The Metaverse is a new type of Internet application and social form that integrates a variety of new technologies. Although still in its infancy, the Metaverse is a concept that is constantly evolving, and different participants are enriching its meaning in their own ways.
It's a virtual world parallel to the real world. It breaks the boundaries of time and space and offers users an open, free and immersive experience.
Can we then say that the Metaverse is a Virtual Heterotopia? A place that harbour the imaginary?
If in Foucualt’s words the current age is “the epoch of space” then as David van der Merwe argues, the connection between the metaverse, unregulated by recognised governmental authority but still maintained by a strict protocol of rules established between users and owners and Foucault’s heterotopia, a quasi-utopian space, is almost unmistakable.
Perhaps still growing out of the idealised virtual world and embracing a new "Phygital" frontier whose RL consequences of virtual interactions leak across the interface.