Augmented technology is the exciting newest tech craze being pushed in the modern world by major tech companies, but is it really all as positive as it seems?
Augmented reality (AR) was first recognised globally with the rise of Pokemon Go, an app that had users hunting for Pokemon eggs. The app was different to many other video games that dominated the cultural zeitgeist prior to its release in many ways. Its most glaringly obvious difference was the interface it occurred on. Using Augmented Reality, Pokemon Go saw users interact with the Pokemon universe as if it was in front of them. However, it wasn’t. Rather, the world had been constructed technologically, and could only be seen through the camera of a smartphone, in an overlayed visual of a user’s current setting.
Pokemon Go shifted the ways in which people utilised public spaces directly through its implementation of Augmented Reality. As noted by Mark Pesce in his works The Last Days of Reality, and A Riot in Rodes, Pokemon Go highlighted the capacity for the privatisation of public spaces. Pesce uses the example of the carving on the tree only seen in Facebook Augmented reality. The world, including its most open, natural spaces, become a playground for private corporations to “resurface” the world
Congregating such as that seen with the attraction of Pokemon Go Lures can also cause considerable disturbances. In this sense, people’s private spaces have the potential to be encroached upon due to Augmented reality.