Creating Augmented and Virtual Realities

Part I. Design and Art Across Digital Realities

We live in curious times. Of the nearly eight billion humans who live on Earth, for the first time in history, the majority are literate—that is, able to communicate with other humans asynchronously, with reasonably accurate mutual understanding.

But human expression goes beyond language. Design and art reflect that which might not be so succinctly defined. The unspoken behavioral patterns of the world, writ large, are reflected in excellent design. The emotions and social patterns that direct our unconscious brains are laid bare in art: sculpture, dance, paintings, and music. But until the digital era, these areas of human expression have been, in the end, always tied to physical constraints: physics, real materials, and time.

Computers are, in essence, our attempt to express ourselves with pure energy—light and sound beaming into eyes and ears, haptics buzzing, inputs manipulated any way we please. But, to date, much like design and art, computers themselves have been restricted to very real-world limitations; they are physics-bound glass windows beyond which we can see digital worlds, but to which worlds we cannot go. Instead, we take computers with us, making them lighter, faster, brighter.

In 2019, we find ourselves in another curious position: because we have made computers more mobile, we are finally able to move our digital worlds into the real world. At first glance, this seems a relatively easy move. It’s pleasant to think ...