Having had an experience with augmented or virtual reality is nothing too unusual anymore. Many of us are experiencing an extended reality on a daily basis e.g. with Pokémon Go, Snapchat Filters or maybe an interior decoration app to test how the new pink sofa will look in the living room. But have you ever tried to create your own extended reality? In our Immersive Experiences course at the Estonian Academy of Art, we were able to develop our own concepts and prototype them. The aim of the course was to get comfortable with XR (Extended Reality), make it approachable and have fun trying out new things within only two weeks.

The course started by giving us an overview over the journey of AR and VR. We learned that in some way panorama paintings were the first steps of VR and were once again reminded how foreshadowing science fiction novels can be. We got to draw 360° images, were able to try out VR programs and played around with a tool to create augmented reality. In a nutshell, we had lots of fun and were able to approach the topic very easily. It was not the unreachable world it might seem to be.

To further engage with the topic and solidify knowledge, we were asked to create a concept of how XR mediums as technologies can be used to make people better at what they do in their daily lives. We had many ideas that our AR or VR could enhance our lives, but when we digged deeper into a topic everything already existed. In the end, we decided to ignore the fact that our ideas were already out there since our approach would be different and this course was mainly for us getting comfortable with XR.

A big problem in western society is that too much food gets wasted. We buy too much and some things only for very specific recipes. Our fridge gets fuller and fuller and in the end we don’t have an overview anymore. The solution was to create an application that immediately scans your groceries and tells you what it is and the amount of them. In addition, it suggests recipes focusing on food you already have in your fridge, what should be cooked first and the condition of the food using only typography as augmented reality.

In the end our concept was not brilliant but rather solid work. It was not about creating something special, but about us changing our perspective about extended reality. Extended reality is now something we would very easily consider using as a tool. The topic got approachable and is linked with fun memories. At this point we would like to thank our teacher Mike Ramos for bringing us Extended reality closer. If you want to have a deeper look into our work feel free to check our portfolios out (Cèlia Yun Zhu Giménez & Alicia Hardegen)

Creating an immersive experience was originally published in AR/VR Journey: Augmented & Virtual Reality Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.