Representing the virtual in text: A practical methodology

In order to analyze textual representations of virtual worlds we must be able to tell those representations apart from textual representations of non-virtual landscapes. The virtual worlds must be clearly identifiable as artificial and computer-generated, originating in human skill and imagination. They must stand apart from any secondary worlds of fantasy or mythology. Ryan (2001: 164) suggests the term ‘virtual narrative’ to describe a narrative mode which indirectly represents events ‘in a reflecting device that exists as a material object in the textual world’. As examples she lists a mirror, a story within a story, photograph, film or television programme. Curiously, although her discussion is very aware of the computer-generated virtual, she does not appear to consider a computer terminal among these devices. She links virtual narration to ekphrasis by noting that, alongside paraphrase and summary, ekphrasis can be used to represent the reflected world by describing the material support that is the reflecting device. She differentiates ‘real narration’, which is what happens generally in the textual world, from the virtual narration, which happens in the reflecting device that is present in the textual world, on another metaleptic level.

Ryan’s suggestion helps us to define a textual representation of a virtual world. It must be framed within the text by a device, which also exists as a technological object in the textual world. The virtual world must be accessed via this device. In most cases, this virtual environment appears in the reflecting device primarily as graphics, but also accompanied by sound, text and music. In certain texts, taste and smell, too, are envisioned as being simulated by the appropriate device. It is also possible that the textual representation refers

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to an environment originally evoked by text, as in the case of Redmond’s ‘MUDe’. This is unusual and functions as a double ekphrasis of sorts: a notional game world is represented in the (also notional!) textual MUD, which is then represented in the text of the poem. Even in this case, the original MUD is represented in the device of an implied computer, as well as in the frame of the poem itself. The text must strive to represent, via the in-text technological device, a virtual environment defined by interactivity and immersion. Ryan proposes eight steps in technological immersion (p. 51).

1) The user accesses the virtual world in an act of active embodiment, participation of the full body instead of the Cartesian mind/body split. The entry does not simply happen in the user’s imagination; it is an active step from the real environment to the virtual, even if the virtual only takes place on the computer screen.

2) The user enters a picture, an artificial representative construction. This picture, however, is spatial. Ryan requires three components for the experience of a presence within a virtual world: a sense of being surrounded, a sense of depth, and the possession of a roving point of view.

3) The picture represents a complete environment, involving several senses. Ryan refers to virtual art as having potential for ‘total art’, a concept that would involve all the senses in the artistic experience. Her example of the feelies from Brave New World offered visual, auditory, olfactory and tactile stimuli, but they were also accused of extinguishing critical faculties and making imagination obsolete. A modern student of the virtual worlds might find this warning very familiar.

4) The medium must be transparent. Although the user knows that the pictorial world consists of programming code, the computer itself is not visible. This is, of course, not as yet reality as our real technology has not reached the stage of full-body immersion. It is, however, regularly portrayed in fiction. Even at our current technological stage, we refer to events in virtual worlds as though they were taking place in their own reality, rather than as snippets of code on our technological devices.

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5) As the code disappears, the ‘dream’ of the natural language appears closer. Interaction with the virtual objects and virtual people happens as easily as in the real world. Users are able to build a shared reality. Ryan suggests that an advanced virtual reality system would have no need for internal ekphrasis, as the omnisemiotic system will be able to employ all forms of representation, action and signification.

6) Within the virtual world, the user participates in alternate embodiment and role-playing by becoming a character in a story. Even in a non-narrative, non-ludic virtual environment the user becomes part of the reality of the setting.

7) The simulation of the virtual world becomes a narrative. Contrary to Baudrillard’s definition of the virtual, the purpose of the simulation is not to falsely represent what is but to explore that which could be. The process follows Lévy’s definition of the virtual as creative potential.

8) The virtual world experience is actualized as art. Enacting the narrative arising from the simulation is a pleasurable activity. There is no concrete real-world value or relevance to the simulation due to its virtual nature, but it acquires a clear artistic significance as an instrument of creativity and exploration.

To this, we might add a 9) The narrative of the virtual world experience is terminated either temporarily or permanently when the user disconnects from the virtual world and returns to his/her own reality. Elsewhere in her work, Ryan notes that in order to remain pleasurable, the experience of immersion must be temporary and remain separate from addiction.

The eight-step process described by Ryan applies to direct immersion. If an analysis of a text can detect the above steps in the remediated representation of the virtual experience, we are able to include it under the examination for virtual ekphrasis present in the text. In this examination, we will use the theoretical frameworks of ekphrasis and geocriticism as discussed above. Ekphrasis must seek to create a vivid, affective, immersive visual in the reader’s mind by means of language alone. Ekphrastic language will employ non-essential details, metaphors, similes, perhaps even alliterative or otherwise mnemonic or poetic

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language and appeals to the reader’s personal experiences and background. Geocriticism will bring into discussion multifocalization, analysis of the human experience of space, multisensory and historical elements. Using these tools, the analysis of the relevant textual materials will examine the ekphrastic relationship between word and image in the new digital context, its changes, and its relevance to the human experience.

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