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The Immersive Enclosure: Virtual Reality in Japan
Winner, 2023 Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Technics, Media Ecology Association
Although virtual reality promises to immerse a person in another world, its true power lies in its ability to sever a person’s spatial situatedness in this one. This is especially clear in Japan, where the VR headset has been embraced as a way to block off existing social environments and reroute perception into more malleable virtual platforms. Is immersion just another name for enclosure?
In this groundbreaking analysis of virtual reality, Paul Roquet uncovers how the technology is reshaping the politics of labor, gender, home, and nation. He examines how VR in Japan diverged from American militarism and techno-utopian visions and became a tool for renegotiating personal space. Individuals turned to the VR headset to immerse themselves in three-dimensional worlds drawn from manga, video games, and genre literature. The Japanese government promised VR-operated robots would enable a new era of remote work, targeting those who could not otherwise leave home. Middle-aged men and corporate brands used VR to reimagine themselves through the virtual bodies of anime-styled teenage girls. At a time when digital platforms continue to encroach on everyday life, The Immersive Enclosure takes a critical look at these attempts to jettison existing social realities and offers a bold new approach for understanding the media environments to come.
Although virtual reality promises to immerse a person in another world, its true power lies in its ability to sever a person’s spatial situatedness in this one. This is especially clear in Japan, where the VR headset has been embraced as a way to block off existing social environments and reroute perception into more malleable virtual platforms. Is immersion just another name for enclosure?
In this groundbreaking analysis of virtual reality, Paul Roquet uncovers how the technology is reshaping the politics of labor, gender, home, and nation. He examines how VR in Japan diverged from American militarism and techno-utopian visions and became a tool for renegotiating personal space. Individuals turned to the VR headset to immerse themselves in three-dimensional worlds drawn from manga, video games, and genre literature. The Japanese government promised VR-operated robots would enable a new era of remote work, targeting those who could not otherwise leave home. Middle-aged men and corporate brands used VR to reimagine themselves through the virtual bodies of anime-styled teenage girls. At a time when digital platforms continue to encroach on everyday life, The Immersive Enclosure takes a critical look at these attempts to jettison existing social realities and offers a bold new approach for understanding the media environments to come.
264 pages, Hardcover
Published May 24, 2022
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 28, 2023
Really fascinating history and analysis of VR in terms of an enclosure, and the socio-political implications therein.
Chapter 1, 3 and 4 were really interesting. It's cool how VR is historically linked to audio technology that isolates the listener from the surrounding environment. The idea of telework and how the environment around us might be built more for robots than humans is really interesting too. Also really liked the emphasis on the neocolonial aspect of virtual reality.
Sadly, chapter 2 on the transnational history of VR, though well researched, felt pretty dry. Chapter 5 was similarly not that mind-blowing in its focus on VR as an apparatus that performs masculine control, though I really appreciate that Roquet was careful to not dismiss the positive possibilities that VR offers for people to experiment with sexuality.
With that in mind, Roquet's book is a critique of VR as a technology of control, though it is a very balanced critique that always keeps in view the positive possibilities of VR. Overall, it's a really well done piece of research, though I guess I hoped to encounter a greater degree of mind-blowing ideas and perspectives.
Chapter 1, 3 and 4 were really interesting. It's cool how VR is historically linked to audio technology that isolates the listener from the surrounding environment. The idea of telework and how the environment around us might be built more for robots than humans is really interesting too. Also really liked the emphasis on the neocolonial aspect of virtual reality.
Sadly, chapter 2 on the transnational history of VR, though well researched, felt pretty dry. Chapter 5 was similarly not that mind-blowing in its focus on VR as an apparatus that performs masculine control, though I really appreciate that Roquet was careful to not dismiss the positive possibilities that VR offers for people to experiment with sexuality.
With that in mind, Roquet's book is a critique of VR as a technology of control, though it is a very balanced critique that always keeps in view the positive possibilities of VR. Overall, it's a really well done piece of research, though I guess I hoped to encounter a greater degree of mind-blowing ideas and perspectives.
Displaying 1 of 1 review