Screen LibraryThe immersive enclosure : virtual reality in Japan /
"Virtual reality is currently at a crucial inflection point, setting industry standards and social expectations that will shape the technology for decades to come. Companies like Facebook are investing millions of dollars into the technology, hoping to own what they promise will be the next maj...
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| Main Authors: | |
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| Published: |
Columbia University Press,
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| Publisher Address: | New York, NY : |
| Publication Dates: | [2022] |
| Literature type: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects: | |
| Summary: |
"Virtual reality is currently at a crucial inflection point, setting industry standards and social expectations that will shape the technology for decades to come. Companies like Facebook are investing millions of dollars into the technology, hoping to own what they promise will be the next major platform for both work and entertainment. How VR will and has been developed and implemented has not simply been a question of technology or the market but been determined by cultural and political factors in the United States and Japan, the two largest markets for this technology. In The VR Enclosure, Paul Roquet examines VR in Japan, showing how the cultural context surrounding the headset is just as important as what happens inside. Roquet discusses how Japan diverged from the American models, which promoted both a utopian vision of VR, as exemplified by Jaron Lanier and other earlier Silicon Valley figures, and one that emphasized military uses. Instead, Japan reconfigured VR to to address labor and cultural crises. The use of VR-operated telerobots for everyday service and factory work have promised a solution to the country's intensifying labor shortage. On the other side of the spectrum, Roquet argues that as Japan's economic miracle died down and the hopefulness of the 1960s faded, individuals, predominantly male, turned to VR as a mode of escape and fantasy borrowing from existing cultural forms, including manga, video games, and novels"-- |
| Carrier Form: | 254 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages [223]-242) and index. |
| ISBN: |
9780231205344 0231205341 9780231205351 023120535X |
| Index Number: | HM851 |
| CLC: | TP391.98-05 |
| Call Number: | TP391.98-05/R786 |
| Contents: | Introduction: The ambient power play -- Acoustics of the one-person space -- Translating the virtual into Japanese -- VR telework and the privatization of presence -- Immersive anxieties in the VR Isekai -- VR as a technology of masculinity. |