How to Experience Buddhist Caves as Virtual Reality, SOAS University of London

This lecture titled “How to Experience Buddhist Caves as Virtual Reality“ was given by Eugene Wang (Harvard University) at the Centre of Buddhist Studies, SOAS University of London on 6 October 2017. You can find out more about this event at Plato’s Cave has often been claimed as the progenitor of the film medium. It has also been reclaimed for much of the projection technology such as automated virtual environment. While the claims are conceptually fitting, they come short of historically substantiating what happened in between Plato’s time and ours. The alignment is long on the analogy between the projected shadows on the wall and the projection apparatus, but short, historically, on making much out of the cave setting. Along the same line of thinking, one could profitably claim Buddhist caves as the forerunner of the virtual-reality technology. What makes this new alignment worth pondering is that it makes good on the cave claim in earnest. Around 400 CE, the