07-vr

[reconjohn]

What is post-phenomenology? First, phenomenology is the science of phenomena in consciousness and the objects who experience the world. For instance, phenomenology sees knowledge comes from our own point of view. Limits of positivism after the second world war led to post-positivism and revisit phenomenology. The limits of anthropocentrism featuring the analytic centrality of the human experience of life-worlds brought about post-phenomenology by taking in the inhuman and the nonhuman (Lea, 2020). This is because the subjectivism of phenomenology was criticized by the positivism worldview. Moreover, Ihde's pragmatic approach to phenomenology enabled the operative use of philosophy in a social context.

The emergence of post-phenomenology occurred due to the changing nature of the world by developed digital technologies and media that are shaping social lives, individual behaviors, and broader cultural understandings (Lea, 2020). Ihde conceptualized the changing nature of the world with cyberspace and technoscience. Furthermore, human-agent can physically explore cyberspace through a virtual reality where the agent can perceive the space where it feels to be located with motor control and body ownership or senses of embodiment (SOE). To this end, Kilteni and Slater (2012) categorized SOE in virtual reality - the sense of self-location, agency, and body ownership.

However, the more enhancement of technologies, the more undesirable outcomes may occur. For example, Munafo and Stoffregen (2017) experimented with motion sickness using contemporary head-mounted display systems and concluded that the systems had a risk of motion sickness and unevenly affected men and women, more critical to women. The authors suggested design considering influencing users' ability to stabilize their own bodies. Likewise, we need to consider the side effect of the technologies on human while technology enhanced our view of the world and truth by offering the mediation between subject and object or human and world.

[jennylee719]

Think piece 0517 Jenny Lee

Post-phenomenology departs from the human centered understanding of experience as fixed to the corporeal and approaches experience “is a creative force distributed across bodies and worlds; all manner of ‘things’ matter here, having performative and constitutive force” (p. 334). According to this view, humans are intersubjective beings whose experiences are not unilateral and direct, but are mediated by their respective environments. Also significantly, post-phenomenology direct attention to the passivity of human experience, with the world “positioned as central to the shaping and making of the human” (Lee, p. 336). While this approach seeks to account for the context of human experience, it does not permit much space for human agency. Although humans’ experience is mediated by their surroundings, the way humans make meaning in relation to their environment can provide us with valuable information about the social world. I wonder how post-phenomenology approaches social construction of meaning made at the intersection of the human and society. Kilteni et al. (2012) seem to build on the post-phenomenological view – the constitutive experience of the human and the world through virtual reality. Kilteni et al, (2012) focus on how people can feel a sense of embodiment utilizing virtual reality technologies. They discuss ways virtual reality technologies can enhance a sense of embodiment, mainly the sense of self location, sense of agency, and sense of body ownership people feel towards an artificial body. Similar to the post-phenomenological view of human experience, this article is focused on the technologically induced embodiment of the self. This made me curious about why it is important to be able to enhance human’s self-embodiment through these technologies. How do these conceptual refinements help us understanding the human – world experience? What kind of knowledge can be accumulated with a post-phenomenological approach? For instance, the focus on the technology as mediation as evidenced by Munafo and Stoffregen (2016) study seems to be limiting in understanding humans’ experience negotiating with different social structures and context. For instance, the authors argue that Oculus Rift is “sexist in its effects” due to the disparate effects they have on women and men, but its effects do not necessarily “implicate the intentions of its designers” (2017). By focusing exclusively on the technology as determining human experience, the authors are unable to shed light on the politics of design. Considering the fact that uneven side effects by gender is already widely known in the discipline, the failure to implement these observations into design is telling of who tech companies and designers envision as their default users. It can be said that it is this indifference that is sexist, reflecting dominant social structures, rather than the effects of this indifference and complacency. In this aspect, post-phenomenology may not be best suited to understand how structures affect design and the experience of human.

