A perfect crime: safeguarding nature

Abstract

The innumerable changes space has been undergoing at an ever growing accelerated pace bring forth a new situation. Nature, being the chief element constituting this space, suffered – and is suffering – alterations regarding its meaning. Such alterations un-qualify nature and then qualify it again, and then real nature becomes virtual nature. This latter, in turn, is in accordance with the world it is inserted in. In this world, plunged into objectivity, information multiplies at a dizzying pace and virtual media becomes growingly ever present. We have brought forth things that were beyond the screen to this side: we are supposed to understand this nature now. Starting from Baudrillard’s concept of the virtual world and his considerations about the end of reality, we aim at operating with the hypothesis of a virtual nature. What is then virtual nature? This is the issue-question we propose to think about in this article. Exploring how far real and virtual differ from each other, today, is our goal in order to think about this opposition as regards nature.