The Dictionary of Human Geography

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characterize thediffusionand use of com-

puter network technologies (Dodge and

Kitchin, 2001b). This work has helped to

undermine the widespread myths that the

Internet would lead to the ‘end of geography’

through the sheer motive force of speed-of-

light interactions (Graham, 1998; see also

time–space compression).

The proliferation of virtual geographies

raises important questions about the relation-

ships between electronic technologies and rep-

resentations and contemporary culture.

These questions are economic and political

as much as they are cultural, and the same

can be said of the ways in which virtual geog-

raphies bring processes ofsimulation and

surveillanceinto very close interaction as

embedded surveillance devices provide con-

tinuous data feeds to sustain virtual represen-

tations of the dynamics of geographical

change. These developments have been par-

ticularly significant in late-modern war

(Graham, 2008a,c). Consider, for example,

the way in which the first 1991 Gulf War was

represented through TV reportage that used

digital video footage from the noses of US

‘smart’ bombs (Wark, 1994), or the way in

which the US military has become deeply

invested in computer simulations to recruit

‘the digital generation’ and to train troops for

overseas deployment in Mission Rehearsal

Exercises (Graham, 2007, 2008a,c).

Finally, this proliferation of virtual tech-

nologies blurs the boundary separating ‘real’

geographical worlds from electronically simu-

lated and imagined ones. This occurs as

participants and observers become less and

less able to separate and distinguish between

the ‘real’ and the ‘virtual’. As truly immersive

systems proliferate, and participants increas-

ingly adopt digitally simulated avatars and

‘bodies’ functioning ‘within’ virtual geograph-

ical space, this process seems set to intensify

(Hillis, 1999). Indeed, virtual geographies

are already being further complicated by

the transformation of computerized network

devices. These are moving from being separ-

ate artefacts such as networked PCs placed

within geographical spaces, with which people

interact through interfaces, and are being

reinvented as small and even nano-scale con-

structions that blend ubiquitously and

invisibly into wider geographical environ-

ments. Such trends mean that new critical

approaches to virtual geographies are becom-

ing necessary, which abandon anya prioridis-

tinction of the ‘real’ and the ‘virtual’ (see

representation). sg

Suggested reading

Crang, Crang and May (1999); Dodge and

Kitchin (2001).

virtual reality Resulting partly from an

ongoing challenge to the WIMP (Windows

Interface, Mouse Pointer) screen that had

emerged in the late 1980s, we might see virtual

reality entering geography through four

moments. The first moment geography

encounters virtual reality is as ametaphor

for the digital condition. Virtual reality is seen

as expressing a symptomatic cultural desire to

escape the messy, inevitable complications of

the real world for an infantilized or perfected

digital realm (Slouka, 1995). The second

more technical moment is through the

Virtual Reality Mark-up Language (VRML),

which enabled three-dimensional browsing

through screen interfaces. While it has not

challenged the ‘page’ metaphor of the web, it

has been refined into technologies to create

online worlds incyberspace. Third, this has

been used to producemodelsandsimula-

tionsof geographical locations for academic,

marketing and educational purposes. Fourth,

it has been part of initiatives to develop

immersive environments. Here, using haptic

interfaces that sense user motions and head-

mounted displays, a user can interact with an

entirely simulated environment all around

them. While the cumbersome and faintly

absurd appearance of virtual reality goggles

and data gloves has limited their adoption,

the technology has branched into other possi-

bilities such as ‘augmented reality’, which

attempts to ‘overlay physical objects with vir-

tual objects in real-time and allows people to

experience the virtual as if it were real’

(Galloway, 2004, p. 390). mc

virus An entity that replicates itself by inf-

ecting more complex entities and taking

advantage of their reproductive systems.

Biological viruses are a key agent of disease

in humans and other organisms (see aids;

epidemiology;pandemic). Computer viruses

are self-replicating strands of code that ‘infect’

information systems (seeinternet). Usually

destructive, viruses can play a creative role

through their capacity to initiate connections

between unrelated entities. For this reason,

viruses are frequently used to figure for a

view of relationality – variously termed trans-

versal, rhizomatic or hybrid (seehybridity;

rhizome) – which is presented as an alterna-

tive to linear genealogies (Ansell Pearson,

1977; Hinchliffe, 2004). nhc

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_V Final Proof page 800 30.3.2009 7:45pm

VIRTUAL REALITY