Mystical-Type Experience at The Virtual Reality Interface. Technics, Aesthetics, and Theology in the Search for Cosmic Connection
Iluminace June 1, 2020 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.58193/ilu.1666 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
The article reflects on a quasi-religious or mystical turn in discourse around Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR), observed in tech publications and at a conference workshop called Isness. It questions whether immersive technologies can genuinely foster cosmic or mystical connection or instead undermine authentic mystical experience by rendering the ineffable tangible. The author speculates on the cultural and existential needs these technologies address and the modes of ontological reflection they offer.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | The author questions whether VR and AR enhance or demean authentic mystical experience by attempting to manifest the ineffable. |
Abstract
In recently received event invitations and articles in online tech publications such as Wired, Futurism and The Verge,1) I have noticed an interesting pattern of a kind of “spiritual” attention being paid towards new digital immersive technologies like Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR). I attended one such event (in which an acquaintance, a “ritual designer”, was involved) and my experience there deepened my interest in this field of what I would call quasi-religious, mystical or metaphysical themed experience in mixed reality. It has also raised some questions that I hope to address in this article regarding the specific modes of ontological reflection that technologies such as VR and AR might be capable of offering, and the cultural or existential needs or crises that they seem to address. Moreover, I am led to speculate on the value of such experiences — do new immersive technologies really offer an enhanced interface to sensations of cosmic or mystical connection, or do they, by attempting to manifest what is often understood as essentially ineffable, intangible, and not “actual” in a literal sense, actually in some ways demean the “authentic” mystical experience? Named Isness, the specific experience I had was a communal guided “ritual” experience in VR, presented as a workshop within the biennial “Breaking Convention: Conference of Psychedelic Consciousness” at the University of Greenwich in London in 2019.2) Daniel Strutt (Goldsmiths, University of London)