VIRTUAL REALITY AND THE HUMAN BODY

By Mark Hodges
Research Horizons Magazine, Summer 1993
Georgia Institute of Technology

     While computer scientists create virtual environments, humanists and
social scientists are beginning to speculate on the impact that
visualization technologies will have on popular culture.
     In an essay entitled "The Virtual Body in Cyberspace," Assistant
Professor Anne Balsamo of Georgia Tech's School of Literature,
Communication, and Culture examines the impact of virtual reality (VR)
on how we view the human body.
     Cyberspace refers to the electronic space--or network--in which
virtual environments exist.  Individuals "travel" to these domains in
sensor-laden gloves, helmets with visual displays, goggles, and
full-body suits.
     Many proposed VR applications are practically orientedPPfor instance,
modules have been created to train aircraft pilots.  However,
recreational uses offer new entry into a world of three-dimensional
fantasy.  With virtual journeys becoming increasingly common, Balsamo
poses the question: "What kind of bodies reside in cyberspace?"
     For most present applications, the answer is: "None."  Virtual
environments normally provide "out-of-body" experiences that suppress
all senses but the visual.  As Balsamo explains, ". . . a user
experiences VR through a disembodied gaze--a floating moving
'perspective'--that mimes the movement of a disembodied camera 'eye'."
     In the future, many applications will allow users to assume
electronic bodies, which they use to interact with the virtual bodies
of other travelers in cyberspace.  VR advocates believe these
technologies will provide a means of escaping the individual user's
physical and cultural limitations--either by accomplishing more than
they ever thought possible with their physical bodies, or by using
their virtual bodies to experiment with different concepts of self
identity.
     To Balsamo, this claim reflects a "traditional cultural narrative:
the possibility of transcendence whereby the physical body and its
social meanings can be technologically neutralized."  She is dubious
about its validity for several reasons.
     First, she argues that evidence from actual body
reconstruction--through plastic surgery or bodybuilding
regimes suggests a strong preference for enhancing conventional
gender and race markings of beauty, strength, and sexuality.
     "There is plenty of evidence to suggest that a reconstructed body
does not guarantee a reconstructed cultural identity," she writes.
"Nor does 'freedom from a body' imply that people will exercise the
'freedom to be' any other kind of body than the one they already enjoy
or desire."
     Balsamo also notes a distinct strain of gender conservatism among the
early champions of VR.  In the cyperpunk subculture (whose science
fiction has popularized the prospects for life in cyberspace), heroes
are typically male and "contextually" white, she says.  Women are
often depicted as "beautiful, sexualized [and] . . . sometimes
violently powerful."
     Balsamo concludes that the bodies most often depicted in cyberspace
show conventional "markers" of desirability in both gender and race.
Thus, while VR technology allows users to escape some of the
limitations of the physical body, it may not necessarilyPPor even
usuallyPPchange one's sense of identity or cultural perspective.
     From her perspective as a scholar of popular culture, Balsamo
believes that VR technologies offer a potent vehicle for identifying
the values and conflicts most dominant in society.
     Beyond this, she suggests that VR will bring about a re-examination
of the human body's limitations.  For centuries, authors have dwelled
on the way the mortal, physically constrained body limits our
experience.  Virtual reality, Balsamo says, requires a rethinking of
how far our "bodies" really can extend.
     "Enhanced visualization technologies make it difficult to continue to
think about the material body as a bounded entity," she writes,
"Virtual environments offer a new arena for the staging of the body."

For further information, contact:
     Dr. Anne Balsamo
     School of Literature, Communication, and Culture
     Georgia Institute of Technology
     Atlanta, Georgia 30332
     Telephone: 404/894-8923
     E-mail: anne.balsamo@lcc.gatech.edu

This article may be reprinted in full or in part, or freely quoted, if
source is acknowledged.  Further information is available from the
editor at 404/894-6987 or by E-mail at: mark.hodges@gtri. gatech.edu.





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