Diffracting Virtual Realities: Towards an anti-theatre of VR offers a short manifesto
for a diffracted, critical virtuality and for wider technological and related pedagogic
practices, ones which eschew over determination and simplistic empathy rhetoric.
The paper, or rather, manifesto, proposes, instead, a deliberately artificial VR, with a
purposeful strategy of diffractive observation and commentary. The manifesto
analyses a range of theoretical and critical approaches, evidencing their foundation
in a power struggle between deterministic ontologies and what Barad frames as
Agential Realism (Barad 2017). Agential Realism emerges from the entanglement
and contingency of human and non-human relata, from objects and subjects and
their performative co-relations, as explained in this manifesto. The manifesto aligns
itself with Brecht’s critique of empathy, and with a broader critique of humanist
individualism. Diffracting Virtual Realities is positioned against the valorisation of
individual, psychological representation, and instead argues for structural methods,
conducive to systemic change. The manifesto is indebted to Stephen Unwin’s book
The Complete Brecht Toolkit (2014), from which many pragmatic and theoretical
insights have supported the teaching of virtual reality, storytelling and performance
against prevailing constructs of individual immersion and empathy.

Editor Annouchka Bayley (RCA)