Augmented realities
I’ve had a long running interest in how the digital world can relate more readily to the physical. More specifically how we can attach digital narratives to physical spaces, whether they be short or long, linear or multi-dimensional. Over the past few weeks there’s been a rush of coverage of augmented reality – from Layar to the two most prominent iPhone examples of the technology: Nearest Tube, below, and Twittaround. There has been some great commentary too, notably from the very excellent Pulse Laser.
I’ve also long had a terror of creeping urban spam. Waking up one day to find that the gradual increases in screens, building surfaces and static ads draped over every conceivable surface have eventually covered everything. And augmented reality strikes me as a possible antidote to that horror. A filter to counteract visual clutter. Surely what this new technology really offers is a chance to create things of beauty, to escape the endless messages broadcast at everyone whether they’re relevant or not, and provide interesting, rewarding, experiences.
But that’s a way off. Lest we forget, that kind of stuff is going to be pretty niche in terms of audience, at least for the short to medium term.
So as a creative type I can’t just focus us on fancy dancey technology that in reality very few people own. It ain’t going to work for our clients or their customers. And while these current examples of AR tend to focus on overlaying discreet chunks of information (though some in prettier ways than others) I’m also more interested in how to attach a real narrative to physical spaces – engaging stories that operate in a dimension perhaps perpendicular to our current three.
The history of an object for example. It’s pedigree and provenance. This could be a building (and we’re looking at a number of ways to do that as a part of The Manchester Story, one of our current initiatives – more on that soon). Or it could be a smaller thing – Iain Tait on the always cool Crack Unit recently highlighted a neat-yet-also-lame thing which M&S are doing at the moment. Which is more like what I’m getting at. But not quite.
Because that’s not a narrative – it’s generic and doesn’t attach a further dimension of intrinsic value to an object. This doesn’t have to be some viewfinder-esque OpenGL tour-de-force, it can be simple. I’m not even sure it has to be purely visual. It could just start with 140 or 160 characters. Or a more engaging jump off into a story or place that a customer can explore further. This might be in-store or at home – and on their own or with other people. Now that’s interesting, and that’s really augmented.
And it’s also vague. Sorry about that. But watch this space closely, as we’re hoping to have something real in real life stores by the end of the year. We’d really like some feedback, and people to get involved in testing. If you do, let us know.
