Augmented Reality
The world is losing its magic. The rivers are no longer deities and the Nymphs that Socrates knew were on his walk with Phaedrus are not acknowledged anymore. Today we live in a strictly material world, a boring world, a scientific world where rocks are rocks and nature is man-made. Beautiful vistas are just that – beautiful, worthy of a picture but no longer a fountain of sublime transcendental glimmers. And yet, despite closing ourselves to the immaterial and denying the mystery of existence, the sable shadow still haunts us. So, we keep it at bay with new diversions and dazzling distractions.
Every modern generation has felt the alarming emptiness of life and has sensed that the horizon is bleak. Our banal society has long offered us nothing but the continued march of technological suicide, the extinction of biodiversity and the leveling down of infodiversity. We are wasting away our lives in long hours in front of screens, pushing pixels and accruing overtime. Bleary eyed, in a digital daze, we gulp down what we’re given and try not to think about the existential walls that are closing in as our precious years slip through our fingers, never to return again.
Faced with the shallowness of our existence, a life lived on the surface of reality, we desperately try to re-create the magical feeling that has been lost. But we are so far gone that the only alchemy we know is made of silicon chips and computer code. Still, our mercurial wizards with laptop laboratories combine these two technologies, frantically seeking the incantation for re-enchantment. But their methodologies are materialist and their tools far too modern – all that comes from their labors are expensive rose-colored glasses.
They call it augmented reality, a system for looking through the machine’s eyes, a way of seeing that replaces imagination with computer animation. And while our rocks may still be rocks, with this technology in hand, they promise us that our declining world will be bearable. That the dirt, grime and pollution need not be cleansed for through the screen everything is shiny and clean. And forget, of course, a revolution that razes this world because we can do it on our machines, safe and legally. Why destroy an oppressive reality when we can simply live in a “liberating” fantasy?
Against those who claim that augmented reality is the future of activism, we need only say: Everyone may wear blinders but the world will still stink of decay.
Micah White is a contributing editor at Adbusters and an independent activist. He lives in Berkeley and is writing a book about mental environmentalism. www.micahmwhite.com or micah (at) adbusters.org
68 comments on the article “Augmented Reality”
Displaying 51 - 60 of 68
Page 6 of 7
Rational Ivan
I can respect some of your opinions.
And neither would I believe that a rock is slowed down light only because a scientist said so, I would only believe because it proves to be true when matter is placed in a particle accelerator.
But when you say science has wrecked the world, that is a bit silly. I read what you say and I think, "Yes, another clever postmodernist. This has never been thought before. Very clever indeed..." To lump the degradation on the environment on science is quite silly and quite thoughtless.
To think sciences a product of consumerism is a foolish conception, since the scientific revolution began before consumerism became the engine of the world economy. Additionally, many ancient prescientifc societies destroyed their environments, such as the Easter Islanders, the Greek city state of Petra, and many others.
No explanation should be an excuse for not thinking. Apparently this is an incomprehensible idea for you and your absolutely original beliefs.
Rational Ivan
I can respect some of your opinions.
And neither would I believe that a rock is slowed down light only because a scientist said so, I would only believe because it proves to be true when matter is placed in a particle accelerator.
But when you say science has wrecked the world, that is a bit silly. I read what you say and I think, "Yes, another clever postmodernist. This has never been thought before. Very clever indeed..." To lump the degradation on the environment on science is quite silly and quite thoughtless.
To think sciences a product of consumerism is a foolish conception, since the scientific revolution began before consumerism became the engine of the world economy. Additionally, many ancient prescientifc societies destroyed their environments, such as the Easter Islanders, the Greek city state of Petra, and many others.
No explanation should be an excuse for not thinking. Apparently this is an incomprehensible idea for you and your absolutely original beliefs.
One, Intermedia...
We are the Borg. Existence, as you know it, is over. You will be assimilated. We will add your biological and psychological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile.
|-| <---borg smiley face
One, Intermedia...
