The Limitations of Reality

Existing conceptualisations of mixed reality technologies embody a fundamental assumption, that they are a tool to simulate consistent ‘realities’. We present three examples of how this assumption constrains designers:

• Systems stimulate only a subset of senses. Aiming for consistent simulation ignores exciting potential to use externally stimulated senses in new ways.
• Deliberately breaking convincing simulated reality can create new, thrilling experiences.
• Compelling experiences can be create when people interacting in ways which break boundaries of conceptual realities.

One way to avoid these issues is to define such ‘immersive technologies’ purely as motion tracked sensory stimulation devices. This offers a basic building block for design, however in the the future a range of higher level concepts will be required to enable new and exciting uses of VR and AR equipment. Convincing simulation of realities is only a small subset of the potential uses.