Virtual Interiorities: When Worlds Collide

Contemporary virtual reality is often discussed in terms of popular consumer hardware. Yet the virtual we increasingly experience comes in many forms and is often more complex than wearable signifiers.This three-volume collection of essays examines the virtual beyond the headset. Virtual Interiorities offers multiple, sometimes unexpected entry points to virtuality—theme parks, video games, gyms, pilgrimage sites, theater, art installations, screens, drones, film, and even national identity. What all these virtual interiorities share are compelling cultural perspectives on distinct moments of environmental collision and collusion, liminality, and shifting modes of inhabitation, which challenge more conventional architectural conceptions of space. When Worlds Collide explores the ongoing present continuum between the virtual and the physical. Each essay here pointedly addresses that more and more of our spatial experiences are not conceived of architecturally, and that a variety of mediated environments are now situated squarely between what we inhabit and what we see.