走向融合的元宇宙:电子游戏与数字身体之变

Toward a Convergent Metaverse:Video Games and the Transformation of the Digital Body

电子游戏是元宇宙的主要先导之一,它所建造的数字生存环境是我们所体验到的元宇宙的雏形。数字身体在游戏世界中的生成与变化,反映了元宇宙与我们的生存世界同步走向虚拟与现实的全面融合。沉浸被认为是电子游戏尤为重要的品质,体现为由沉浸式技术营造的媒介环境所带来的在场感和由游戏活动所产生的心流体验。沉浸往往要求对物理现实和身体的分心,以更好地投入虚拟世界。但在具体的游戏过程中,我们其实是对虚拟和现实世界同时保持关注的,对于双边世界的切换节奏我们早已驾轻就熟,融合首先发生在这样的跨身体中。元宇宙所开辟的是一种适度的沉浸,它恰恰意味着更紧密的融合,分神的身体成为元宇宙与日常世界整合的表征,塑造了数字身体现象学的典型状态,重新剪贴缝合了我们的世界,让“不在”得以在场,也重新结构了我们的身体节奏,改变了我们自身的知觉方式。由此,使开放的身体得以生成的开放的世界被凸显出来,元宇宙正是在这个意义上落到具身实践当中。

Video games are one of the main precursors of metaverse because they have constructed the digital living environment, which is the prototype of metaverse that we experience. The creation and transformation of the digital body in the world of games show that metaverse and the world we live in are simultaneously moving toward the full convergence of virtuality and reality. As a particularly important quality of video games, immersion is reflected in the presence brought about by the media environment created by immersive technologies and the flow experience generated by game activities. Immersion often requires the body’s distraction from physical reality, in order to better engage with the virtual world. However, in the process of game, players in fact maintain attention to both virtual and real worlds. In other words, we are already familiar with the pace of switching between the two worlds, and it is in this trans-body that convergence first emerges. Metaverse creates a moderate immersion, which precisely implies a closer integration. The absent body becomes a representation of the integration of metaverse into the daily world and shapes the typical state of the phenomenology of the digital body. Technology has cut, pasted, and sewn our world back together, allowing “absence” to be present, re-structuring our bodily rhythm and changing our perceptual style. Therefore, the open world, which creates the open body, becomes foregrounded, and it is in this sense that metaverse is embodied in practice.