Part 2: Infinite Summer Afternoons
Images from Initiations-Studies II by Panos Tsagaris with Kimberley Norcott
Having summarily rejected the term augmented reality for the reasons listed here, I’ll now propose alternate terminology to describe the phenomenon. The following elements contribute to this formation:
- The mobile web will enable us to become aware of metadata that was previously obscured in day-to-day life.
- Many current AR applications pride themselves on exposing indications of present metadata relationships which are not as readily apparent as traditional urban indicators (think: fashion).
- Contemporary visions of AR as something which will merely allow us to hold up our smart phones and look through an AR “window”.
This process of metadata revealing is termed “aura recognition” (or aurec for short). In a future post I will address what I see as shortcomings of visual interfaces for aurec.
In his essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1935), Walter Benjamin makes the following observations regarding aura:
If, while resting on a summer afternoon, you follow with your eyes a mountain range on the horizon or a branch which casts its shadow over you, you experience the aura of those mountains, of that branch. This image makes it easy to comprehend the social bases of the contemporary decay of the aura. It rests on two circumstances, both of which are related to the increasing significance of the masses in contemporary life. Namely, the desire of contemporary masses to bring things “closer” spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction. Every day the urge grows stronger to get hold of an object at very close range by way of its likeness, its reproduction.”
Certainly – since 1935 – these two “social bases” identified by Benjamin have reached their apex in contemporary digital life. Never before have we had as much convenience in bringing things – whether physical objects or information – into our immediate proximity (think: Amazon, Ebay, Google). Neither have we had the experience of such widespread meme and brand propagation in our physical environment (eg shopping malls, international airports, and fast food franchises). Benjamin continues:
Unmistakably, reproduction as offered by picture magazines and newsreels differs from the image seen by the unarmed eye. Uniqueness and permanence are as closely linked in the latter as are transitoriness and reproducibility in the former. To pry an object from its shell, to destroy its aura, is the mark of a perception whose “sense of the universal equality of things” has increased to such a degree that it extracts it even from a unique object by means of reproduction. Thus is manifested in the field of perception what in the theoretical sphere is noticeable in the increasing importance of statistics. The adjustment of reality to the masses and of the masses to reality is a process of unlimited scope, as much for thinking as for perception.”
This “sense of the universal equality of things” is the hallmark of the web. All searches are, ostensibly, equal before Google. Yet, among the ruins of this auric destruction, the web is simultaneously imbuing our lives with all kinds of unique and permanent phenomena. These phenomena make up the essence of our digital auras; auras created less by physical objects than by the specificity of context, relationship and juxtaposition. Aura Recognition is the means by which we access these phenomena.
Consider for instance how unique it is to geophysically meet someone who you’ve only previously known online. In the best case scenario, aurec will help us make sense of the emotional significance of digital phenomenon in ways which are meaningful and helpful. Location based services (think: GPS technology) provoke new experiences which are just as dependent on proximity as Benjamin’s proverbial summer afternoon.
<to be continued in _Part 3: The Crystal Ball_>
Part 1: Absurd Assumptions
As many opinion leaders have noted, Augmented Reality (AR) may very well be the next evolutionary step in bringing the metadata of the web into our day-to-day lives. Some suggest that AR technology may even surpass the Web in its sustained impact on culture.
While I whole-heartedly agree with this observation, the use of the term “Augmented Reality” may actually impede any progress forged by these technologies, especially in terms of broad/mainstream acceptance.
The first reason why the actual phrase “Augmented Reality” may impede the cultural uptake of associated technologies is via the use of the word “augmented” – meaning to raise or make larger. AR enthusiasts seem to be comfortable implying that this new technology is somehow the first technology to augment or enhance our reality. This seems absurd, as human societies have a well-documented history of using biochemical technology to augment reality in the tradition of psychotropic plant-aided shamanism. The innovation of written language was a concrete visualization of reality-augmenting metadata. The city may also be considered an extension of reality considering cities are highly constructed frameworks of architecture, roads, sewers, electrical and telephone lines. It seems more relevant to utilize a word that more accurately describes the idiosyncratic peculiarities of a mobile web-ready experience.
