Travel experiences can be wonderful, but not always. They risk being exhausting, dangerous or just downright frustrating. Oh wait, there’s another way of travelling not involving any form of physical transport. You go to some large room, probably in a tent or warehouse, put on a VR headset that covers just your eyes and ears, and off you go. Virtual Reality, and how virtual it is!
Not really any sort of reality – it’s a reality without the ‘real’. It’s a mediation of reality, just like social media is not really social. It’s in fact a singular experience that promises way more than it can deliver, in both cases it has the same aftertaste as eating a virtual lolly – looks sweet, absolutely no sugar hit. Do you want the random warmth of human kindness, despite the risk of failure? Do you want to risk the unknowable and possibly find treasure? Note the word ‘risk’. It exists in all our endeavours of course, in the real or in the virtual.
The other night a friend and I attended a VR experience at the Fever Pavillon at Sydney Olympic Park. It was a VR experience of that 15th-century Inca fortress known as Machu Picchu, way up in the Andes Mountains of Peru. Friends who have actually been there tell me that it is so high up, most tourists suffer from the lack of oxygen and the exhaustion that comes from that thin air. Despite that physical hurdle it delivers a magic and awe that will stay with you for a lifetime.
After putting on the headset we were given instructions from a floating robot. It looked like a refugee from the Jetsons but sounded like some fast talking dude from the Bronx. Weird. I was then transported into a digital version of that magical place. The air was fine but the voiceover was hard to hear and the visuals a little chintzy. Was I suddenly inserted into some outdated video game? I tried to go with the flow and appreciate the Incan civilisation’s mastery of architecture, myth making and their unique astrology. I looked out across vast tiered valleys and saw two-headed dragons whizzing through the night sky. Ooh, I did at times feel a little vertigo!
In the end I was glad to take the headset off and walk out into a balmy Sydney night. I realised that I was a hard sell with this VR thing. I really love real travel despite its messiness and risk of failure. What was good though was sharing this digital diversion with my good friend and feeling like we had had some kind of childish fun. I’m sure the young and digitally attuned would have come away feeling something completely different. Me, I’d rather spin out over the city on a Ferris wheel or scream my head off on a roller coaster or maybe just eat too much fairy floss!
