The New Reality through Virtuality

In this paper we want to develop some conceptual reflections of the processes of virtualization procedures with the aim to indicate a series of misfits and mutations as byproducts of the “digital-graphic culture” (DGC) when we are dealing with the perception of the “digital space”. Considering the present situation, a bit chaotic from a pedagogical point of view, we also want to propose a set of “virtual space parametersi in order to organize in a systemic way the teaching procedures of architectural design when using digital technology. Nowadays there is a great variety of computer graphics applications comprising practically all the fields of “science & technology”, “architecture, design & urbanism”, “video & film”, “sound” and the massive amount of information technology protocols. This fact obliges us to have an overall view about the meaning of “the new reality through virtualityi. The paper is divided in two sections and one appendix. In the first section we recognise the relationships among the sensory apparatus, the cognitive structures of perception and the cultural models involved in the process of understanding the reality. In the second section, as architects, we use to have “a global set of social and technical responsabilities” to organize the physical space, but now we must also be able to organize the “virtual space” obtained from a multidimensional set of computer simulations. There are certain features that can be used as “sensory parametersi when we are dealing with architectural design in the “virtual worldi, taking into consideration the differences between “immersive virtual reality” and “non inmersive virtual reality”. In the appendix we present a summary of some conclusions based on a set of pedagogical applications analysing the positive and the negative consequences of working exclusively in a “virtual world”.