Four years ago, when Pokémon Go was a fad, it was mostly treated as a “fun” expression of the possibilities of augmented reality. Spaces could be overwritten with a new layer that enhanced their potential, that expanded the opportunities they presented for a variety of activities. Some critics pointed out that having groups of people in the same space who were oblivious to what one another were doing there could corrode the potential sense of a public sphere, but this was dismissed as archaic thinking — no one should have to acknowledge anyone else’s intentions just because they were sharing space with them. There is no such thing as society, and if there were, it could be sustained in scalable networks, not arbitrary geographic units. In a network society, space is superseded by infinitely reconfigurable links that can efficiently bring anything into proximity with any other thing, for whatever predetermined purposes suit the re-arrangers. If that eliminates unpredictability or serendipity, those things can be reprogrammed back in as planned randomness. Or those nostalgic, outmoded ideas can be replaced by augmented-reality-style scavenger hunts.
"Land squared"
"Land squared"
"Land squared"
Four years ago, when Pokémon Go was a fad, it was mostly treated as a “fun” expression of the possibilities of augmented reality. Spaces could be overwritten with a new layer that enhanced their potential, that expanded the opportunities they presented for a variety of activities. Some critics pointed out that having groups of people in the same space who were oblivious to what one another were doing there could corrode the potential sense of a public sphere, but this was dismissed as archaic thinking — no one should have to acknowledge anyone else’s intentions just because they were sharing space with them. There is no such thing as society, and if there were, it could be sustained in scalable networks, not arbitrary geographic units. In a network society, space is superseded by infinitely reconfigurable links that can efficiently bring anything into proximity with any other thing, for whatever predetermined purposes suit the re-arrangers. If that eliminates unpredictability or serendipity, those things can be reprogrammed back in as planned randomness. Or those nostalgic, outmoded ideas can be replaced by augmented-reality-style scavenger hunts.