In the same sense, answering the question 'what is virtuality' is just as difficult and complex - some would say impossible; but since I and the reader haven't yet reached a mutual definition of the concept 'impossible', I refrain from this. It's a task that would presuppose, that we had seen all there is to be seen of virtuality. That virtuality had attained it´s myrid of shapes, manifested all it's forms and functions, and that virtuality existed (somewhere) as a frozen, fixed, finite, absolute state. Instead of making this claim I propose a truce. That we adress not virtuality itself. But its nature. That we focus on the subset of virtuality that HAS been unveiled. In past and present. assessing that which unites those emergent phenomena, might hint at it's nature.

Apart from the actual meaning of the word in which something virtual is 'being in essence or effect but not in fact'(Webster) - we must identify virtuality with something more. after all being in essence or effect but not in fact, could be said to be true of dreams, phatamorganas, nostalgia, echoes, lingering after-tastes and memories from bygone days. my claim is that, when we talk of something as being virtual today, we are dealing with neither of these; but rather something a little more concrete. we are dealing with technology.

What i propose, is not to render the old meaning of the word obsolete. but rather that we rephrase it in a context solely technological.

And what is then 'being in essence or effect but not in fact' in a technological context. i prolong the answer to the next line just for the dramatic effect.............
but really it's our imagenings OF technology. pure and simple. that whole world that litterally pours out from behind the screens, the mobiles, all the gimmicks of modern technology. taking on a life of it's own.

Virtuality is when that important mail is not delivered and we condemn it to be 'lost in cyberspace'. in our minds eye - just for an instant - we imagine our little message lost against a big backdrop of individually defined cyberspace. a big electronic expance behind the fluorescent screen. thats virtuality. a virtual construct. something there in essence but not in fact.

Virtuality is your cell phone being out of roaming distance, and feeling the gratifying sensation and once-again-belonging, as the link to the network is re-established.

Virtuality is turning the dial on your parents old AM-radio and imagening scaling across countries, entering time-zones and tuning in on radio-voices out there for decades. it is hearing it produce distant ghost-voices, echoes, pops and crackles and seeing the radiowaves spread out on an map of Europe; the radio-tower of Luxembourgh as it´s epi-center.

Virtuality is our new mythos. the pantheon of inner imagery, feelings and sensations we subconsciously associate with technology. that which is there in essence but not in fact.

It is evident in the way we interact with the technology.
from the way we we mutter and curse at the personified demons of malfunctioning machines. to the little rituals we have to appease the machine sovereignty (i.e. turning the computer on and off 2 or 3 times, arranging our desk-top icons in the same order as on the previous computer).

I have been observing myself. how i think and interact with this world behind the scenes. spending a lot of time with image animation - tying up a lot of machine ressources - i often experience how processes become unsynchronized as the work-load of the computer increases. dragging high-resolution images across the screen will happen at a slower pace; and unconsciously i associate this effect of the machinery with a mental imprint: that of the images being heavier than their lesser resolute friends. it is the equivalent of reading a persons body language. but transferred to mechanics. being a social construct we attune ourselves to social settings/conditions even when these are not there. it is this trend taken to extremes that's the driving force behind the invention of virtual pets, avatars, smileys and what have you. the urge to make something alien resemble something we are able to associate and relate to.

That is the nature of virtuality. a net-work of stories, a meta-physics of machinery enabling us to interact and 'understand' our tools and technology. refitting them in our social framework.

It is in this soil we shall seed the phuture forms of virtuality. using the new mythos of machines. the seeds we plant must be conscious as well as unconscious. individual as well as general. but really, as to the question 'what is virtuality?', there is and can be only one answer: 'your own'.

What of a Virtual Reality-piece like the VR-cube project The Parallel Dimension [http://www.nada.kth.se/~teresa]. by my definition is that virtual then?
My claim would be, that it is not. that with all the projections and goggles and images it is something very much there. in fact as well as in essence. but that which is virtually there, are the spin-offs that's borne from the duality machinery/product. the imagenings and the concepts conjured from seeing the artist's idea and notion of the body projected with technological aids. the experience of that constellation is participating in shaping the virtuality of the observer.
the experience could leave the beholder with the notion that machinery can be organic. thus experiencing virtual flash-backs when sitting by her computer and the rhytmic noise of the photocopyer reminds her of the beating of a mechanic heart.
or the experience could leave her with the notion of machinery as something alien. from then on machinery would be shrouded in the virtual sentiment that mere electronics will never be able to encompass something living.

Pitching my definition against a theoretical framework as Pierre Lévy´s (the authority when it comes to virtuality)is not without it´s perrils either. His perception of virtuality is extensive and is not limited to a technological context.
Both definitions agree that virtuality is a construct. In his case created as a means to handle and act in relation to generalizations. In my case the fabrication is a result of the general use and interaction with technology - a socio-interaction of machinery and humanity.
Since my virtuality is mostly a very individual experience, it would be hard pressed as a sub-set of Lévy's generalizations.