The book explores the different speeds of virtual reality in the United States and Japan.

What is virtual reality? Technically, it's a headset-powered system that uses images and sounds to make the user feel like they're somewhere else. But in terms of the content and essence of virtual reality - well, it may depend on where you are.

In the United States, for example, virtual reality (VR) is deeply rooted as a form of military training technology. Later, as it gained more attention in the 1980s and 1990s, it became "techno-utopia," as observed by MIT professor Paul Rockett in a new book on the subject. But in Japan, virtual reality has become increasingly based on "isekai" or "otherworldly" concepts, including scenarios where a VR user enters a portal to another world and finds a way back. happens.

"Part of my goal in bringing out these different senses of virtual reality is that it can mean different things in different parts of the world, and it's changing a lot over time," says Rockett. Is an Associate Professor of Media Studies and Japan. Study in MIT's Comparative Media Studies / Writing Program.

In this way, VR forms a useful case study in the interaction of society and technology, and the way in which innovations can be developed in relation to the cultures that adopt them. Rocket elaborates on these differences in a new book, The Emerging Enclosure: Virtual Reality in Japan, published this week by Columbia University Press.

Different lineage

As Roquet notes in the book, virtual reality has a long line of innovations, similar to military flight simulators of at least the 20th century. The 1960s stereoscopic arcade machine, the Sensorama, is considered the first commercial VR device. In the following decade, computer scientist Evan Sutherland, with MITPHD, developed a major computerized head-mounted display.

In the United States until the 1980s, however, virtual reality, often associated with technologist Jaron Lenier, went in a different direction, casting as a tool of liberation, "what came first More pure ", as Roquet puts it. He adds: "It goes back to the Platonic ideal of the world that can be separated from everyday materialism. And in the popular imagination, VR becomes the place where homosexuality, racism, discrimination and non-existence We can fix things like equality. There's a lot here. Promises made in the American context. "

In Japan, though, VR speeds vary. Partly because Japan's post-war constitution banned most military activity, virtual reality has made great strides in popular forms of entertainment, such as manga, anime, and video games. Roquet believes that its Japanese technical lineage includes the Sony Walkman, which created a private space for media use.

"It's moving in different directions," Rockett said. "Technology is moving away from the kind of military and industrial use that has been promised in the United States."

As Roquet's details in the book, various Japanese phrases for virtual reality reflect it. One term, "bacharu riariti", reflects the more idealistic notion that a virtual space can be a substitute for a real real space. Second, "kaso genjitsu" gives more space to virtual reality as entertainment, where "perception is as important as technology itself."

The actual content of VR entertainment can vary, from multiplayer combat games to other fantasy world activities. As Roquet examines in the book, Japanese virtual reality also has a distinct gender profile: a survey in Japan found that 87% of the users of social virtual reality were men, but 88% of them portrayed female main characters. Were doing, and not necessarily in such circumstances. Empowering women. Thus, men are "everywhere in control, yet nowhere to be seen," writes Rockett, while "secretly rewriting gender norms."

Telecom is a different potential application for virtual reality. As Roquet details, considerable research has been done on the idea of ​​using VR to control robots for use in a variety of settings, from healthcare to industrial work. That's what Japanese tech experts say, says Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, whose company has become the biggest US supporter of virtual reality.

"It's not so much that there is absolute division [between the US and Japan]," says Rocket. Instead, he notes, there is a different emphasis on "what about virtual reality".

Escape cannot escape

Other scholars have praised "The Emerging Enclosure". Eurico Frohta, an associate professor at McGill University, called the book "a refreshing new step on VR as a consumer technology." James J. Hodge, an associate professor at Northwestern University, described the book as "a must-read for scholars of media studies and for general readers who are fascinated by the flawed revolutionary potential of VR."

Ultimately, as Roquet concludes his book, virtual reality still faces significant political, commercial, and social questions. One of them, he writes, "how to imagine a VR future managed by anything other than a small set of corporate landlords and the same old geopolitical struggle." Another, as the book notes, "What does it mean to control one's local awareness for a media interface?"

In either case, it means understanding virtual reality - and technology as a whole - as society takes shape. Virtual reality can often present itself as a form of escape, but there is no escape from the circumstances in which it has been developed and improved.

"You can create a space that is outside of the social world, but it takes a lot of shape from the creator," says Rockett.

This story is republished courtesy of MIT News (web.mit.edu/newsoffice/), a popular site covering news about MIT research, innovation, and teaching.

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