Essay on Virtual Environments
Jorge Gil 13.10.1999
I still find it difficult to address the subject of virtual environments without bringing up a lot of concepts. Firstly because I haven’t developed any of those concepts in a scientific way that allows me to concentrate on just one part in an ordered and well supported way. Much of it is thoughts and beliefs that have come up through time from things I read and experienced, building up a whole understanding of this new reality of the virtual environment and the many different possibilities it offers us architects. Architecture is a subject that already relates to many fields of knowledge, and cyberspace just brings a few more to it. These make us question the most basic certainties about architecture, from the design process to its ultimate stage of its appropriation. Somehow I managed to break my line of thoughts at some points, leaving out another list of concepts and ideas, concentrating on the ones that were more directly in relation to the theme I chose.
When confronted with the question “are virtual buildings, buildings?” I immediately have the need to answer negatively. If we consider the definition of building in the dictionary (“a structure with a roof and walls”) and what people refer to when they talk about buildings, it becomes clear to me that a virtual building should not be a building. That’s because the notion of building relies too much on the physical aspects of structure and construction, on its materials, physical laws, construction rules, all of those used to achieve an optimal result in our physical world. And also because a building is designed for the use of our physical body, having to regard a series of rules related to our physiology and our perception as human beings/bodies. These are the laws that determine the construction of buildings, and a virtual construction doesn’t need to obey to any of these, since it is only to exist in the digital territory of cyberspace. There, a new set of laws applies, so I don’t see how we can call these virtual constructions buildings.
The virtual environment is based on the digital format and has to be designed in accordance to completely new limits, which are somehow parallel to the ones we find on the built environment. There’s the aspect of construction with all its elements, structure and digital laws. And there’s the aspect of human presence, with new ergonomic concepts. Since the drawing by Leonardo da Vinci, showing the human proportions, and the Modulor, by Le Corbusier, are no longer applicable, a new scheme for the relation between this new environment and us must be sought. The mechanisms of perception won’t work in the same way either. For now we could perhaps explore further the mechanisms related to vision and sound, in order to induce illusion to our mind and make them achieve a greater dominance of our cognitive system.
But then again, I can understand why people ask the question “are virtual buildings, buildings?” When we see the first examples of virtual reality, programmed some years ago, we recognise a whole group of elements imported from the physical world. When we look at those “buildings” we can find doors, windows, beams, columns, stairs and all kinds of furniture. As if they had been designed with some kind of functional purpose, most of the times with a conventional coherence also derived from the rules of physical buildings. In fact these elements have no logical reason to exist. They give these virtual realities an enormous sense of surreal, because they purely exist as symbols. People use these symbolic representations because they have a need of recognition when they imagine this new virtual environment. They want to get there and have still a feeling of being at home, in an environment they can control, where they can operate. The doors connect adjacent rooms, the stairs are used to reach a different floor and the windows open to the outside. By using these symbolic elements they are also defining space and establishing spatial relationships. Walls are the limits of inner space, doors separate the outside from the inside, floor and ceiling, or grass and sky, tell us where up and down is. All these symbols are dealing with the concept of “interface”, how people operate in a certain environment, and “space” the organisation of that environment. These are two major concerns of architecture, since architecture is not the built form but is the resulting space, and it is the interface between our activities and us. So, in my opinion the answer to the question “are virtual buildings, buildings?” is: no, but virtual environments can be architecture.
Architecture is about combining elements to create space, in which some human activity will be performed, never forgetting a conceptual idea and an esthetical sense. The architect has a similar role in both environments, since the objectives are similar, the production of space with utility, meaning and beauty. Only the material means used to achieve those objectives are different and some new concepts have to be considered. What forms should we use in these virtual worlds? We have to create a new language, a set of elements, which better reflect the new nature of these virtual worlds. It takes a long time and requires a long experience of such environments until we are able to build our own new lexicon of icons and a new grammar. For now these new constructions can use the existing symbols, either abstract or natural, with the advantage that many of these symbols are universally recognised. Studies of abstract form by Kandinsky, dictionaries of symbols, the work of Christopher Alexander and the studies of linguistics by Umberto Eco. These are some examples of a basis of knowledge capable of giving us elements to help us with the understanding of the language we may use for the construction of this digital world. And if all worlds are symbolic, it will make sense to build for now an iconography on existing symbols. Virtual environments, due to its digital nature, introduce a series of new concepts into the subject of space and interface. Firstly it introduces hyperspace, which breaks the usual linearity of space and time, as it renders us capable of reaching any two points instantly. Things are no longer organised according to measurement systems but to logical systems. Anthropology, and notions of social and personal relations, like the notion of proxemia from Edward T. Hall, will be more important than anthropometry, and the work of Neuffert, the “New Metric Handbook” and similar design reference books. Cyberspace also gives us the possibility of considering an evolutionary environment, which changes with time, according to rules of some genetic material, or from the interference of other environments. And it also happens via another new power – interaction of the user (or all other agents that inhabit these spaces). Despite of some experiments and utopias that tried to implement this in the physical world, cyberspace is where it eventually happens in a much natural way, thanks to the use of artificial life and artificial intelligence So there are three new levels of exploration for the architects: hyperspace, evolution and interaction. They improve and change the potential of space and interface. And rise the possibility of the creation of a new nature, a new world.
Cyberspace and the creation of virtual environments open up the doors for the development of many conceptual projects and for the eventual execution of other utopias in architecture, not only as part of the design process. There is still a lot of work to be done in the areas that are more related to the actual construction of these environments, but they will have nothing to do with “buildings”.
“We are building a new world, and we want to make it right.” – John Perry Barlow
Bibliography
The dictionary: Oxford Advanced learners dictionary.
The rest is not exactly a bibliography of what I consulted or refer to when writing this essay. I simply haven’t consulted anything. I will try to trace back my thoughts and ideas, so that it is just a sort of chronology of things I have read, exhibitions I have been to, or films I have watched that somehow are in my subconscious when I talk about these things. Not a very complete one, though…
…1993 “Neuromancer”, William Gibson “System Shock”, computer game “Doom I & II”, computer game “The hidden dimension”, Edward T. Hall “Social Logic of Space”, Bill Hillier “Lebende Architectur”, (?) “Chaos”, James Gleyck “Cyberspace – zum medialen Gesamtkunstwerk”, Florian Roetzer, ed. Fractint v.18 user manual, fractal images generation software The Internet… Work of Lebbeus Woods “Open Work” (?), Umberto Eco Life ™, MS Windows “game” Work of Archigram
PCMania, (Spanish magazine) Metaformatica section (essays and software) “Strange days”, a movie MSc VE Web Site CECA Web Site “Being digital”, Nicolas Negroponte Cyber 97, Cyber 98 exhibitions in Lisbon “Architects in Cyberspace I, II” AD “Microserfs”, Douglas Coupland “Computer Graphic Topics”, ZGDV publication “1984”, Geroge Orwell “Mondo 2000, A user guide to the new edge”, Rudy Rucker and R. U. Sirius Eliza, AI person “Transformers”, Architecti issue and exhibition (Portuguese magazine) Work of Marcos Novak “Virtual Worlds”, Benjamin Wooley Work of Greg Lynn Rudy Rucker’s cellular automata Web Site “The media is the massage”, Marshal MacLuhan “Digital Mantras”, Steven Holzman Work of Toyo Ito “Ars telematica”, Claudia Gianetti “Existenz”, David Cronenberg Work of Asymptote “The Matrix”, …