Ulrich Gehmann

How Virtual Spaces Re-render the Perception of Reality through Playful Augmentation

In this article we are going to explore a fundamental problem of modern virtual spaces in so called location-based games: annihilation of space through augmentation. Augmentation re-shapes the perception of the real object in space (which is not originally part of the game) by making it an active element of the game, i.e. it utilizes the object (and furthermore the surrounding space) and thus frees it of its original meaning and utility. Furthermore, it gets incorporated into the artificial (virtual) space and acquires two new properties: it becomes interactive and as a result, interchangeable. The perception of reality thus gets augmented at the same time as it gets reduced to the bare minimum of information needed to reach the goal of the game. Space becomes efficient and therefore loses its uniqueness and identity, with effects on the users very own perception of reality.

Ideal Spaces Exhibition

Through the years we have worked with the idea of gestalt through artefact creation (including virtual objects and 3D-worlds) as one surface to explore, exploit, test and communicate our ideas and concepts, that are generative rather than produced, where we try to grasp systematic insights through complex generated realities, in which an audience later is invited to interact. In our Ideal spaces exhibition for the 2016 Biennale in Venice, we tried to explore this via a combination of presenting ideal city spaces, active participation of the visitors molding their own spaces, and symbolic representation. Ideal Spaces is also a high-tech project that uses diverse technologies in new ways, also new techniques and programming developed by us.

To Be There, or Not to Be There, that is the Question

Virtual words, independent of their realizations, let us experience a persons sense of Being There, a form of spatial immersion dubbed presence. Where we are and even who we are is the result of living in the real world as well as a multitude of virtual worlds. This visceral feeling depends on several technical dimensions, which have been widely discussed, including the realism of the virtual environment and the embodiment of oneself and the others. But presence and belonging are preliminary not a question of technique but a question of the provided format, the symbolic spaces and of social interaction. A virtual world is always a managed space and a managed me with all its complications. It is about the basic conceptions of a conditio humana.

Functionalization and World Conception: What Happened to Us and How we Want to Overcome it Now

In this article we are going to explore a tendency in virtual world design towards the creation of non-functionalized virtual worlds, i.e. worlds which only exist to exist without resembling any function in their design. We are going to show how this tendency is grounded in the ongoing process of formatization in the real world by introducing a 4-step model of de-functionalization and show which chances exist for these non-functional virtual worlds to affect the real world through the mental world conception of the user.

Utopia revisited - neuer Wein in alten Schläuchen?

The article is about an old and powerful occidental idea, utopia. Of how this idea experienced a revival nowadays, in adopting the form of a technical promise of true Promethean character: that everything is possible for everybody, assisted by technical means. That the individuals liberation came within reach of reality, enabled by a combination about which we believe that it keeps our world going, namely free market and technological progress. That for the first time in human history, the modern variant of this myth is telling, a paradise of all for all has been realized, or does stand in our very vicinity at least, in becoming realized very soon. It is the nature of the utopian to erect a New World; in making ones own history, the core of every utopia. The utopian comes in the near of an ideal state of Being, of an attempt to end history as such. Means: to end development as such, no matter the outcome, eu- or dystopian. An aspect of crucial importance for the viability of nowadays utopias is their dependency on technique. They are hidden utopias, disguised in the clothing of the technologically possible. That the meanwhile truly liberated occidental individual can choose the spaces in which to live, even virtual ones.