Today the sector of augmented reality is rapidly expanding. Far from being a passing fad, companies are increasingly investing in innovation and research in the field. It is no coincidence, in fact, that it will be one of the topics of Web Marketing Festival 2019, which will be held on June 20/21/22 in RiminiYet it's not something recent; on the contrary, it's something we've been carrying with us since prehistoric times.
Virtual
It seems absurd, yet it's true. We've always had to deal with augmented reality, just not with current technologies. Today, it has only manifested itself in conversations and everyday life through wearable prosthetics . To better understand, however, a useful concept of virtuality is needed. According to Pierre Lévy, we must refer to " virtualis ", as well as " virtus ", meaning " strength," " power," and in some ways, therefore, " augmentation." Potential , therefore, indicates a state of reality, a specification of it. Potential is both a specific adjective in philosophical language and a probabilistic reference. Both of these different meanings, however, fit perfectly into a single framework of meaning. Man, in the moment of constructing his reality , creates images—the fruit of his experiences—that he seeks to abstract from individual episodes of his biography to apply them to similar situations, which have yet to occur. Thus, he increases their scope.
A must-see
Augmented reality has always existed. Perhaps not as we might think today. Taking into account what was said above, every creation of imaginary and symbolic universes passes through this mental and unique human phase. Living in augmented reality does not mean escaping and losing oneself in an "other" reality whose rules lie outside of "normal" reality; rather, it is a transitory place from which we constantly enter and exit, an obligatory stage in our search for meaning. It is therefore a cognitive process of construction and survival, where we begin to play with the images at our disposal. It is a situational game where we try to understand who we are and what we can be and become.
Emotional places
This provocative oxymoron, not surprisingly, is an interesting subject in current discussions and studies. After the fall of grand narratives and—to quote Peppino Ortoleva—the spread of low-intensity myths as functional alternatives, this type of virtual reality presents itself as a new place—as well as an idea—no longer a place to escape the difficulties of the tangible but as an environment for experience. Contemporary life often leads us to gloss over emotions, relationships, and events, which is why it's not difficult to imagine the reason for this importance given to it. Since it tends to be a universe that involves only a part of ourselves (some would say our consciousness ), the damage—if it were to occur—would almost exclusively concern emotional dependence . Living experiences that we normally don't have practice is proving to be a significant (re)discovery for individuals and companies.
Filters for reality
Wearing high-tech gloves , visors , and 3D glasses are certainly the first step towards not only the technical evolution of our approach to augmented reality, but also the way we build emotional relationships. Since ours is essentially a visual culture , we not only educate ourselves on new immersive technologies, but we socialize with new emotions and rediscover dormant ones. Playing with images takes on another meaning here. Playing is equivalent to knowing, moving, mastering languages. Seeing with a visor, for example, is no longer simply seeing through a visor. Consider Pokémon GO , which can integrate and overlay real-life locations with digital maps on smartphones for catching creatures. This is what companies are aiming for. The elimination, as much as possible, of traditional media: in other words, hiding technologies from view , making their use obvious and easily accessible to create new types of individual and collective biographies.
Francesco D'Ambrosio
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Lecturer in Communications and HR Management. Journalist with a degree in Sociology (cum laude). Editor-in-Chief of Sociologicamente.it.
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