Art in Virtual Space', the title of forthcoming events - certainly has more sex appeal when it comes to the genre of art to be demonstrated and discussed than the more
accurate designation of interactive media art or intermedia art.
To avoid any possible misunderstandings, it should perhaps be pointed out here that, while many media art works involve the use of techniques which are also employed for virtual reality (VR), a work is by no means VR art just because it uses a position sensor or 3D software. Let’s try and clarify first what is meant by the term ‘virtual space’. Virtual means ‘effectively in existence’. Strictly speaking, then, a thriller or a film both constitute a virtual space. Nowadays, virtual has taken on almost hype character. Will everything soon be ‘virtual’? One of the original definitions of VR implied that the user space was completely surrounded by virtual space. This was called immersion. Only then was it possible to talk of VR. What used to be a straightforward computer game, however, has now become VR and a simple point-of-sale terminal is a ‘virtual salesperson’.