I'll buy this analysis. Heck, I'll even change my vote to Dali,
because I like your reasoning.
I've been rather stuck about what to do with Van Gogh. It seems that
if one is going to be somewhat "true" to a work, and bother to call it
"VR Van Gogh," then that places some limitations on what kinds of
things you could do with it. His work is pretty much portraits,
landscapes, and figure studies of people he knew and places he lived.
One seems almost required to do a biography, or a work of historical
fiction. I'm sure this would be a terribly fascinating project, but
it's not really the genre I had in mind.
Dali, however, provides us with weird landscapes full of symbols.
They suggest odd stories, and we would have enormous creative license
to play with those stories. How many different ways can you think to
tell a story about a melting watch, a lobster telephone, Jesus on the
cross, and a 100 foot tall elephant with the legs of a giraffe
pursuing a hapless priest? It may also offer an interesting tapestry
for users to change the flow of events. There's no "right" way to
interact in a Surrealist universe, no script that says "Princess Leia
must appear in scene 6 so that the Death Star can blow up Alderran."
So I'll vote Dali, since it sparks my imagination. Here are the votes
so far:
Star Wars 1
Dali 2
M.C. Escher 1
Maybe we can even jump straight out of the "VR is simulation"
paradigm, and go straight to "VR is Surrealism." Incidentally, that's
the one thing about the TV show "VR 5" that I actually like. It makes
great Surrealistic usage of pseudo-VR technology.
It's interesting how ideas feed each other. One final thought. In
picking an existing work of art to reference, it probably pays to
think about the historical movements which provided a context for the
work in question. One could potentially forget about specific works,
and go straight for an art movement. Say "VR Abstract Expressionism,"
or "VR Dadaism," for example. Some would argue that the latter is
actually the contemporary state of affairs! :-)
Cheers,
Brandon