Lately the news constantly talks about the impending metaverse, virtual reality, and the billionaires who plan to advertise to us as we sleep in our headsets.

I have not been wildly excited.

I don’t wish to spend all my time immersed in a virtual world, and I find the idea of it distressing.

But today I watched some videos that Christoph Niemann made in 2018 and got more excited about the concept of virtual spaces than I have been in a while.

It’s not that I haven’t been interested in VR – I always thought that the things that Uncle Michael was doing sounded cool, I played with a Google Cardboard headset at one point, and I’ve loosely followed the topic over the years – but lately the ways in which its being brought up have shifted from centering on art projects and gaming to work and socializing, and I’ve disliked that. It’s sort of put me off. But I recently spent time looking into the work of Vi Hart, M. Eifler, and others at EleVR and The Art of Research (see History of The Art of Research for that) which brought me back slightly toward it, and today when watching Niemann’s videos I genuinely felt that I wanted to try playing in the space. Here’s the thing though:

I’m not interested in business-casual virtual worlds.

I’m interested in strange virtual worlds. Abstract virtual worlds. Nonsensical virtual worlds. Small virtual worlds. Local virtual worlds. Unpolished virtual worlds. Private virtual worlds. Open-source virtual worlds. Inaccessible virtual worlds. Handcrafted virtual worlds. Messy virtual worlds.

I am more than happy to add some kind of VR element to my options alongside phone and FaceTime calls, but I’m interested in it as a form of small communication, not as a social network in the larger sense. I think the idea of a virtual workspace is fascinating, but mostly because I’m interested in being able to dive into my doodles and live among them while I try to figure out an idea. And I’m sure that there are companies working on this. I’m sure that somewhere in the terrifying Meta release video there’s a part of what I’m saying. But I don’t want that, really. I want to be able to play in something like what Niemann created. I want to be in something that isn’t asking for my attention all of the time, and is explicitly asking me to not spend all of my life in a virtual world, and to go and take whatever I’ve made or seen in there out into the actual world. Maybe it runs on a battery that can only last for 20 minutes and takes all day to recharge. Maybe you have to crank it to make it work like one of those flashlight radio things.

But mostly what I want is the sense of art and personality. I hate avatars. I would rather talk to someone being filmed on a green screen with a headset covering their face than talk to an avatar.

In the note I took on Niemann’s videos I wrote this:

I wonder if I could figure out how to automate stitching scans or pages from my ReMarkable into worlds… that would be interesting. I could have a template with a few rectangles for floor, wall, ceiling, etc. and could add things in each rectangle so that when I jumped into the VR world I could look over at the wall for a bunch of Post-Its with tasks or at my desk where I’ve taken notes on a reading or something…

I really still am unhappy about the prospect of living in the kind of metaverse I’ve seen demonstrated, but since it looks like virtual meetings aren’t going away and VR will enter my life at some point whether I like it or not, it’s nice to play with ideas that make it more palatable and interesting.

Maybe over Winter Break I’ll try to actually make it work. I’m wondering if I could do some of the stitching and compositing in Blender? I also don’t know what the best way to handle real-time compositing (for if I wanted to be in a meeting in that room with someone else) would be, but I think figuring out how to draw an environment and then have it automatically stitch into a 3D world would be good enough as a start.

Generally, I’m interested in playing with virtual worlds, not living in the metaverse.