Moving Through Friedberg’s Properly Adjusted Virtual Window

Abstract

This chapter analyzes the theory of virtual reality developed by Anne Friedberg in The Virtual Window and argues that Friedberg confuses the notions of pictura and imago developed by Johannes Kepler in his theory of optics. The chapter untangles the meanings of these concepts and develops a notion of the virtual image that builds upon Friedberg’s work while eliminating some of the inconsistencies and limitations in her account. Gunning cautions against simply aligning the virtual with the immaterial or tying it too closely to the process of representation and claims the virtual optical images Friedberg invokes mark a revolution we might call virtual media. This does not simply involve a process of reproduction (although Walter Benjamin’s analysis of technical reproduction provides a founding text in defining the virtuality of modern media), but rather a process of discovery and transport. If we focus more broadly, as Friedberg invites us to do, on virtual media rather than a virtual image, our attention shifts from image to the apparatuses, or better, the technical processes, of virtualization.