VR/AR/XR E-lit: Towards a Claustrophobic and Agoraphobic Poetics
Submission Type
Paper
Start Date/Time (EDT)
20-7-2024 2:15 PM
End Date/Time (EDT)
20-7-2024 3:15 PM
Location
Narrative & Worlds
Abstract
VR/AR/XR E-lit: Towards a Claustrophobic and Agoraphobic Poetics.
With the increased accessibility of VR headsets, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality (or what digital artist Mez Breeze (2018) labels ‘Synthetic Reality’) works of electronic literature have seen an increase in both production and accessibility. While VR games, such as Half-Life: Alyx (2020), boast a sense of interactivity and immersion, I argue that works of electronic literature in this medium are enhanced by a combination of claustrophobic and agoraphobic poetics. I argue that, from a literary standpoint, such poetics are rooted in the poetics of Franz Kafka. As argued by Steinhauer (1983):
For the young person the world is too large, too formless; this produces the anxiety of agoraphobia. So you limit your scope, concentrate your ambition on a narrower goal. But this does not bring satisfaction either, it merely yields a different form of anxiety: claustrophobia. Now the world has walls, but these seem to close in on you and threaten to crush you.
Such a description of Kafka’s ‘A Little Fable’ (1931) could equally be applied to the work of Re-educated: Inside Xinjiang’s Secret Detention Camps directed by Sam Wolson (2021). This VR work has the accounts of three detainee: Amanzhan Seituly, Orynbek Koksebek, and Erbaqyt Ortarbai. I argue this is a work of ‘electronic literature’ (as opposed to a VR animated documentary) given its adaptation from its initial print iteration. Despite freedom to look around in 360 degree virtual animated space, one is made to feel imprisoned. In contrast, upon the prisoners’ release, one feels euphoric freedom. In this paper I undertake a close reading of the work’s poetics of claustrophobia and agoraphobia.
WORKS CITED
Breeze, M. (2018) ‘Virtual Reality Literature: Examples and Potentials’, The Writing Platform. Accessed at https://thewritingplatform.com/2018/07/virtual-reality-literature-examples-potentials/
Steinhauer, H. (1983) ‘Franz Kafka: A World Built on a Lie’, The Antioch Review, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 390–408.
Wolson, S. (2021) ‘Inside Xinjiang’s Secret Detention Camps (360/VR)’, The New Yorker. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGUyo5dxke8
Recommended Citation
Wright, David T.H., "VR/AR/XR E-lit: Towards a Claustrophobic and Agoraphobic Poetics" (2024). ELO (un)linked 2024. 14.
https://stars.library.ucf.edu/elo2024/narrativeandworlds/schedule/14
VR/AR/XR E-lit: Towards a Claustrophobic and Agoraphobic Poetics
Narrative & Worlds
VR/AR/XR E-lit: Towards a Claustrophobic and Agoraphobic Poetics.
With the increased accessibility of VR headsets, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality (or what digital artist Mez Breeze (2018) labels ‘Synthetic Reality’) works of electronic literature have seen an increase in both production and accessibility. While VR games, such as Half-Life: Alyx (2020), boast a sense of interactivity and immersion, I argue that works of electronic literature in this medium are enhanced by a combination of claustrophobic and agoraphobic poetics. I argue that, from a literary standpoint, such poetics are rooted in the poetics of Franz Kafka. As argued by Steinhauer (1983):
For the young person the world is too large, too formless; this produces the anxiety of agoraphobia. So you limit your scope, concentrate your ambition on a narrower goal. But this does not bring satisfaction either, it merely yields a different form of anxiety: claustrophobia. Now the world has walls, but these seem to close in on you and threaten to crush you.
Such a description of Kafka’s ‘A Little Fable’ (1931) could equally be applied to the work of Re-educated: Inside Xinjiang’s Secret Detention Camps directed by Sam Wolson (2021). This VR work has the accounts of three detainee: Amanzhan Seituly, Orynbek Koksebek, and Erbaqyt Ortarbai. I argue this is a work of ‘electronic literature’ (as opposed to a VR animated documentary) given its adaptation from its initial print iteration. Despite freedom to look around in 360 degree virtual animated space, one is made to feel imprisoned. In contrast, upon the prisoners’ release, one feels euphoric freedom. In this paper I undertake a close reading of the work’s poetics of claustrophobia and agoraphobia.
WORKS CITED
Breeze, M. (2018) ‘Virtual Reality Literature: Examples and Potentials’, The Writing Platform. Accessed at https://thewritingplatform.com/2018/07/virtual-reality-literature-examples-potentials/
Steinhauer, H. (1983) ‘Franz Kafka: A World Built on a Lie’, The Antioch Review, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 390–408.
Wolson, S. (2021) ‘Inside Xinjiang’s Secret Detention Camps (360/VR)’, The New Yorker. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGUyo5dxke8
Bio
David Thomas Henry Wright is an author, poet, digital artist, and academic. He won the 2018 Queensland Literary Awards’ Digital Literature Prize, 2019 Robert Coover Award (2nd prize), and 2021 Carmel Bird Literary Award. He has been shortlisted for multiple other prizes, published in various journals, and received various research grants and fellowships. He has a PhD from Murdoch University and a Masters from The University of Edinburgh, and taught Creative Writing at China’s top university, Tsinghua. He is co-editor of The Digital Review, narrative consultant for Stanford’s Smart Primer project, and Associate Professor at Nagoya University.