The goal of AR should be to fulfill the definition of the word "augment," or "make (something) greater by adding to it; increase." Simple, right? I feel that if a product is intruding on another person's personal property or infringing on private matters, it is no longer making something greater. If technology is making us blind to the outside world, if it stealing our gaze from the beauty of things around us, if it takes over even the most intimate parts of our lives (or volatile parts of our history—for example, the Holocaust Museum), it just doesn't seem right. Of course, I have no idea how to stop all of these things like property rights... but I fear for the future of technology when everything will be augmented and nothing is private.
The relationship between the site's visitors and the corresponding real world space should be one of new discovery. My project is inspired by the unaware: the students throwing on Airpods and running to class, the drivers keeping themselves awake by listening to podcasts on the morning commute, the employees zoning in on a work task by living in their Discover Weekly playlists and sound-proof headphones. They seebut they don't hear. Even if we seem present and productive, the truth is, we’re rushing through the day unmindful of the sounds in our surroundings. So, now I'm asking site visitors to discover the world around them via sound!
Benefits include heightened awareness, a creative project, and a new layer of intrigue with a space. The goal is that visitors will then go on to listen more intently in other environments as well!
Some challenges that may arise will be getting an exact location and creating sounds that require creativity to recreate but aren't too difficult to figure out—I don't want to frustrate the user. I'm so excited for this, though, because awareness of sound is something that people don't usually explore (they generally explore visuals) and I'd like to dive into the use of sound here!