{"id":1207,"date":"2016-05-24T13:14:18","date_gmt":"2016-05-24T11:14:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/?p=1207"},"modified":"2016-05-24T13:14:18","modified_gmt":"2016-05-24T11:14:18","slug":"patologias-de-la-realidad-virtual-by-teresa-lopez-pellisa-a-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/2016\/05\/24\/patologias-de-la-realidad-virtual-by-teresa-lopez-pellisa-a-review\/","title":{"rendered":"PATOLOG\u00cdAS DE LA REALIDAD VIRTUAL<\/em> BY TERESA L\u00d3PEZ-PELLISA: A REVIEW <\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Patolog\u00edas de la realidad virtual: Cibercultura y ciencia ficci\u00f3n <\/em>(2015, Fondo de Cultura Econ\u00f3mica) by Teresa L\u00f3pez-Pellisa is a necessary book. As Naief Yehya writes in the Prologue, \u201cCada vez es m\u00e1s claro que en nuestro tiempo las relaciones sentimentales con los dispositivos tecnol\u00f3gicos materiales o immateriales han dejado de ser una extra\u00f1a perversi\u00f3n para volverse la nueva normalidad\u201d (12). I\u2019m reproducing these words here on the day when I\u2019m meeting novelist and robotics engineer Carme Torras to start work on the English translation of her novel La mutaci\u00f3 sentimental<\/em>, an excellent SF novel which I have often mentioned here. La mutaci\u00f3 <\/em>deals, precisely, with this \u2018new normality\u2019 and warns us against the absurd sentimental attachment that we\u2019re developing for, in this case, robots. Carme Torras\u2019s novel is set in a near future when robots will be everybody\u2019s domestic companions although the malaise diagnosed in it is by no means fantastic neither futuristic. Sherry Turkle, as I have also commented here, has analyzed brilliantly the strange bonds growing between children and elderly people and their robotic pets and how impossible it is to turn these bonds into something less irrational.<\/p>\n

Teresa L\u00f3pez-Pellisa diagnoses in her book five disorders concerning our relationship with cyberculture: \u201cesquizofrenia nominal\u201d, \u201cmet\u00e1stasis de los simulacros\u201d, \u201cel s\u00edndrome del cuerpo fantasma\u201d, \u201cmisticismo agudo\u201d and \u201cel s\u00edndrome de Pandora\u201d. Before these ailments are described in detail she launches into quite a long digression about the confusing way in which we use the terminology associated with the digital domain. Following the nomenclature developed by Antonio Rodr\u00edguez de las Heras, she proposes that we correct the misuse of \u2018virtual reality\u2019. She asks us to distinguish between \u201cespacio virtual\u201d, \u201cespacio digital\u201d and \u201cespacio real\u201d. \u2018Real space\u2019 is more or less self-explanatory \u2013\u2018more or less\u2019 as the author herself realizes that all kinds of philosophical questions (and the Matrix<\/em> trilogy\u2026) must be left aside to accept that there is indeed a \u2018natural\u2019 space which we tread daily. In contrast, the concepts of \u201cvirtual space\u201d and \u201cdigital space\u201d require some radical reconfiguration of our vocabulary, for de las Heras and L\u00f3pez-Pellisa claim that virtual space is, basically, the product of our imaginative capacities and cognitive system lodged in our brain, whereas digital space is a specific kind of virtual space generated by computers. She also asks us to refine the way we use the very concept of the digital space, distinguishing between cyberspace (i.e. digital space maintained online) and other types of digital space, not necessarily online. This reconceptualization is certainly appealing as it reminds us that our brain is a potent generator of virtual domains, both when we\u2019re awake and, most particularly I would add, when we sleep. Yet, after three decades of using \u2018virtual reality\u2019 to actually mean \u2018digital space\u2019 it is unlikely that the vocabulary can be corrected in the short or the long term. Likewise, unless I am wrong, few digital spaces are off-line in this voraciously interconnective online world for which no digital device is off-limits.<\/p>\n

The first section of the volume offers not only a (re)definition of virtual reality along the lines I have mentioned but also an extensive genealogy, which invites us to consider the predecessors of the 20th century technologies leading to the computer and the digital space. Beginning with Plato\u2019s cave, L\u00f3pez-Pellisa includes in her historical overview the invention of pictorial perspective, the diverse automata, and the many visual spectacles developed in the 19th century, including cinema. Her survey of the 20th century runs from Vannevar Bush\u2019s Memex machine (1945) \u2013the PC\u2019s greatest ancestor\u2013 to augmented reality, passing through William Gibson\u2019s Neuromancer<\/em>, the SF classic that made the words \u2018cyberpunk\u2019 and \u2018cyberspace\u2019 popular all over the world in the 1980s. The impression the reader gets reading this well-informed segment is that all the names, dates and data that L\u00f3pez-Pellisa contributes should be part of our general culture. They\u2019re not. Alexander Graham Bell or Guglielmo Marconi are household names but Vannevar Bush is not \u2013much less Jaron Lanier, to whom we owe the very concept of \u2018virtual reality\u2019.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of the second part of the volume, which describes the five pathologies previously named, L\u00f3pez-Pellisa declares unambiguously that she considers virtual reality a sick patient, though by no means a terminal one. It is her purpose, she states, to classify the diverse ailments and to make the reader aware of their existence rather than offer or demand a \u2018cure\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018Semantic schizophrenia\u2019, the first syndrome analyzed, refers to the imprecise, ambiguous way in which we use the vocabulary connected with computers. L\u00f3pez-Pellisa expands in this segment on the basic warning against the misuse of the computer-related semantic field of the volume\u2019s first part, albeit also in other directions. Thus, she refers to \u2018Don Quijote\u2019s syndrome\u2019 (her own label) as the condition preventing the compulsive visitor to the diverse digital spaces from disconnecting. She does not mean that individuals no longer recognize the difference between reality and fantasy but that they choose digital virtuality as a refuge from reality \u2013which offers incidentally an interesting re-reading of Alonso Quijano\u2019s madness. The author also gently reminds us that \u2018virtual reality\u2019 does exist, if only as software in very real computers without which it would not survive. <\/p>\n

