Towards an account of virtual realism

Abstract

That VR media are realistic, and even more realistic than other traditional forms of depictive media, has sometimes been claimed to be a “common-sense” view. It is tempting to frame a new concept of virtual realism to refer to cases where a virtual world overwhelms its users with a sense of the reality of the items, places and people they encounter within it. Yet, the notion of “virtual realism” might also seem like an oxymoron. “Virtual” implies that something is not a real instance of its kind, but merely has the powers or capacities of that thing. What is it for something to be virtually realistic? Indeed, is the concept even a sensible one? In this paper I analyse the several senses in which virtual media might be claimed to be realistic and argue that these senses are materially distinct and of differing usefulness and credibility.