Mediated/Augmented Reality (Un)Course Notes, Part I

Pokemon Go seems to have hit the news this week – though I’m sure for anyone off social media last week and back to it next week, the whole thing will have completely passed them by – demonstrating that augmented reality apps really haven’t moved on much at all over the last five years or so.

But notwithstanding that, I’ve been trying to make sense of a whole range of mediated reality technologies for myself as prep for a very short unit on technologies and techniques on that topic.

Here’s what I’ve done to date, over on the Digital Worlds uncourse blog. This stuff isn’t official OU course material, it’s just my own personal learning diary of related stuff (technical term!;-)

• Blurred Edges – Dual Reality: intro post, setting the scene and introducing the worlds of mediated and augmented reality;
• Introducing Augmented Reality Apparatus – From Victorian Stage Effects to Head-Up Displays: some background history of a related effect – Pepper’s Ghost – and a look at modern day head-up displays that make use of it;
• The Art of Sound – Algorithmic Foley Artists? An aside reviewing the work of foley artists, and asking whether machines could ever replace them…
• Taxonomies for Describing Mixed and Alternate Reality Systems: some vocab to help us talk about the components that make up a mediated reality system;
• Augmenting Reality With Digital Overlays: examples of how augmented reality can be used to overlay the physical world with digital artefacts;
• Real or Virtual Objects? A bit more vocab – what’s real and what’s virtual?
• “Magic Lenses” and See-Through Displays: examples of “magic lens” style augmented reality;
• Noise Cancellation – An Example of Mediated Audio Reality? Augmented/mediated reality isn’t just about what you can see…

More to come over the next couple of weeks or so. If you want to comment, and perhaps influence the direction of my meanderings, please feel free to do that here or on the relevant post.

An evolving feed of the posts is available in chronological order and in reverse chronological order.