Virtual Realities- Krueger, Morningstar, and Farmer

Myron W. Krueger's work is probably more important than we know now. Many anticipate that our lives will be spent more and more in virtual worlds. Indeed, there are always those, such as the characters of the web series The Guild, who spend most of their waking hours in these virtual worlds. 

For this reason Krueger claims, "The design of such intimate technologies is an aesthetic issue as much as an engineering one. We must recognize this if we are to understand and choose what we become as a result of what we have made." Truly, we are the products of our inventions. I see this more and more as I become more and more distant from friends who are engulfed in the virtual worlds of massive multi player games and Second Life.

But what does it mean when these virtual worlds become as meaningful and real to us as real life? For example, a couple met eachother on Second Life. After their relationship grew, they married and began to live together in real life. However, the wife caught her husband months later with another woman. However, the woman was on Second Life. Is it a problem when we begin to see the social interactions present in virtual spaces just as meaningful as those in real life?

"The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat" by Morningstar and Farmer seem to pose an answer. Through their work on Habitat, they learned that for inhabitants of cyberspace, personal interactions between other inhabitants are far more important than the sexy technology by which it is presented. As such, we begin to see that cyberspaces draw in inhabitants not for their aesthetics, but because they provide alternative means of social interaction. Bars in the East Village tend to provide the same thing.