Is it possible to design the perfect vanishing point from concrete to virtual perception? We may be talking about a simpler perception, because it is without direct contact. A detached and distant vanishing point, which apparently does not touch us. A vanishing point that generates emotions in solitude, one that is probably more secure because it is intangible. This refuge is powerfully offered by the metaverse, an unknown universe, dreamed of and steeped in hypotheses that gradually build up. The hypotheses of new possibilities, new powers, and new hazards. We seem to not be preoccupied by this universe within the universe. We seem to embrace many everyday realities, like pieces that lay the groundwork for this new world. We have all the means at our disposal: the Net that connects us, various devices and curiosity combined with mistrust in trying out new applications and technologies that make their way into our world, down here.
At one time, there was another meta that we pursued and confuted: metaphysics. This was born out of a study on the limits and potential of knowledge that does not directly stem from a sensitive physical experience. It was based on a sort of critique of the five senses. It was believed that these five senses would limit and induce us to passively perceive the impressions deriving from natural phenomena, because, like filters, they would have imposed on humans an entire, restricted range of perceptions without being capable of capturing the true essence of the phenomena. This critique could perhaps not be so far from creating a parallel with the contemporary meta. The metaverse presents itself as a matryoshka universe that is hidden inside our own, but is virtual.
We could, therefore, call it a simulated universe, potentially. The thing that manages this universe, the algorithm, could be considered an other – a human being, a rationale of direction that observes us, filters us, and sums up our hypothetical interests in a personalized, pre-set menu that is constantly being updated based on our movements, none of which are omitted. All is well up to this point. This metaverse would almost seem to be convenient, but what do we need in order to be a part of it? Where do we begin, since the concrete tools that are a part of our everyday life are already an extension of our limbs? We should probably start from the premise that everything that happens in this virtual universe is based, inspired, and reacts starting from our physical life. Precisely because it is stimulated it attempts to recreate something that already exists, but in a new guise. That said, human experience, understood as archival baggage, becomes essential to be able to fully experience whatever this new world can offer us. The point is that physical experience is based on our perceptions, on our senses that guide us, on instinct, and on memory. Will these perhaps be the tools needed to be able to best use accessory tools? The latter would almost seem to be unable to be separated from the reactions that people have to events, to things, and to human beings. Reactions that are born from a memory that is built up based on physical experience that becomes virtual here, like in a sort of tech translation of our heartbeat. It is nice to think that this metaverse can potentially offer an upgrade or a new version implemented by our possibilities. We have become used to building avatars in our image and likeness, to which we delegate the representation of our reactions to typed in conversations, or ask to serve as our standard-bearers of fantastic worlds in search of more or less concrete rewards. We have pushed ourselves to consider as being precious and valuable goods that were exclusively displayed in cases or on walls before, and that can now be summed up in three consonants, and digitally archived. We trust a Cloud to preserve all our images, our exchanges from far away, and our documents. We have accepted the idea of our fingerprints and face being recorded in order to guarantee quicker access to the intangible world. We have forgotten how to write with a pen and what a mistake on paper can cost us. We have even tried, with many unsurpassable limits, to whet our appetite through a screen. We talk to a cash register from which we ask for courtesies, like reproducing pieces, by now quickly able to be used via a list filled with green hearts. We quickly scroll right and left to create our choice of preferences as human beings, collected in a catalogue summed up in a few images and geolocations. Perhaps, then, we are ready for this world known as the metaverse. Perhaps we are ready
for a future made up of very few physical interactions in favor of endless virtual reactions. Perhaps we are ready to flee, perhaps all this sounds like a fun, lightweight, and comfortable vanishing point. A vanishing point without exposure, where we don’t have to be there personally, but, rather, can send our avatar, where we can dream of being and doing what we have never confessed we want. All this could generate distraction and pleasure, but these are again feelings that we read and interpret because our previous experience is decidedly physical. Could it be impossible to separate the concrete from the immaterial entirely, or are we perhaps not smart enough to do so? We could, therefore, make use of another intelligence, which we nurture unwittingly, so that it can make decisions for us. Decisions that represent us one hundred percent, because they are guided by a mind that tends to grow with the data that we provide it with by means of a click, without reading. We are in a hurry, that hurry to do as much as possible or nothing at all. But living is synonymous with memory, a synonym of memories. What will our memories be in this virtual world and how will we store them? Will images be in our mind or in the Cloud? And how much will they weigh in the archive? Might it not be that the meanings confuted by the previous meta have become the filters and the applications of the meta of the future? We need to ask the cash register and therefore other intelligences to show us what the rain will be like in this metaverse, to see what will happen when this sky filled with clouds turns gray and thunders with information. Information that is ours, yours, theirs.
