Eng. 335-01 Reflection #3

I found the readings to be much more interesting to me this week over the past few weeks, simply due to their more interactive nature. Both Bronze and Queerskins have an air of culpability to them and they attach the reader or viewer to this feeling as well. While I personally do not fully immerse myself to these feelings and emotions brought on to this project, I think this is due to my background of playing a large number of online videogames; I have, over the past several years, learned to disconnect myself from reality via online interaction and gaming, and as such the personal touch of the projects is somewhat familiar to me. I am not new to VR technology, so the medium of these projects is not as fresh or new to me. That said, for someone who is not as used to the online world, I can see these projects as having a special quality to them that traditional literature does not achieve. To a newer individual, the level of immersion would certainly add to the spectacle. However, as I mentioned, I am slightly more practiced at online interaction and “gaming”, so I feel the immersion break at some points. Bronze in particular feels somewhat restrictive; yes, I am free to choose my own path, but my choices are restricted. The options that I would want to utilize are not available; my personal responses are not an option within the context of this work. While this level of restriction is to be expected (it is virtually impossible to pre-program options for every single different personality that would interact with these works), I am spoiled with my previous experiences. To this extent, I find these works lacking; they are not quite a proper game or VR experience, as I am not fully free to act, and they are not a truly immersive literary work as they are limited to shorter descriptions and snippets of story. They are, however, and interesting starting point for a vaster array of online literature.
Cody Peters