VRML is a technology that has provided much anticipation, discussion,
research, and involvement within the past 2 years, developing around
itself a community of artists, designers, theorists, and scientists, all
driven to fulfill the now almost archetypal idea of cyberspace: a
collection of virtual spaces represented in 3 dimensions in which a
participant can actively interact, a la William Gibson and Neal
Stephenson. As VRML becomes increasingly available to more artists, it
is interesting to discuss the nature of VRML (within a larger construct
of virtuality) both technically and conceptually.

VRML is the Virtual Reality Modeling Language, a computer language which
allows for the creation of 3 dimensional navigable spaces which can be
distributed across the Internet and accessed through either a browser
plug-in or a stand alone application. These read the VRML file and
present the participant with the 3 dimensional scene and a series of
icons to aide in navigation through the space. As a computer language
VRML is accessible – that is, the syntax and semantics of programming
VRML are not so complex as to inhibit those who are not trained
programmers from experimenting and creating successful models or worlds.

The structure of VRML is that of a modeling language. Within a VRML
document objects are defines by their polygons, which are numerically
defined by their points. These polygons are then grouped together into
complex shapes and structures and placed in relationship to one another
along X, Y and Z axis. In addition to the ability to create shapes,
structures, and ultimately worlds, VRML allows for the possibility of
ascribing these shapes colors and textures. Light sources can be
assigned positions and qualities within the scene to effect the color
and texture appearance. Additionally VRML supports introducing sounds
into the environment either as ambient or connected with an object, and
allowing for a certain amount of sound-based interactivity with the
virtual objects. Specifications for VRML 2.0 support the animation of
objects within a scene. With the addition of Java or JavaScript,
programming complexities can be brought into the VRML environment,
including assigning objects behaviors and the dynamic changing of viewer
perspectives. With more dedicated programming, multi-user environments
can be created in which multiple users can be present in an environment
concurrently, and interact not only with the environment but with one
another.

Which brings us to the challenge of VRML for artists and designers: what
to create and how to conceptually go about creating it?

Creating virtual environments (be it VRML or otherwise) is a unique
process:r while it combines aspects of several familiar media, the
difference of virtuality complicates those familiarities. We can
certainly derive many analogies to what is created with VRML:
architecture, sculpture, installation, performance, and theater. These
analogies provide important paradigms which aide the conceptualization
and creation of VRML environments. However these paradigms can only
speak metaphorically: they are not describing in whole the virtual
product, but rather what the virtual product can be thought to be like.
This difference is the difference of virtuality.

By the (obviously inherent) virtual nature of VRML, our construction of
space is limited only by our imagination. The VRML environment is only
like architecture or theater as long as it functions as if it were
actual, rather than virtual. Once it begins to fully embrace the aspect
of virtuality, it quickly begins to differentiate itself from these
other spacial and interactive concepts. With virtuality the necessities
which dictate our actual creations can be discarded. Physics is no
longer law, but merely an option. Physical, temporal, and social
(interactive) rules as we experience them outside of the virtual
environment are not hard coded into VRML, and hence we can create
environments which are only possible within a virtual environment. VRML
then provides the artist and the designer the opportunity, the
challenge, and the responsibility to create not merely new creations but
entirely new constructs of space, place, and being. This issue of
virtuality is an issue all of itself, part of, but well beyond just
VRML. It is an issue that will continue to evolve with virtuality and
humanity. The intricacies of the concept of virtuality and virtual
environments provide major challenges for artists using VRML as a
medium.

But the use of VRML by artists and designers goes beyond the creation of
space to the construction of place. This is not a trivial difference.
Space is simply a physical construct which can be measured or quantified
with coordinates (even virtual space). Place, however, is a much more
involved construct related to being. Places "are constructed in our
memories and affections through repeated encounters and complex
associations. Place experiences are necessarily time-deepened and
memory-qualified" (see E. Relph in Dwelling, Place, and Environment:
Towards a Phenomenology of Person and World, p.15-31). One of the basic
goals of VRML environments is the creation of place as opposed to
straighforward space. Place as a construct is extremely powerful, and
artistically mediated virtual space has the possibility of being truly
profound. Another challenge, then, that comes with the use of VRML by
artists and designers, is the creation of environments which call the
participants back for repeated encounters so that time-deepened complex
associations occur. Moments of being in VRML can subsequently effect our
very notion of the nature of place.

It is only once we have answered the question of "what is the experience
we want to create?" and begun to deal with the complexities of
virtuality that we need to turn to the question of how to model these
experiences and intricacies in VRML. At that point we must rely upon our
paradigms, myths, and creative will. The important questions for artists
working with VRML are not whether or not the environment is built in
VRML 1.0 or 2.0, or whether the VRML was handcoded or created using a
WYSIWYG editor, but whether the VRML environment succeeds in fulfilling
our needs of identity, being and experience within place.