[shuangw1]

The first reading leads us to revisit the idea of “post-phenomenology”. Lea (2020) stated what makes “post-phenomenology” distinctive is that “it rejects the analytical centrality of human experience” and it is “a move toward an understanding of the world that is composed (and decomposed) via affective forces and atmospheres, in which notions of the individual agency have little leverage.” Post-phenomenology is one expression of human geography to “post-structuralism”, where it “turn away from the spatial scientific focus that predominated in geography, and to ‘get back to the human experience”. As referring to this concept with the concept we read before about space and place, Lea summarized that “in brief, phenomenology offered a vehicle to take note of (human) experience, the impact of sensation through the flesh of the body, and the ways in which this experience is constituted by, and of, place.” It again emphasizes the context-based idea and refuses the idea of treating humans as total objective agents. The second article by Kilteni (2012) has discussed a working definition for SoE (sense of embodiment) by relating it to the normal embodiment we experience toward our biological body. SoE composed of three sub-components: the sense of self-location, sense of agency, and sense of body ownership. The authors cited one famous experiment, the “rubber hand” example to illustrate this idea. They summarized some measures of those sub-categories and made suggestions for new possible measures. The article identified several new challenges – for example, they will have different weights; or they may have interconnected effects. The article’s conclusion is a little vague because I think it is a new field and still under discovery. The same problem I found with the third article (Munafo, 2017). I personally owned an Oculus, and I played some VR games. I totally agree with what the article has explored – I always have motion sickness while using this, so I normally play 15 min and I need to stop. My male friends, however, don’t have that many symptoms. I don’t find a problem with the conclusions with the article, but I am not sure how it related to the two articles we read before and how it relates to the bigger picture of “place and space” or post-phenological studies. Also, if it is more harmful to women, even the manufacturers have made a lot of adjustments, what else can they do if we find this phenomenon? I guess one suggestion the author made is to put gender-differentiated user testing and design while selling those devices.

[stevenBXQ]

Steven Bao 05/17

While Don Ihde offered the Mediation Theory, which comprises four relations – embodiment relations, hermeneutic relations, alterity relations, and background relations, I find it hard to say that Virtual Reality (VR) belongs to any of those relations. Some people regard it as having an embodiment relation, as human beings use VR devices to experience the world. However, this “world” is “virtual.” The “world” that one experiences through using a VR headset could be a remote but objectively existing location, yet it could also be entirely imaginary. This fundamentally different, imagined world distinguishes VR from other types of technologies. Instead of serving only as a “mediator” of our physical world, VR is (or will be) able to create a “parallel universe” for us.

As a result, the virtual world created by VR complicates the study of human experiences. A “world” in VR does not exist by nature – it is created by another human or group of humans. This means that the objects in this alternative world and even the world itself could be either deliberately or indeliberately manipulated by others. If the objects that we gain experiences from were manipulated, how should we study such human experiences that are the result of other people’s experiences/manipulations, especially when we reach the stage where the world in VR becomes the world we live in, as depicted in many sci-fi movies? Is it ethical to do so?

From a more practical perspective, the experiment by Munafo et al. (2017) with the Oculus Rift VR headset again verifies the claim that technologies are political (Winner, 2007), even though such politicalness could be unintended. Yet, there is a more evident and urgent political issue related to technology: the digital divide. Currently, VR devices are usually expensive. Even if VR is popularized, there will still be different “tiers” of VR devices, similar to the Internet access and smartphones we use nowadays. Some of us may experience an ideal alternative reality, while others may only be able to watch low framerate 360-degree videos. These inherent biases within technology, whether intended or unintended, will produce influences on society.

