O virtual e a experiência estética do mundo

The extraordinary technological developments applied to the production of imagery have been shown to foster the growing use of the concept of virtual. However, if the virtual is omnipresent all around us, it is also true that such incursion of the virtual across every facet of our culture is today the target of sharp critique: the imagery of the virtual, far from enriching our experience of the real, is contributing to an irreparable loss of that same experience. By creating a simulacrum of reality, susceptible to all instrumentalizations, the virtual would drastically diminish its sense of density, polymorphism, roughness – in a word, its mysterious presence. We intend to counter such vision by showing that the virtual reinforces our relationship with reality. Far from a factor of “unrealization”, the process promoting virtual imagery drives the real. In the sense that virtual image underpins perception, flows from the imaginary and accompanies our affective experience, it supports an a priori of our relationship with the world – especially if such relationship happens under the mantle of aesthetic livingness. This incursion stems from the thinking of Mikel Dufrenne, in whose aesthetic-philosophical work we find contributions in this matter which are still valid today.