[GSD project] The New Real - The World of Augmented Reality

The New Real - The World of Augmented Reality

Harvard GSD 2011 : 3421 New Geographies: Imagining a City-World Beyond Cosmopolis

Instructor: A. Hashim Sarkis

Project members: Nicholas Croft, Aneesha Dharwadker, Mariusz Klemens, Yu-Ta Lin, Elizabeth MacWillie, William Quattlebaum, Trude Renwick, Mary Grace Verges, Clementina Vinals.

Thesis revised: Nicholas Croft

Architecture is either a background for augmented reality or a preserved, pre-augmentation, artifact; the current fabric of the built world exists, but within emergent regions driven by Collective Intelligence (CI), architecture transforms into a tectonically uniform version of itself.  It is in these regions that design acquires meaning through non-material imagery.

Augmented regions are fluid in nature—perpetually redefining themselves and their boundaries as a result of a complex collective-CI feedback loop—yet at any given moment, clearly defined boundaries demarcate the influence of the augmented world on the physical one.Collective Intelligence, as an advanced stage in the evolution of the Internet, controls the technologies of augmented reality, facilitates algorithmic forms of governance based on collective input, and aids in the increasingly efficient cycling of data.

Certain aspects of the world become virtual, while others remain physical. The transportation of people and goods occurs in real space, while events like voting, banking, shopping, and so forth, are anchored in the virtual realm. The processes through which humans go to acquire goods and services no longer require individual spatial displacement. The world undergoes physical spatial compression, but a virtual expansion occurs through user experiences. Through the digital augmentation of space, inhabitants can experience infinite depth.

The individual’s interaction with the world occurs through a personal interface, which allows the user to make choices about the visual composition of his or her environment. Connection to augmented reality is a choice, not an obligation – but it determines the ability of the user to access information and gain knowledge. As a result, physical proximity to CI centers allows for a faster exchange of information. Public spaces become “servers,” where individuals can collectively plug in to the increasing mass of data. The economy is thus run on memory – both the memory of the individual, and his or her ownership of digital space. Bytes become currency, and are incorporated into the public sphere, giving more power to classes without access to physical wealth. Corporations collaborate with the CI to govern the physical realm, providing generic hardware for servers, bandwidth, interfaces, and architecture. The differentiation of these objects occurs virtually, based solely on the choices of the user. 

Infrastructure

Interreigionality

New Geographies

Mega-Form

Main Images