ABSTRACT
The avail ourselves of the work of D.W. Winnicott to give a reading of the development of human virtuality throughout the lifespan. We begin with the primal connection the infant has to the feeling that her desire is creating the world (what we call the earliest encounter with virtuality) and the gradual relinquishing of omnipotence subsequent to that moment, as the infant and young child come to terms with the reality of the maternal figure as a separate other. In each of these moments – from the infant-mother merger to the period of transitional phenomena and then again in adolescence – we investigate how our relation to virtuality changes over the course of development. Because our immersion in the limitlessness of virtual reality instantiates its own form of omnipotence and disavowal of separateness, we explore the effects digital virtuality has, both positive and negative, on how we develop as virtual creatures. In closing, we explore the digital life of the adolescent. Staying true to the pharmacological complexity of the matter, we observe both how digitality promotes a life-affirming transitional space that opens toward the world, and, at the same time, severely inhibits the transformational aims of adolescence, potentially enacting its disavowal.
