory
configuration of our perception, becoming a screen for the projection of our
spiritual desires and interests. "In aworld of unbounded complexity, [we]compress and complexify symbols into
the barest essentials of meaning: in thisway the ancient narratives become
myths" [13].
These artists suggest that VR andcyberspace are tools for inducing transcendental states in the immersant. Is thispossible? Most VR works provide only

Fig. 4. Margaret Dolinsky, "Sesa World I," from Dream Grrrls, computer automated virtualenvironment (CAVE), 1996. (? 1996 Dolinsky, Sehmisch & EVL/UI)

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the shaman,

allowing them to "communicate withthe beyond and intervene in the realworld because they dialogue with spirits.
The participants' behaviors determine
the life of the environment" [11].
Mark Pesce (the inventor of Virtual
Reality Mark-up Language [VRML]) in
his paper "Ritual and the Virtual" suggests that the networks of cyberspace are
essentially incomprehensible. For Pesce,
cyberspace is mythological space, dreamtime or "faerie,"a space of magical reality. "The forms of magical reality,ancientto humanity's beginnings, shape our vision in the unbounded void of electronic
potential" [12]. He suggests that our cur-Jones, Towards a Philosophy of Virtual Reality127pre-programmedoptions, requiring us toaccept another's view, and as such newstates cannot actively be drawn out from
Fig. 5. Diana
Domingues, "Raio," our minds. In order to develop a form alfrom TRANS-E:mylowing a dream or shamanic experiencebody, my blood, inter- in
VR, we must provide a structure caactive installation,pable of considerable mutability in the
12 x 8m, 1997available experiential options. The
1998. (Novas
shamanic trance is a surrendering to exTecnologias nas
Artes Visuais
ternal "spirit"presences via the producUniversidade detion of ecstasywithin the participant. The
Caxias do Sulshamanis the controlling agent in these
Brazil. ? Diana
activities and is not "possessed" [14]. In
Domingues.)
contrast, dreams are fluid, discontinuous,
disruptive experiences in which unpredictability is almost a necessity. The
dreamer is out of the control loop, being
asleep [15]. Nevertheless, experience
gained in either condition is usually considered to be out of context, an irruption
into the normal stream of consciousness.
Though it may well be possible to entrance an immersant using VR, I suggestthat shamanic presences are anotherthing altogether. As for the analogy withdreams, VR may be able to produce
similar irruptions and unpredictability,
but this will require considerable development in the means of generating andnavigating cross-connections in the content of the work. Some hints appear in
the work of Bill Seaman.
Bill Seaman explores possible emergent experiences in his paper "Emergent
Constructions: Re-Embodied Intelligence within Recombinant Poetic Networks."Seaman is developing a theory ofFig. 6. Diana
navigation within cyberspaces which inDomingues,
volvesa process of "recombinant poet"Catalogo," from
ics." According to Seaman, "computerTRANS-E:my body,
mediated networks present an artistic
my blood, interactive
medium which heightens the potential
installation, 12 x 8m, 1997-1998. (Nofor an intermingling of the knowledge ofvas Tecnologias nas
the viewer with the 're-embodied intelliArtes Visuaisof an author" [16] in a new form
gence'
Universidade deof poetic construction. The participant
Caxias do Sulinteracts with the meanings encoded in
Brazil. ? Diana
the work by the author, developing "anDomingues.)
emergent experience, which is notknown in advance by the author, and is
unique for each subsequent viewer"[17]. Seaman suggests that "such an environment [can] enhance or trigger particular 'states' of consciousness in theviewer [reframing] aspects of the consciousness of the artist" [18]. He thendiscussed how this idea was developed in
his work PassageSets/OnePulls Pivotsfrom
the Tip of the Tongue,as well as in his newwork the WorldGenerator,which carries"compressed potential meaning constructed of language, image and soundelements within an engendered technological environment" [19].

