Question 1a: Write two pages on cyberculture: Do you think that cyberspace and virtual reality have fundamentally altered the way in which we experience art objects?

A culture exists when a group of people exhibits cohesion through the sharing of values, language, ritual and icons. Cyberculture is used to refer to the concept of a group, or groups of people achieving cohesion by means of 'the information infrastructure' - which currently means the Internet (Clarke 1997. Sv

The early history of computing, pioneered by Turing and Weiner, laid the foundation for contemporary technological thought today: that with the desire to "conceive the computer as a machine that could simulate and extend human intelligence; decipher encrypted enemy messages and target weapons in real time" so too, could it perhaps someday rival human intelligence. (Warner 2002. Sv "Computable culture").

With the introduction of digital imaging, computer animation, holographic art, Virtual reality environments, robotic-art, net-art, bio-art and sound art - art has become accessible to society on a scale far outweighing its previous domain. Beyond this, new media programs, aiding the facilitation of art, are made available via the Internet, encouraging artists further into the filed of technology and ultimately changing the face of art, the concept of the exhibition space and the quality of interaction from the viewer (Jayemanne 2003. Sv "Ezine"). With Web art becoming such a dominant feature in contemporary art today, museums and galleries have been forced to consider ways in which to create a proper art market for the digital arts (Smith 2000. Sv "Za@Play").

The will to control through the powers of the mind may certainly go beyond the confines of the human body, which in many ways creates a distance between human beings and computers. Robots, AI computers and 'cyborgs', have time and again been depicted in art, film and literature as 'returning to haunt' their human creators. This popular interpretation of the computer as the dangerous 'other' may be far from the reality one would experience today, yet it does elude to the uncanny powers computer software may generate in the future (Warner 2002. Sv "Computable culture"). This exaggerated distance between software technology and human beings does however breed popular ideas of transcendence, as Gibson wrote at the end of Neuromancer (concerning the union of the information agents 'Wintemute' and 'Neuromancer') that they "are now the matrix [of] the whole show" (Gibson 1995: 316).

Despite the hype, it is clear that with technological and social developments over the last two decades, the global community is undergoing a shift, from the way one thinks of existence and the nature of reality; to encompassing a new reality and new ways of thinking about multiple realities (Jackson 1998. Sv "Bad subjects"). Certainly new technology has disrupted the historical and cultural stability experienced by former generations, with the aim of creating a futurist utopian world. Often filmmaker's, artists and authors go beyond this point to envisage a world which lacks the human elements (Jackson 1998. Sv "Bad subjects").

Because computers make Virtual Reality systems interactive, they allow the artist to call forth greater participation from users than they otherwise would in terms of physical exhibition space. This is largely due to the aspects of a global network where anyone, anywhere in the world can 'log in' to an art sight. Traditional art forms exhibited at a gallery create a realistic distance or passivity, whereas in Virtual Reality art works displayed are interactive, as they require the user to download an image or read text which requires the use of the user's mouse. Virtual Reality can also enhance the power of art to transform physical reality, and hence influence the fundamental questions concerning society and reality (Heim 1993. Sv " The Essence of VR").

Some topics in this essay:
Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, , Sv Cybersocieties, Wired Undoubtedly, Sv AI, Stephen Wilson, Sv Computable, Sv Ezine, Sv EHR, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, 2003 sv, 2000 sv, mccarthy 2003 sv, 1993 sv, allan 2000, human intelligence, mccarthy 2003, allan 2000 sv, sv cybersocieties, 2000 sv cybersocieties, sv basic questions, 2003 sv basic, sv basic,