Augmented Space

At the beginning of this reading, Manovich states that he “want[s] to re- conceptualize augmentation as an idea and cultural and aesthetic practice rather than as technology.” This particular point immediately interested me because I’ve only ever considered augmentation in a technical context and never as a cultural and/or aesthetic practice. Manovich aimed to show how architecture, media, art, cinema, etc. can be understood through augmentation—making this approach a fascinating one for the field of Digital Humanities. However, one point that I disagree with is the one in which Manovich declared that “augmented space is also monitored space.” While I do understand his reasoning behind it, I disagree with the dogmatism of this statement. While some augmented spaces can be reframed as monitored spaces with the intention of assessing patterns and behaviors, not all augmented spaces are created with that intentionality in mind. One instance that I see augmentation as monitoring occurs in some shopping malls around the nation. Some shopping malls use store trackers to assess and track the behaviors of their shoppers and adjust their store layout accordingly. Making the augmentation architectural in a way because foot pattern tracking allowed for the store to make data-driven adjustments to better sell store merchandise. Similar to Manovich I see a lot of augmented spaces occurring in the interior design and even retail space. Augmented spaces become a place to engage the user in its surroundings in a fashion that extends far beyond the limited view of electronic media (i.e. screens). Retail spaces currently are testing out ways to allow users to try on clothes through an augmented experience. This new reality reaffirms Manovich’s hope that augmented spaces can transcend beyond historical limitations.