What Is Virtual Reality?

intensiv7
Feb 24, 2018
2 min read

Let's breakdown what Virtual Reality is....

Virtual Reality (VR) by definition is the implementation of an artificial environment that is created with software that allows the user to be drawn into an exploration of a suspension of disbelief.

Virtual is an adjective that refers to the terms ‘near or close’, reality is what we experience as human beings, in other words, the happenings of the everyday. Therefore, the term ‘Virtual Reality’, in layman means a ‘near or almost reality’ which refers to a specific type of computer technology in association with reality. Referring to specific types of computer reality. VR can be primarily experienced via two senses: sight and sound.

Our realities are cultivated by our senses. Therefore, our entire experience of reality is a synthesis of sensory information and our brains sense-making mechanism of that information. When presented (your senses), with counterfeit information, your perception of reality will be altered in response to that stimuli(s). So if presented with an augmented version of reality from the participants own perspective, the perception of the augmented world would seem to be seen as real and non-fictitious. In a nutshell Virtual Reality is - a complex fleet that takes into account our perception and cognition.

Virtual reality can be divided into:

The simulation of a real environment for training and education.
The development of an imagined environment for a game or interactive story.

Throughout history there have been a few examples of virtual reality taking place in a 360 format. For example, murals in artwork were seen through a 360 degree perspective in order to engage the viewer on an interactive level. Furthermore, artistic/virtual examples have been found in the avant-garde work of french playwright Antonin Artaud, who considered illusion and reality to be one and the same. He argued that a theatre audience should suspend their disbelief and consider the performance to be reality.

Virtual Reality is quickly becoming a form of simulation that is used by big entertainment industries to small scale companies. While technology is becoming a fast growing industry and openly widespread across the globe, the industry continues to develop and enhance the uses of VR in order to replicate the feeling of 'reality’.