Virtual reality gadgets can never capture the magic of travel
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Version 0 of 1. Travel is a thrill, but it’s not always comfortable – which is part of what’s exciting about it. The gimmick of a totally convincing computer simulation will be a novelty when we have the technology for it, in the same way that taking off in a 300-ton Boeing 747 once was. But it will never be the same as physically being in a new place. Virtual reality may one day create the illusion that the world is entirely knowable and that you can be everywhere almost at once: you could perhaps eventually stroll along the Great Wall, paddle the mangrove swamps on the Central American Caribbean coast, ice axe your way up to the summit of K2, all without getting up from your couch. Yet real travel represents the excitement of uncertainty, the risk of the unknown and the unsafe – you’ll never get that from virtual reality. The merger of next-generation virtual reality headsets and photorealistic Street View-esque walkthrough software is opening up the possibilities of virtual reality travel. In the future, the technology will conceivably become more immersive. Local soundtracks, from the din of tuk-tuk traffic to the muezzin’s call to prayer ringing out over the medina of Fez, for instance, will enhance the manufactured experience. Right now, you don’t get the smell, the realtime sound or the flavors of a Tiet Canh on a Hanoi backstreet. If you’re sweating, it’s because the straps of the machine are too tight, not because of the relentless humidity of Dubai in August. I tried an early stereoscopic 3D headset in 1992 (which depicted a rather minimalist polygonscape and retailed for $250,000), and six months ago, the much feted and much impressive Oculus Rift - a virtual reality headset originally funded on Kickstarter and purchased a year ago by Facebook for over $2 billion - at Miami Art Basel, so I’m not a total outsider to the promises of the field; but I remain a skeptic that the reality it recreates will be more than a passing fad to those of us who actually enjoy moving around the planet. Virtual reality might give you more sense of the space than just swiping through photographs - but it can’t replace going to the Eiffel Tower, putting your hand on the metal, and realizing that, yes, what you touch was touched by workers in 1889 ,who were creating what would remain the tallest structure in the world for 41 years. Travel also has strong visual, aural and olfactory components that can’t convincingly be replicated. We savor the view from Wineglass and Ha Long Bays, and the aroma of a sake plant praise at a distillery outside of Nagoya, where the mother of a friend does calligraphy on every label. Our olfactory system enriches our memories, because we never forget the smell of a durian in a Singapore market or the sulfurous odor after a fireworks procession passes at an Indian ceremony in Cuernavaca. When you’re a stranger in a strange land, sensory ultraload is the norm. Most importantly, you won’t ever get the people. As Wendell Berry said: “Nobody can discover the world for somebody else. Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond and we cease to be alone”. People make you feel and tell you where you can get some laundry done around here. People let you sleep on their couch when you naively inquire whether it’s safe to set up a tent in these parts. People make you laugh, especially when they’re dressed up as Vocaloids at a cosplay gathering behind Chengdu’s Sichuan Museum of Science and Technology. No matter how convincing the simulation gets, it will never impinge on the magic of meeting new people. And if that means dealing with unbearable humidity, malarial bugs, crafty pickpockets and Montezuma’s revenge, so be it. |