There are parts of VR experience that are likely to be reasonably
universal--walking, talking, reading, et al. The languages may be different,
but seeing written communication on a wall and reading it is relatively
universal, unless I'm missing something.
Beyond that, the interface by which you do these things is pure
convention--whether you use a joystick, look through a "window" on a
monitor, and speak into a desktop microphone, or you wear an HMD, use
head tracking, and have a helmet mike. This is no different then clicking
on a menu to print a spreadsheet--everyone has to learn this.
Beyond these logistical issues, the cultural issues are just like dealing
with "foreign" cultures in real life. If a storefront has a sign that is
only written in Arabic, you'll need to read Arabic to know what it says.
If a virtual marketplace is set up to employ the cultural conventions of
2nd century B.C. Greece, then a newbie who isn't a history student will
have a learning curve. Now, because most of the people working on VR issues
are American, European, and Japanese, these are the cultures most likely
to influence early online spaces. OTOH, if everyone involved finds it greatly
rewarding to recreate early Phoenecia online, then this may change the focus.
What are the cultural conventions someone from Indonesia is likely to find
most jarring about an Americanocentric virtual world? To be honest, I have
no idea. What I do know is that innovation is nearly impossible if no one
can develop a tool without a committee signing off that everyone in the
world can use it with equal ease. (Aside: look at the ugly i18n battle in
VRML--if that were actually to be resolved to everyone's satisfaction, we
wouldn't get VRML this year.) As systems get revised, and as new people
start using systems and adapting them to their needs, revision will be
necessary.
But with artistic spaces, the focus is different. Artistic spaces aren't
created with the intent of disseminating information broadly (unless that
is the particular intent of the artist). They are created to realize the
design goals of the artist(s), whatever thay are. They may be ethnocentric,
they may be world-culture oriented. Either way, the artist(s) decide. Then
viewers are free to decide what they think. The only vestiges of the
problems of convention for the artist are in the technologies that artists
adapt for their use. Even then, part of the artwork might be designing a
system that used, say, motion tracking and a bungee cord as the input
devices, regardless of other current practice. (Why *not* combine real
bungee jumping with virtual imagery?)
Most of the limitations of convention will hopefully be a problem only for
virtual spaces with non-artistic intent. The limitations on art will only be
those of technology (as the state-of-the-art will never keep up with artists).
--Andy
andyn@texas.net