Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"I'm a farm boy. It's very interesting; you can detect self-starting characteristics in this society and they are strongest among people who have had some kind of rural upbringing and a very impressionable stage."
- Frank Herbert
 |
| Virtual Reality | ||
| A fictitious and illusory world. |
As far as I know, the first use of the phrase "virtual reality" (la réalité virtuelle).
| Where alchemy, through its symbols, is the spiritual Double
of an operation which functions only on the level of real
matter, the theater must also be considered as the Double,
not of this direct, everyday reality of which it is gradually
being reduced to a mere inert replica — as empty as it is sugar-coated — but of another archetypal and dangerous reality, a
reality of which the Principles, like dolphins, once they have
shown their heads, hurry to dive back into the obscurity of
the deep.
For this reality is not human but inhuman, and man with his customs and his character counts for very little in it. Perhaps even man’s head would not be left to him if he were to confide himself to this reality — and even so it would have to be an absolutely stripped, malleable, and organic head, in which just enough formal matter would remain so that the principles might exert their effects within it in a completely physical way. Before going further, let us consider the curious predilection for the theatrical vocabulary of all books dealing with alchemical subjects, as if their authors had sensed from the beginning all that was representative, i.e., theatrical, in the whole series of symbols by means of which the Great Work is to be realized spiritually, while waiting for it to be realized actually and materially, as well as in the digressions and errors of the ill-informed mind among these operations, in the almost “dialectical” sequence of all the aberrations, phantasms, mirages, and hallucinations which those who attempt to perform these operations by purely human means cannot fail to encounter. All true alchemists know that the alchemical symbol is a mirage as the theater is a mirage. And this perpetual allusion to the materials and the principle of the theater found in almost all alchemical books should be understood as the ex- pression of an identity (of which alchemists arc extremely aware) existing between the world in which the characters, objects, images, and in a general way all that constitutes the virtual reality of the theater develops, and the purely fictitious and illusory world in which the symbols of alchemy arc evolved. |
| Technovelgy from The Theatre and Its Double,
by Antonin Artaud. Published by Editions Gallimard in 1938 Additional resources -
|
Compare this to the Saga simulation from Arthur C. Clarke's 1956 novel The City and the Stars, mental phantasmagoria from The Lotus-Engine (1940) by Raymond Z. Gallun, dead-show from Her Smoke Rose Up Forever (1974) by James Tiptree, Jr., the virtual matrix from The Judas Mandala (1982) by Damien Broderick, cyberspace from Burning Chrome (1982) by William Gibson and the metaverse from Snow Crash (1992) by Neal Stephenson. Note also the DreamTime Scleral Contact Lenses From The California Voodoo Game (1992) by Larry Niven (w/S. Barnes).
Compare to the life chamber from The Chamber of Life (1929) by G. Peyton Wertenbaker, the virtual assembly from If The Sun Died (1931) by R.F. Starzl and the holodeck from Encounter at Farpoint (1987) by David Gerrold.
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Theatre and Its Double
More Ideas
and Technology by Antonin Artaud
Tech news articles related to The Theatre and Its Double
Tech news articles related to works by Antonin Artaud
| Meta's Horizon Studio's Unique Avatars From Text Prompts |
| Switzerland May Cap Population At Ten Million |
| California Governor Candidate Calls For Voting By Phone |
| Chinese Hospital Tries Vonnegut's 'Harrison Bergeron' Cosplay |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'Looks like she has bought the Avatar Construction Set and put together her own...'
'Across the ground something small and metallic came, flashing in the dull sunlight of midday.'
'A broken circle with arrows pointing to a right-hand flow appeared in the chalf.'
'The object seemed melted together like wax — nothing was distinguishable.'
'Midges have many capabilities. To the untrained eye, they look like sparrows.'
'I made disks of my own voice to the number of five hundred very carefully chosen words.'
'His sensors out and working, and the whirring of the tape that sucked up sight and sound and shape and smell and form...'