We are the Borg. Existence, as you know it, is over. You will be assimilated. We will add your biological and psychological distinctiveness to our own. Resistance is futile.
|-| <---borg smiley face
Iocane
What has this author been sniffing? Augmented reality isn't replacing the world with make-believe simulacra, it's adding another layer on top of reality. Google maps directions on top of actual streets; Reviews attached to restaurants; A portfolio floating over a business card.
Augmented reality is neither activism (it's certainly not trying to be) nor is it a virtual world from which people hide from actual reality. You know what is a hide-away world? Pretending streams are deities, that we should trade the sciences for magic placebo potions, and retreat to the safety of a new dark age forever.
Better to deal with our "meaningless" world than to live in a false world made of delusion.
Iocane
What has this author been sniffing? Augmented reality isn't replacing the world with make-believe simulacra, it's adding another layer on top of reality. Google maps directions on top of actual streets; Reviews attached to restaurants; A portfolio floating over a business card.
Augmented reality is neither activism (it's certainly not trying to be) nor is it a virtual world from which people hide from actual reality. You know what is a hide-away world? Pretending streams are deities, that we should trade the sciences for magic placebo potions, and retreat to the safety of a new dark age forever.
Better to deal with our "meaningless" world than to live in a false world made of delusion.
Iocane
"Every technology that enhances what we can do, simultaneously decreases what we can do.
example: everyone can calculate hard equations using a calculator, but few can do it in their heads anymore.
what will happen when we outsource imagination to our machines, because it is easier to just look through a pair of augmented reality goggles?"
Spoken like someone who hasn't taken math after grade 9. All a computer can do is process the calculation. The arithmetic, that's the grunt work. There's not a lot of skill to it. Just follow your order of operations and you'll be fine. It's just following orders. That happens to be what computers are good at.
But they can't do math by themselves. They need somebody writing a script for them to follow. Someone to figure out what to use, to get what, and when to use it. That's the part of math that actually requires more than a trained monkey.
So what exactly are you valuing? The ability to be a trained monkey? Or the ability to use logic and creativity? Because machines will continue to encroach trained monkey jobs, but they can't think or imagine - someone has to do that for them.
Even video games - scenes rendered by machines - are all constructed, and imagined, by people. The machines just do the grunt work. There ALWAYS has to be people driving the machines, either directly or through script. That's simply what a computer is.
Iocane
"Every technology that enhances what we can do, simultaneously decreases what we can do.
example: everyone can calculate hard equations using a calculator, but few can do it in their heads anymore.
what will happen when we outsource imagination to our machines, because it is easier to just look through a pair of augmented reality goggles?"
Spoken like someone who hasn't taken math after grade 9. All a computer can do is process the calculation. The arithmetic, that's the grunt work. There's not a lot of skill to it. Just follow your order of operations and you'll be fine. It's just following orders. That happens to be what computers are good at.
But they can't do math by themselves. They need somebody writing a script for them to follow. Someone to figure out what to use, to get what, and when to use it. That's the part of math that actually requires more than a trained monkey.
So what exactly are you valuing? The ability to be a trained monkey? Or the ability to use logic and creativity? Because machines will continue to encroach trained monkey jobs, but they can't think or imagine - someone has to do that for them.
Even video games - scenes rendered by machines - are all constructed, and imagined, by people. The machines just do the grunt work. There ALWAYS has to be people driving the machines, either directly or through script. That's simply what a computer is.
artfuturenow
The article brings up some interesting points and it is true that most of us spend all too many hours in front of the screen. Yet, isn't mobility -- a mobility in which new forms of interaction are constant forming and reforming -- one of the central tenets of AR? And isn't another the productive interweaving of physical, virtual and conceptual worlds? I would be interested to have the author expand upon how this is a loss of the magic of the immaterial. Perhaps it is just a different type of magic.
artfuturenow
The article brings up some interesting points and it is true that most of us spend all too many hours in front of the screen. Yet, isn't mobility -- a mobility in which new forms of interaction are constant forming and reforming -- one of the central tenets of AR? And isn't another the productive interweaving of physical, virtual and conceptual worlds? I would be interested to have the author expand upon how this is a loss of the magic of the immaterial. Perhaps it is just a different type of magic.
Pages
Add a new comment