References: Munafo J, Diedrick M and Stoffregen TA (2017) The virtual reality head-mounted display Oculus Rift induces motion sickness and is sexist in its effects. Experimental Brain Research 235(3): 889–901. DOI: 10.1007/s00221-016-4846-7. Winner, Langdon, 2007. Do Artifacts Have Politics? In Computer Ethics. Routledge, pp. 177–192

[larissa-soc]

Throughout the course we have come to recognize that the way we define things has real consequences on how we engage with the world; as technology continues to progress, so too do their implications. The topic of virtual reality brought me back to our reading from week 1 from Verbeek, explaining the categories of technology and their phenomenological function. The embodied relationship between humans and tech was “human beings take technological artifacts into their experiencing, and thereby broaden the area of sensitivity of their bodies to the world” (Verbeek, pg. 126). Don Ihde's definition may work for glasses, but VR technology seems to take embodiment to a new level. Kilteni et al (2012) offer the following definition of embodiment “[Sense of Embodiment] toward a body B is the sense that emerges when B’s properties are processed as if they were the properties of one’s own biological body. (Definition: D)”(Kilteni et al., p. 375). Where Ihde discusses taking the technology into the experience, Kilteni discusses the perception of accepting the technology as part of yourself. From a philosophical point of view, that is a big difference. Essentially, a sense of embodiment is produced by an interaction between the ability to self-location, feel that you own your body, and to feel that you control that body (pp.375-377). We may take glasses into our experience, but we do not feel as though we have agency over their function. By further closing the phenomenological gap between humans and technology, the components of our psyche that produce a sense of embodiment are even closer to the technology. Understanding that technology is not passive is essential for our path forward in VR. In a post truth world, how are we going to conceptualize Reality versus Virtual reality… is there such a distinction? If embodiment and sense of self become more intensely subjective, then how is our relationship to truth going to change? Lastly, a key question for any technological development or implementation is “who is making it and why?” Millions of people have collectively contributed to the production of VR systems, but Munafo (2017) digs deeper in to the fact that women experience motion sickness from engaging with VR at a higher rate than men. While I doubt this was intentional or something anyone could foresee, it brings us back to the implications of technology. If it is more difficult for women to access this technology, then who is implicitly being at least partially excluded from helping mold the trajectory of this technology? If women are less involved, what does it mean for the trajectory of VR in our world?

Sources: • Kilteni, K., Groten, R. and Slater, M., 2012. The sense of embodiment in virtual reality. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 21(4), pp.373-387. • Munafo, J., Diedrick, M. and Stoffregen, T.A., 2017. The virtual reality head-mounted display Oculus Rift induces motion sickness and is sexist in its effects. Experimental brain research, 235(3), pp.889-901. Verbeek, P.P., 2001. Don Ihde: The Technological Lifeworld. In American Philosophy of Technology: The Empirical Turn. (pp. 119-146). Indiana University Press.

[nvwynn]

Lea’s paper this week did for me what Agnew’s place and space paper did: it provided a review of some theoretical frameworks and foundational concepts in geography. (Lea, 2020) Then, reading Lea’s article with Kilteni’s was an interesting shift: from a very (for me) esoteric discussion centered on phenomenological and post-phenomenological thought, to how some of these concepts, like embodiment, can shape shift (to Sense of Embodiment in this case) and become essential to our understanding of how VR interacts with our minds and bodies. One theme that struck me (again) is this idea of our human experience as constantly mediated. Kilteni poses what they characterize as a cognitive science-based question of how we experience our body when we are always interacting with our environment. (p.373) which relates to Kullman and Ihde’s post-phenomenological question—which is almost the inverse of Kilteni’s—of how we experience our environment when we are always doing so through mediation. It would seem that no matter the lens through which we view mediation it is always layered and refracted, and sometimes—as with the Rubber Hand Illusion—in very surprising ways. Another idea that particularly drew me in, was the thinking of Ash and Stiegler that conceptualizes objects as exceeding human experience, of objects as having a “meaningful existence outside of their human uses.” (Lea, 2020) It would be interesting to think through their ideas through a lens of either Marxist commodity fetishism, with a focus on the social relations that go into the transition of object to commodity or anthropologic fetishism, which ascribes other-worldly properties to objects. It does seem though, that many of the (exciting) post-phenomenological methodologies, like Gallagher, Kanngieser, and Prior’s work on the value of sonic methods and whole-body sensing” as articulated by Hawkins and Straughan, do not give enough credit to indigenous thinking and theories. For example, I recently came across a discussion on the interiority of stones (Lewis et al. 2020) in the context of AI. This prompted me to rethink the materiality of some components that make up some of the "stuff" that we think of as technical, specifically quartz and silicon. Quartz is one part silicon and two parts oxygen. Silicon is made from the reaction of carbon materials with silica, which has an evolutionary history enmeshed with plants. Recognition of the genealogy of these minerals, coupled with the Cree perspective of animation as a flexible state, is another interesting lens that can push us outside of ourselves.

