Park, Jonny K: Week 2 Response - Claudia Zapata Essay

 Is VR the “future” of art? 

In our new reality during this time of a global pandemic, I would tentatively answer, yes. Like many others, it is certainly a process for me in getting used to the two-dimensional human interactions happening within the ‘squares’ of my computer screen and Zoom windows. And additionally, as a person who has had always deferred the incorporation of advancing technology, and preferred a more hands-on approach to experiencing art, I feel that I have been biased in only seeing the “bads” of the emergence of digital mediums. 

In Claudia Zapata’s Chicanx Graphics In The Digital Age, what stood out to me the most was the use of VR technology as shown in Nonny de la Peña’s Out of Exile: Daniel’s Story (2017). As we spend more time in solitude than ever before, naturally increases the time spent in the internet sphere and in our respective psychological spaces. The saturation of media pertaining to all things political and quite frankly insane, at times makes me feel like I’ve become a hopeless entity, stripped of certain qualities I constituted as being—human. I have yet to fully process this thought/feeling, but I am certainly feeling more distant as my voice becomes mediated through computer screens and microphones on a daily basis. 

Returning to the question of art and technology, while I am experiencing psychosis on some levels, I have not lost all hope. Despite everything (i.e. closures of exhibition, gallery spaces for public/physical interaction), I know that artists will continue to produce work, and many will and already have been taking advantage of the technology available today. Despite the ethical paradoxes in the discourse of REaLiTY, I think Daniel’s Story (2017) effectively and powerfully demonstrates a very human quality of empathy. Peña’s demonstration in utilizing VR technology in a way that transcends the polarized political spectrum of technological advancement, instilled a sense of faith and perhaps a more optimistic attitude toward the VR technology.