Virtual Balkans:
Imagined Boundaries, Hyperreality and Playing Rooms[1]
(for Marija)
Borders and boundaries
continue to fascinate people. Sometimes it is for purely practical reasons
(being on the wrong side of one), sometimes for academic ones. The “Borders”
project of the collective Apsolutno opened
some of these issues in the most direct way. What does it mean to cross a
border? How does one construct any boundary? In this paper, I want to deal with
some of the connections that boundary-constructing, hyperreality and virtual
reality establish among themselves, as well as with some of their practical
consequences.
It is quite often
remarked that the construction of ethnic or cultural boundaries is arbitrary.
This arbitrariness is not open to debate. As a matter of fact, contemporary
anthropologists regard the concept of a
“nation” as something similar to the concept of “race” — namely, it is a concept with which
some people do operate, but “in reality,” it has no “objective” meaning. This,
of course, does not invalidate the fact that people do act based on their
presuppositions and preconceptions, which include ideas derived from this
concept. Thus, even something that does not exist “in reality” can produce very serious and real consequences.[2]
This positioning on
either side of what some (or many) people regard as real is sometimes regarded by contemporary theorists as something
that has to do with hyperreality.[3]
Hyperreality is a reality constructed and artificial — but with the full
awareness of the participants in this reality. It is a reality that exists while at the same time negating
(or even denying) other realities, but the fact that the participants (and
creators) are self-conscious of its artificiality opens numerous possibilities
for paradoxes. Hyperreality is a place (or area, domain, field, etc.) where all
the paradoxes meet and co-exist, side by side. The paradoxes are made obvious
(apparent) through the media — and this is something that clearly distinguishes
the hyperreal from the end of the 20th
century from the surreal or any
similar concept. The media input enables people to see (and become aware of)
themselves as others. The nature of contemporary technology (Netscape, film,
TV, video, CD-ROM, various forms of electronic art) makes this imagery
extremely widespread (especially in the “West”). It also makes all the
paradoxes of the contemporary world more apparent.[4]
Hyperreality is in some accounts closely related to virtual reality (VR)[5]
or cyberspace.
Both Virtual Reality
(VR) and certain concepts (especially when it comes to boundaries, traditions,
or naming) connected with Balkan[6]
politics present interesting examples of hyperreal constructions. VR is also
known as “artificial reality,” “virtual worlds,” and is also taken to represent
“a visual form of cyberspace.”[7]
It has also been defined as “a real or simulated environment in which the
perceiver experiences telepresence” (Steur 1992; quoted in Featherstone and
Burrows 1995: 5). “It is a system which provides a realistic sense of being
immersed in an environment” (Featherstone and Burrows 1995: 5-6). According to
Howard Rheingold,
Virtual reality is the revolutionary
technology that immerses you in a computer-generated world of your own making —
a room, a city, an entire solar system, the interior of a human body. With the
aid of computer gloves, a Star Wars helmet and some super-sophisticated
software, you can now explore the uncharted territory of the human imagination
with all your senses intact.[8]
It is also seen as “a
way for humans to visualize, manipulate and interact with computers and
extremely complex data.”[9]
It is my belief that delineating places in the Southeastern Europe can be
related to this, insofar as it presents a way of visualizing, manipulating, and
interacting with certain highly ritualized notions (such as “nation,”
“history,” “tradition,” etc.) and extremely complex data. The trick is that
these complex data are made to look simple and straightforward. To give three
examples:
1. The Republic of Macedonia.
For some quite extraordinary political reasons (some of which look as if
they have been taken from Ionesco’s “theater of the absurd”), Macedonia is
faced with very specific problems: their neighbors claim that it doesn’t exist.
Albania claims (although unofficially) that the western part of the country
(where the majority of ethnic Albanians live) should be given huge autonomy and
probably eventually should be annexed to Albania itself. Serbia and Macedonia
have some unresolved territorial disputes, and the majority of Serbs believe
that Macedonians are just “Southern Serbs” (a term used during the Serbian
occupation, between 1912 and 1941).
