Over the past century, technology has been making leaps and bounds. With these advancements, we’ve been introduced to a whole new (digital) world, filled with new ways to interact, information access on a vast scale, and a plethora of media forms. For some of this media, we don’t even realize what we’re engaging with. For example, the Snapchat dog filter that was popular in the mid 2010s is AR – augmented reality. We see and experience so many forms of media without thinking about it – but I strongly feel that we should be conscious of and seek out these experiences.
Why should we be seeking our different forms of media? There’s a million reasons I can give – creative flow, inspiration, seeing what we’re capable of making with technology outside of what has been popularized, imagining what potential lies in the future as these forms are refined – the list goes on. These might not be of interest to you unless you’re into the arts or technology, but I’ll simplify things: you get to engage with new experiences and tap into the unfamiliar. This can provide entertainment, enlightenment, and learning, which I’m certain you’d be at least semi-interested in.
What should you be exploring? Again, there’s a lot. One media form that may interest you is 360 video. You don’t need an Oculus Rift–just the Youtube app on your phone. Find a 360 video that interests you (or check out the ones linked below), hit play, and move your phone around to experience the 360 space! To take it up a notch, you can always use a VR headset to be visually unobstructed by the environment you’re watching the video in.
– Gorillaz 360 music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzqJnYuq97s
-Rollercoaster 360 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNAbQYU0wpg -Avatar 360 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8Abp4MEg80
Another consideration is sound walks – otherwise known as audio AR. This media is a sonic experience you partake in particular environments, and they can be made so you need to be in a precise location for audio to play, or set up so you can begin the experience yourself with guidance on where to begin. A common example of this is museum audio tours! There are a bunch of examples out there, of which I’ll link a couple below for you to check out.
-Paid audio tours of various Toronto spaces: https://voicemap.me/tour/toronto
-A Tibetan Monastery in Toronto: https://soundcloud.com/aparita/a-walk-around-a-tibetan-monastery-in-toronto
– Driftscape app available on both Apple and Android phones: https://www.driftscape.com/download
There are so many different forms of media out there. To name a few more, there are ‘Choose your own adventure’ adaptations for film and television like Bandersnatch, multimedia animations that combine 2D and 3D like Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and AI generated art.