Theorizing Literacy, Bodies, and Technology in the Emerging Media of Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Realities
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BLEVINS, SUSANNE BRENTA, Ph.D. From Corporeality to Virtual Reality: Theorizing Literacy, Bodies, and Technology in the Emerging Media of Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Realities. (2017) Directed by Dr. Stephen R. Yarbrough. 288 pp. This dissertation explores the relationships between literacy, technology, and bodies in the emerging media of Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Mixed Reality (MR). In response to the recent, rapid emergence of new media forms, questions arise as to how and why we should prepare to compose in new digital media. To interrogate the newness accorded to new media composing, I historicize the literacy practices demanded by new media by examining digital texts, such as video games and software applications, alongside analogous “antiquated” media, such as dioramas and museum exhibits. Comparative textual analysis of analogous digital and non-digital VR, AR, and MR texts reveals new media and “antiquated” media utilize common characteristics of dimensionality, layering, and absence/presence, respectively. The establishment of shared traits demonstrates how media operate on a continuum of mutually held textual practices; despite their distinctive forms, new media texts do not represent either a hierarchical or linear progression of maturing development. Such an understanding aids composing in new VR, AR, and MR media by enabling composers to make fuller use of prior knowledge in a rapidly evolving new media environment, a finding significant both for educators and communicators. As these technologies mature, we will continue to compose both traditional and new forms of texts. As such, we need literacy theory that attends to both the traditional and the new and also is comprehensive enough to encompass future acts of composing in media yet to emerge. FROM CORPOREALITY TO VIRTUAL REALITY: THEORIZING LITERACY, BODIES, AND TECHNOLOGY IN THE EMERGING MEDIA OF VIRTUAL, AUGMENTED, AND MIXED REALITIES by Susanne Brenta Blevins A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 2017 Approved by _____________________________ Committee Chair APPROVAL PAGE This dissertation written by Susanne Brenta Blevins has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Committee Chair._____________________________________ Committee Members._____________________________________ _____________________________________ ____________________________ Date of Acceptance by Committee __________________________ Date of Final Oral Examination ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................. iv LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................................v CHAPTER I. INCORPORATION: SEEING, READING, AND COMPOSING AS LITERACY .......................................................................................................1 II. SPATIAL DIMENSIONS OF LITERACY: VIRTUAL REALITY AND THE CORPSE IN THE CORPUS ..................................................................46 III. THE LAYERS OF LITERACY: AUGMENTED REALITY AND THE DE-COMPOSITION OF BODY TEXTS ............................................128 IV. TEXTUAL ABSENCE AND PRESENCE: MIXED REALITY AND RE-MEMBERING BODIES ........................................................................193 V. FLESHING OUT LITERACY: WAYS OF SEEING, READING, AND COMPOSING ...............................................................................................248 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................270 iii LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1. Definitions of Reality Media: Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality ............................................................................................37 iv LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1. Tears of Joy Emoji................................................................................................2 Figure 2. The Rise of the Terms Literacy, Illiteracy, Literate, and Illiterate .......................8 Figure 3. Simplified Representation of Milgram and Kishino’s “Virtuality Continuum.” ..................................................................................72 Figure 4. Adult Skeleton Greeting BODY WORLDS Visitors .........................................160 Figure 5. “Nerve Leonardo.” ...........................................................................................163 Figure 6. Daniel’s Room ..................................................................................................225 Figure 7. The Tower of Faces ..........................................................................................230 v CHAPTER I INCORPORATION: SEEING, READING, AND COMPOSING AS LITERACY Literacy in an Era of Rapid Textual Change In 2015, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year was not a single word, but the “Face with Tears of Joy” emoji (see Fig. 1), an ideogram designed for smartphones and instant messaging clients to express emotion or to convey facial expression. Although the Oxford Dictionaries Corpus had found a three-fold rise from 2014 to 2015 in usage of the word “emoji” (a term used in English since 1997), the Dictionaries chose only a single pictogram to signify “the ‘word’ that best reflected the ethos, mood, and preoccupations of 2015.” To select that particular electronic ideogram, Oxford University Press partnered with SwiftKey, a developer of auto-correct and predictive text smartphone app software, to identify the Tears of Joy emoji (see Figure 1) as the most used globally. In 2015, SwiftKey reported that particular emoji made up 20 percent of all emojis used in the UK and 17 percent of those in the US, and had risen from 4% and 9% respectively in 2014.1 Not surprisingly, the decision faced criticism. The New York Post responded to the news with a video featuring emoticons, prior words, and interviews with everyday speakers under the headline “Word of the Year proves that we’re dumber than last year.” 1 SwiftKey found culture-specific tendencies in the usage of Emoji, which reveal links between culture and visual meaning, something that merits future additional analysis. 1 Figure 1. Tears of Joy Emoji. Note: This image may also be used using the Aurasma app to view additional data. In a similar vein, although writing a few months before the Word of the Year news, The Guardian art writer Jonathan Jones argues that emojis as a communication tool are a sign that humans are “evolving backwards.” He compares emojis’ similarity to Egyptian hieroglyphics, which he argues enabled the Egyptians “to write spells but not to develop a more flexible, questioning literary culture: they left that to the Greeks.” Jones argues for the productive capabilities of letters and words over images, claiming the Greek alphabet was more “productive,” enabling Greece to “leap forward.” Indeed, he claims alphabetic language was “why Shakespeare was more articulate than the Aztecs”2: “That is why there is no ancient Egyptian Iliad or Odyssey. In other words, there are harsh limits on what you can say with pictures. The written word is infinitely more adaptable.”3 While I will return to comment on Jones’ perceptions on historical cultural literacy superiority, his comments evoke the contemporary conversation about changing communication practices. 2 Jones’s comments resonate with an on-going perception of visual writing as inferior to alphabetic writing. Walter Mignolo links alphabetic writing with the exercise of power, social organization, and political control, specifically looking in the New World, noting that Europeans did not recognize the visual writing systems as literacy, nor their visual textual systems, which lacked letters, as recording, producing, and organizing knowledge. 3 Note: The Iliad and Odyssey are not italicized in the original, although this may be because of their hyperlinked status. 2 Indeed, the conversation about the relationship between words and images reaches beyond that of journalists engaged in cultural critique. A middle school teacher who took a graduate linguistics class with me posted recently on Facebook: Early civilizations used pictographs. Then, there was the Phoenician alphabet and the development of various scripts including the Latin script and the Greek alphabet. We could form words, and these words had sounds, and this was a sign society and humankind was advancing, particularly in the realm of written communication/record-keeping. Now, however, I scroll through FB and half of the “written” texts I see are emojis. So, let me get this straight. We spent thousands of years developing ways to write and communicate more clearly, and now we are, once again, communicating ideas with PICTURES?! *shakes head* Just as with Jones, this teacher’s comments, along with comments I’ve heard from other teachers and professors, represent the sense that our language practices might be returning to earlier styles of communication, as well as the anxiety that this might represent a regression.4 These textual changes surrounding visuals have been made possibly by rapidly evolving composing technologies, supporting increased image usage in alphabetic texts or placing visuals as primary communication media through applications