In the name of Jake SpirrowsAt the turn of the millennium, Ernst Gombrich published a new preface to Art andIllusion. Unlike its predecessors it did not simply update his argument with newresearch but instead made a defence of his entire project. He argued that therewas a fundamental difference between reading a text and responding to afigurative image and it lay in the different mental sets required for the twoactivities. Furthermore, he argued that in an age of new visual technologies itwas absurd to argue that the illusionist image was a myth and there were notways in which it could become instrumentally better. The difference between theearly photograph and virtual reality lay in objective discoveries in the area of visual simulation. This line of argument was prompted by a body of criticism of his work that had emerged in England and America in the 80s, sparked off byNorman Brysons bookThe Vision and the Gaze:FUCKI consider myself quite charming.