“Augmentations Across Virtual and Physical Topologies: Mixed Reality Re-assembled” presented by Wright
Symposium:
Session Title:
- Interdisciplinar Platforms for Coexistence
Presentation Title:
- Augmentations Across Virtual and Physical Topologies: Mixed Reality Re-assembled
Presenter(s):
Venue(s):
Abstract:
Keywords: Augmented Virtuality, Augmented Reality, Software Assemblage, New Materialism.
An analysis of the material-discursive practices surrounding Augmented Virtuality and Augmented Reality reveals the sometimes digressional, sometimes convergent positions taken by computer science and media art on the issue of embodiment. Mapping out some of those positions, this paper considers Mixed Reality as a topology that has an entangled and material relationship with the body, that goes beyond an analysis of Mixed Reality as a technology of augmentation: rather, a topological understanding of Mixed Reality explores the patterns of diffraction ( Barad 2007: 29) that ripple and disrupt the material thresholds between physical and virtual, troubling the over simplified real/virtual dichotomy that permeates much Human Computer Interaction (HCI) research. Tendering an argument for Mixed Reality as a continuous topology operating between physical and virtual spaces, I will address the contrived duality of embodiment/virtuality embedded in much of the literature surrounding Mixed Reality. Then, I will offer a contrasting view of Mixed Reality as a contiguous topology where virtual and physical are interwoven by contingent and conditional ‘meshworks’ (De Landa, 1998) of augmentation, involving technicity, devices, bodies, and objects.
