{"id":2572,"date":"2011-04-29T11:01:19","date_gmt":"2011-04-29T15:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=2572"},"modified":"2011-04-29T11:06:15","modified_gmt":"2011-04-29T15:06:15","slug":"defending-and-clarifying-the-term-augmented-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2011\/04\/29\/defending-and-clarifying-the-term-augmented-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Defending and Clarifying the Term Augmented Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Yesterday, Sang-Hyoun Pahk delivered a critique of the usage of the term augmented reality<\/em> on this blog<\/a>. First, thank you, criticism of this term is especially important for me (and others) because augmented reality is the fundamental unit of analysis about which I seek to describe. A quick catch-up: I initially laid out the idea of augmented reality here<\/a>; expounded on its opposite, what I call digital dualism, here<\/a>; and fellow Cyborgology editor PJ takes on the terms here<\/a>. PJ Rey and I use the term augmented reality on this blog to describe the digital and physical worlds not <\/em>as separate but instead as highly enmeshed together. And Sang is pushing us to further elaborate on what this all means.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll tackle Sang\u2019s second critique first because I think it is most important. The confusion comes from how two points hang together: (1) the digital and physical have enmeshed and (2) the digital and physical have important differences. Sang seems to be arguing that we cannot have it both ways, but I have and will continue maintain that we can.<\/p>\n

Sang takes issue with PJ and I\u2019s statements that the offline and online are mutually constitutive, which seems to \u201cabolish the difference\u201d between the two. I actually think we all agree here and perhaps PJ and I could have been clearer: the two are mutually constitutive, just not fully<\/em> mutually constitutive. Let me offer new wording: atoms and bits have different properties, influence each other, and together create reality<\/strong>. [I had this same conversation with Bonnie Stewart in the comments section of the digital dualism piece<\/a>.]<\/p>\n

Thus, the term augmented reality does not need to imply that the differences between atoms and bits does not matter. Quite the opposite\u00a0because\u00a0we cannot begin to describe these differences until we start with the assumption of augmented reality. We cannot adequately discuss one without taking into account the other\u2019s at least partial influence. Simply put, the assumption of augmented reality makes possible the very discussion about the relevant differences between atoms and bits that Sang (and myself) wants to have. \u201cLike\u201d the concept of augmented reality or not, ultimately, we need it<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The second critique, and I hope I am getting this right, is that Sang argues the term “augmented reality” implies a non-augmented reality, creating a new dualism. However, I do not think that this implication is essential and I share his concern that this sort of dualism would be problematic. PJ and I have worked hard on this blog to argue that technology has always augmented reality<\/a>, be it in pre-electronic times (e.g., architecture or language as technologies) or how those offline are still impacted by the online (e.g., third-world victims of our e-waste or the fact that your Facebook presence influences your behavior even when logged off).<\/p>\n

All this said, we will continue to describe how reality is differently augmented by digital social media than by other technologies. This does not create a dualism of reality versus augmented reality, but instead a view of reality as always a multiplicity of augmented realities coming in many flavors. The important task is not describing if<\/em>, but instead how<\/em> and why <\/em>augmentation\u00a0occurs the way it does<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, Sang-Hyoun Pahk delivered a critique of the usage of the term augmented reality on this blog. First, thank you, criticism of this term is especially important for me (and others) because augmented reality is the fundamental unit of analysis about which I seek to describe. A quick catch-up: I initially laid out the idea […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":559,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9967],"tags":[2324,10447,942,10199,10634,3249,732,12,66],"class_list":["post-2572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","tag-augmented-reality","tag-digital-dualism","tag-facebook","tag-haraway","tag-metatheory","tag-philosophy","tag-social-media","tag-technology","tag-theory"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/559"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2572"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2579,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2572\/revisions\/2579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}