The desert of the real

Garry Kasparov, ranked No. 1 in the world by the International Chess Federation, is in the midst of a match with a computer: "X3D Fritz" (Reuters, Thursday). The novel thing here isn't that Kasparov is battling a machine. He's already done that before. \nWhat sets the match with X3D Fritz apart is that, in a physical sense, it's not being played at all. With virtual reality software and 3-D glasses, the image of the board appears to float in front of Kasparov, who announces his moves on a voice-recognition system.\nKasparov's match with X3D Fritz is just one example of the growing ability of virtual reality to replace "real" reality. \nWhere the chess match ends, the beauty pageant begins. Enter Miss Digital World, the "first ever virtual beauty contest, strictly for the most beautiful and intriguing virtual models made using the most advanced 3-D graphics tools" (www.missdigitalworld.com). \nThe yearlong competition will be "conducted" on the Internet. The virtual contestants will "parade along a virtual catwalk" in front of "a virtual presenter and guests." The "woman" with the most online votes will be crowned on the Web site "in a breathtaking, tear-jerking ceremony." \nFranz Cerami, the creator of the competition, says, "Miss Digital World is the search for a contemporary ideal of beauty, seen through virtual reality."\nA bunch of computer geeks will be searching for, even attempting to, create our contemporary ideal of beauty -- now there's a happy thought.\nAt one level, the advances in virtual reality technology that make X3D Fritz and Miss Digital World possible are exciting and awe-inspiring. At another level, they're profoundly unsettling. As it advances, virtual reality places more emphasis on the virtual, and less on the reality. Gradually, the link to reality begins to weaken, and eventually it may be severed entirely.\nAnd it's not only virtual reality technology, strictly speaking, that blurs the boundary between real and unreal. So much of our modern experience seems increasingly mediated, artificial, created, virtual … unreal. We live in climate-controlled buildings, we watch so-called "reality television," we drive past billboards and neon to our jobs in office parks that are not parks, each with its own man-made pond and fountain.\nThis is not to suggest that we should all start living in trees in order to restore reality to our lives. But we could stand to be more aware of how "virtual" much of our "reality" is. To draw upon the ideas of French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, we are becoming immersed in a world of symbols and copies -- symbols without referents and copies without originals -- and we face the danger of losing our grip on the real entirely. There's already some evidence that we can no longer find the words to speak about reality. \n "It was like something out of a movie," we said of Sept. 11, indicating a strange inversion of the real and the virtual -- or was it the virtual becoming real and thus eclipsing the real?\n "We prefer the exile of the virtual, of which television is the universal mirror, to the catastrophe of the real," Baudrillard wrote in his book, "The Gulf War Did Not Take Place." The provocative title was not meant to express disbelief that the Persian Gulf War occurred in the traditional sense, but to suggest how, in its planning and presentation, the war lost its traction on reality. \n"War, when it has been turned into information, ceases to be a realistic war and becomes a virtual war."\nAs we go about our daily lives, it's worth remembering some of these ideas. Is today's war in Iraq really taking place -- to you? Or is it virtual, beyond your grasp? \nHow real is your reality?