My second reason for objecting to the AR term stems from when the word “reality” is employed in relation to what are (in most cases) mobile-web applications. This usage implies that other computer applications are not affecting reality, or at least are not affecting reality sufficiently to be labeled accordingly. This also seems an absurd assumption; the host of software which has prevailed during the history of computing have had an affect on reality too (this, of course, is a total understatement). If it were not for preceding software which has already changed our reality, these so-called “augmented reality” applications would not even exist. Furthermore, this use of “reality” in this context indicates that there is one concrete reality which we are in the process of altering with specific technology. Yet, each of us have our own subjective “reality” experience, with some physicists even postulating theories of a holographic reality. While standards for augmented reality ought to be open to ensure accessibility by any mobile web-enabled device, it is a fallacy to interpret these standards as a consensus on reality itself. This new technology is posed to allow us to customize and tweak our own experience of our reality like never before, as well as the “reality” we share with others.
<to be continued in _Part 2: Infinite Summer Afternoons_>
…(a Tojolabal, two and a half years old, born during the first Intergalactic) is playing with a little car with no wheels or body. In fact, it appears to me that what Pedrito is playing with is a piece of that wood they call “cork”, but he has told me very decisively that it is a little car and that it is going to Margaritas to pick up passengers…The plane makes a pass over Pedrito’s hut, and he raises the stick and waves it furiously at the war plane. The plane then changes its course and leaves in the direction of its base. Pedrito says “There now” and starts playing once more with his piece of cork, pardon, with his little car. The Sea and I look at each other in silence. We slowly move towards the stick which Pedrito left behind, and we pick it up carefully. We analyze it in great detail. “It’s a stick,” I say. “It is,” the Sea says.”
- A story from Subcommandante Marcos retold by Ricardo Dominguez
One of my recent attempts at exploring and establishing liberating spaces between realities is a series of performances called technésexual. In technésexual, myself and Elle Mehrmand (my partner/collaborator) perform erotic acts simultaneously in a geophysical space and virtually in Second Life. Using electrocardiogram heart monitor chest straps, Lilypad temperature sensors and Arduino/Freeduinos, we capture heart rate and body temperature data to transmitt to our avatars in Second Life. These transmissions act to bridge the physical space and the virtual environment via the use of audio. This type of linking is often experienced when having a conversation that involves different, yet connected, physical locations. Technésexual provokes questions concerning the representation of sexualities that lie outside restrictive LGBT/homo/hetero categories: such categories are rooted in binary gender assumptions. The mixing of realities in this project are a way of queering new media which parallels our own experiences of mixing genders and sexualities.
Virtual/Synthetic worlds like Second Life facilitate the development of new identities which allow for (as yet) unimagined relations and relationships. Technésexual looks closely at these new relationships and the potential they embody. There is a flipside to the potentialities inherent in the subversive use of Second Life, one that acknowledges that Linden Labs – the creators of Second Life – are attempting to create a walled garden and permanently lock in users. Similarly, the university is beginning to reveal itself as a self-perpetuating obsolescent institution as sites like aaaaarg.org provide instantly searchable digital texts. Any exclusive expertise involved in pinpointing particular topics becomes obsolete when the process is as simple as using a “find” command. If we can begin to understand the university as “managed death[, ] a machine for administering death, for the proliferation of technologies of death”, the need to remove or modify such institutions becomes urgent.
In a recent panel conversation concerning Alex Rivera (the director of Sleep Dealer), Cauleen Smith noted how science fiction is a genre that promotes critique of extant systems of oppression (including class, race and gender).
Mixed and Augmented Reality could likewise be employed subversively to modify Capitalism through the infiltration of entertainment – this would, in turn, present deep critiques of extant systems of power. In Protocol, Alexander Galloway discusses the need for protocological resistance under global Capitalism, where practical implementations are shown in the occupations of universities and virtual worlds. Second Life creates a desire for a free metaverse. Free Software (such as Open Sim) begins to offer a space beyond Second Life and its tightly controlled reality.
