Product details:
| ISBN13: | 9781478030232 |
| ISBN10: | 1478030232 |
| Binding: | Paperback |
| No. of pages: | 312 pages |
| Size: | 229x152 mm |
| Weight: | 499 g |
| Language: | English |
| Illustrations: | 22 illustrations |
| 679 |
Category:
In the Land of the Unreal
Virtual and Other Realities in Los Angeles
Publisher: Duke University Press Books
Date of Publication: 16 February 2024
Number of Volumes: Trade Paperback
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Short description:
MeToo, the backlash against Silicon Valley, and the turmoil of the Trump administration, it was imagined that VR—if led by women and other marginalized voices—could bring about a better world. Messeri delves into the fantasies that allowed this vision to flourish, exposing the paradox of attempting to use a singular VR experience to mend a fractured reality full of multiple, conflicting social truths. She theorizes this dynamic as unreal, noting how dreams of empathy collide with reality’s irreducibility to a “common” good. With In the Land of the Unreal, Messeri navigates the intersection of place, technology, and social change to show that technology alone cannot upend systemic forces attached to gender and race.
Long description:
In the mid-2010s, a passionate community of Los Angeles-based storytellers, media artists, and tech innovators formed around virtual reality (VR), believing that it could remedy society’s ills. Lisa Messeri offers an ethnographic exploration of this community, which conceptualized VR as an “empathy machine” that could provide glimpses into diverse social realities. She outlines how, in the aftermath of
Acknowledgments ix
Prologue xiii
Introduction: Fantasy and Technology 1
Part I. Fantasy of Place 27
1. Desert of the Unreal: Histories, Futures, and Industries of Reality Repair 31
2. Realities Otherwise: Understanding VR by Experiencing LA 51
3. Tinseltown and Technology: Producing Virtual Reality in the Dream Factory 75
Part II. Fantasy of Being 101
4. Being and the Other: Dismantling the Façade of the Empathy Machine 105
5. Special Affect: An Empathy Machine Otherwise 133
Part III. Fantasy of Representation 155
6. VR's Feminine Mystique: A Technology of the
Acknowledgments ix
Prologue xiii
Introduction: Fantasy and Technology 1
Part I. Fantasy of Place 27
1. Desert of the Unreal: Histories, Futures, and Industries of Reality Repair 31
2. Realities Otherwise: Understanding VR by Experiencing LA 51
3. Tinseltown and Technology: Producing Virtual Reality in the Dream Factory 75
Part II. Fantasy of Being 101
4. Being and the Other: Dismantling the Façade of the Empathy Machine 105
5. Special Affect: An Empathy Machine Otherwise 133
Part III. Fantasy of Representation 155
6. VR's Feminine Mystique: A Technology of the
Table of Contents:
Lisa Messeri offers an ethnographic exploration of a contemporary community of Los Angeles-based storytellers, media artists, and tech innovators formed around virtual reality, believing that it could remedy society’s ills.