[gracejia513]

The topic of virtual reality (VR) is an excellent example of the technological artifacts in the first week. Humans can immerse and position themselves in the space surrounding themselves through virtual reality devices. The VR experience can be (in my interpretation) foreign and acceptable in that the technology triggers our senses in unprecedented ways and yet is familiar enough, as part of yourself, to be accepted. Kiltni et al. proposed the sense of embodiment framework that one experiences the sense of embodiment (SoE) towards a body B if one feels self-located inside B, feels to be an agent of B, and feels B as one’s own body. Kiltni argues there has been little evidence of which of the three components dominates over the rest of the two. It might be possible that the answer is context-specific: under what conditions are humans developing the sense of embodiment. Munafo studied the risk of motion sickness arising from head-mounted display systems such as Oculus Rift, a virtual reality device for games. In Munafo’s experiment, participants were instructed to terminate their interaction with VR devices if they developed motion sickness and experienced discomfort. Motion sickness is an example of the bottom-up influences in the sense of body ownership where the afferent sensory information arrives at the brain from sensory organs. When feeling motion sickness, the participant’s sense of boy ownership is disturbed, and they no longer embodies with the VR interactions. About enhancing SoE through the sense of body ownership, there have been many efforts to perfect users' experience, such as 4D movies and video games that vibrate when the target is hit.

Personally, I appreciate the discussion from Munafo on the risk of motion sickness can be greater for women than for men when using head-mounted display systems. Besides gender, the user's age could potentially affect the risk of motion sickness. And the designer needs to consider these disparities and offer different gaming modes to accommodate them. An unfortunate example is that vehicle crash-test dummies have been based on the average male body built and putting others at risk.

References: Kilteni, K., Groten, R., & Slater, M. (2013). The Sense of embodiment in virtual reality. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 22(1), 373–387. Munafo, J., Diedrick, M., & Stoffregen, T. A. (2017). The virtual reality head-mounted display Oculus Rift induces motion sickness and is sexist in its effects. Experimental Brain Research, 235(3), 889–901. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00221-016-4846-7

[JerryLiu-96]

(Kilteni et al., 2013) addressed Sense of Embodiment, and discussed relations between three critical components: sense of self-location, sense of agency, and sense of body ownership. If I were to experiment with VR-based disaster education in my future research, for instance, using VR technologies to conduct tsunami evacuation drills, I can refer to their articles for tips on evaluating the quality of my VR platform.

(Munafo et al., 2017) addressed the problem of VR-induced motion sickness. I have never tried VR goggles, thus I am a little bit surprised to find that the VR can also induce motion sickness like vehicles. I am also surprised to find that women are more susceptible than men. I am more than interested to see VR-induced motion sickness among school children, because if I were to use VR for evacuation drill, it will happen in a junior school.

(Lea, 2020) discussed post-phenomenology and post-phenomenological geography. phenomenological geography focuses on how humans respond to things, human is the obvious starting point for study. in other words, phenomenological geography is highly subjective. Some theorists criticize it as not offering resources to deal with occurrence of societal change. Phenomenological geography reminds of a school of thought which stands on the opposite side: geographical determinism. However, geographical determinism is criticized as a reductionism and cannot explain outliers. As a result, later, theorists combined geographical determinism with possibilism, however, this is still not perfect. The problem with geographical determinism is being too objective and ignored the value of humans, on the other hand, phenomenological geography is too subjective and ignores the value of objects. Post-phenomenological geography tends to elevate the status of objects. Subject doesn't exist on its own, rather, it exists in relation with something else, being is always being-with. Post-phenomenological geography accounts for technologies, but I think it can also rethink the role of geographical determinism.

