How to meet out of now/here? 

Abstract

We’re looking for nepantla in VR chat world. a potential liminal space between physical and digital, vr as a mediator, give people hope to cross the border of identities. Does it really providing a borderland for people who cannot find there place in society? Or it could be just another extension of reality? In this research project, we work as collective, to bring a multi perspective and intention into the VR chat world, and try to find the answer through interview, interaction and observation.

VR chat worlds could provide a space for reimagining identities by allowing people to explore new ways of being. However, it remains unclear whether VR chat worlds truly offer a "borderland" for those unable to find their place in society, or if they simply extend reality in new ways. By bringing multiple perspectives into VR chat worlds and observing interactions, we can gain insight into how identities are reimagined and borders are crossed or reinforced within these spaces.

Key words: Nepantla, Anzaldua, hybrid, liminal space, VR chat, identities, alienised body.

Nepantla and identities

“My body is sexed; I can’t avoid that reality, although I could change it through transgendering or transsexing. My body is raced; I can’t escape that reality, can’t control how other people perceive me, can’t de-race, e-­race my body, or the reality of its raced-­ness.”
[1]

Nepantla has been described as an imaginary space between two worlds, between borders, between ideologies, between histories, or between cracks. We’re forced to live in categories that defy binaries of gender, race, class, and sexuality. And Nepantla is in the middle, at the crossing road, here you can be simultaneously inside or outside. The place at the border is where resistance is located, is where put together all the fragments, and where connects everything.
[2]

To find Nepantla, to find the likely place Anzaldua has elucidated. We start our research points to a destination that we don’t know where it will end.

Borderland between virtual and reality

Beginning from a spatial perspective, our daily lives frequently involve moving through physical spaces, departing from one place and arriving at another. However, with the advent of digital technology, we now shuttle between real and virtual spaces. Each time we access internet through the interface, we cross a boundary, connect to the other side. Virtual Reality (VR) technology provides a way to creating immersive virtual spaces that simulate real-life experiences. The VR interface enhances sensory involvement, including visual, auditory, and body dynamics. The illusionary quality of VR immerses the user into a virtual world where they can embody an avatar, traverse and interact within a virtual space. The heightened sensory engagement through VR technology provides an unprecedented opportunity to examine the relationship between the physical and virtual spaces.

In this project, we chose VR Chat as our research object. VR Chat is a social VR game or so-called VR version of social media. The account is the core feature like other social media, users/players create their own accounts and interact with others. Compare to web-based media, the embodiment can be experienced more in VR Chat, for instance, users decide which avatar to use, meaning what identity they want to become. They can choose any kind of avatar and change it whenever they want. There are dozens of options in the default avatar menu when the user first enters the VR Chat world. But most of the users will change to user-created avatars after a while. In this game, the avatar creator can upload the 3D character they’ve created, or even build a specific avatar world to display all their contribution like a gallery (we’ll come to the world later) and open to every user to take the avatar for free.

Other than that, the “Clone avatar” feature in VR Chat is intriguing, which allows you copy others’ avatar if they agree, then you will become them immediately. Under this circumstances, the customised 3D model business grown fast, you can pay much to couture your own unique identity to avoid repetitive. The free market and more opensource creator let VR Chat platform not only hence its diversity, also keep the meme part of the internet culture. We can sometimes see an absurd scene, for instance, president Xi chat with four stacked macaques in Korean.

When a user enters the VR Chat game, they can choose to enter different "worlds". These worlds have very different themes, styles, and content, some are vast grasslands, some are comfortable homes with warm lighting, and some are surreal science fiction scenes. Each world can accommodate 1-50 players at the same time, depending on the maximum number of players set when the world was designed. Most VR worlds are designed to encourage social interaction. You can order food at McDonald's counter and chat with a Sonic the Hedgehog player with an American accent (under 10 years old), or listen to a group of online drunken people laughing loudly at the Black Cat Bar. The freedom of VR worlds depends on the world designer's design, and yes, most worlds are created and uploaded by players. Various worlds are uploaded to this platform, and you can see the current popular worlds and the number of players in real-time. You can also see which language is the default language for some worlds. The most common languages are English, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, and Chinese, but based on my own experience, English is the main language used in the game. Therefore, you can hear various accents of English, which is also the most commonly used way to identify the user's identity in the "real world". After all, other parts of the game can be easily changed. (There is also a common community of mute players in the game who choose to turn off their microphones and communicate through body language and writing and drawing.)