Bulgaria claims that, while Macedonia as a country exists, Slav
Macedonians do not, and that they are, basically, just Bulgarians who have not
yet realized their “true” (that is to say, Bulgarian) identity. More recently,
Bulgarian government has determined that there is actually a Bulgarian (and not
Macedonian) ethnic minority in the northern Albania. Finally, Greece believes
that Macedonia’s close relations with Turkey[10]
pose a threat to Greece. This attitude is connected with the Greek denial of
the existence of a Slav Macedonian minority[11]
in its northern province and the refusal to grant to this minority such basic
rights as the use of its own (Macedonian) language.[12]
The Macedonian
language is recognized as a distinctive South Slavic language by all the
countries in the world with the exception
of its neighbors Greece and Bulgaria. Because of Greek pressure (the
northern Greek province is also called Macedonia), Macedonia was, in April
1993, admitted to the UN (and afterwards to other world organizations) only
under a temporary (and it is still in use now, in December 2002!) name: The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
It is still being referred to by this temporary name (or by the acronym FYROM)
in official communications from the UN, EU, US, and other world organizations —
but this term (and being referred to by it) almost all Macedonians find very
offensive.
So, Macedonia is a new
country that perhaps exists and it is inhabited by people claimed and at the
same time denied by their neighbors. Macedonia not only provides some
interesting examples for the concept of hyperreality — it is hyperreal itself!
2. The Republic of Slovenia. A sense of hyperreality exists
for Slovenia as well, for it was throughout its history:
a country so thoroughly suspended between East and West, for
so many centuries, that it actually disappeared. Or, to be more precise, it
didn’t appear at all — until the spring of 1991, that is. Slovenia’s limbo
within this East-West “twilight zone” — most recently, between the great
Orwellian blocks of the century’s second half — did nothing to lessen the
struggles fought on her soil. (Hemingway’s First World War novel A Farewell to Arms, which chronicles the
carnage of the Socha Front, never once mentions Slovenia — despite being set
almost entirely within the borders of the present-day republic.) Slovenia’s
obscurity on the global stage, the concomitant inconsequentiality of her fate,
have made the Slovenes unconsciously attuned to historical and ideological
pressure changes.[13]
Of course, the
attunement to changes has its limits. They become most obvious in the
communication with their neighbors, on the political plane. Although most
Slovenians would consider themselves as “civilized,” this is not a view shared
by their northern neighbors, in the Republic of Austria. Thus, as Slovenian
cultural critic/ideologist/philosopher/psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek claimed in The Guardian in 1992, some European
nations tend to regard their southern border as the border between
“civilization” and “savagery.” The
southern border represents “the end of the world as we know it” — it is where
the “civilization” ends and where the “savagery” begins. This is the case with
Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia.
Obviously, no one
denies that Slovenia exists (although
there seem to be some problems with the existence
of ethnic Slovenians in southwestern Austria), but it is quite interesting to
see something (a country, a nation) arising out of nowhere. Creatio ex nihilo at its best.
3. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Another good example
of hyperreality is the present state of FR Yugoslavia, which until very
recently claimed direct continuity with the (former) SFR Yugoslavia. The main
problem of the present Yugoslavia is that it is founded on a constitution that
was (on 27 April 1992) voted for by the Parliament representatives of the former Yugoslavia. They had no legal
authority to vote for this Constitution, but they nevertheless did, and a
strange new entity (a federation of Serbia and Montenegro) was born.[14]
By creating this new entity, Serb politicians (who dominate Yugoslavia) tried
to establish a link with the mythical time of Serb history, while at the same
time preserving what many people in Belgrade now remember as “the good old
days” of communist Yugoslavia, when everyone (who did not go looking for work
abroad) was employed and everyone had reasonable amounts of money.
The attitude of the
international community towards this entity might be described as hyperreal as
well – after 1995, all European countries established their embassies in
More recently,
negotiations started on the re-defining of the union of
The software and
specialized equipment for the VR (including Image generators, manipulation and
control devices, Data Gloves and Head Mounted Display [HMD]) helps create an
environment where almost[15]
everything is possible. In the VR world, an individual is fully immersed into a
world which he/she feels and experiences
as real or objective. All the senses adjust to this. The feeling of
“belonging” to a VR environment is complete. A user adjusts herself/himself to
a different rate of motions (slower than “outside” the VR environment), since
sudden moves can create a sense of nausea and great discomfort. However, there
are some problems and possible health risks.
In 1993, the CyberEdge Journal # 17 published a
summary of the findings of a study done at the University of Edinburgh
(Department of Psychology, Edinburgh Virtual Environment Lab) on the eye strain
effects of the use of the HMD.
The basic test was to put 20 young adults on stationary
bicycle and let them cycle around a virtual rural road setting using a HMD
(...) After 10 minutes of light exercise, the subjects were tested...
