It isn’t news that our current understanding of how basic functions should happen in various physical locations is dramatically “disrupted”. What were commonplace assumptions of American life, are now in question. Where does work, school, healthcare take place in a world of blended AR, VR and IRL? Home, office, school?
We’re trying to figure that out, and that has big implications for our future environments, and environments are big news. Though we often don’t get that news until well after the fact, when the changes have already pushed through.
As an example of how crucial “environments” are in molding and shaping and limiting and enabling people, we might look at the big three “markers” of our demographics today: “Rural, Urban, and Suburban.” These shorthand labels dramatically correspond to very different understandings of how to live, what values are important and what are not, and much more.
Behind the shorthand are the multitudinous actual environmental details that differ, and these exceed our ability to know comprehensively in meaningful ways; they are too numerous to list. Though it’s those details, those contingencies that “make the difference”.
All of which is to note just how impactful differences in environments are, and the importance of understanding that in a world of dramatically disrupted environmental “realities”.
We might start by noting how our sense of “reality” has always been something “in play”, something we had a major role in creating, using various forms of “media” over the millennia., including a really important form, our imaginations.
The so-called oral traditions of bards reciting, improvising, acting out, dancing, singing, and playing something musical…were a core form of media back in Homer’s Day, or perhaps in the pre written down Homer’s Day.
This low tech media strongly engaged our innate imaginations, and allowed expressive narratives that brought all of entertainment, learning, and cultural identity and preservation, to long nights of one’s tribe grouped by the campfire. (CaveFire?…Plato liked the Cave metaphors). Sitting by the fire, was pretty much an every night occurrence, as nights were long, light hard to come by, and few distractions existed. So, in a sense, it was the place in the environment where the imagination held sway.
Would there be a corresponding “place” in our environment today? Yes, of course, but there’s not just one such place. Live Action Role Playing is one such environment, although it might be something almost entirely created in the imagination such as Dungeons and Dragons.
Or it might be an actual physical location where everything is created to resemble or inspire belief in an alternate reality that one can inhabit. Maybe put on a costume…for CosPlay? or Attend a realized Star Wars environment inside Disney World in Orlando FA. (see next post)
A lot has happened in the world of media since then, and as supporters of online tools and services, PSA strives to promote better understanding of how we are using media as part of our environment(s). More on that complex subject in Part 2 of this post.