Reality Check: an XR Reflection

After an incredible first experience at MIT Reality Hack, and particularly after reading Jared’s recent reflection on sixteen years of developing XR at Microsoft, I felt compelled to share a reflection of my own impressions and experiences with XR (cross reality) as a creative technologist entering the space (to hopefully reread sixteen years from now and marvel at how far we’ve come!). 

MIT Reality Hack 2023, Cambridge MA

At the hack, my team worked with the HTC Vive Elite XR to create an AR experience where people could add individual memories that transformed a collective memory sculpture based on evolving collective sentiment. While we learned a lot and are continuing to work on the project, it was very important to us to create something that highlighted and made beautiful people’s individual emotional experiences as well as the collective.

Collective Memory Sculpture, Media Lab

In thinking about AR (Augmented Reality), it is useful to revisit the most fundamental question of the space: what type of reality are we augmenting? Or, what parts of reality are we augmenting?

In seeking an answer to this question, I find it helpful to think of very controlled realities like games. I’ve been playing Fortnite recently and in its newest fourth chapter, Fortnite introduced a system that prompts the player, throughout their gameplay, to enable certain augments. Players can even roll for a different set of augments if they are unsatisfied with the initial batch of options. 

In Fortnite, an augment grants the player a unique buff that gives them an edge throughout the rest of the match. My personal favorite augments include First Assault which makes it such that the first bullet in the magazine of the player’s assault rifle deals bonus damage, Aerialist which allows the player to deploy their glider at will throughout the entire game, and More Parkour which enables heightened energy regeneration after mantling or hurdling.

Augments, Fortnite Chapter 4

These augments suit my gameplay because I often die quickly, so extra damage on my first bullet is usually the difference between continued gaming or endless spectating. Similarly, Aerialist and More Parkour encourage and reward me for focusing on movement as a fundamental defense mechanism throughout the game. These boosts will ideally make me a more powerful player in the long run.

In game-speak, "buff" means to make more powerful. So in the context of building in XR: what is the unique buff that a certain software or experience provides? In using [x] technology, what aspects of our lives are we making more powerful?

In Jared’s insightful article reflecting on the hyper-growth of XR during the pandemic, he shares how the focus of many experiences were attempted recreations of work-life as we knew it, or as the pre-WeWork era has known it. This was a response to the sudden need to recreate in-person experiences remotely. But by reconstructing the office, in the newest most nimble of playgrounds, new tech was simply giving second life to the beliefs and structures that created the original office: bureaucracy, surveillance, and the guise of productivity.

Frankly, this is not an augment I would enable in my own gameplay.

In the same vein, Facebook’s metaverse was largely a meme because it failed to construct a reality neither similar enough nor different enough from our own. Avatar Zuckerberg introduced the world to the metaverse from a low-poly office that included a big desk, chairs, and large windows. It is striking to think that before there were legs in this infinite world of possibility, there was a desk to sit behind. Why go through the trouble, and headache (literally), of donning a headset only to sit behind another desk?

Metaverse, Facebook

Jared shared this cartoon, which accurately sums it up.

Metaverse Hype Cycle credit Tom Fishburne, see more at marketoonist.com

It is important to take a moment to reflect on what a new form of reality really means. Generally speaking, there are two predominant definitions of reality:

"the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them" and "the state or quality of having existence or substance"

Existence is pretty much defined by the many; something exists as long as many others also confirm its existence. There are scientific proofs, yes, but for the parts of life that are most human (hope, love, meaning) there are no proofs and yet these concepts are accepted as real because most of us have personal experience with them.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a desk exists in the metaverse, and no one works from it, is it still a tool for work? If we build a playground in the metaverse, but no one knows how to play, is it still a playground?

In the context of XR, this reminds me of the inherent importance of multi-user experiences. For example, it is because XR experiences are accessible to many of us, individually, as well as collectively and concurrently, that AR/VR is worthy of the R. 

As for the second definition of reality, we are called to think about substance. Substance is something effectual, meaningful, and real. 

'Meaning' Generated by DALL-E

What makes anything in our lives substantive? Substantive experiences give our lives meaning. From movies to books, to relationships and activities, these are only substantive in the sense that they challenge our principles, encourage us to grow our worldview, and force us to evolve the ways we think and feel. Do the XR experiences you’ve known achieve this?

While I’ve had my fair share of trying on beauty products with AR filters only to feel bad about my own IRL appearance, endless scrolling through apps on my VR homepage only to have a sore neck and sore eyes and the same qualitative experience as scrolling on my phone, and chatting with people in VR chat spaces only to endure meaningless small talk and vague sexual harassment (*exhales*), I’ve also had some genuinely amazing experiences.

When I played Super Hot on the Oculus Quest in the summer of 2020, I was totally captivated by the elastic space-time, so much so that I accidentally punched my partner whose body aligned perfectly with the mesh of a foe, as I forgot he was within the boundary! That’s literally how much I suspended my disbelief. It was so cool to have my motion control the speed of the game; it forced me to pause and move with very precise intention. In playing this game, my experience of movement within my human body was heightened.

