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Oil on Braced Baltic Birch 36" x 24" x 2"
 
I purchased a virtual reality (VR) headset and entered the metaverse as an experiment: watching VR films, playing games, painting in three dimensions, interacting with human avatars in social worlds, and even attending a church service. However, my foray was short-lived as I experienced intense motion sickness, which ended in me tossing my not-so-virtual cookies!
 
As a society and as individuals we must grapple with our virtual spheres, whether that be the addictive social networks we frequent, augmented reality, or the all-immersive metaverse. Pandora’s box has been opened, and hyperreality is shaping most of us whether we like it or not. I began thinking more seriously about virtual reality after listening to Father John Misty’s song, “Total Entertainment Forever”:
 
"Bedding Taylor Swift 
Every night inside the Oculus Rift
After mister and missus finish dinner and the dishes
. . .
Can you believe 
Just how far we’ve come?
In the New Age
Freedom to have what you want
In the New Age 
We’ll be entertained
Rich or poor 
The channels are all the same
 
You’re a star now, baby
So dry your tears
You’re just like them
Wake on up from the nightmare
. . .
When the historians find us we’ll be in our homes
Plugged into our hubs
Skin and bones
A frozen smile on every face
As the stories replay
This must have been a wonderful place"
 
Likewise, the title of Neil Postman’s reverberating book asserts that we are Amusing Ourselves to Death via the mountain of infinite content. My painting raises similar probing questions. The composition radiates from a 5G cell tower, representing a modern Tree of Knowledge. Like the Buddha who sat cross-legged beneath the Bodhi tree of enlightenment, Qohelet levitates under the “tree” that promises omniscience. The hope of becoming trans-human turns on us, as the technology that promised freedom becomes an instrument of mass surveillance, an inevitable panopticon of power reminiscent of the telescreens in George Orwell’s 1984.
 
The abandoned cityscape in my painting is comparable to a popular apocalyptic motif in video games and film. As our world accelerates toward urbanization and the obliteration of the natural landscape, will we desire to escape to a virtual world? I am not a curmudgeon when it comes to technology, but as Carl Trueman asserts, “Technology . . . defines ontology.”[1] It can dictate the nature of existence. If we are not careful, virtual reality will become our preferred reality, the only world we care to live in. While Qohelet sits mesmerized, the encircling Turkey Vultures and famished Black Jaguar are the only signs of life. Is this the kind of dystopian existence we seek? Perhaps the animals will jolt Qohelet back to the real world he was called to inhabit and steward.
 
[1] Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, 331