English:
While specific ideas and stereotypes are necessary for some eyes to describe and understand oneself and others, Anzaldua constructs and deconstructs identities from her Chicano, indigenous, queer woman, white, mestiza, Texan, and Mexican perspectives. Not being defined by only one of those words, she explains the characteristic of moving between different concepts while acknowledging transformation and transformative processes. Nepantla is a place where we can accept contradiction and paradox. An area where everything is possible.

Everything is connected. We need to pay attention to identities that haven’t decided yet and haven’t got a name yet. By this, we could blur the separation between us and others. When we notice we don’t fit the current classification of identity, in between those spaces, we could revise our perspective about ‘others’ with this transformative practice.

Korean + English:
While specific ideas and stereotypes are necessary for some eyes to describe and understand oneself and others, Anzaldua constructs and deconstructs identities from her Chicano, indigenous, queer woman, white, mestiza, Texan, and Mexican perspectives. Not being defined by only one of those words, she explains the characteristic of moving between differentes definiciones o conceptos while acknowledging transformation and transformative processes. Nepantla is a place where 우리가 (uliga) can accept contradiction and paradox. It is an area where everything is possible.

Todo está conectado entre sí. We need to pay attention to identities that haven't decided yet and 아직 이름붙여지지 않은 정체성들에 (ajig ileumbut-yeojiji anh-eun jeongcheseongdeul-e). By this, we could 희미하게 만들 수 있다 (huimihage mandeul su issda) the separation between 우리와(uliwa) others. When we notice we don't fit the current classification of identity, 그 사이의 공간에서 (geu saiui gong-gan-eseo), we could revise our perspective about 'others' with this transformative practice.

Traditional Chinese +English:
While specific 概念和刻板意象 are necessary for some eyes to describe and understand oneself and others, Anzaldua constructs and deconstructs 身分 from her Chicano, indigenous, 酷兒, white, mestiza, Texan, and Mexican perspectives. 不被定義 by only one of those words, she explains the characteristic of moving between different 概念while acknowledging transformation and transformative processes. Nepantla is a place where we can accept 矛盾和悖論. 一個所有事情皆有可能的地方。

Everything is connected. We need to pay attention to identities that haven’t decided yet and haven’t got a name yet. By this, we could blur the separation between us and others. When we notice we don’t fit the current 身分的分類, 在之間in between those spaces, we could revise our perspective about 他者‘others’ with this transformative practice.

This approach was also carried over into our VR experiment. We chose to use the same VR device, account, and character to represent all of us in the virtual world. However, due to hardware limitations, we took turns wearing the VR device to control the character, while the others watched the same view on an external display and engaged in internal discussions. We also communicated directly with other players in the VR world through a microphone. As a result, other players heard English with four different accents, sometimes mixed with our mother tongues, and occasionally multiple voices speaking simultaneously.

At first, we made an effort to initiate conversations with other players. However, it took us some time to adapt to the game interface, and during the early stages of the research experiment, we chose one of the game's default characters: a friendly mushroom.


“The first time I put on a helmet and entered the VR world, I felt unsecured. As far as I could see, in my vision I could only see the hands of my character as thin as chopsticks, and when I raised my head sharply, I could glimpse the red umbrella brim of the mushroom. I saw other players, they looked comfortable and proficient, the appearance of E-boy and E-girl plus their full-body dynamic tracker, looked very dazzling, but I, a mushroom, I don’t know if it’s awkward in their eyes? I Feel out of place. ” - 2022-12 Jung Hsu