[Jxdaydayup]

Lea’s piece (2020) is the one that helps me gain a more holistic understanding of post phenomenology, although I have read a few relevant pieces before. I realize that different kinds of phenomenologists weigh individual experiences so differently. While transcendental phenomenologists value a universal source of all experience, constitutive phenomenologists focus more on the role of society in shaping world views and meanings, and existential phenomenologists reject the universal form of experience and highlight the importance of the particularity of experience. Constitutive phenomenologies and especially existential phenomenologies are of great significance to my research, serving as important philosophical and theoretical guidance. Importantly, this piece also makes me realize that my current research methodologies are highly aligned with post-phenomenological methodologies, which value the role of technologies and their active role in constituting individual experiences. Recording visual aspects of movement and internal experiences of the body moving is exactly one of the typical examples of post-phenomenological methodologies. This method has the advantage of overcoming the subjectivism of phenomenological research. I was confused before that my research methodologies neither fully fall into positivism nor realism. Maybe they are more related to post phenomenology. At this point I am not sure about the extent to which my research methodologies fall into realism, but both post phenomenology and realism are important for my research.

Through Kilteni’s piece (2012), it’s interesting to know there are three subcomponents that make up the sense of embodiment, and the notion of the sense of self-location does not refer to the spatial experience of being inside an environment. However, measuring the sense of embodiment in virtual reality may be like measuring the sense of virtual place, as visual, audio, and/or other stimuli in the virtual environment incur one’s sense of embodiment. It’s also interesting to know that sex differences in the postural sway are precursors of sex differences in susceptibility to motion sickness (Munafo, 2017). If influencing factors alike can be controlled in virtual reality environments, experiment results will be less susceptible to sex differences and tend to be more reliable. Moreover, they can give guidance to the improvement of virtual reality techniques if influencing factors are embedded in their design.

[S-Arnone]

This week's readings were certainly the most emotionally impactful of our material this week: reading through them made me at times feel physically revolted, enraged, and horrified. Beginning with Lea's "Post-Phenomenology/Post-Phenomenal Geography", I should note that I was quite taken with her review and explanation. Where things turned sour for me was in thinking on the idea that from the post-phenomenological perspective, "the world is positioned as central to the shaping and making of the human." (Lea 2020, 336) Extrapolating this concept to the creation of virtual worlds it appeared interesting to me that the development of VR geographies not only fleshes out a world and the objects within it, but creates new modes of subjectivity that would otherwise be impossible. The design of such a world embeds new natural laws that the embodied subject comes to interact with as a means to understanding themselves and the world around them through relation. Complexity of course arises when one considers the ability of a subject to 'change' their world and the relations within it - but such a subject regardless seems to have little agency or potential compared to those who act as god in the creation of a new world.

These new worlds, created frontiers, they are precisely what arouse hostility in my every thought, because they are not dreams or possibilities - they are, in my view, horrors which are already in construction. Possibly first among these appears to be the concept of a 'metaverse', touted as a means by which to escape our own world and find solace in another, these constructions instead appear to ensnare us. Consider, for a moment, the truly dystopian consequences of embedding our own cultural horizons as natural laws within new frontiers which are advertised like new opiates. Our previous discussions of technological bias seem mundane in comparison; as our own world exists as a similarly abundant space, but one which is capable of hosting new ways of organizing and relating subjects and objects with relative ease. The same bounded space may contain remnants from previous eras marked by the absence of human life, hunter-gatherer societies, etc. and maintains the potential to continue developing with the subjects and objects which lie in and around it. Yes, technologies developed between periods may show a kind of 'efficiency bias' whereby, for example, the development of economies at scale birth fascistic nightmares. But note that the creation of a new world within the context of our own is not akin to a deistic phenomenon - where an omnipotent and all powerful god creates the world only to leave it be - instead we are creating a god whose commandments are tantamount to subservience and whose will can be enforced through the moderation of our every deed (and possibly emotion, noting efforts to produce brain monitoring VR capabilities). We are creating a god who hates our very nature as flexible beings capable of difference - a way of being which is in complete contradiction with its will to halt the forces of history and preserve the hell of modernity.