Aimee Mullins proposed in a recent article that:
…the generation of children growing up today has a distinct advantage in this realm of identity, thanks to their daily interaction with the internet and video games. It’s commonplace for them to create avatars and parallel representations of themselves, and they see their ability to change, transform, and augment those bodies to best suit their surroundings as beneficial.”
I would, however, suggest caution rather than pure optimism regarding choices available in identity creation: many of these selections can just as easily reinforce forces of social control as offer an alternatives to them. There is no inherent freedom implied in Reality shifting. In her recent book Simulation and its Discontents, Sherry Turkle describes a 13 year old girl who informed her interacting within SimCity taught her that “raising taxes leads to riots”. What lesson did the girl learn – how to be a better ruler or how to take part in a riot? It isn’t clear. What is clear are the reality cracks opening up in front of us every day. As we proceed to navigate (within) these cracks, we must be prepared to imagine, create and bridge these new realities.
-Neuromancer (1984) William Gibson
I am an avid reader. I love to read. Put a book with an interesting title, cover, or topic in front of me and I will read it. I’ll read it fast, and I’ll probably read it again months or years down the road. A good book is something to be savored more than once. You might mistake my speed for rushing to finish it, or assume I miss out on relishing the content. Not true: I just happen to read quickly. For me, books are something like pieces of theater that play themselves out in my head. If I read too slow, my mind wanders and I sort of tune out. I guess this is like watching a movie in slow motion with no audio.
Of course, some books are much more than interesting diversions or simple brain candy that goes “pop!” in my brain (even while generating ideas and sparkling little epiphanies). Some books are like a whirling vortex of images, emotions and thoughts: with accompanying explosions of sound, color, sense and scent (ok, not really – I do have a very active imagination). When I read, some books suck me in so deep that I literally become oblivious to the world around me. I might as well be dreaming. And – rarely – some books have such an impact on me that I can recall different scenes or events in the book as if I had really experienced or dreamt them. Odder still is that sometimes, when I find an old book that I haven’t read for a long time and start to reread it, I experience a tidal wave of nostalgia and memory of the time when I first read it. Things I have smelled, places I have been, the mumbled voices of my family in the background and (most especially) that particular atmosphere that is different in every city in which I have lived. I could go on, but I think you get the idea.
One of the passages that has had the greatest effect on me (at least in terms of technology, the future, and all the other fun things I’m doing now) is the aforementioned excerpt from Neuromancer. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I have read that paragraph, savoring and relishing the mental image it creates. I could build a whole synthetic world and story around that simple paragraph. Can you picture it? Like city lights, receding… I can picture it now, moving, changing and pulsing: almost as if it were a living thing. I want to go there. I want to build it. I want to share it with other people.
I think my desire to build – and share – such a space is one of the reasons I have devoted years of my life to virtual realities, virtual worlds, and massively multiplayer online role-playing games. It also explains my continuing interest in artificial intelligence, artificial life, simulations and so forth. About two years ago I had an awakening when I realized that the future I have been longing for (especially since we STILL don’t have flying cars or vacations at the Lunar hotel) is almost here.
Although many of the elements that truly blend the real and the virtual are here, these are yet to be concretely consolidated into one functional system. Also, not all of the pieces required to construct such system have matured to the point of usability. I could sit back and wait for others to develop the entire system, but I am too hungry for it. So I decided to form Neogence Enterprises and attempt to build the world’s first global mobile augmented reality network (even though I really don’t like the phrase augmented reality).
So, here I am. I’m doing it: I’m attempting to build it. I have a grand vision, more ambitious than just about anything else I have ever tried (although attempting to ski a black slope in the German Alps – right after I learned how to stop on the bunny slopes – ranks pretty high up there). In the rest of this multi-part series, I’m going to explain:
- What augmented reality is.
- What mobile augmented reality can be and associated potentialities.
- How mobile augmented reality is going to function.
- Details concerning Neogence’s short term goals.
- What Neogence plans on launching on October 10th 2010 (10/10/10).
I hope you stay tuned. I’m definitely looking forward to your opinions.