“The results were alarming: measures of distance vision,
binocular fusion and convergence displayed clear signs of binocular stress in a
significant number of the subjects. Over half of the subjects also reported
symptoms of such stress, such as blurred vision.”[16]
Some stress symptoms
can also include falling on/tripping over real world objects, simulator
sickness (disorientation due to conflicting motion signals from eyes and inner
ear), eye strain, etc. (according to John Nagle in Isdale 1993). It seems that
the adjustment to the VR is not very compatible with living in (and
experiencing) the actual (or physical —
a term used by Jaron Lanier[17])
reality.
I believe that this is
an important point to be taken into consideration when discussing the matters
of Southeastern European and Balkan politics. In their own particular ways,
politicians and theorists[18]
from this part of Europe tend to construct their own VR environments, creating
(and re-creating) their countries as Virtual
Places. These Virtual Places exist in both time and space, and their
presence can be fully experienced by their virtual citizens.
For example, some of
the leading Serb historians regard the 13th century as the beginning
of the Serb “statehood.” It is perfectly useless to try to explain to them that
the notions of “state,” “nation,” or “statehood” (as they are used today)
originate in the post-Renaissance Europe (from the 17th century
onwards). For most Serbs, the battle of Kosovo that allegedly took place in
1389 is seen as the act of defense of Europe against the Ottoman (or Muslim,
Islamic, etc.) threat. The collapse of the Serb medieval state that followed
(in the mid-15th century) is seen as the ultimate price paid for the free (that is to say, Christian) Europe.[19]
Thus, Europe owes to the Serbs its understanding, recognition, financial
assistance, etc.
In another example of
a Virtual Place positioned in time, Slav Macedonian nationalists claim their
right to a Greater Macedonia, based on the conquests of Alexander the Great,
approximately 1,000 years before the
Slavs even came to the Balkans. This strange construct would include what
is today the Republic of Macedonia, as well as parts of Greece, Bulgaria, and
Albania. As such, in the virtual space, it overlaps with other Greater
constructs: Greater Serbia (which should, apart from Serbia and Montenegro,
also include parts of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Albania, and the whole of
Republic of Macedonia), Greater Bulgaria (Bulgaria, Macedonia, parts of Greece
and Albania), and Greater Albania (Albania, parts of Greece, Macedonia, and
Serbia). As already noted above, the very existence of some countries (like the
Republic of Macedonia) is incomprehensible for some others (in various aspects,
for Serbia or FR Yugoslavia, Greece, and Bulgaria). From the official Greek
standpoint, for example, its northern neighbor is totally “virtual.”
While these constructs
are logically incoherent, inconsistent and mutually incompatible, they function
quite well in virtual space. They also feed each other and are in a sense
dependent on each other. The problems of (possible) communication are solved in
an elegant manner: there is no communication, chosen representatives of “the
people” usually just repeat what they are told to say and what they always
believed they should say: that their
nation is the oldest, the best, and always right, and that they have suffered
the most. Thus, they should be granted all the privileges for “their” version
of these Virtual Places. They are
supposed to blend with and eventually supersede real places.
Virtual Exits?
An important thing to
be noted here is that any or all versions of these Virtual Places cannot be
regarded as either true or false. They are all true — within their respective
historical/cultural/ethnic/traditional premises. Within a VR reality, a Virtual
environment simply exists. As put by
the Critical Art Ensemble in their VIPER Lecture: “VR’s primary value to
spectacle is not as technology at all, but as a myth.”[20]
It is put to (practical) use only when a user pus on Data Gloves, HMD, stereo
headphones and computerized clothing (“datasuit”) and turns on her/his
computer. Hence, it is both impractical and impossible to argue with the
proponents or creators of Virtual Places — they are always right, since they
are forever locked in their own virtual environment.
In an example that was
very much actual between late March and early June of 1999, the NATO bombing of
Yugoslavia was presented to the Western viewers as something purely virtual[21]
– it was the war that was not really a war, bombing to save the Albanians,
although occasionally NATO planes hit and kill dozens of Albanian – but it was
for their own good! The bombing was also not aimed at civilians, but most of
the civilian infrastructure has been destroyed, hospitals, residential areas,
buses and passenger trains hit – but, again, nothing personal, it was for the
good and ultimate enjoyment of the people of Serbia. It was the war to end all
Balkan wars. (It still remains to be seen whether it will succeed in this.)