128

Jones, Towards a Philosophy of Virtual Reality

In Seaman's PassageSets[20] the viewer
is presented with three video projection
screens of image and text. The center
screen contains a "menu"controlled by amouse on a plinth in the viewspace.As themouse rolls over words in this menu, newcombinations of visual, sound and textual
elements are displayed, enabling one to
explore the poetic dimensions of any ofthe phrases Seaman has provided in themenu (see Color Plate B No. 1). The
menu shifts and alters form, and thescreens on either side present video andtextual resonance, with oblique references making puns across the screens andwithin one's reading/memory space. The
work is deep and evocative-with imagery
taken from architecture to gesture to bodies in spaces public and private-and allows navigation through an everchanging
poetry constructed afresh from the elements originally supplied (Fig. 7).
Seaman's techniques of recombinantpoetics offer us access to a randomized
supply of ideas and language. Puns anddouble-entendre emerge from the vocabulary provided by the artist, but the
combinatorics are stochastic and supplied by the user. These then generate
all sorts of unexpected thoughts and interpretations in the viewer.
The real activity of an artwork for thecontemporary audience is in the emergence of new ideas and new triggers forinterpretation through the experience of
the work. This has alwaysbeen an aspectof the contemplation of an artwork, although historically the viewer's experience has been more passive. In VR andcyberspace the artist may be able
proactivelyto generate emergent ideas inviewersas they experience the immersion.

Fig. 7. Bill Seaman, "Rotate Soft Erobotic Agent Spokes," from Passage Sets/One Pulls Pivots
at the Tip of the Tongue,digital image, 1995. (? Bill Seaman)omnijective, iridescent, shimmering andporous in its inversions" [21]. Immersion
is enveloping, physical rather than cognitive, and different from one's absorption
in a book or the cinema. For Nechvatal,
immersion in VR implies a unified total
space, a homogeneous world without external distraction, striving to be a consummate harmonious whole. Identifying"two gradesof immersion

cocooning and (2) expanding, within
which, when these two directions of psy- Fig. 8. Joseph Nechvatal, Viral Scream,
chic space cooperate ... we feel ... our robot-assisted painting, 1996. (? Josephbodies becoming subliminal, immersed Nechvatal)
in an extensive topophilia...
an innerimmensity where we realise our limitations along with our desires for expansion" [22], he asks, "Do VR's immersive
attributes permit us to support non-discursive intuitive

WHAT IS IMMERSION?
Both dreaming and shamanic trance arestates that require total immersion in
the experience. But just what is "immersion" in VR? How do we define it andhow can we distinguish it from othermental states within consciousness, suchas being absorbed in a book or film?
What degree of suspension of disbelief isneeded, what agreements with the artist
do we make in entering cyberspace, sothat the artist can bring some sort of version of the conceived experience to us?
Joseph Nechvatal in his paper"Immersive Implications" suggests thattechnoetic connectivity provides a tool
for society to understand itself. It reworks
and redirects the perspectival point ofview: "The classic Cartesian duality between subject and object becomes. . . (1)not one's own but the artist's. The pointof view in the immersive world is omnidirectional, a point of hearing rather
than of view. One's head is the origin in
the center of a sphere, the aural centerof perception in the jungle. The primary sense in the jungle is hearing; sightis interrupted by the forest. We can see
only the most local distance, yet we canhear a vast world of sounds.

generalisations

fromwhich to weave a philosophy of virtual reality by adapting principles of complex
generosity?" [23]. He adds that with a"specifically spherical way of conceiving
encounters" [24] a new "perspective" isafoot within VR (Fig. 8). Nevertheless, hewarns, as continuous total immersion
would be monstrous, we should regard
VR as a modeling system in which artists
can generate the "countless, but shortlived, experiences and observations thatcan be exact only because they are brief
entries into the encompassing phenomenon of a shimmering deframed consciousness" [25].
Davies' Osmose might provide theparadigm example of immersive space:
one dons the helmet and harness andenters a floating world, where everything is translucent and jungle-like-enveloping worlds of imagination, though

Jones, Towards a Philosophy of Virtual Reality

129

Fig...Stephen Jones, Te Brain Is the Substrate,digital image, 1997.

Stephen Jones)

Fig. 9. StephenJones, TheBrainIs theSubstrate,
digitalimage, 1997. (? StephenJones)

Immersed in VR, we are placed at thecenter of a realm based on polar coordinates: wherever we turn, our perspective
follows, the sounds of the cyberjungle
lead us. The view is revealed only as we
penetrate deeper into recalculated
space. As art historian Suzanne Ackers
suggests, Renaissance perspective is displaced, and we are learning new ways ofseeing, navigating in new kinds of conceptual space [26]. Point of view nolonger operates in its traditional manner; it now alters over time, and our perception of time and space becomes a virtual knowledge, no longer fixed to the
Cartesian frame: mutable, always recalculated, determined by our progress
through the environment. Consciousness can only follow along, hoping to
make the necessary adjustments before
we fall out of the world. Our internal
center is temporarily dislocated fromour external center; suddenly we do notknow where we are.
According to Nechvatal, the immersant in VR is cut off from the world in afusion of sight and sound where a "radical unity and aesthetic transcendence
through totality... provide a complete
alternative reality to the viewpoint for
exploration and contemplation . . .
immersive art striving towards a consummate harmonious whole" [27]. The experience of VR is one of omni-perception transcending formerly known
territories. As Davies amply demonstrates in Osmose,the world visually perceived becomes one of multiple layers aswell as one of fluid viewpoint: worlds layered as sheets of knowing through which
we can navigate, each sheet providing its
own enveloping omni-projective space.

