Presence, Place and the Virtual Spectacle

This paper considers the concept of presence in virtual environments with respect to a Situationist critique of spectacularised urban space. The aim is to explore the concepts of space and place that have become bound up with presence research from an alternative critical viewpoint. The adopted Situationist perspective distinguishes between representations of places and inhabitable spaces, highlighting the problems of designing and inhabiting representational virtual environments. In particular the role of agency is considered in relation to the VR experience suggesting that, from a Situationist perspective, a large proportion of virtual environments cannot help but alienate their users.