The Built Environment
Alan John Dix, Steve Gill, Joanna Hare, Devina Ramduny-Ellis · 2022
Abstract This chapter focuses on the relationships between the physical environment and the various digital informational augmentations that have been added to it over the years, increasing our understanding of space and perhaps time. Some of these layers are purely in the digital world: viewing streets or satellite views in Google maps. However, digital layers are also overlaying the physical world: viewing past times through augmented reality or hunting virtual Pokémon in the local park. Digital technology allows us to conquer distance and opens new forms of cultural experience. However, the same technologies that allow the world to be sensed and augmented through the Internet of Things, also open the door to surveillance and cyber-warfare. We are at a point when physical computing may degrade or enrich our humanity, the choice is ours to make.