Super Hot Still, Super Hot Team

I will never forget my first time using Tilt Brush in VR and feeling a deep sense of awe at the default workspace which was a simple pastel gradient all around me and what felt like as far as the eye could see. Using my whole body to paint within such a beautiful, serene space was a huge part of why I began my digital art journey.

The first artwork I made in VR

As a last example, I have a fun memory of entering a VR cinema space where there were lengthy previews. Only a few people were seated in the theatre, while the rest of the crowd was mulling about. At this time, I didn’t know how to turn on chat features but really wanted to interact with others; this was why I was in a VR theatre! After standing very awkwardly in front of a fellow cinephile, I realized I could shake my popcorn out of its bucket. They did the same, and shortly after we realized we could dump the whole buttery thing out on each other’s heads! Now I can’t think of a better reason to suspend the laws of physics.

As we move forward into this post-pandemic chapter where people yearn for human connection more than ever but also desire to give our collective imagination the freedom it’s always sought, it is imperative that we build, make, and create with our principles close at heart. We are, after all, building new realities that will inform the evolution of our brains and our children’s brains and even, dare I say, sculpt the human spirit as we bravely construct this trans-human world.

Travel Blog: A Cozy Saturday in East Austin

Count me in for a cozy day of good food, and pleasant neighborhood walks, especially during Austin’s temperate winter. Whether you’re staying at an Airbnb in East Austin, or just driving over for the day, little paradises (paradie?) of coziness dot East Chavez St. Cenote provides the perfect patio, smooshed with friendly plants, to sip a cup of organic Zhi tea, or if you’d rather pour something more mature, have yourself some eclectic wine, or local draft beer. After some drinks, take a stroll or a scooter down Chavez to visit The Vegan Nom, and try the tastiest healthy food (nevermind vegan) you’ve ever tossed down the gullet. Complete with picnic tables, fun and beautiful murals, and shade (!!), the ‘nom is a courtyard garden packed with the food trucks of your dreams. Meet Mayor Fin (the neighborhood’s wisest German shepherd) in front of Whyld’s food truck before you have the greatest vegan quesadilla of your life, or try a mushroom-powder superfood shake from the cart across the way, if you’re feeling freaky. As the sun sets, head to Flat Track coffee to fix your bike… or enjoy an espresso pick-me-up while meeting locals with the best tattoos in Texas. For a final hurrah, have a cone of coconut-based Gati ice cream where all (all) the tableware is compostable, and workers are paid a living wage. What tastes better than sustainability and human rights? Well, nothing, but the sweet potato pie and sticky rice horchata double-scoop at Gati’s is a close second. 


Let's Talk About The (Un)ethical Distribution of PPE

[Written March 2020] After President Trump urged states to fend for themselves in an ever-worsening need for medical supplies across the country, like personal protective equipment for healthcare workers and ventilators for COVID-19 patients with life-and-death breathing difficulties, the Trump Administration doubled-back on its initial advice and enacted the Defense Production Act in order to seize control of medical equipment supply and demand. 

Failing to deliver supplies that match states' needs, many states attempted to arrange shipments of supplies individually, which led to concerns over equitable distribution and price-bidding over essential items. FEMA, which has now taken over such shipments, has done so under the implication that locations that are "COVID hotspots" aka locations with higher infection rates, and of greater need, will be prioritized on the distribution front. This has *not* been the case. https://tinyurl.com/Medical-Supplies-Needed

"Advisers to Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, have surprised FEMA officials in recent weeks to deploy supplies to communities after the area's representatives got through to Mr. Trump, even if the state had not yet gone through the formal process to secure supplies." 

This is a clear case of insider-trading, over explicitly public resources. Large shipments of masks for New Jersey and Massachusetts have been seized in the past couple weeks and added to the Strategic National Stockpile, and yet the delayed federal delivery of supplies to New Jersey and Massachusetts have met less than 20% of their needs. Meanwhile, Florida has received a disproportionate number of masks in comparison. https://tinyurl.com/FEMA-Distribution

In the same vein, AdvaMed, the largest medical device trade association in the world, wrote to FEMA in late March outlining the many supplies already available and the many more *being rapidly produced.* The letter urges the Trump Administration to decide "how to allocate these products in the most effective way" as it is extremely difficult for AdvaMed to distribute masks in order of need if they do not have the official statistics or right-of-way. https://tinyurl.com/AdvaMed-Letter

Furthermore, in a new iteration of lack of transparency by the Trump Administration, an alarming number of masks have disappeared from the National Reserve over the past few months with no clear record as to where they went. Like Kushner's deal, there is no public record of how, precisely, these resources have been distributed. 

Kushner's own comments on the Reserve were less than democratic in its outlook, "And the notion of the federal stockpile - it was supposed to be our stockpile. It's not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use." 

