Blog: 'Xenolinguistics'

I can't remember how I first came across the blog Xenolinguistics, but I've been meaning to post about it ever since. Its author, mazerunner, is apparently "working toward a Ph.D. on psychedelics and language," and the topics of the blog would seem right at home here (although the blog's deeply analytical approach might seem a little out of place next to our random assortment of YouTube vids, but there you go). Here's the introduction to a recent post on "Virtual Reality and Hallucination: A Technoetic Perspective":

Virtual Reality (VR), especially in a technologically focused discourse, is defined by a class of hardware and software, among them head-mounted displays (HMDs), navigation and pointing devices; and stereoscopic imaging. This presentation examines the experiential aspect of VR. Putting “virtual” in front of “reality” modifies the ontological status of a class of experience—that of “reality.” Reality has also been modified [by artists, new media theorists, technologists and philosophers] as augmented, mixed, simulated, artificial, layered, and enhanced. Modifications of reality are closely tied to modifications of perception. Media theorist Roy Ascott creates a model of three “VR’s”: Verifiable Reality, Virtual Reality, and Vegetal (entheogenically induced) Reality. The ways in which we shift our perceptual assumptions, create and verify illusions, and enter “the willing suspension of disbelief” that allows us entry into imaginal worlds is central to the experience of VR worlds, whether those worlds are explicitly representational (robotic manipulations by VR) or explicitly imaginal (VR artistic creations). The early rhetoric surrounding VR was interwoven with psychedelics, a perception amplified by Timothy Leary’s presence on the historic SIGGRAPH panel, and the Wall Street Journal’s tag of VR as “electronic LSD.” This paper discusses the connections—philosophical, social-historical, and psychological-perceptual between these two domains.

It's surprisingly entertaining to see a 2008 discussion of VR, now that the heyday of the Mondo 2000 years has long since passed us by. Other topics covered by mazerunner include "The Noetic Connection: Synesthesia, Psychedelics, and Language"; "The Nomenclature of Psychedelic Experience" (a favorite topic of mine); and "Alien Downloads" (a quick tour through the worlds of PKD, Terence McKenna, and John Lilly). The blog is rarely updated, but the signal to noise ratio is quite high. Dig it!