Who Controls Augmented Reality?

Apple’s AR artwalk is the latest in a growing crowd, but the growth of augmented reality raises questions about the future of our parks and public squares

Thomas McMullan
OneZero

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Illustration: Seth Thompson

When you stand in New York’s Central Park, phone in hand, what reality are you living in?

Perhaps you’re trying to catch a monster. Perhaps you’re fighting an officially licensed wizard. If you have a particular brand of smartphone, maybe you can see a giant straddle a building; a conveyor carrying boxes across the pavement; words from a poem wafting through the air. The park is getting crowded.

You’ll need to have signed up for one of Apple’s [AR]T walks to see those latter vignettes, made by a handful of artists, including Carsten Holler, Cao Fei, and John Giorno. The programs were recently commissioned by the company and co-curated by New York’s New Museum to showcase Apple’s take on augmented reality (A.R.), layered across public spaces in a small number of cities.

“Augmented reality will prove to be as huge an invention as electricity.”

It’s a PR boon for augmented reality, with one of the world’s wealthiest companies exploring the technology and what it can bring to our cities. Nor…

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Thomas McMullan
OneZero

Freelance writer | @BBCNews @guardian @frieze_magazine @SightSoundmag @wiredUK @TheTLS others | Also @GardensBritish | Rep’d by @harriet__moore | Novel coming