The material politics of mobile virtual reality: Oculus, data, and the technics of sensemaking

Abstract

This paper contributes to an increasing occupation in media studies with Mobile Virtual Reality (MVR) – a form of ‘wireless’ VR, where all necessary sensing componentry is built into the system’s headset and controllers. Our analysis focuses on the Quest series of devices, offered by Facebook-owned VR company Oculus. Through the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon, we argue that the Quest represents a ‘concretisation’ of VR – of VR becoming internally coherent and synergistic, enabling its mobility and use in varied contexts. We suggest that this process of concretisation is what enables it to generate vast amounts of data with the potential for use by Facebook’s advertising arm and in future product development.