Augmented reality or a transformed reality: Where is the world heading towards?

As tech companies invest increasingly large budgets into augmented reality, it is starting to seem as though this is the way forward in terms of the lived human experience. From Google Glass to Facebook’s investment in virtual reality companies, there is a clear trend towards influencing what we experience in the optic realm. But there is no single way to achieve this and, with a broad range of options from augmented reality to virtual reality, what kind of future is the world really heading towards?

A future of transformed reality

We are increasingly moving into a reality where we experience the world as it is now – enhanced with additional information and data. This could be, for example, being offered information about people or things that come into our visual field, or being provided with additional visuals or experiences that don’t actually exist in the real world. These enhanced realities can be used to add to what we see but also to streamline it, for example, to filter out what we don’t want to see.

What is the world heading towards?

Looking at the way most tech companies are approaching the development of augmented or transformed reality, it’s likely that we will see a significant extension of apps into the visual domain. Here, they will be able to provide us with enhancements to the life that we are already living, whether that is to support long distance studying or the process of building a house. Despite the fact that this could have a lot to offer the human experience it’s also worth noting that this is likely to come at a price: personal data. We are likely to be asked to provide even more personal information in order to have access to the enhanced version of life. This could provide many more opportunities for products and services to be marketed at us, making it feel as if marketing is constant and everywhere. Advertising could start to move off traditional screens and surfaces and be integrated into our field of vision in many different ways.

The transformative potential of technology

Advertisers aren’t the only parties with a vested interest in augmented or transformed reality – there are lots of opportunities for artists too. For example, the Artvertiser project uses augmented reality technology to replace ads and billboards with pieces of art in the user’s field of vision. This tackles the issue of subconscious consumption of advertising and means that artistic experiences takes its place instead. We are also beginning to see artists using augmented reality technology to add extra dynamics to public artworks to really bring them to life. This technology can transform our realities and provide us with options in terms of the environments we want to inhabit. All it takes is augmented reality technology to overlay new worlds on the horizons and cityscapes that we see.

The world is heading towards an augmented and transformed reality that has enormous potential. While there will be challenges in terms of potential advertising overwhelm there are also opportunities for introducing more art into our daily experience and making it larger than life.

Scott Fleary are a leading designer and installer of scenery, set construction, and technical solutions for the creative industry. More information on the various Scott Fleary's services can be found here: https://www.scottfleary.com/services