During the past decade AR has been transitioning from a niche domain to a mass audience phenomenon. Still, it is not yet playing a major role in our life. But that final step will follow soon – with wearable devices on the horizon, we are about to enter a new era. The AR enhanced world could become our default reality. Who will define what the default is when we live in a semi-digital world? Will we turn into full-time consumers of products, data, and services within this ecosystem? Fortunately, there's the independent web AR movement. Living in a world that appears as you want it to appear, is amazing. But to enable that, we need to make sure there is an alternative realm of XR content.
When is AR going to be our default reality?Sander Veenhof (NL)
Sander Veenhof (NL)
After spending two years of living and working in Second Life on a daily basis, creative technologist/artist Sander Veenhof left this early stage metaverse in 2009 to enter a new realm: the AR domain. There he continued his favourite activity: exploring what it means to live in a programmable environment. In the early days of mobile AR his focus was on exploring space, ownership, and control. With his uninvited AR guerrilla show in MoMA, another fascination surfaced. Using AR together. Nowadays with bodytracking technology advancing rapidly and a future with always-on AR glasses, the influence of technology on our interpersonal relationships has his foremost attention. How to deal with AI monitoring us and requesting us to obey is what his Be Your Own Robotresearch is all about. But with his frolicky experimental Snapchat lenses, Veenhof hopes to express that our XR future can also be a lot of fun. If we manage to find the right role for ourselves.
