Virtual spatialities

Web page describing the opportunity to buy vacant islands in the virtual world Second Life

It might seem that in virtual places there would be a collapse of the distinction between physical proximity and intentional linkage. The grammatical place-connections would be the same as the virtual spatial connections establishing the virtual world. However, this is not so; the distinction does hold for virtual places, because a virtual place does not have to occupy the whole of a virtual area. It's true that the underlying connections in a virtual world are intentionally designed, but that does not make them the same as the normative or grammatical connections that select out certain areas within that virtual world as parts of a socially grammatized place.

For instance, if a virtual world made available virtual real estate for development, my virtual place could find itself next to new places outside my control -- I didn't want a virtual McDonald's next door to my virtual house, but there it is -- and this would affect the meaning and value of my place, and it would allow exploration of non-grammatical connections, just as happens in physical space.

• [Nearby: Suburbs and Hypertexts -- New kinds of textual connections -- Being-in-place versus being-in-texts ]