In “Ecstasis,” I modeled a fully self-enclosed sphere of my perception, as if seen from the outside.In venturing to make this model, I imagined a virtual world where one’s perspective is not just a subjective tool for understanding space, but an objective fact.
The avatar’s viewing physically distorts the world like a fisheye-lens, and the expanse of space actually compresses or emerges from just beyond the scope of his eyelids. In this metaverse, subjective appearance and objective fact become equal. And it’s a virtual world that can somehow create itself, as the avatar is doing in its versions of the computer screen all the way down.
If this avatar-sphere met another, each would be reflected, curved, in each other’s uniquely shaped, personal microcosm. And each would, in turn, contain their own fractal record/version of all the distant multitudes of other avatars.
I definitely think this highly focalized perspectival framing would make for more immersive VR experiences. But I also think the sense that a virtual world might meaningfully metamorphose to accommodate the unique perspective of each individual is representative of the most troubling and promising features of the present digital world.