Spring Gaze in Virtual Reality - Hong X. Lu

"Spring Gaze in Virtual Reality" is a narrative starting from Page 32-33 from "Luey's Virtual Reality Political Poems." The main character Pei the Witness navigates a dystopian digital system called Spring Gaze, built on the remnants of poet Du Fu's work "Spring Watch". The system, governed by a cryptic linguistic protocol, equates language with authority, where surnames are algorithmic markers of identity and control.

Pei's surname fails to load in the system, marking him as an anomaly-a 'Veteran' unaffiliated with any existing power structure. His struggle reveals the mechanics of a world dominated by five surnames (Zhao, Yao, Yin, Gao, and Ren), each representing ideological proxies tied to surveillance, diplomacy, silence, judicial execution, and authority. These surnames dictate one's access to language, memory, and emotional expression.

Pei's journey is both literal and symbolic, exploring themes of identity, the politics of naming, and resistance against systemic oppression. Through interactions with entities like Shia Fan and encounters with forbidden logs, Pei uncovers the system's manipulation of historical narratives and personal legacies. Ultimately, Pei embodies the unsanctioned element within a controlled linguistic framework-a glitch that seeks to reclaim the authenticity and humanity stripped away by totalitarian language protocols.