The second syndrome, or ailment, diagnosed is the \u2018metastasis of the simulacra\u2019, a certainly unnerving terminology used to name the condition of those fictional texts which not only offer \u201cdistintos niveles de virtualizaci\u00f3n al generar diversos entornos virtuales en el texto, sino que adem\u00e1s nos proponen mundos artificiales digitales en el marco del espacio virtual del texto literario, con realidades virtuales que configuran el discurso metadiag\u00e9tico en el texto\u201d (105). The main characters, whether they are the protagonists of a story by Bioy Casares or Neo in Matrix<\/em>, are disconcerted by the discovery that reality is unstable and entering metastasis with a cannibalistic alternative virtual domain. The list of examples that L\u00f3pez-Pellisa explores is quite impressive and has the great virtue of mixing Spanish-language and anglophone texts, with examples from other languages, which is not that usual. In the case of this syndrome the author warns that although we are very far from being console cowboys needing a daily fix of cyberspace surfing, like Case in Neuromancer<\/em>, there\u2019s no need to fetishize Reality, with a capital R.<\/p>\n

The \u2018phantom body syndrome\u2019 criticizes the radical transhuman aspiration to disconnect body and mind, supported by their claim that the organic human body can be replaced by computer hardware and also that the mind is akin to software. Following lines of thought that transhumanists call \u2018bioconservative\u2019 but that those concerned prefer to \u2018moderate posthumanism\u2019, L\u00f3pez-Pellisa accepts our cyborg nature \u2013already proclaimed by Donna Haraway in 1985: \u201cSomos transhumanos ciborgianos y ciudadanos de un futuro en el que la convivencia entre lo natural y lo artificial estar\u00e1 tan normalizada que dejaremos de emplear estos t\u00e9rminos como algo dicot\u00f3mico\u201d (137). She is, however, extremely critical of the radical transhumanist (or extropian) assault on the body: \u201cMe resisto ante la afirmaci\u00f3n de que el cuerpo est\u00e1 obsoleto, ya que supondr\u00eda asumir la propia obsolescencia del cuerpo humano y aceptar que si el cuerpo desaparece, nos extinguiremos\u201d (165). The fourth syndrome, \u2018acute mysticism\u2019 connects with the third one, as it merges the disembodied ideal of radical transhumanism with nebulous notions of what constitutes the soul and with a selfish longing for immortality. L\u00f3pez-Pellisa does not hesitate to call this cultural disorder dangerously irrational and, hence, as damaging as a virus.<\/p>\n

Finally, the section devoted to the \u2018Pandora syndrome\u2019 is, no doubt, the best one in the volume. Here the author\u2019s own voice is most clearly heard for \u2013and this is really the only major objection to be made\u2013 in the rest of the book her argumentation is overwhelmed by a constant barrage of citations. This is habitual in PhD dissertations and it is indeed the case that Patolog\u00edas de la realidad virtual is derived from L\u00f3pez-Pellisa\u2019s own thesis. Yet, the heavy weight of the quotations is also to be blamed on the Spanish academic tradition, which still mistrusts the argumentative essay and in which authority is built on the basis of humbly accepting one\u2019s low position in the hierarchy of the many predecessors. <\/p>\n

In this segment, in contrast, the author uses her predecessors in the field to reinforce a strong feminist voice, which is very critical of men\u2019s fantasies of female exploitation, centred on the figure of the artificial woman. The originality of her approach is that she rejects Galatea to focus on Pandora, for whereas Pygmalion lives happily with his statue turned into a compliant flesh-and-blood wife by no other than Venus, the male protagonists of the stories analyzed in this segment come to a bitter end when they try to control their rebellious Pandoras. The gamut runs from the classic tale by E.T.A. Hoffman, \u201cThe Sandman\u201d (1817) to Craig Gillespie\u2019s film Lars and the Real Girl<\/em> (2007) among many other examples focusing on ginoids, \u201cmaquinif\u00e9minas\u201d and virtual women. A controversial point which L\u00f3pez-Pellisa raises is that even though all these stories present dehumanized women, they actually reflect men\u2019s dehumanization and inability to deal with actual human peers. Misogyny, in short, backlashes to destroy its defenders.<\/p>\n

To sum up, then, this is an absolutely recommended volume which contains in just 280 pages plenty of food for thought. Of a very necessary kind.<\/p>\n

Comments are very welcome! (Thanks!) Just remember that I check them for spam; it might take a few days for yours to be available. Follow on Twitter the blog updates: @SaraMartinUAB. You may download the yearly volumes from http:\/\/ddd.uab.cat\/record\/116328. See my publications and activities on my personal web http:\/\/gent.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Patolog\u00edas de la realidad virtual: Cibercultura y ciencia ficci\u00f3n (2015, Fondo de Cultura Econ\u00f3mica) by Teresa L\u00f3pez-Pellisa is a necessary book. As Naief Yehya writes in the Prologue, \u201cCada vez es m\u00e1s claro que en nuestro tiempo las relaciones sentimentales con los dispositivos tecnol\u00f3gicos materiales o immateriales han dejado de ser una extra\u00f1a perversi\u00f3n para […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cultural-studies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}