What is ‘Virtuality’, and how recent is its development?

Nicholas Mirzoeff argues that virtuality is not a new concept but perhaps an old one and provides examples of how other people have described their experiences with cyberspace through interaction with paintings and photographs. he states that whilst viewing the painting ‘Marius and the Gaul’ by Jean Germain Drouais, Thomas Jefferson became so intrigued that he lost all sense of time in which he wrote “I lost all idea of time, even the consciousness of my existence”. This is a good example of how cyberspace exists in our every day life. The most common method of virtual interaction today is viewing television. Since the birth of Digital TV we have become more interactive in that we can even take part in game shows and other programs using our remote control. Like Thomas Jefferson and the painting, people have become so immersed in their interaction with TV that they almost live their existence in cyberspace. With programs such as big brother where viewers watch ,on TV, a selected group of peoples experiences whilst trapped in a house. This was followed by an ever growing trend of reality TV shows in which viewers become absorbed in other peoples life experiences. A huge population of TV viewers now spend most of their time in a trance much like cyberspace, almost letting other people live for them. This experience is very much similar to that of chatting with work colleagues through ‘E conferencing’ in which a work meeting can be held over the internet where each participant can be viewed through web cams. The meeting is held in each of their homes but nowhere at the same time. The whole internet is based on this principle in which the information is stored every where and no where.

‘Virtuality’ and ‘Virtual Reality’ are often associated with the internet. The internet offers the opportunity to waste time as William Gibson states “The Net Is a Waste of Time, And that's exactly what's right about it". Gibson is suggesting that the internet is a tool which we use to entrance ourselves in cyberspace, where we often surf without getting anything really productive out of it. The Internet was born of ARPANet, a decentralised computer network developed at the University of California at Los Angeles in 1969 by the Department of Defence's Advanced R

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