Realities Otherwise: Understanding VR by Experiencing LA

Chapter 2 suggests that the experience of being in LA unlocks some of VR’s more ineffable qualities. The architectural façades of the movie set and theme park extend throughout the city, offering a glimpse of other places and other times while moving through the urban landscape. Building on theorists who analyze LA as a postmodern city and ground zero for hyperreality, this chapter proposes the unreal as a way for thinking about contemporary shifts in reality that the city makes legible and VR exemplifies. That one seems to be able to feel reality becoming something else in LA hones an intuition for the kinds of worlds and realities that VR similarly invites into being.