# The Aesthetics of Virtual Reality  ## Metadata - Author: [[Grant Tavinor]] - Full Title: The Aesthetics of Virtual Reality - Category: #articles - Summary: insert summary - My notes: - Summary: The chapter explores how virtual reality media convey realism and interact with users in a spatial environment. It discusses the philosophical analysis of VR as a form of picturing and the distinction between the medium and intentional objects. The text highlights the technical and perceptual features of VR, emphasizing the role of egocentric and interactive functions in conveying realism. - URL: https://readwise.io/reader/document_raw_content/165288114 - Source File: THE AESTHETICS OF VIRTUAL REALITY by Grant Tavinor.pdf ## LLM Chats ## NotebookLM ## LLM Audio ## Highlights > The Aesthetics of Virtual Reality ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hxkf45hhksfmssrv2nq4bdsd)) > suspect that art may employ VR media in a further way, by directing our attention to the medium itself, in a way that art has frequently done. Quite ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hy064jy7g5wdy7sp7vktpjrs)) > I also suspect that art may employ VR media in a further way, by directing our attention to the medium itself, in a way that art has frequently done. Quite differently, VR might act as a medium for performance. > In cases such as VR documentary and cinema, while the object of appre- ciation is a VR object, the production of the object of appreciation may not itself involve perceiving and interacting within a VR medium. But other cases allow for VR media themselves to become a medium for creation, so that one is situated in VR during the creative act. Perhaps the most obvious and popular such case is the VR painting application, Tilt Brush. Formerly of Google, but now an open-source application, Tilt Brush allows artists to create 3D paintings in egocentric pictorial space. Using the various virtual brushes, the user marks the surface to produce the image “around them,” and many artists express surprise at the experience of producing a painting from “within” it. Indeed, it may be more accurate to refer to these creations as virtual sculptures than paintings, given their apparent three-dimension- ality. The British portrait artist Jonathan Yeo has employed this potential of ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hy05tf7yqyfmrj7hp7c3a1pw)) > Tilt Brush to produce a virtual self-portrait that was then realized as a sculpture in bronze. The production of the sculpture engaged with these virtual technologies at several steps: Yeo’s facial profile was 3D scanned and then imported into Tilt Brush, and working from this model, Yeo used Tilt Brush to virtually sculpt the portrait. This graphical object was then 3D printed, with molds being made from these parts, allowing the sculpture to be then cast in bronze. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hy05tp1zt6j93df1xsepg354)) > The creation of artworks or artistic performances might utilize VR, but what, if anything, might VR depiction add to aesthetic appreciation?That VR need not involve aesthetic attention to the picture surface is a very tempting conclusion to make given what we know about the typically non-reflective nature of VR pictorial seeing (that is, that users typically have no aesthetic concern with the surface at all). This raises the question of whether the pic- torial surface in VR ever factors into the aesthetic appreciation of the apps, games or works of digital art that employ VR, and whether its aesthetic fea- tures are ever the focus of attention. One benefit of the twofold theory of seeing is that it allows us to frame how viewers see the aesthetic qualities of the sur- face even as they perceive the object depicted in the picture. So, they may see the apple depicted in a still life, but also see the brush work that lends the apple depictions a realistic impression, and these two facets of the pictorial seeing ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hy05vnn875eyqf142jtm8847)) > may combine in the painting’s aesthetic experience and appreciation. It is an interesting question whether seeing the surface factors into our aesthetic appreciation of VR media, and if we aesthetically appreciate how the spatial or depicted content of the VR world is embodied in the surface. Viewers of VR must perceive the elements of the surface, because it is through these that they perceive the spatial configuration represented by the surface, but this is con- sistent with them not paying the surface any great attention or even recognizing the surface as a surface, and hence not perceiving its aesthetic qualities. We also found earlier that the pictorial surface in VR is complex, being a combination of two images, viewed through lenses, and that these fuse together. Viewers do not typically perceive the two images as not fused, and so perhaps there are elements of the surface that viewers are not aware of. But are there elements of the VR surface that are seen and appreciated for their aesthetic qualities? ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hy05wevzmt7efks6rqx6mwm5))