130

In her paper "Perception of Individual
Time," Ackers points out the role of geometry and mathematics in our perception. She asks how this has altered overthe history of art and how it appears in
VR work. "Geometryplayed a crucial rolein the development of Gothic architecture. Today, we easily perceive the numerical harmonies in a cathedral'sfacade
or interior space. What about our perception of the numerical harmony in digital
images?"[28]. For example, in Osmosethevisuals "can be seen in the context of pic-

Fig. 10. Jill Scott, installation shot of "A||

FigurativeHistory,"
from Digital BodyAutomata (at ZKM,
Karlsruhe, Germany), interactive
hybrid environment, 1997. (? Jill l
Scott)

Jones, Towards a Philosophy of Virtual Reality

!

..
i,,

I

,

!
.>9z9.
>. :torial tradition, the dimension of time isan addition which has only been madepossible by the complex use of numbers,
and of computer programming" [29].
The interval of our immersion in Osmose
provides a perspective that is time-based
as well as spatial; this perspective constantly perturbs our usual sense of locus
in space and time. This is a new kind of
aesthetic experience where time plays animportant role in our view of the work.
In the audience's contemplation of apainting, the durational element becomes little more than a slightly extended present, whereas involvement inVR, new-media or video work forces one
to spend some time with the work simply
to gain any idea of it at all. Being captured by the work becomes another factor in the immersion. Duration as a dimension of an artwork allows the
producer of the work to introduce a series of ideas, or a flow and mutation of
one idea, which is not available in mostpainting or sculpture. Time allows an audience the luxury of contemplating thework, of exploring possible interpretations, and it allows artists the luxury ofextending and developing associations
and permutations of ideas. It is thiswhich promotes interaction as much as
any "hands on" operability of the computer-driven work. Just as conversation
takes time to develop, so does one's conversation with an artwork take time todevelop, being especially enhanced if the
feedback from the artworkis active. Ourperception can change, or be changed,
over time as the feedback loop between
us and the artworkis allowed to develop.

IS LANGUAGE NECESSARY
FOR CONSCIOUSNESS?
Another issue in the exploration of thenoetic is the extent to which language isnecessary for consciousness. Cognitive
science usually argues that language isessential for consciousness-otherwise,
how could we report our experience?
But this becomes a rather restrictive
view of what it is to be conscious, much
like the question of the difference between immersion and absorption. Are
we conscious if lacking language, or are
we simply aware?Obviously, at this point
it all depends on how one defines consciousness. Given that, for most of us,
even a cat could be considered conscious, language is surely unnecessary.
Australian artist Isabelle Delmotte inher paper "Epileptograph: The Internal

Journey" introduces an audio-visual exploration of her "sensations experienced during the awareness process
leading to the regaining of consciousness after a generalised epileptic seizure" [30]. She focuses on the hidden
internal language of the body, revealing
the reaccumulation of the self as a visceral and frightful process that leaves
only glimpses of imprecise memory.
Showing a video version of the computer-graphic material she has generated from her deep, direct experienceof this prelinguistic "reaccumulation ofmyself as a functional being" [31], shequestions the extent to which consciousness depends on language. She
suggests that "avisceral and thoughtlessprocess, which lacks any form of language [can be] part of our notion of
consciousness" [32], given that she canbring the experience to visual manifestation and so in some sense is consciousof what happened, if only throughmemory.
On the other hand, MarkPesce makessome interesting remarks about the relationship between language and consciousness. He argues that to think requires the linguistic distinction of figureand ground, the detection of the object,and it is difference that enables this detection. Discontinuity, not the narrative,
is what we see. Language is the encodingof these differences, and so language
leads to consciousness. Ritual is the cultural storage of this encoding into my-Fig. 11. Jill Scott, installation shot of "Immortal Duality," from Digital Body-Automata (atZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany), interactive hybrid environment, 1997. (? Jill Scott)thology, and he suggests that ritual is thelanguage of cyberspace. The virtualworld of cyberspace is a mirror to thevirtual world of our cultures, illuminating "the magical reality of all humannarratives" [33]. He highlights a connectivity within societies wherein thewhole of human culture might be seen
as a single organism, and he may be suggesting that culture is a conscious thing.
Where does one draw the line between consciousness and mere awareness? The domain becomes too exclusive
if one drawsit too high, say at the level ofrequiring language. It is like arguingthat visual processing is necessary forconsciousness: What then of the blind?
I suggest that we open up the conceptof language to include any of the possible means of showing that we are using
information from the world in ways thatare useful to ourselves. We can report
this use in many ways:making art or otherwise demonstrating our consciousnessof things about us. Mere awareness falls
awaywith the idea of using the information for our own purposes, reflective activity having such output as might indicate that we are activelyworking with thisinformation. Reportage becomes cultural production. This would certainly accommodate the kind of consciousness
that Isabelle Delmote speaks of in
Epileptograph, where she describes a
realm of knowing, in which language isas yet unavailable, but her experience ofreassembling herself forms a viscerally
potent content of her mind, ready for reporting at such moment as reporting becomes possible.

