Grimshaw M. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Virtuality

Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. — 792 p. — (Oxford Handbooks). — ISBN: 978-0-19-982616-2.As this comprehensive and multidisciplinary book makes clear, virtuality has a pedigree that pre-dates the computer age and modern virtual worlds, a pedigree that can be traced back to classical mythology and beyond. Equally, the concept of virtuality is not the province of one field of study alone but is the foundation and driving force of many, both theoretical and applied.
Our conceptualizations and applications of virtuality are multiple, as contributors demonstrate across the nine sections of the book that move from philosophy to technologies and applications before returning to philosophy again for a discussion of the utopias and dystopias of virtuality. The almost 50 essays contained within range freely across subjects that include the potential of virtuality, ethics, virtuality and self, presence and immersion, virtual emotions, image, sound and literature, computer games, AI and A-Life, Augmented Reality and Real Virtuality, law and economics, medical and military applications, religion, and cybersex.
Throughout, contributors discuss differences between virtuality, reality, and actuality, in debates filtered through the lenses of the disciplines represented here, and speculate on future directions. It is not at all clear that there are differences and, if such distinctions are to be found, the boundaries between virtuality, reality, and actuality continually shift as ideas, modes of organization, and behaviors constantly flow from one to the other regardless of direction. The Handbook presents no unified definition of virtuality to comfort the reader, rather a multiplicity of questions and approaches underpinned by provocative statements that should further fuel the debates surrounding our notions of virtuality.Mark Grimshaw is The Obel Professor of Music at Aalborg University, Denmark.Introduction / Mark Grimshaw
The virtuality and reality of avatar cyberspace / Bruce Damer & Randy Hinrichs
The physical and social reality of virtual worlds / Philip Brey
Envisioning the virtual / Brian Massumi
Being more than yourself: virtuality and human spirit / André Nusselder
Mythologies of virtuality: "other space" and "shared dimension" from ancient myths to cyberspace / Maria Beatrice Bittarello
The paradox of virtuality / Michael R. Heim
Avatar psychology / James K. Scarborough & Jeremy N. Bailenson
Not quite human: what virtual characters have taught us about person perception / Elizabeth J. Carter & Frank E. Pollick
Emotions and altered states of awareness: the virtuality of reality and the reality of virtuality / Jean-Claude Martin
Applying psychological plausibility to the uncanny valley phenomenon / Angela Tinwell
The psychology of addiction to virtual / Deborah Abdel Nabi & John P. Charlton
Environments: the allure of the virtual self
Being present in a virtual world / Giuseppe Riva & John A. Waterworth
Immersion in virtual worlds / Gordon Calleja
Communication in virtual worlds / Paul C. Adams
Virtual reality: so good, they named it twice? : a Lacanian perspective from literature and the other arts / David Rudd
History and cultural heritage in virtual environments / Erik Champion
Flirting, cheating, dating, and mating in a virtual world / Julie M. Albright & Eddie Simmons
Cybersex / Ståle Stenslie
A virtual assembly: constructing religion out of zeros and ones / Robert M. Geraci
Acoustemologies of the closet / William Cheng
Breaking the fourth wall? : user-generated sonic content in virtual worlds / Karen Collins
Sonic virtuality: understanding audio in a virtual world / Tom A. Garner & Mark Grimshaw
Virtual worlds: an ethnomusicological perspective / Trevor S. Harvey
The music that's not there / Martin Knakkergaard
Through the Looking Glass: Philosophical Reflections on the Art of Virtual Worlds / Gary Zabel
Recreating visual reality in virtuality / Anthony Steed
The translation of art in virtual worlds / Patrick Lichty
Painting, the virtual and the celluloid frame / Simon J. Harris
Virtual law / Greg Lastowka
Avatars inc.: the legal personality of avatars / Angela Adrian
Virtuality in the sphere of economics / Vili Lehdonvirta
On the role of "digital actors" in entertainment-based virtual worlds / Phil Carlisle
Evolution in virtual worlds / Tim Taylor
Virtual ecologies and environments / David G. Green & Tom Chandler
Computational modeling of brain function and the human haptic system at the neural spike level: learning the dynamics of a simulated body / Gabriel Robles-De-La-Torre
Distributed embodiment: real presence in virtual bodies / John A. Waterworth & Eva L. Waterworth
Level of realism: feel, smell and taste in virtual environments / Alan Chalmers
Developing handheld augmented reality interfaces / Mark Billinghurst, Huidong Bai, Gun Lee, Robert Lindeman
Avoidable pitfalls in virtual world learning design / Keysha I. Gamor
Clinical uses of virtual worlds: from medicine to psychology and rehabilitation / Giuseppe Riva
Military simulations using virtual worlds / Roger Smith
Ethics at the boundaries of the virtual / Charles M. Ess
The social imaginary of virtual worlds / Patrice Flichy
Virtuality and humanity / David Kreps
Virtual dystopia / Andrea Hunter & Vincent Mosco
An Afterword in Four Binarisms / Tom Boellstorf