Changes of Viewing Grammar-Image Philosophy behind Virtual Reality（VR）and Augmented Reality（AR）

Ronald Deibert pointed out that the hyper-media not only relects integration of technologies, but also implies the massive penetration and ubiquity of the electronic media in the new media environment… the word “hyper”（means surpassing or exceeding）emphasizes two core features of the new environment: the speed of communication and intertextuality or interoperability of unrelated media … constitutes a single and seamless digital-electronic-communication network.

This paper focuses on one of the technical orientations in the hyper-media era, i.e. virtual reality（VR）and augmented reality（VR）. Hence, the philosophical virtual-real relation is put forward irstly, a major technological revolution of virtual-real relation in the techniques for photography is discussed, and a complete set of mature “viewing grammar” is built; then,the signiicant technological breakthrough of “viewing grammar” from VR and AR, and the philosophical signiicance is discussed.

1. Virtual-real relation: Philosophy and photography

The virtual-real relation is a constant topic of philosophy. Over two thousand years ago,the greatest philosopher of Ancient Greek Plato raised the well-known “Cave”, which aims to clarify the dialectical relation among “virtual reality —reality—hyper-reality”. Another great philosopher of ancient Greek Aristotle put forward the classical philosophical category of “Reality and Virtuality”, and deeply considered the elementary propositions of “Ex Nihilo” and “false or true complement relation”. Appearance and Reality of Bertrand Russell, a modern philosopher of the UK, is one of the classical literatures on photographic theories in the western countries. On the basis of diferences between “what does the thing seem to be”and “what is the truth”, Russell pointed out the essential diference of viewing modes of the painters, the artists, the scientists and the philosophers.

90% of the information received by the brain of the human beings comes from the vision. Almost all the philosophers consider the vision as the origin of human feelings for research of virtual-real relation. Hence, the virtual-real relation irstly involves with the image philosophy. Images are the construction way of the world, which is the prerequisite of the image philosophy. Invention of techniques for photography is the irst great revolution in the image world and image simulation ield. It converts the virtual-real relation from the theoretical layer to the technological and practical layer, and upgrades the thinking on virtual-real relation of the human beings from the conceptual and literal layers to the image duplication,recording and expression. By virtue of the optical-chemical image or optical-digital image devices, the modern photographers provide duplication of the real world in an amazing way like the tragic poets in Plato’s works. From the “viewing grammar” to the “sensing methods’,a significant revolution of “action grammar” is initiated finally. Susan Sontag, a famous photography theorist, summarized incisively that, “the photograph is a grammar of viewing,and what’s more, ethics of viewing.” The so-called “ethics of viewing” here has always been diicult to understand. It can be considered as an “action method”. That is to say, with the pictures as the media and the images as the means, we get involved into the real life deeply and widely. The emergence of photography and development of photography techniques has deeply changed the behavior modes of human beings, reconstructed our value system,and provided a type of normative system similar to the grammar.

2. “Grammar revolution of virtual reality and augmented reality

In recent years, the technologies of virtual reality（VR in short）and augmented reality（AR in short）are becoming increasingly mature. It indicates another signiicant change from“the viewing grammar” and “the sensing grammar” to “the action grammar” inally. With the help of artificial intelligence and digital image technologies, people can acquire vivid visual, audial and tactual experiences from the virtual world just like in the real life, integrate with the surrounding environment, and realize human-computer interaction and human-machine utility. Additionally, although AR technology is based on the reality, it surpasses the reality inally, and strengthens the behavior abilities of human beings by virtue of the virtual overlaying mode. In this way, the human beings have brighter “eyes”, more skillful “hands”and unrestricted “legs”. Thus, another great breakthrough of sensing and behaving abilities is realized.

VR technology is a computer-based simulation system which allows for creation and experiencing of the virtual world. It generates a simulated environment using the computer,which is interactive systematic simulation of 3D dynamic vision and entity behaviors, with multi-source information integrated. Besides, it makes the users immersed into this environment, and realizes sensory immersion（visual-audial-tactual）and human-computer interaction using the technical devices of digital helmet, digital gloves and others. In 1920s, TV sets, a type of virtual reality with sound and images, were invented, which opened the visual space of human beings and allowed the human beings to know the news all over the world without leaving home. However, TV sets are not a real form of VR. The real VR can directly put us into a virtual 3D space and integrate us with the interactive environment. In such virtual space, we can freely move, watch the beautiful scenery, just like in the real world, and have suicient independence. VR is a vivid 3D virtual environment generated by the human beings with the computer. It integrates the simulated environment, the visual system and the simulation system, and connects the operator and the 3D virtual environment generated by the computer using the human-computer interaction device. The operator sends various behavior information into the computer in a natural manner using the human-computer interaction device, and obtains the 3D sensing world via visual, audial and tactual sensing.

AR is an interdisciplinary subject of artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction, including CV（computer vision）, machine learning, multimodal fusion and other fundamental technologies. The simple explanation of VR is as follows: It simulates the visual,audial, tactual and even olfactory feelings of the human beings from the space and the position, thus providing vivid feelings to them. AR is augmentation of the actual world felt by the human beings. The lighter, the lashlight, and the telescope are conventional forms of AR,and Google Maps is also a type of AR. It can realize sensory experience beyond the reality through virtual overlaying and human-computer interaction device. The universal feeling brought from them is: there is no obvious boundary between the virtual and the real. As Sontag said, in a world ruled by photographic images, all the boundaries are random.

Since the day of invention, photography has been not only a type of “VR” technology,but also a type of “AR” technology. The beauty camera can augment the beauty property of faces in the actual world, and the post processing software, e.g. Photoshop and Lightroom,can overlay the contents of the virtual world into the actual world to diferent degrees. The picture is not only an image of the actual world, but also integrated into our real life. “Human-computer interaction” occurs every day. Sontag said, sufering pains in the image is different from living in the painful life taken by the camera. The image itself is intervention of the life. No matter it augments the conscientiousness and the sympathy or efects in a reverse manner, the commonplace of painful images makes our moral sense more insensitive.