3 Interview Douglas Coupland 4 DB You’re a designer–so… DC But maybe there is a way. I’ve got them on ; you’ve got them on ; and we can actually go in a space together, and I think the new Steven Spielberg movie, Ready Player One, is about just that. I mean, if that was an app, like « go through the Moderna Museet with Daniel Birnbaum », that would be kind of wonderful, actually. So, maybe we’re projecting isolation into a situation that could actually be very rich in shared experiences. DB Of course, reading a novel is also a lonesome thing. You sit there and you read your book, and you’re alone. DC Maybe books are overrated. DB [Chuckles] DC Yes, I just said that ! On live streaming on international whatever. DB [Laughing] DC Well, maybe books were just a necessary interim technology that had to happen in order to get us to VR, and now we can get rid of our books. [Stunned silence.] DB Yeah… DC Your brains are dribbling… DB Yes, I don’t know what to say to that exactly. But, beyond them being ugly, because I agree, it’s very unattractive, this whole technology, they look silly, and you’re looking stupid, and people look like clowns when they’re wearing them, but that might change, I presume, that they will look like Ray-Bans or I don’t know what. DC They’ll figure it out. There’s that photo, I think, most people have seen now of a commuter railway car going from the suburbs of London into the city, and every single guy (there are no women in it) is reading the same paper allat once. So there you have another example of isolation within a crowd. If they’re all reading the same stories then, maybe, they’re basically wearing goggles together. I mean, people don’t change, I don’t think. They just take the same old behaviours and re inflect them in new ways. So, I do think that the aspect of VR that is being overlooked is the potential for a religious experience, and I think that’s going to be quite wonderful, and I really, really look forward to that. DB Are you going to do things in VR ? DC I don’t know. By 2023 I might be retired in Arizona chasing waterfalls in my Tesla or something. I would like to, though. Unless you can get your hands in there, it’s not going to be a very satisfying experience, but I think they’re working on that already, right ? See, it’s going to happen. Maybe we should start at the studio. How difficult is it ? Is it crazy difficult to film something and have it translated into the goggles ? DB It’s moving very quickly, I presume. But, I’m not sure I understood what you said about the fact that at the museum we walk through and you’re two or three people. In virtual reality one can share a space—of course… DC It’s like you’re doing a Google Docs or something. You can work on it together. DB But then I see you as an avatar… DC Well, my avatar would definitely be in there —not me. Yeah. DB So it doesn’t have to be a kind of a lonesome… DC No, it’s not about isolation. You can investigate a space with someone in Antarctica if you’re set-up properly. It’s just that it looks so strange. I think it was Pink Floyd, or was it Led Zeppelin–they did this album cover designed by Hipgnosis studios back in the early’70s, and they took’50s stock photos of families or people in their car or whatever, and they put this black object in it, and it was insanely prescient. You’d have this family, and everyone was just sort of staring at this black thing, and I always wondered what it was. Of course, it endedup being these things we live with. I think that things stop being weird very, very quickly. Do you remember when Google sounded like a stupid word to say, and now it’s just a word ? There is going to be a very awkward stage at the beginning, and I think there is going to be a sort of Bitcoin stage to it as well, as everyone tries to jump in and cash in as quickly as they can. DB I would say, the moment when it becomes a normal thing—a kind of everyday device—is, I guess, the moment when it’s totally wireless and also in your phone, I guess, and you just have it there, and the glasses look like Ray-Bans or something else. Otherwise, if you have to go to a special place, put on some ugly goggles with a huge computer, that’s not so attractive, but it all happens quickly now. DC I know what you’re saying… DB If you could just wish for something—what would it be ? DC Ok, back in the’60s–like, « Wow ! We have technology ! We’ve got some artists. Why don’t you guys make art out of it ? » And there’s a certain optimism about it, like conquering a new continent, and now everyone looks at these machines like, « How can I make money out of this ? », or « How do I make it pay off ? » There doesn’t seem to be the same will to make art out of it yet, and it might be just because the interface is so clunky. It’s obviously going to happen.