Academia Electronica – operating at Jagiellonian University, from 2008 under the name “Academia Electronica-Institute of Philosophy UJ“, and from 2023 at the Faculty of Philosophy UJ, under the name “Academia Electronica – the virtual part of Jagiellonian University” (VR UJ). I established the Academia in 2007, linking it with philosophical research on virtual reality, treated as a kind of human reality arising from technology. In Second Life, I conduct educational classes, participate in jointly organized academic life, and have had close friends for years, some of whom I have never met in the physical world, although I have had many important, personal conversations with them. Some of these individuals have a fundamental impact on the existence and operation of the Academia, particularly mgr Jolanta Chowańska (RL) | Neutrinka Lisle (VR) and mgr inż. Dominik Unak | Dex Euromat, but throughout the history of the Academia, there have been many more such people, making it evident that Academia Electronica has developed and exists thanks to the engagement of the Polish Second Life community, becoming an open, shared place – a virtual university, representing Jagiellonian University in VR. The foundation of academic activity was its acceptance by the Institute of Philosophy, and later the Faculty of Philosophy UJ, which supported its existence. In 2021, Academia Electronica expanded its activities to the virtual world AltspaceVR, and later moved to the virtual world Spatial.
In 2008, in Second Life, I conducted the first official, nationwide remote academic course in Poland, The Electronic Environment as Human Reality“, and in 2020, similarly, the first course using Oculus in AltspaceVR. The developing academic life includes courses (since 2008), participation in and organization of conferences, a series of lectures by scientists from various academic centers in Poland as part of the lecture series From Student to Professor (2011-2022), and lectures given by foreign guests as part of the series Science Beyond Borders – The Global Electronic Academy. The first open defenses in Poland were conducted here on the open internet: a doctoral defense (UMCS, 2012), a master’s defense (2012), and a bachelor’s exam (2015), and in 2023, the first open master’s defense using Oculuses took place in the virtual world Spatial. In 2014, the world’s first bot White Owl was launched to conduct test exams in the virtual world (Second Life), operating until 2020. In 2013, the first nationwide hybrid scientific conference Philosophy of Technology was organized here (three editions were held in subsequent years), jointly with the Institute of Philosophy UJ. In June 2022, the nationwide scientific conference Virtualium. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Virtual Reality was held, which was the first to take place entirely in the virtual world (AltspaceVR), and subsequent editions were held in the following years, co-organized with the AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków and the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin. Academia also hosted the first conference presentation in Poland using Oculus (2020). There is also exhibition activity in art galleries, and sometimes there is a night life involving participation in music concerts.
Academia Electronica has been named a humanities laboratory because it is an ongoing experiment concerning phenomena arising from the mediation of humans into an alternative, virtual reality. I am convinced that concepts such as reality, electronic being, electronic matter, immersion, telepresence or telematic presence, and electronic identity require academic, philosophical insight and analysis, which also results from the increasing transfer of human activities to the Internet.