Last week, Congressman Gardner wrote a letter to Inspector General Grimm on the dwindling state of the stockpile looking for answers. https://tinyurl.com/Senator-Gardner-Inquiry

It is unethical and irresponsible to abandon transparent processes that hold states and the federal government accountable for proper allocation of essential resources, and further to shirk the very reason for a National Reserve's existence. Even if one would like to lay aside every moral infraction these actions stink of, consider the most basic financial agreement between the American people and it's governing bodies—taxes. If the American people's vast investment in the system is not enough to give us democratic access to an emergency stockpile erected strictly for the purpose of national emergency (let alone sick leave, worker protections, and adequate unemployment) one must thereby ask what exactly our investments amount to.


Prep school Recollections And the Sweet Futility of Return

[Written August 2016] I remember so much about Exeter today. I am now twenty years old. Two years into college. Two years out from 'life.' Taking a month this summer, to rest, bike and birdwatch in Southwest Texas. I couldn't sleep last night because I was spinning, remembering.

I remember my first English class with Ms. Chu, Kieran Minor read Macbeth aloud with incredible zeal. I was so inspired by his passion. He peer-edited my first personal narrative that fall and never have I been so excited by a 'great story!' on a peer edit. I remember Quincy and Holden hollering and splashing on the other side of the ice bath. Two puppies. It was easy to ice with such a great show. Then rolling out with Sam Gray and Tyler and Anika. What incredible athletes! How pleasant their energy. I remember Coach Newbald's beard and the best congrats I've ever received "nice practice ellie!" when I ran a 5:50 mile in EF practice. I remember my great adventure buddies, Josiah and Olivia. The winter wonderlands we'd disrupt. The challenge of finding a new way on Fort Rock. The sandwich bets. The sandwiches. Josiah's harmonizing lessons from dhall to class.

I remember Julia Gnip for all her love and support my junior year. I still haven't met anyone with a better quote book. I remember Lloyd and Kerrick late at the library group—solving our math homework together. I remember falling in love with Sean Lee. Who could forget Ms. Waterman bringing green apples and caramel cream cheese to my room on gray Saturday afternoons? I remember being in awe of Darby and Neva; they were the funniest and the smartest. I remember Gabby's giant bed prep year. There was China and Burger King with Karl Hahn. And there was Valerie Bright always beaming so positive and sharing snacks and snapping me back always until I fell asleep. I remember Allegra Grant, her jokes and loud footsteps. Nick Dupont for my first E.P. Stewie for being incredible in Modern China. Pakawut for his patience and kindness, and for making me feel smart and worthy despite my frustrations with chemistry, and for the most encouraging email I've ever received.

I remember a day. It was so green and sunny. Katie and I were playing tennis making jokes snorting our eyeballs out our noses. It was dinner. I went to Wetherall’s fish bowl. There was this table of warmth and welcome—Alec and Amanda and Mary Claire and Thomas. It was a table anyone could always sit at. And everyone did at some point, on days they came late or early. The table would often melt into little pods.

I remember Kwasi's goodness and his bass. Matt Greaves for hugging me in the middle of front street when I couldn't keep it together. I remember the music building for incredible music I was rarely a part of. I remember Pot hole and Jensen always making a little butt room for me at assembly. I remember Bancroft, my dear Bancroft.

I remember so much and the stuff I've forgotten, I haven't really forgotten. I carry it around with me everyday. In how I look at people in my new communities. In my relationships. How could I forget? I haven't been back to campus since I graduated in 2014. For a million reasons of course. But really just for one. How can I return to my childhood? My growing-up days? The first love, first race, first heartbroken poem? Ms. Robinson? Preeya Seth.

And—depressingly—Exeter still stresses me out, as it probably does many. Though I'm out of reach of Dean Cosgrove and the horror of D.C. The brick buildings. The fame. It stresses me out because I worry about not being smart enough, not being successful enough (I have A Legacy To Uphold), and even still not being non-sibi enough. Exeter often looms in my mind as a colossal, elite, 'smart' person institution in which I don't readily feel apart, nor could ever satisfy.

Yet, when I reflect on my high school years—which I do in times of rest, like now—I remember my friends most clearly. The people. And I want to thank everyone who was there, because I am not sure that I have. Even the people just passing in the halls or holding a door. And then everyone else who I love but haven't named.

I couldn't sleep because I miss you guys. And I want you to know.

Hike a mountain this summer, eat a sandwich, buy a crop top, pick your nose whatever. It doesn't matter what you do, what I do, to you. (It matters, rather, how we do it.) We are not competitors or A Company. You are my childhood. We taught each other how to love. For better or for worse, in my dreams, in my thoughts, in my new friendships far far away, you are there. For this, thank you. I appreciate it, and for the rest of my go at life, please know you are welcome where I am—I'll make dinner, and save a little butt room at the table.