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Thesis Info
- LABS ID
- 00520
- Thesis Title
- Reverence and Reference: Meaning in Virtual Reality
- Author
- Julieta Aguilera
- E-mail
- juli3ta AT yahoo.com
- 2nd Author
- 3rd Author
- Degree
- MFA
- Year
- 1997
- Number of Pages
- 38
- University
- University of Notre Dame
- Thesis Supervisor
- John Francis Sherman
- Supervisor e-mail
- jsherman AT nd.edu
- Other Supervisor(s)
- Jean Dibble, Martina Lopez
- Language(s) of Thesis
- English
- Department / Discipline
- Art, Art History & Design
- Copyright Ownership
- Julieta Aguilera
- Languages Familiar to Author
- English, Spanish, French
- URL where full thesis can be found
- www.academia.edu/3358675/Reverence_and_Reference._Meaning_in_Virtual_Reality
- Keywords
- VR, Design, Language, Representation
- Abstract: 200-500 words
- Virtual Reality(VR), just as any representation, doesn't necessarily imply aresemblance to an actual place. Any representation in this sense proposes a virtualexperience. As a designer, what I would like to create is a journey through an idea in avisual space that is readable, rather than touchable. A journey from a more abstractapproach where the concept evolves through looking and reflecting in an experience of contemplation that is both aesthetic and spiritual.As a contemplative experience, I conceive virtual reality design as following thesame path as Orthodox Icons and Japanese Gardens. Orthodox Icons are a virtual presence(western spirituality) that embodies meaning while Japanese Gardens are virtualenvironments (eastern spirituality) which allow the traveler to be immersed in meaning.New tools of language move toward increasing complexity and questions aboutusing VR as a tool for representation arise. What are the considerations that define anexperience of Virtual Reality as representation?In my current work, VR images unfold over time like a poem. This iscommunicated by the use of three metaphors related to space and time: the house, thelabyrinth and the cycle. The house represents the self that is able to make connections tounderstand; the labyrinth is the environment that one never perceives as a whole; and thecycle creates the awareness of time having passed that defines a moment of completionwhere we look back once we recognize the beginning.