Transcript

After reading Justin Hodgson’s Post-Digital Rhetoric and the New Aesthetic, I needed a brief mental reprieve from the author’s “manifestations that [situate] computationality and [relate] elements of the network apparatus as increasingly aestheticized values” (4), So I took a drive.

Rolling aimlessly down the highway, I contemplated how the “rich complexities in contemporary human–technology assemblages” that Hodgson mentioned add depth to understandings “of the techno-human capacities that individuals possess” (5). I wondered how recent developments in virtual reality technology fit with Hodgson’s New Aesthetic—directing attention to “computational worlds in which humans act,” and proliferating “hybrid ‘ways of seeing’ manifesting with human–technology assemblages” (14).

Suddenly, somewhere between home and a headset, I found myself inside the New Aesthetic. Its moment hasn’t passed like Hodgson claimed. It is still growing and changing, with new techno-human assemblages forming as each new generation of hardware gets more and more powerful. The New Aesthetic is now!

With a New Aesthetic comes new ways of composing, some of which are emerging through the development of virtual reality technologies. For instance, the social application VR Chat, which I happen to be using to record this video, allows users to don whatever avatar they choose. A person can be whoever they want, whenever they want at the press of a button. Look . . .What’s up Doc; Doh; Truth, justice, and a better tomorrow, Do or do not, there is no try . . .I think this will do.

VR Chat allows players to interact with each other in real-time and create worlds to share with a growing community. So users can not only be whoever they want to be, they can also be wherever they want to be . . . Hmm, how about a nice mansion in the hills to lounge about in . . .

And there you have it. VR Chat is keeping the New Aesthetic alive and kicking. We can don any avatar we want, choose any setting or scene, meet new people, and we can widen our networks while developing new digital styles and ways of interacting. With that being said, I think it’s time for you to get out of my house and go choose your own adventures. I gotta get some zs.