But, you might object, these things are optional! If one feels put off by their development one's absence from their use will be entirely possible. Are you sure? Consider, again, the carceral implications of VR technologies and metaverses - note, for instance, Kilteni et al.'s reference to the fact that "if one feels embodied within a virtual reality, insults or praise regarding this body, referring to properties that would not be true for the biological body, should cause emotional arousal." (Kilteni 2012, 382) Given the horrors which we, as a species, already tacitly accept (taking solace, for instance, in the fact that 'there is nothing we can do') is it truly so outrageous to think that even so-called "democracies" would look to VR as a means to legally torture and torment human beings with the accepted justification of penal "justice"? The Electronic Frontier Foundation has already reported on the development of VR software to facilitate limiting the mobility of prisoners, extracting increased amounts of money from visitational interaction, and increasing the capacity of guards to monitor prisoners - essentially embedding the panopticon within one's own sense of embodiment (https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/09/prison-surveillance-catalog-prison-gaming-and-arvr-services). We might have some superficial 'choice' in rejecting VR now, but will others? Will prisoners? Will our descendants, who are raised within a dominant culture (which is already acceptant of horrors) embracing VR and created worlds?

Truly, I think we should be terrified, and that at the very least technological reformism should be rejected as dangerous naiveté.

[skytruine]

Although I read all three papers, I want to only focus on phenomenology and postphenomenology in this thinking piece.

Traditionally, philosophy contains four basic fields: ontology, epistemology, logic, and ethics. Ontology cares about beings or their being (what is); Epistemology is the study of knowledge (how we know); Logic is the study of valid reasoning (how to reason); Ethics is the study of right and wrong (how should we act). To some extent, phenomenology extent the list, it cares about how we experience. In my understanding, phenomenology is the study of phenomena: literally, appearances as opposed to reality, or we can understand it as experience or perception - the projection of things into consciousness.

If we consider phenomenology as a basic field of philosophy, postphenomenology is also phenomenology instead of anti-phenomenology. Under the broad idea of phenomenology which cares about the experience, transcendental phenomenologists (Husserl) value a universal structure of all experience, constitutive phenomenologists (Schutz) focus on who society is shaping experience, existential phenomenologists (Merleau/Ponty) highlight the importance of the particularity of experience, postphenomenology or we can call it technology phenomenology extent human-centric experience to trans-human experience focus on the relationship between human beings and technology (Ihde).

The theoritical foundation of humanistic GIS embeds postphenomenology to some extent. When it comes to my own study, I currently understand untrustworthy satellite imagery from correspondence, communication, and social construction perspectives. Postphenomenology may be a different but insightful perspective to understand satellite imagery trustworthiness. However, I need to point out that postphenomenology is not a simple area, a deep understanding of it needs a long time of philosophical reading and training. In the near future, I will re-read “ post-phenomenology/post-phenomenological Geogrpahy” and summarize related concepts and theories like how I clarify the related concepts and theories of truth-misinformation.

Lea, J. 2020. Post-Phenomenology/Post-Phenomenological Geography. International Encyclopedia of Human Geography 2nd edition, 10: 333-338 Kilteni, K., Groten, R. and Slater, M., 2012. The sense of embodiment in virtual reality. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 21(4), pp.373-387. Munafo, J., Diedrick, M. and Stoffregen, T.A., 2017. The virtual reality head-mounted display Oculus Rift induces motion sickness and is sexist in its effects. Experimental brain research, 235(3), pp.889-901.

