7
The Virtual and The Real
"That girl on TV is my sister"

The opposite of real is supposed to be only a representation of it, an image, a simulation. Artificial conservatively understood means 'fake', an imitation. This type of terminology implies that a representation is something less than the real, less in value somehow. The term 'virtual' in contrast to 'actual' usually connotes not quite, but almost. Representations do not deserve this condescending placement. What is the superiority of the real? What really is the distinction, in many cases, between the two?

'Virtual' or 'artificial' are traditionally more ambiguous terms when used to refer to an object or occurrence. A main characteristic of human life is ambiguity. What actions one will take, in what manners and by what definitions are constant questions extending through human conscious as one negotiates the world and their place within it. The ambiguous nature of thought and decision-making qualifies as 'actual' or 'real' for its role within the human psyche.

The virtual can be much more than the real. The virtual has a potential whereas the real is no more than can be seen or already known and predicted. Reality is embodied with the virtual as well as it is in the tangible, objectifiable objects of the physical. The absence of truth is a positive and liberating occurrence because it provides and accepts complexity and complication. A simulation is itself a reality. While the term 'virtual' implies situations that are near substitutes, 'virtual reality' "is a more dangerous term since it suggests that reality may be multiple or take many forms.....virtual realities are fanciful imaginings that, in their difference from real reality, evoke play and discovery, instituting a new level of imagination. Virtual reality takes the imaginary.....one step farther by placing the individual 'inside' alternate worlds.....a simulational practice is set in place which alters forever the conditions under which the identity of the self is formed" (Poster).

The reality and the virtuality of television can hardly be intellectually separated in terms of a distinction in how viewers engage with and utilize its texts - "the dissolution of TV into life, the dissolution of life into TV" (Baudrillard 55). All media, and television in particular, present reality by projecting it to viewers often before it is physically witnessed by them. Television's texts are, in turn, created by the viewers as "we write our lives" through them (Schirmacher 134). We, as viewers, create the "media lifeworld" for ourselves, illustrating a change in our mode of communication resulting from our "innovations in communication" (Schirmacher 136). This change amounts to a force that is larger than the individual as it "creates an artificial lifeworld (of which we are all a part) in which communication is split and re-split in an interchange rather than bound to the meaning of words and to intersubjectivity" (Schirmacher 139).

Sister G: Yeah, the shows on TV are not real, like not real people or real lives, but they are real shows, at least that. And the stuff that goes on in the shows are like what happens to a lot of people for real.
Renalda: The people on the shows are not real. They are actors, but when you see them as their roles, or whatever, then they are like real people. You can believe them like that. But not really - of course they're not around, livin' by that name - like I can't just go outside and see Julia (Party of Five), but there's a lot of things about her that I know other people are like.
Elva: I know that the TV characters are not real people. I know they are acting in a show. But I can still know them like the people they play to be.
Sister G: That's the point of the television show - to make the characters seem like they are real - that's how come people will watch them. And, really, it's o-k if they are not real. They don't have to be. If you can still watch them and like the show and like them, or maybe not, then that's all there is to it. You don't have to ever think about that they're not real. It's a weird question.
Keisha: Some of the people on TV are like some people I know and some of them are like me, you know, sometimes, I think. It's part of the fun to watch when you can see things like that. It doesn't matter they're not real - they are not supposed to be. They are like a story character or somethin' - just there to tell the story. And some of them are pretty close to real - like that girl on Living Single, she is my sister! For real, she is just like her!
Elva: I can know some people on TV like real people - like I remember things that they say or that they did just like I remember stuff the real people I know do.

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