Although many people view virtual reality as a totally new phenomenon, it has its foundations in an unrecognized history of immersive images. Indeed, the search for illusionary visual space can be traced back to antiquity. In this book, Oliver Grau shows how virtual art fits into the art history of illusion and immersion. He describes the metamorphosis of the concepts of art and the image and relates those concepts to interactive art, interface design, agents, telepresence, and image evolution. Grau retells art history as media history, helping us to understand the phenomenon of virtual reality beyond the hype.<br /> <br /> Grau shows how each epoch used the technical means available to produce maximum illusion. He discusses frescoes such as those in the Villa dei Misteri in Pompeii and the gardens of the Villa Livia near Primaporta, Renaissance and Baroque illusion spaces, and panoramas, which were the most developed form of illusion achieved through traditional methods of painting and the mass image medium before film. Through a detailed analysis of perhaps the most important German panorama, Anton von Werner's 1883 The Battle of Sedan, Grau shows how immersion produced emotional responses. He traces immersive cinema through Cinerama, Sensorama, Expanded Cinema, 3-D, Omnimax and IMAX, and the head mounted display with its military origins. He also examines those characteristics of virtual reality that distinguish it from earlier forms of illusionary art. His analysis draws on the work of contemporary artists and groups ART+COM, Maurice Benayoun, Charlotte Davies, Monika Fleischmann, Ken Goldberg, Agnes Hegedues, Eduardo Kac, Knowbotic Research, Laurent Mignonneau, Michael Naimark, Simon Penny, Daniela Plewe, Paul Sermon, Jeffrey Shaw, Karl Sims, Christa Sommerer, and Wolfgang Strauss. Grau offers not just a history of illusionary space but also a theoretical framework for analyzing its phenomenologies, functions, and strategies throughout history and into the future.

奥列弗·格劳，艺术史学家，奥地利多瑙河大学图像科学教授，该校文化研究所所长。他曾任教于柏林洪堡大学，任齐根大学和林茨艺术大学访问教授。曾任柏林德国科学基金会体验式艺术工程主任。自2000年起，他与自己的工作组开始建立第一个虚拟艺术国际数据库。他曾在世界多个国家地区讲学，获得多个奖项，发表著作甚丰。近期著作包括：《虚拟艺术：从虚幻想象到沉浸体验》MIT出版社，2003年（第四版），《传介感情》法兰克福，2005年。即将出版：媒体艺术史，MIT出版社，2007年。他的研究重点是沉浸式体验与情感的历史；摇在（远程异地在线）的历史、创意和文化；基因艺术和人工智能。奥列弗·格劳是柏林-勃兰登堡州科学学院青年部的成员，媒体艺术、科学和技术历史国际大会2005年在加拿大举行首次会议“耳目一新！”时任主席。