ABSTRACT
This chapter reframes the concept of virtual reality (VR) from the perspective of spectators’ participation at the time of “ubiquitous connections” (Delwiche & Henderson Jacobson 2013) and “metainterface” (Andersen & Pold 2018) to better acknowledge various modes of computational agencies. VR has been recently embraced by the entertainment industry, journalism and mainstream cinema. To adequately map the possibilities and challenges of virtual reality as meaningful participatory culture, the ideological allure of current modes of VR are interrogated. The chapter argues for the need for a more robust critical theory of VR, seizing the opportunity to better address shared human-machine agencies, typical of the systemic image (Hinterwaldner 2017), of which virtual reality is one prominent example. Through the analysis of particular artworks the chapter shows how the overlapping realities of the human and algorithmic agencies (Rettberg 2018) call for a refreshed understanding of cultural participation.
