Lessons in AR: How many ways can you use a hammer?

I’ve come to realize that I had some pretty rigid ideas about what augmented reality is/is good at/etc. I thought of it as interactive art. I know now (thanks to my time at the Adobe AR residency) that augmented reality is much, much more than that. It can be used as a live-compositing video tool for film making, etc. It can be a used for making compelling photographs. There is no reason that one type of AR is worth more than any other AR usage. It’s a tool. There are probably millions of ways to use it. This is the period when we start to explore those uses.

It’s a tool. There are probably millions of ways to use it. This is the period when we start to explore those uses.

My advice: get weird with it. Really find the edges. Also, wipe clean any pre-existing mental models as possible. I say that, knowing full well how hard that is. I don’t think I successfully pull it off that often.  (Almost never.) But, I when I do, it’s cool. Sometimes, very cool. Sometimes, being an artist feels like being an explorer, a treasure hunter (ahem, or addict) hunting for that next fix. The piece of gold that will keep us going down the trail.