Experiencing Virtual Worlds: Observation to Co-Creation

Abstract

Marie-Laure Ryan’s new book can be regarded as both an expansion of and a complement to her groundbreaking  study Possible Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, and Narrative Theory. It is an expansion insofar as it extends the domain of phenomena discussed from traditional print literature to a variety of narratives in other media, such as amusement parks, rituals, drama, hypertext, andVirtual Reality (VR), the last two being of course the new electronic or computer-based media. At the same time, the ontology of nonactual worlds, which was a principal theme of the first book, is now complemented by a comprehensive theory of the ways and modes in which we can and often do experience theseworlds. In this two-pronged approach, Ryan follows in the footsteps of such distinguished phenomenologists as Mikel Dufrenne () andRoman Ingarden (, ).The author’s goal to provide a ‘‘phenomenology of art experiencing’’ () is achieved via a series of logical steps, even though the book itself is organized according tomedia and not according to these steps. The first step consists of an outline of the constitutive conditions and basic varieties of the narrative worlds one encounters in eachmedium, from print to VR, correlated with the basic features of the underlying medium itself. Next comes a general theory of the ways in which we experience