Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Extended Reality (XR) are mediating technologies uniquely positioned to explore and experience death and where death might be rehearsed. Like an illusionist’s suitcase of magic tricks, what you see may not be real, but imagination of the intangibility of death is possible with ‘artificial’ design propositions through technological…
What is Apple’s spatial computing getting us into? Apple’s first mixed reality headset combines and relates digital visual and auditory information with your surroundings launched this week. Despite despite critics questioning its actual use cases, desire for the device has seemingly blown through pre-order availability with deliveries now tracking more than a month out from…
(Or, have we ever been physical?) Still from Shinjuku Calling (Yamagami Yukihiro 2014) Layering of the virtual on to the real is usually how Augmented Reality is described and explained, but layering is a strange metaphor to understand what is at stake when considering the physical-digital environments we live with. As provocation, consider when typographic ink lands on physical paper;…
Evolutionary tree of tech (Authors-Midjourney) There is no shortage of diagrams that purport to explain the evolution of technology in society. One fun diagram in the academic study of emerging technology is Geel’s (2002) “dynamic multi-level perspective on [Technology Transitions].” The diagram sure beats popular industry sources like the Gartner Hype Cycle diagram in terms…
Fifteen years ago, a grad student named danah doyd was finishing off her dissertation titled Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics exploring how teens were leveraging newly forming social media to live their lives in novel ways; boyd spotted people and publics coming of age in new ways. It’s useful to…
According to Mark Zuckerberg, the “metaverse” – which the Meta founder describes as “an embodied internet, where instead of just viewing content – you are in it” – will radically change our lives. So far, Meta’s main metaverse product is a virtual reality playground called Horizon Worlds. When Zuckerberg announced his company’s metaverse push in October 2021, the prevailing sentiment was that it was something nobody had asked for, nor particularly wanted.