Virtual America: sleepwalking through paradise

✍ Scribed by John Opie

• Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 281
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Virtual America traces the complex relationship between Americans, technology, and their environment as it has unfolded over the past several centuries. Throughout history Americans have constructed mental pictures of unique places, such as the American West, that have taken on more authority than the actual gritty landscapes. This disconnect from reality is magnified by the new world of virtual realities on the computer screen, where personal immersion in interactive simulations becomes the “default” environment. Virtual America identifies the connections (or lack thereof) between our individual selves, an American identity, and the geography “out there.” John Opie examines what he calls First Nature (the natural world), Second Nature (metropolitan infrastructure/built environment), and Third Nature (virtual reality in cyberspace). He also explores how Americans have historically dreamed about a better life in daily, ordinary existence and then fulfilled it through the Engineered America of our built environment, the Consumer America of material well-being, and the Triumphal America of our conviction that we are the world’s exceptional model. But these dream worlds have also encouraged placelessness and thus indifference to our dwelling in home ground. Finally, Opie explores Last Nature (a sense of place) and argues that when we identify an authentic place, we can locate authenticity of self—a reification of place and self—by their connectedness.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents......Page 6
List of Illustrations......Page 7
Introduction......Page 10
1. Welcome to VirtuaLand: Old Dreamworlds and the Power of a New Modernity......Page 22
2. Antique America: Searching for Authenticity......Page 60
3. Human Kodaks in the Future Perfect: Virtual America Embodied in World's Fairs......Page 104
4. Sleepwalking in America: A Brief History......Page 128
5. Finding Authenticity: Inhabiting Place in America......Page 170
Illustration Acknowledgments......Page 228
Notes......Page 232
Bibliography......Page 250
Index......Page 264