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Into the Belly of the Image: Historical Aspects of Virtual Reality Author(S): Oliver Grau Source: Leonardo, Vol Into the Belly of the Image: Historical Aspects of Virtual Reality Author(s): Oliver Grau Source: Leonardo, Vol. 32, No. 5, Seventh New York Digital Salon (1999), pp. 365-371 Published by: The MIT Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576818 Accessed: 05/06/2009 22:53 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. 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The MIT Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Leonardo. http://www.jstor.org Into the Belly of the Image Historical Aspects of Virtual Reality OliverGrau Abstract IllusionarySpaces of 360 Degrees Virtualreality (VR) is a constant phenomenon in Virtual reality can entail an area of ritual action, a private, art history that can be traced back to antiquity. It artificial paradise, or a public sphere of politically suggestive can involve an area of ritual action, a private, power. Important aspects of the idea can be explained by focus- artificial paradise, or a public sphere with ing on historical examples. politically suggestive power-in short, it In the second Pompeiian style of late republican Rome, there encompasses a visual history that is were wall paintings that extended the room through representa- characterized by totality. The concept of tions of views into other spaces [3]. A particularlyforceful exam- transposing viewers into an enclosed, illusionary ple is shown in one of the most famous frescos of antiquity: the visual space has been revived and expanded in Villa Item, the so-called Casa dei Misteri at Pompeii, which dates the VRart of the current age. The more intimate- from 60 BC [4]. The audience finds itself amidst a series of life- ly an interface nestles into viewers' senses, the sized, highly realistic figures (Fig. 1). Some appeal directly to the more intense their immersion will be. Such an recipient; others communicate with each other from wall to wall interface weakens the viewers' sense of across the real space. The bordersbetween visual and actual space psychological distance and puts the relationship seem to dissolveas the figuresapparently move in real space.Visitors between art and consciousness into question. are trappedin the gaze of the figures,which hit from all sides and do not let go. The illusionary space surrounds the spectators entirely, Virtual reality is seen by many today as an entirely new phe- nomenon. However, the idea of transposing the audience into an enclosed, illusionary visual space was not born with the invention of the computer; indeed it is grounded in a solid tra- dition within art history. Its core idea, which reaches back to antiquity, has been revived and expanded in the VR art of the current age. This kind of virtual reality excludes the sensation of being alienated by the image and surrounds the observer in an illusory setting where time and space are one. At the very least, it fulfills the concept of total perspective. To understandthe VR phenomenon and to make a contribution Fig... .......d Pomp 60 Photo courtesyof Photothek Photothek to the debate concerning the so-called iconic turn [1], it is neces- F ig. 1. Casa dei Mist eri,Pompeiinar, HamBC. Photo courtesyof sary to develop J. Steuer's argument that VR should not be solely KunstgeschichtlichesSeminar, Hamburg. viewed at the technological level [2] but should be historicallycon- Oliver Grau, Humboldt University of Berlin, Dorotheenstraie 28, textualizedin order to comprehend its explosive impact as well as 10099 Berlin Germany. E-mail: [email protected] its close connection to political power. ? 1999 OliverGrau, received 15 February1998 LEONARDO, Vol. 32, No. 5, pp. 365-371, 1999 365 fixing them into the same place and time. t This is the initia- ! p tion or cult room of a Dionysian communi- ty. In the visual pres- _ ^.. ence of Dionysus and l: ; Ariadne, a mystical .