ABSTRACT MACHINES AND NEW SOCIAL SPACES

This essay elaborates a theoretical framework within which four examples of the virtual reality novel are examined. The framework draws on Pierre Levy's book, Becoming Virtual (1998), as well as philosophical discussions of the concept of the virtual in writings by Henri Bergson, and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. In contrast to the opposition between the possible and the real, the dynamic of the virtual is understood as a potential power or agency actualized in a process that can change the basis of our current notions of reality. More specifically, the essay suggests that the material operations of today's computer technology are the source of this virtual power and that we can see how it is variously represented in the virtual reality novel. While each of the four novels depicts living or acting within virtual reality spaces, they differ markedly in how these experiences are integrated into larger narrative concerns, which include the decoding and recoding of the human body, cultural identity, sexuality and control, and the new apparatuses of surveillance and communication this technology will soon bring about.