Joseph Nechvatal: Immersive Ideals / Critical Distances. A Study of the Affinity Between Artistic Ideologies Based in Virtual Reality and Previous Immersive Idioms (1999)

This thesis researches into the ideals behind Virtual Reality technology (and its central property of total-immersion) by looking at VR through the prism of a philosophy of visual art. Its conclusive understanding is achieved through a broad formulation of an aesthetic theory of immersive consciousness (indicative of an emerging immersive culture) by joining choice immersive examples of simulacra technology into mental connections with relevant examples culled from the histories of art, architecture, information-technology, sex, myth, space, consciousness and philosophy.

Keywords: architecture| Conceptual Art | consciousness | information-technology | myth | sex | space | virtual reality

Written in candidacy for a Ph.D. at the Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts (CAiiA), University of Wales College, Newport, Wales, U. K.

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Later published as a book (2009)

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