[cpuentes12]

"The Sense of Embodiment in Virtual Reality" explores the concept of embodiment and its relation to virtual reality experiences. Because VR technologies can create a sense of presence and immersion, users can feel as if they are physically present in a virtual environment and thus traditional definitions of embodiment that only include the biological body are limited. The authors examine the various factors that contribute to the sense of embodiment in VR, including senses of self-location, agency, and body ownership, and explore how the integration of these sensory inputs can create a cohesive and convincing experience, leading to a stronger feeling of being "embodied" within the virtual world. I found the discussion of concepts like body, the "self", experience, sensation, and reality interesting and extremely complex. This is not a topic I've thought much about, and am left with much food for thought.

Lea's paper deepens these questions about trans-human experiences by reviewing the state of post-phenomenological geographies, which are interested in how objects mediate experience to understand the complexities of what is involved in human action. As Lea writes, "[t]here is, then, cultural, economic, and social value in acknowledging and understanding this mediation. Examples of this include geographies of design playing a very significant part in the mediation of experience and in enabling inclusion of a wider variety of bodies in the world; and in tracing the complex engagements with interfaces that have strong agency in shaping experiences of personal debt and social media" (Lea).

While Munafo, Diedrich, and Stoffregen's "The virtual reality head-mounted display Oculus Rift induces motion sickness and is sexist in its effects" was structured as a classic scientific experiment paper and read as dry, the research questions behind the study described as well as the results were rather fascinating. I'm not surprised that there is a gendered bias against women in the Oculus Rift (with significantly more women experiencing motion sickness than men in one trial), and am left wondering what other VR systems (or perhaps spatial technologies in general) lead to discrepancies in user experience according to sex as well; as we've discussed at length during this class, objects do have politics and are imbued with varying biases and power.

Lea, J. (2020) Post-Phenomenology/Post-Phenomenological Geography. International Encyclopedia of Human Geography 2nd edition, 10: 333-338 Kilteni, K., Groten, R. and Slater, M. (2012) The sense of embodiment in virtual reality. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 21(4), pp.373-387. Munafo, J., Diedrick, M. and Stoffregen, T.A. (2017) The virtual reality head-mounted display Oculus Rift induces motion sickness and is sexist in its effects. Experimental brain research, 235(3), pp.889-901.

[yohaoyu]

The topic for this week, AR and VR, is a relatively novel domain for me because these technologies had not been integrated into our city life beyond entertainment purposes. However, due to tech companies about metaverse and remote life after the outbreak of covid, people are gradually accepting the idea of the meta world. Do digital cities, if we still have the place called "cities", need planning or some format of government instrument for public goods? If there is no space or resource restriction in virtual cities, the government's virtual world role will be more closed to current tech companies rather than current public sectors. But until that eventuality materializes, we still have lots of challenges to address, such as gender inequality in the usage of VR devices (Munafo 2017). It's good to know the current devices have such uncomfortable experiences for users and for inclusive and accessible purposes, we may consider seriously whether to use VR/AR as the mean of public communication.

Kilteni et. al.'s paper (2012) summarizes three components of the sense of embodiment, the sense of self-location, the sense of agency, and the sense of body ownership. Lea (2020) explores post-phenomenology in the third paper. Phenomenology studies the human experience and phenomena while post-phenomenology extends and builds upon it and tries to understand how technologies shape our perception and experience.

References:

Lea, J. (2020) Post-Phenomenology/Post-Phenomenological Geography. International Encyclopedia of Human Geography 2nd edition, 10: 333-338

Kilteni, K., Groten, R. and Slater, M. (2012) The sense of embodiment in virtual reality. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 21(4), pp.373-387.

Munafo, J., Diedrick, M. and Stoffregen, T.A. (2017) The virtual reality head-mounted display Oculus Rift induces motion sickness and is sexist in its effects. Experimental brain research, 235(3), pp.889-901.