IN DEFENCE OF A “POOR” VR IMAGE

Abstract

The article is devoted to a “poor image” considered in the context of artworks created by means of virtual reality (VR). In contemporary art discourse, the concept of a “poor image” was actualised by German video artist Hito Steyerl, who analysed it in accordance with the development of telecommunication networks and Internet culture. We transpose this intuition to the field of a “poor” VR image, that is, one that is characterised by low polygonality and detail, poor elaboration of textures, and so on. We argue that a “poor image” can be used as a tool to form an artistic statement, or may work as an artistic device, as a “cool medium” (using M. McLuhan’s term), which encourages the viewer to participate in communication more intensely: the lack of visual information and/or insufficient information allows the viewer’s imagination to complete the image in a mode of perception that may be understood as co-creation. Our statement is confirmed by examples of VR projects done in the last ten years: Home after the War and In the Morning You Wake up. A “poor” VR image can be compared, among other things, to amateur video filming, where there is no “cinema effect”. The authors offer the viewer low-poly models of characters (that do not look like real living beings), spaces that are impossible to get into, backgrounds that look like flat theatre backdrops, on which objects seem to “play a role” rather than exist (as in modernist paintings). In that sense, the phenomenon of the “poor” VR-image opposes the existing conventions of the film and video game industry, where the “good picture” dominates. There is a “reign” of a high-quality, visually convincing (suggestive) image that allows the viewer to immerse themselves in the vicissitudes of the narrative, makes the medium “transparent”, enhancing the effect of the viewer’s presence in the virtual world. Unlike a “good” picture, a “bad” picture does not allow the viewer to forget about the medium since, like a Dadaist collage, it has “seams outward”. However, this is precisely why such a statement can be perceived by the audience as anti-commercial, non-false, as if it arises from authors’ need for co-existence and co-experience with the audience. In the hands of a contemporary VR artist, a “poor image” can become an effective tool for artistic influence.