Thread by @vgr

VR/AR people… is there a term for the virtual material out of which virtual environments can be said to be built? Like with atoms I’d say “wall of concrete” … I’d say”wall of X”?

If not we should make up a term.

I propose renderium or rendrial or rendril…

In-illusion term, not an illusion-breaking term like mesh.

Not voxels either. No terms pointing to an out-of-illusion design process or tools. If you bought virtual girders at a metaverse store to virtually build something in-world, what would the store call it generally? You can specify further… renderium steel, renderium wool

https://twitter.com/hyperpriors/status/1474806539638685699

You do want to be alive to the distinction between reality and illusion without being slave to it. Like in kayfabe. Hmm kayfabium? Mayum? Plus obviously we’re not going to be limited to skeuomorphium.

https://twitter.com/letkma/status/1474810329913716736

I really hate the whole namespace under “meta”

I think of meta an an “on top of” prefix in practice (though the og etymology is after/beyond).

On-top is the weakest/blindest perspective possible on anything tbf. Especially materiality.

https://twitter.com/virajsinha/status/1474809844909572097

Yes! I was just thinking about this and thought of… wait for it… embodium!

https://twitter.com/itsarnavb/status/1474811672359485448

Yeah this suggestion is in the right spirit (sprite?) I’d use it for virtual organic matter. Ghost life. Non-living uncanny materials can be spookium.

https://twitter.com/catorman1/status/1474813133843836934

Gonna go with renderium and embodium as base class terms for my paraverse story.

Paraverse: what emerged in 2050 in fertile liminal embodium-renderium rubble of failed metaverse, which retreated to a few islands of law-and-order by 2045 after failing to subsume everything

Just made up a good story. Now challenge is whether I can write it.