从全景图到元宇宙——从媒介考古学视角出发

From Panorama to Metaverse:A Media Archaeological Perspective

现有元宇宙话语多从技术主义和线性叙事出发,过度关注媒介技术外观的变迁,从而将元宇宙视为数字媒介导向生存抽象化的顶点。不过这种论述既忽略了元宇宙在历史和未来的多样化面貌,也忽略了使用者的体验和审美维度。以媒介考古学和身体现象学方法出发可对上述路径纠偏。通过媒介考古,我们发现艺术史中被压抑的一条触觉媒介谱系,它将身体知觉-动觉的调动置于核心,元宇宙也是如此,它为主体间互动带来更亲近的方式,因而区别于其他数字媒介。当今元宇宙在技术假肢和身体图式融合的探索上更进了一步,极大扩展了人与技术环境耦合的范围和自由度。元宇宙是一种“混合现实”而非“虚拟空间”,它依赖于真实空间中人们的身体活动和情感记忆作为其构成性要素。

The existing discourse of Metaverse mostly adopts the methods of technicism and linear narration, and pays too much attention to the changes of the appearance of media technology, thus taking Metaverse as the culmination of the development of digital media. However, such discussion ignores not only the diversity of Metaverse in history and future, but also the users’ aesthetic experience. And the problem can be corrected by means of media archaeology and body phenomenology. Through media archaeology, we find a repressed tactile media lineage in art history, which puts the body perception-kinesthetic sensation at the core, and so does Metaverse, which brings a more intimate way for the inter-subject interaction and distinguishes it from other digital media. Nowadays, Metaverse has taken a step further in the exploration of fusing technical prosthesis and body schema, greatly expanding the scope and freedom of coupling between human and technical environment. Metaverse is a kind of “mixed reality” rather than “virtual space”, which depends on people’s physical activities and emotional memories in real space as its constituent elements.