QUANTUM LEAP
Da Sensorama a Meta: Un viaggio nell’immersione tecnologica
di Rebecca Pedrazzi
Quantum Leap is a new column where the past and future meet in a journey through art, technology, and innovation. From ELIZA to ChatGPT, from Duchamp to Klingemann, from Klee to Nake, we will explore together how yesterday’s innovations are shaping tomorrow. A dialogue between human creativity and digital tools — from virtual reality to synthetic landscapes — redefining the boundaries of what is possible. A must-read for those seeking to understand the future through the processes that shape it.
The history of virtual reality has deep roots intertwined with technological development and the human desire to go beyond “boundaries”: a journey that starts with Sensorama, the pioneering immersive device created in the 1960s, and continues to Zuckerberg’s ambitious virtual ecosystem.
From Sensorama to the Sword of Damocles
Morton Heilig aspired to create a “cinematic experience” in which the senses were fully engaged. In 1962, he developed Sensorama, a pioneering device that combined stereoscopic images, sounds, smells, and vibrations to offer a multi-sensory immersive experience. Despite its rudimentary technology, Sensorama anticipated many features now associated with virtual reality.
In 1968, a milestone was reached in the history of virtual reality with the Sword of Damocles, an augmented reality device created by Ivan Sutherland and Bob Sproull at Harvard University.
The concept of technological immersion is also reflected in literature: in Ben Bova’s 1963 story The Dueling Machine (expanded into the 1969 novel of the same name), a virtual world is imagined where opponents duel in a machine-generated virtual space.
Interesting fact: Sensorama was created before the advent of digital computers and still functions today.
From VPL Research to Meta
During the 1980s and 1990s, devices like the VR Headset developed by Jaron Lanier, the founder of VPL Research, laid the groundwork for virtual reality despite the technological limitations of the time. The breakthrough came in 2012 with the Oculus Rift, created by Palmer Luckey: an affordable, accessible headset made possible by advancements in graphics and computing power. Facebook’s acquisition of Oculus in 2014 and its transformation into Meta in 2021 highlighted the ambition to create a space that integrates virtual and augmented reality with digital worlds, revolutionising how people interact and work. However, this vision is accompanied by significant challenges: privacy, technological addiction, sustainability, as well as criticisms surrounding the fragmentation and accessibility of the metaverse. From the “cinematic experience” to Meta, immersive reality today stands not only as a technological product but also as a cultural phenomenon capable of redefining the boundaries of our sensory and social experience.
Rebecca Pedrazzi
Rebecca Pedrazzi is a historian and art critic specialising in AI Art, as well as a curator and journalist. Born in Milan, she graduated in Art History and Criticism from the University of Milan with a dissertation on The Contemporary Art Market and began her career as an Art Advisor for an art management company, developing an in-depth knowledge of Old Masters. In 2017, she founded the online art and culture magazine NotiziArte.com, and in 2018 she became a registered journalist. Since then, she has written over 3,500 articles on national and international art and cultural events, currently focusing on the latest technologies applied to the art world. In 2021, she published the book Possible Futures: Art and Artificial Intelligence Scenarios with Jaca Book. She now lectures in courses and master’s programmes on AI and the art world, contributing to educational initiatives through publications, conferences, and webinars. She has collaborated with various organisations, including VAR Digital Art for the VDA Award and CINECA for the GRIN S+T+ARTS Residencies project. Pedrazzi is a member of the Gallery Climate Coalition (GCC) and works with the Neuromarketing and Metaverse Department of AINEM as well as the European PERCEIVE project. She co-curated the exhibition The Work of Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence at Palazzo Pigorini in Parma, the first collective dedicated to Italian AI Art. In 2024, she worked with the Observatory on Artificial Intelligence at the Istituto Europeo di Design (IED), where she currently teaches Phenomenology of Contemporary Arts.
