Re: Cyber Gardening

Jon Holdsworth (jon@melb.alexia.net.au)
Sat, 26 Aug 1995 20:34:36 +1000 (EST)

On Thu, 24 Aug 1995, Annette Loudon wrote:

>
> >And another one.
> >Its (science...) fiction, by an Australian author, and a lot of you would
> >have heard of it.
> >
> >PERMUTATION CITY
> >by
> >Greg Egan
> >(dont know book details, will find out)
>
>
> Yeay!!
> I'm going to be patriotic and read the Aussie book.
>

Abolutely!! :-) :-) :-)

> Thanks for the reading suggestions. I feel way behind the curve
> on this VR business. For me I guess I have to start with bare basics

Perm'City will put you straight into the philosophy surrounding it, via a
_very_ gripping story as well!

> and think about what I want to achieve in art, how VR can help me do
> this, what cool advantages it has, and what it's drawbacks are (happily the
> analysis of both seems to be a theme on this list :)

I'd like to see a bit more analysis!! :-}

>
> Is it wierd to approach VR just another medium? A new means the
> the same end. Of course there will be the neccesary exploration of
> the ideas and physics of the medium that all new mediums are subject to.

This is Permutation City right down the middle.

Egan's other book, "Quarantine", also a masterpiece but you will probably
want to tear the 2 page epilogue out of your own copy, puts paid to Reality.

"Permutation City" puts paid to Virtual Reality.

I swore all the way through P-C. He just said everything I ever wanted to
say about VR and then some extras!

> Other nthan that I find it wierd that people talk about 3D replacing 2d,
> it's such utter bullshit in my mind.
>

I agree, there. You can do different things in them, and then there are
2.x systems too, which morphing exploits.

I think the 'meta/physics' of VR runs a lot deeper than these crude
technical points.

> annette :)
>
>