Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 12
Why We Might Augment Reality: Art's Role
in the Development of Cognition
Judson Wright
12.1
Introduction
In discussing Augmented Reality, it is common to begin with art: the premise that
art exists, that computers are one means to create it, and that AR is one motivation
to create computer art. As art is primarily assumed the domain of aesthetics, this
further leads one to scrutinize computer art in light of a means of expressing
aesthetics. While hardly inaccurate, this path is a misleading for us here. Behavioral
Art (BA), and its relationship to AR, is profoundly different. To consider BA, we
are required to abandon the notion of aesthetics, at least temporarily. We begin by
thinking instead about linguistics and development in a somewhat novel way.
For instance, when discussing cars, it is quite ordinary to tacitly assume that the
car is used as mode of transportation. We do not ordinarily assume the discussion
will be about the car as a couch. When discussing seating in general, car seats are
likely considered. Likewise, the computer's unique and unprecedented ability to
execute code is implicit in our discussion of computers. Just as one could freely
purchase a car, only to be used exclusively as a couch, a computer certainly can be
used for media. However, this possible case is not pertinent to our investigation here.
Moreover, the influence of psychology on human experience is far more central to
BA (Hoffman
1998
).
Furthermore, media creation, presentation, and/or editing have long been accom-
plishable using analog tools. There would be no reason in a discussion referring to
media, but arbitrarily only to certain tools and not others (Reeves and Nass
1996
:
193-210). On the other hand, when we discuss the process by which we conceive of
some problem in terms of a logical syllogism or
algorithm
, notating the logic into