In the Serb official
discourse the bombing was a living proof that the whole world is and always has
been against the Serbs, and that is just another reason why people should
retreat to their virtual shelters, protected from any silly ideas like
“democratization,” “freedom of thought,” or “freedom of expression.” When the
survival of the nation is at stake, all its members must stand as one and
bravely face up to the wreath of the world powers. Their death would be just a
re-enactment of the heroic Battle of Kosovo of 1389, another proof that even in
death and destruction, the defeated ones tower over their oppressors. It is
only fitting that in a strange twist of fate the people who once saved
(Christian) Europe from the (Muslim) Turks should fall as victims of that very
same Europe (in reality, just Britain – along with the US).
One of the most
obvious effects of the prolonged use of VR is that a user feels a little dizzy
afterwards and moves a little slower than “normal” — adjustment to a different
environment takes some time (this is sometimes referred to as a “VR lag”). It
would be unproductive (except, perhaps, to make fun of such a person) to ask a
person who has just taken off his/her HMD to perform some strenuous physical
task, to jump or run, etc. A “fundamental loss of orientation” occurs (as
Virilio would say[22]), a feeling of
dizziness which, in case of ex-Yugoslav nations and Serbs in particular,
prevents people from making any distinctions between the real and the imagined.
Following this, I do
not see any point in expecting that ideologists, theorists, politicians or
advocates of Virtual Places should act or behave in a manner more in tune with
what is sometimes regarded as a “proper behavior” (that is to say, to use rational
arguments, to be able to discuss points of views of other participants in a
discussion, to accept that they can sometimes be wrong, etc.). One should
always bear in mind the particular environment which they see and feel as
theirs, in which they feel comfortable, and act accordingly. One way of coping
with them would be to always include qualified psychologists and computer
experts familiar with the VR in all the negotiating teams and intermediary
missions dealing with the Southeastern Europe. I believe that this could
greatly enhance mutual understanding and probably ensure much better
communication. The other way should be quicker and more efficient, but perhaps
too abrupt and not very diplomatic: just to switch off the computer. Of course,
there is also a possibility of introducing a virus – a virus of
democratization, which has to be introduced from outside the region, since the
local populations have neither strength nor will to try it. But then, are the
countries who condone mass killing of civilians in order to stop mass killing
of civilians morally capable of proposing it? Or is their ultimate answer just
more violence to end violence?
Taking all of that
into consideration, one might wonder about why should any of the Balkan nations
exit their Virtual Worlds – there are the things, concepts, places, people and
(most important for the national unity) enemies
that they know so well, know how to deal with them and how to feel. There are
even small NGOs that can function providing a simulation of democratization,
while in effect nothing ever changes. Any change would just plunge them into
chaos – which is the last thing that global policy-makers want in the Balkans.
In the end, it seems that both peoples from this part of the world and their
well-wishers, critics and occasional bombers will agree that some people should
never leave their playing rooms, and should have their data gloves on. At least
for now.
Endnotes
[1] Acknowledgements:
This
is a revised version of the paper presented on 25 May 2000 at the Department of
Anthropology, University of Parana (Curitiba, Brazil). Another version of this
article was published online in the journal CTheory
in 1997 (Vol. 20, No. 3) (http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=97). Most of the ideas have been presented in late July 1999 at the Image of the
Other Summer School in Skopje, Macedonia, as well as during 2000 at the
seminars at the University of Ljubljana and The Peace Institute (Slovenia), and
in the Department of Media and Communications, Goldsmiths College (London, UK).
With
many thanks to Igor Markovic (Arkzin and Intelektualna
kooperativa Bastard, Zagreb), and acknowledging my debt to Vuk Cosic (Literal, Ljubljana, formerly of the Ljubljana Digital Media Lab), and CTheory (Arthur and Marylouise Kroker,
editors). The idea of a virus was suggested by Glenn Bowman (Department of
Social Anthropology, University of Kent at Canterbury) in Skopje in 1999.
[2] Virilio argues that we are witnessing not the end of
history, but the end of geography. VR has entered homes of millions of viewers
of CBS, CNN, BBC and other major news networks with the latest NATO
intervention in Yugoslavia. Paul Virilio, Un monde surexposé, Le Monde Diplomatique, August 1997. (www.mondediplomatique.fr/1997/08/VIRILIO/8948.html).
On the similar note, one could regard the crashing of the airplanes into the WTC buildings in New York on 11 September 2001 as one superpower’s exit from the sphere of the virtual – cf. Slavoj Zizek’s “Welcome to the Desert of the Real” (www.lacan.com/desertsym.htm).
[3] For example, Jean Baudrillard, Le crime parfait. (Paris: Gallimard, 1995.); and Umberto Eco, Travels in Hyperreality, translated by William Weaver (San Diego and New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovic, 1986.).
