A speculative political economy of virtual/augmented reality: Synchronization and immanentization

Abstract

Virtual and augmented reality are, alongside AI, some of the most feted technologies of the 2020s. However, unlike AI it remains unclear whether there is a distinct political economy of VR/AR. This article argues—in a speculative mode—that there is by drawing together political economy and medium theory. I contend that the economic significance of VR/AR is an operation of real-time synchronization , in which the body, the real world, and virtual space are brought into spatial-temporal coordination. I show this via an analysis of the operation of simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). Synchronization enables a novel form of immanentization: the rendering of the body immanent to the digital. Immanentization enables a stacking of spatialities: the layering of virtual worlds—which can be interacted with in the same way as the real world—on top of the real world, without obscuring it. This presents novel possibilities for accelerating production and circulation processes.