Nicholas J.J. Smith, "Augmented Reality" and "Sonia"
Two of these photos are drawn from a longer series entitled Augmented Reality (you can see more of the series on my website, njjsmith.com). Thanks to the phenomenal popularity of Pokémon Go, we are all familiar with the idea of Augmented Reality. For me the increasing currency of this term raises the old question of the extent to which reality, as we ordinarily experience it, is already augmented -- by our beliefs, desires, moods, purposes, expectations and so on. The implicit assumption behind the term Augmented Reality is that there is pure reality which is simply given to us as it is in itself -- and then this reality is augmented by a digital overlay of computer-generated content. On the contrary, however, it has long been a commonplace amongst many philosophers -- and I feel this picture fits better with my own experience -- that reality as we perceive it is already augmented by our own mental processes, so that two people -- or one person on two different days -- might perceive things very differently. This series explores this idea of Already Augmented Reality, principally via chiaroscuro. The images are all shot hand-held with no additional lighting and minimal post-processing -- so in one sense, what you see is just reality as it is in itself. But at the same time, viewers are required to fill in the dark spaces and obscure areas -- the surroundings, context and ultimately the meaning -- from their own imaginations. This, I submit, is simply a more pronounced version of what we do every day when we perceive reality as it supposedly is in and of itself, prior to digital mediation and augmentation.
The third photo, 'Sonia', was taken in Otaru, Japan.
The third photo, 'Sonia', was taken in Otaru, Japan.
Nicholas J.J. Smith is a photographer and philosopher based in Sydney, Australia. He is the designer for the online literary magazine Snorkel. His photographs have been published widely in print and online. Website: http://njjsmith.com
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