Temporal hybrids: using augmented reality to re-imagine the affordances of natural objects

Abstract

This paper discusses two practice-based research projects produced during 2018 that explore how augmented reality (AR) can be used to re-imagine past and future possibilities of the natural world. The two artworks discussed use an innovative approach to the technique of image target detection in AR to transform natural objects into hybrid entities of static and dynamic components comprising both natural and digital elements. Second Nature/Wasteland (2018) is an AR installation with a virtual reality (VR) counterpart, that imagines a world where nature emits digital signals. Sediments (2018) is a site-specific artwork of augmented rocks in the natural landscape. Both works investigate how image target detection can be manipulated to enliven objects in ways that inform imaginative considerations of the complex temporal scales and potential affordances of natural objects in the context of environmental change.