THE POST-BIOLOGICAL?
What of the post-biological? In my paper
addressing this issue [34] I speak about
the kinds of behavior people display thatallow one to say they are conscious. The
primary criterion might be that an entity
doessomethingforitself Then, on the basisthat there is a physiology of the brain/body that consciousness runs on, I explore the possibility of a complex self-organizing physiological process that produces conscious subjective experience(Fig. 9). The different social/cultural configurations in which conscious entities
may be immersed lead to the diversityof
possible epistemologies in the world, as
well as to the possibility of machine consciousness. The possibility of intelligent
machines is a rumor in the background ofmuch interactive new-media artwork as
well as computing research. As such, it
seems to be part of the deeper motives in
new art, as well as being entwined with theideas of the post-biological-the body/brain/mind re-embodied in a technological edifice of some sort. As Bill Seaman
says: "I am interested in interactive art
worksthat exhibit 'intelligent' responsiveness to viewer input" [35].
Jill Scott in her presentation "Future
Bodies" introduced her three-part installation Digital Body-Automata at ZKM
Medienmuseum, in Karlsruhe, Germany(Figs. 10, 11). These works "encourage
intimate and contemplative and interactive participation on the part of theviewer and center around a similar
theme; the exploration of the desire totransform the human body by technology
and the effect technology may have on

Jones, Towards a Philosophy of Virtual Reality131the design of the human body in the future" [36]. Part 1, A FigurativeHistory,isan interactive touch-screen that explores"fantasiesabout the mechanical transformation of the body by technology" [37].
Transformations of "these bodies [are]further extended by the touch of theother viewers in the space, as well as mechanically through the sculptural interfaces" [38]. Part 2, Interskin,is a VR gamein which "playerscan 'go inside' separate
body parts, guided by selected 'avatars'or'agents' . . . one can explore the gender

our involvement in the development ofartificial life forms with consciousnessof their own. We may want to ask ourselves: could it be that our consciousness is for making only our meaning in
the world, imprinting only ourselves on
this vastness, bettering the planet andperhaps space, with only our intelligent
creations? But then what is animal consciousness for? And for that matter,what would robotic consciousness befor? ... How can we hope to understand and develop a positive relationship with beings of our devising if we
understand so little of the incrediblerichness of those beings that alreadyexist and share our conscious and unconscious space here and now? [45]and identity of a second self or otherbody which may reside deep inside theviewer'spersonality"[39]. Part 3, Immortal
I suggest that consciousness is a result
Duality, explores the paradox of science of the self-organizing
capacity of thein molecular transformation from the brain in its milieu: thebody and theearly discoveries of radiation to "the latest world. Cultures supply and inform thedevelopments in DNA manipulation and spectrum of possibilities for how conHuman Genome Mapping" [40]. An in- sciousness isorganized. The production
teractiveautomaton presents "adepiction of artworks
employing some of the feedof ethical issues about anti-aging, cloning back-driven,
autopoietic capabilities thatand reproduction ... and the viewer can we embody offers some leads to the soluinteract with these to compose associa- tion of the problem of a technologicallytions of their own" [41].
determined culture. If this kind of work
can become

