Category: Spring 2021

Murray’s chapter on “From Additive to Expressive Form” reminded me of the literature and general content of one of the classes I have taken previously at NYU Gallatin, where we learned about and created our own non-linear storytelling narratives and literature. In particular, the example of Zork was one of the main case studies we have referred to throughout the course. Now, it is exciting to use the same example and compared to VR.

It is quite impressive how this reading holds up to this day despite so may developments to multimedia technologies in these years. The author’s breakdown of digital environments is applicable to VR technologies as well.

The four principle properties in relation to VR:

1. procedural: I think the back-end components of VR are algorithmic and, therefore, procedural. If it is a game environment, the gameplay can have its own procedures and a storyline.
2. participatory: VR is interactive and engaging, even if the participation is passive (if you are just “walking” around the virtual world, you inhibit and explore it, if that makes sense)
3. spatial: I think this one is pretty self-explanatory. VR is quite literally provide an alternate reality/space.
4. encyclopedic: the VR world provides a lot of multimedia information. There is a lot of potential there on how to utilize that media, whether it is image, interaction, animation, sound, etc. , to create a a complex immersive environment and storytelling.

The first 2 properties refer to interactivity and the other two refer to the immersiveness, which I perceive as essential components of a VR experience.

One of the properties that VR represents out of Murray’s four principle properties of digital environments is spatial. Virtual Reality transports one into another world and the most important aspect that makes that world unique is the space. It is space that one creates the environment and the soul of a world. VR relies on the use of space to make those forms of media unique. For example, when you’re consuming any other form of media such as movies or tv shows the space you see is behind a 2D wall whereas with VR the user is experiencing it through first-person view. 

The manipulation of space is used to aid in storytelling through VR. For example, if a user plays through a horror game using virtual reality, the game developers behind that game would use space to their advantage through many ways such as the manipulation of the vastness or the tightness of the world in correspondence to the feeling that the creator wants to portray.