[4] For the paradoxes related to space and time, see Virilio O Espaço Crítico e as Perspectivas do Tempo Real, translated by Paulo Roberto Pires (São Paulo: Editora 34, 1993.).
[5] The term has been coined in 1986 by Jaron Lanier, and, despite all the objections from grammarians and “hard scientists,” held on and entered the popular usage.
[6] Of course, “the Balkans” is also a construct – used especially in the last decade to construct, deconstruct and reconstruct different identities (“us” from “the Balkans” vs. “them” from “the West”), as well as to put forward an interesting hypothesis by some scholars from the region (especially some from Serbia now living in the US) that “the great powers” are source of all the evil, and it was always their actions that shaped the Balkan politics.
[7] “Following Sterling (1990), cyberspace is best considered as a generic term which refers to a cluster of different technologies, some familiar, some only recently available, some being developed and some still fictional, all of which have in common the ability to simulate environments within which humans can interact. Other authors prefer the term computer-mediated communication (CMC) (Jones 1994) to refer to much the same set of phenomena” (Mike Feathersone and Roger Burrows, “Cultures of Technological Embodiment: An Introduction,” Cyberspace/Cyberbodies/Cyberpunk: Cultures of Technological Embodiment, Featherstone and Burrows (eds.), (London: Sage, 1995.), p. 5. The same authors make a distinction between “Barlovian cyberspace,” “Virtual reality,” and “Gibsonian cyberspace.” S. Jones(ed.), Cybersociety (london: Sage, 1994.); Bruce Sterling, “Cyberspace (™)”, Interzone 41, 1990; J. Steur, “Defining Virtual Reality: Dimensions Determining Telepresence”, Journal of Communications 42(4), 1991.
[8] Howard Rheingold, Virtual Reality (London: Mandarin, 1991.).
[9] Quoted in: Jerry Isdale, “What is Virtual Reality?”, Online, 1998. <http://vr.isdale.com/WhatIsVR.html>.
[10] Bulgaria and Turkey were the first two countries to recognize Macedonia under her constitutional name.
[11] Human Rights Watch and other NGOs put the number of Slav Macedonians in this area between 15,000 and 50,000.
[12] These issues are very much present in contemporary anthropology. A great controversy arose in 1995 when the Cambridge University Press (at a very late stage and bypassing its own anthropology editorial board) refused to publish a book by Greek anthropologist Anastasia Karakasidou, dealing (mostly) with the Slav Macedonian minority in northern Greece. Apparently, the publisher was afraid that this book might irate Greeks. The controversy produced an outrage and the resignation from the CUP of some of the most respected world anthropologists, including Michael Herzfeld (Harvard). (The book was eventually published by the University of Chicago Press.)
[13] Michael Benson, “The Future is Now,” in: How the East Sees the East, (Piran, Slovenia: Obalne Galerije, 1995), p. 83.
[14] Cf. Aleksandar Boskovic, “Hyperreal Serbia”, in Arthur and Marylouise Kroker (eds.), Digital Delirium (Montréal: New World Perspectives, 1997); also at CTheory online: http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=172.
[15] That is to say, it has to be programmed first.
[16] Quoted in Isdale 1993.
[17] Adam Heilbrun, “Jaron Lanier: A Vintage Virtual Reality Interview,” 1988, available at: http://www.advanced.org/~jaron/vrint.html.
[18] I should add here that I do not regard politicians or theorists as acting by and for themselves, they come from the people, frequently have huge popular support for their actions, so it can also be said that they act in the name of people.
[19] I would like to add that both the official representatives of the Balkan nation-states and most “ordinary people” see them being “at the crossroads of the East and the West” as the main cause of their troubles — both past and present. However, many other parts of Europe were at this crossroads at some points in their history, like Russia, Finland, or Spain. This is perhaps a remnant of the belief (quite often found in some “traditional cultures”) that a specific ethnic group is located in the very center of the Universe, along the axis mundi, so that anything happening to an ethnic group affects the Universe as a whole.
[20] Critical Art Ensemble, “Posthuman Development in the Age of Pancapitalism,” in ZKP 3.2.1 (Ljubljana: Ljubljana Digital Media Lab, 1996.).
[21] Arthur and Marylouise Kroker, “Fast War/Slow Motion,” CTheory, 1999 (http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=209).
[22] Paul Virilio, “Speed and Information: Cyberspace Alarm!”, translated by Patrice Riemens, CTheory, 1995 http://www.ctheory.net/text_file.asp?pick=72.