IN CONCLUSION
Why are we conscious at all? asks Carol
Gigliotti in her paper "What Is Consciousness For?"Why do we possess thisunique "space in which we spend a major portion of our life?" [42]. Our navigation through our own domestic worlds
as well as our wider social worlds informs
and configures "our involvements with
contemporary interactive technologies"[43]. If we do not ask the basic questions
about why we are conscious, then whatof our productions, cultural and otherwise? "Why construct virtual environments? Why construct artificial life environments? Why do we feel the need tocreate something when we seem to haveso little understanding of why the natural world exists?" [44]. What do we missabout ourselves and our being in theworld if we go straight to the question oftechnological consciousness? Perhaps weshould look critically at why we do thesethings and at the impact they have on
our society and on other non-languagebased conscious entities: animals andother creatures. Gigliotti writes:
If, as I surmise, one purpose of con-sciousness is to help us make our way
throughconstantchange, then we mayneed to better understand the limits
that fear imposes in us in understanding both our own consciousness and

132

or if

complex enough,enough connectivity can be developed
over theamong these works-say,Internet-thenis it possible that the system that thus evolved might in fact beconscious? And if so, what then?

15. Two works that cover dreams and many othermatters in the study of consciousness are BernardJ.
Baars, In the Theaterof Consciousness:TheWorkspaceof
theMind (New York:Oxford Univ. Press, 1997); and
Allen
The
Conscious
States:Hobson,Chemistryof
J.
How the Brain ChangesIts Mind (Boston, MA: Little
Brown & Co., 1994).
16. B. Seaman, "Emergent Constructions: Re-Embodied Intelligence within Recombinant Poetic
Networks," draft of paper for the conference ConsciousnessReframedI, CAiiA, Newport College, University of Wales, August, 1997 (no pagination).
17. Seaman [16] (no pagination).
18. Seaman [16] (no pagination).
19. Seaman [16] (no pagination).
20. This work was also presented at the "Serious
Games: Art. Interaction . Technology" exhibition at
the Barbican Art Gallery, London. See Graham [2].
21.Joseph Nechvatal, "Immersive Implications," inAscott [1] p. 68.
22. Nechvatal [21] p. 68.
23. Nechvatal [21] p. 68.
24. Nechvatal [21] p. 68.
25. Nechvatal [21] p. 68.
26. S. Ackers, "Perception of Individual Time," inAscott [1] p. 2.
27. Nechvatal [21] p. 2.
28. Ackers [26] p. 2.
29. Ackers [26] p. 2.
30. Isabelle Delmotte, Epileptograph:The Internal
Journey, exh. cat. (Sydney, Australia: Artspace,1995). See also the abstract by Isabelle Delmotte in
Ascott [1] p. 29.
31. Delmotte [30].

References

and Notes

1. Roy Ascott, "Preface"in Roy Ascott, ed. Consciousness Reframed:Abstracts (Newport, Wales: CAiiA,
Univ. of Wales College, 1997) p. 1.
2. Beryl Graham, Serious Games:Art . Interaction .
Technology.(exh. cat.) Barbican Art Gallery, London, August-October, 1997.
3. Char Davies, "Techne as Poiesis: Seeking Virtual
Ground," in Ascott [1] p. 28.
4. Margaret Dolinsky, "DreamGrrrls:A World of Virtual Reality,"in Ascott [1] p. 32.

32. Delmotte [30].
33. Pesce [12].
34. Stephen Jones, "A Note on a Possible Physiology of Subjectivity,and Some Comments on What a
Conscious Machine Might Want To Do for Itself,"in Roy Ascott, ed., ConsciousnessReframed:Conference
Proceedings(Newport, Wales: CAiiA, Univ. of Wales
College 1997). See also the abstract by S. Jones in
Ascott [1] p. 49.
35. Seaman [16] (no pagination).
36. Jill Scott, "Future Bodies," in Ascott [1] p. 82.

5. Dolinsky [4] p. 32.

37. Scott [36] p. 82.

6. Kathleen Rogers, "Viperscience," in Ascott [ 1] p.
80.

38. Scott [36] p. 82.

7. Rogers [6] p. 80.
8. Rogers [6] p. 80.
9. Rogers [6] p. 80.
10. Diana Domingues, "The Desert of Passions andthe Technological Soul," in Ascott [1] p. 33.
11. Domingues [10] p. 33.
12. Mark Pesce, "Ritual and the Virtual," in Ascott[1] p. 71.

39. Scott [36] p. 82.
40. Scott [36] p. 82.
41. Scott [36] p. 82.
42. Carol Gigliotti, "WhatIs Consciousness For?"inAscott [1] p. 40.
43. Gigliotti [42] p. 40.
44. Gigliotti [42] p. 40.
45. Carol Gigliotti, "WhatIs Consciousness For?"inAscott [34].

13. Pesce [12] p. 71.
14. A primary work on shamanism is M. Eliade, Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy (London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964).

Jones, Towards a Philosophy of Virtual Reality

Manuscript received 3 November 1997.