^ consecration is being , :. prepared: women filled with the divine presence make sacri- fices while servants ' unveil a phallus, the liknon. A female ini- tiator-expectant and frightened by the epiphany-and a dancing Bacchant covered only with a veil are also repre- sented. At the center J Baldassare 1516. Photo of Photothek of the Bacchanalian spettive by Peruzzi, courtesy Kunstgeschichtliches itheBar kanaisn Fig. 2. Sala delle Prc rites are ekstasis Seminar, Hamburg. (ecstasy) and enthusi- asmos (ardor). Physical and psychological Agostino Chigi in the Villa Farnesina in spaces. But their task was not to give the frontiers are torn down and filled with the Rome. Chigi was a nouveauriche desperate audience a sense of being transported to divine in order that participants may dive to securehis reputationand name largelyby another place (which in this case would into a precivilizedworld [5]. means of obsessivepatronage. Peruzzi encir- have been heaven). Instead their aim was to The image is a portal through which in cled the audiencewith the frescoof a virtual entrance the faithful and to overcome their one direction the gods pass into the real columned hall, painted in perspective,that sense of reason with a highly persuasive world and in the other real people enter offered illusionistic views of Rome and its religious vision. These pictures simultane- into the image. The frieze bears witness to surrounding countryside. The resultant ously depict a heavenly promise to the a virtual reality meant to encourage an panoramic effect was impressiveenough to audience on the floor and act as a means of emotional, ecstatic participation through garnerthe admirationof Serlio [6]. Accord- sacredcontrol. the use of such suggestive visual means as ing to Vasari,Titian was unwillingto believe During the seventeenth and eighteenth totality of representation, choice of color, that it was a painting [7]. century in the palaces and country houses and dramatic gesture, thereby creating a The view of the landscape contrasts of the aristocracy, hundreds of illusionary fusion of audience and image in cult. The with the monumentality of the illusionistic spaceswere created [10]. shining red vehemently projects a sensuous temple hall. The splendid isolation of this atmosphere,climaxing in a sexual initiation architecturecreates a feeling of the sublime, Panoramas ritual which draws the viewer inexorably matched only by the view from a moun- In England at the time of the Industrial into the image. This type of painting taintop, here resembling an imaginary Revolution, the new image-machine, the achieves the maximum potential available Mount Olympus from the top of which panorama, achieved hitherto unknown to the medium of the fresco in antiquity. the visitor is surveying the skyline of con- dimensions of illusionary effect (Fig. 3) temporaryRome [8]. Chigi's poet Marcan- [11]. With the financial help of Lord Sala delle Prospettive tonio Casanova compared the Farnesina- Elcho, Robert Barker realized his 1787 In the Renaissance, illusionistic spaces which he said was destined by Chigi to be patented invention in the Guard's Room were in great demand: the Villa Barbaroin the residence of the gods-with the of Holyrood Palace at Edinburgh. As a Maser or the virtual pilgrimageat the Sacro Olympian palace [9]. Chigi uses the feeling military strategistand enthusiastic member Monte near Varalloare just two outstanding of a pictorial presence to deify his own rep- of Parliament, Elcho was interested in any examples. The most remarkable of these utation with antique grandeur. reconnaissance and planning technology 360-degree spaces is the Sala delle Prospet- The decorative ceilings of Baroque that might aid in the control of occupied tive (Fig. 2), created between 1516 and church architecture (for instance at San Scotland. Barker was a draftsman; at the 1518 by Baldassare Peruzzi on behalf of Ignazio in Rome) also create illusionistic Edinburgh headquarters of the English 366 Oliver Grau, Into the Belly of the Image on its front 1 PreufischeZeitungwrote page: At first the visitor is startled, he is sur- prised, and naturally keeps a distance. He is afraid to collide with the horses and feels inclined to move backwards. The air seems to be filled with swirled- up dust and mist. Trumpets sound and drums beat [14]. With the calculated precision of illu- sionism, both the 360-degree picture and the 3D interior concentrated and fixed the Fig.3. Diagramof a panoramafrom S. Oettermann,Das Panorama:Die Geschichte eines attention of the onlooker. The image was Massenmediums(Frankfurt: Syndikat, 1980), p. 41. not experienced as a self-contained object; indeed it negated the experienceof a closed troops in occupied Scotland he taught per- The Panoramaof the Battleof work of art, appearing instead as an artifi- spective drawing as a technique for mili- Sedan cial reality-everything was picture. The tary reconnaissance. To prepare for In the early nineteenth century, the BerlinerTageblatt reported:"It is as if one campaigns, the military was immensely military leaders of France and England, were standing amidst the awful battle" interested in taking down detailed Napoleon and Lord Nelson, both soon [15].
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