10 Trends addressed from the first- Mixed Reality x Pop magazine - Reality.House

Two weeks ago, Reality.House launched its first magazine to align mixed reality with popular culture. For a magazine, 124 pages are quite heavy, as it covers many of the most critical topics within these two years. The magazine has a combination of interviews and articles and many eye-catching and high-tech graphic illustrations. Reality.House addresses topics like NFTs, AR in retails, LiDAR in Snapchat, Visual 3D video graphics, artificially created objects and identity diversity in the industry.

 ONE - NFTs - Redefine the values of digital arts

NFTs stands for a non-tangible token, "tangible product" means products that can be traded. The abbreviation NFT was not a popular term until 11 March 2021. "Christie's sold the first non-fungible token-based purely on a digital work of art ever offered by a major auction house for US$69,346,250." Yet, Rome was not built within a day. The story began with a request. Mike Winkelmann asked the California artist Beeple to post an artwork online. And in every single day for 13-and-a-half years, Beeple works from hand-scratch to the most advanced 3D tools to create one piece of artwork and post online. The first 5,000 of the images has been included in "EVERYDAY: THE FIRST 5000 DAYS", unique work in the history of digital art.

But that is not the whole story. Before the spotlight, Beeple already had two million followers on Instagram and dropped one-dollar NFTs pieces to his fans.

And the artist Beeple, who turns 5,000 daily, captured and online posted images into the NFTs for Christie's auction. He also has great experience of working with Katy Perry to Childish Gambino, from LV to Nike. His high level of engagement in social media like Instagram, great understanding of the pop culture, and a combination of advanced 3D technology became the fundamental sources to create the first NFTs that not only open up the entire market for Christie but also redefine the value of social media, visual technology and digital art.

 Is it a theatrical event? Of course not, do not forget art is always tightly bound with the most advanced technology in time, from paper to paint, from 2D video to 3D models.

TWO - Global pandemic has changed the entire landscape of visual technologies as well as society.

 It is not just the NFTs that emphasize the values of pop culture(like social media) and 3D visualization technology, but also any single aspect in our daily life ever since the pandemic. The creation of 3D datasets used to be challenging, but the ability to create digital doubles of people, products, and places has been much easier. It became a significant trend as more individuals or even corporate groups. They tend to show a great interest in capturing 360 and 3D assets, and further, to take action and try it. Photolistics scans of human beings or even public or working environments can be done via a smartphone only.

"Click-through and comparison rate on 3D contents are so dramatically higher than 2D."

With a rapid drop in outdoor and social activities, society is either forced and motivated to adopt digital or visual experience across different industries. The Fabric of Reality, a fully immersive fashion show, has over 100,000 watched live-stream in real-time, involves a 3D visualization of designer's works and shows the limitless possibilities to showcase fashion within virtual environments. It is not just the fashion brands but also the B2C providers who quickly realized their customers are changing the way of learning, and their attention -- is where the money comes from. There is also a significant increase in collaborative business projects between visual tech studios and brands. It will be further discussed in the following sections.

THREE - Social media channels like Snapchat brings AR into a dominating field.

Not many expected that social media channels like Snapchat could be, and still be, a revolutionary platform for AR, plus the fact that many do not believe in the boom of AR before the pandemic. However, the number is the most powerful storyteller. There are over 200 million people using AR on Snapchat every day.

Over 75% of the Snapchat daily users, equivalent to 199 million people, "are using AR daily to add rich, useful and entertaining creative layers to their world".

The growth of AR technology is dependent on a group of vibrant and diverse creative communities. Snapchat is also partnering with high schools, universities and other community organizations to educate and promote AR for an enormously large group of (potential) users at a young age. It is believed that this behaviour could follow them and shape how they interact with the world in the future.

FOUR - University is no longer the only and main learning pathway.

Many of the articles in Reality.House reveals one truth source-- university is no longer the only and the main learning pathway for one to develop logical, systematic learning behaviours and values. It is a critically important sign, as it will shape how an individual and a diverse community interact and reinforce their ideas and knowledge with the world and thus, create a new world that the older generations never imagined before. As mentioned above, social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat, which are mainly led with images and videos, rather than words, are forming a new information system and digital society that might not seem rational from an individual point of view but as a whole, if you acquire enough data.

Think about one question, why is that world-famous, first-ever NFTs is a combination of 5,000 social media posts images, not one?

Due to the pandemic and the adaptation of technology, people tend to spend more time online. They might spend more time engaging in the Internet rather than sitting in the classroom with a textbook. Is that good or not? Not our positions to criticize, but what is for sure is that such a trend became powerful enough through time that it was fundamentally integrated into the company and corporate culture, as well as advertisement and marketing.

Visual technology like AR, LIDAR, photogrammetry and 3D art "helps brands in Snapchat to create emotional contact with these hard-to-reach Gen Z cohorts".

Brands like Gucci have been one of the first brands to use LiDAR tech in Snapchat to promote their product.

 Shopping behaviour is tightening bind with one's learning behaviour. The university so-called "Social Media" reshapes customer's behaviours and further retailer's strategies. Snapchat's research showed:

"Adding AR extends the reach of campaigns and audience by 41%, driving 67% lift in action intent. Add 2.4x lift in purchase intent."

DOV, a London-based visualization and XR studio has collaborated with Burberry and Harrods to create marketing campaigns. There are a lot more successful examples you could find online.

FIVE - Digital identities and the loose border between reality and virtual reality.

Visual technologies like Virtual Reality and 3D modelling enable the creation or recreation of physical and living subjects. SHY Studio, co-created by Misha Shyukin and Hannes Hummels in Cologne, Germany, has already visualized many great commercial and self-initiated 3D visualization projects ever since the pandemic. One of its most fascinating research projects was called the "Artificial Bloom", which explored the organic structure and natural pattern. Symmetry, tessellations, logarithmic spiral shapes and patterns within patterns - taking a biomorphic design approach of living forms as a starting point of our visual exploration.

"We were fascinated by the way natural patterns work and how it is possible to recreate them with relatively simple rules in 3D."

It is not just the living plants or daily objects that could be recreated and redefined in the virtual world, but also humans. Filmmaker Ian Pon Jewel discusses virtual reality and self-identity in storytelling. "With virtual reality, it is not solely for 'empathy'. You can do both. You can create rifts or hatred. If something has powerful potential, it does so both ways -- It's the people behind it who decide the fate of the medium." Technologies like VR generated a sense of moral ambiguity. One could develop experience whilst being extremely human. "Once you have the normalization of VR - where you don't get nauseous - and you have full-body suits and creating your own avatars - you will get people who want to unplug from reality, whatever that is. "

SIX - Same as other technology sectors, inclusiveness and accessibility are essential in XR & Pop culture.

Similar to any adaptation of new technology media, it is critically important to ensure the production community is inclusive and accessible for different groups of people, including the minority and LGBTs. It is not just about whether one got the right to express their thoughts and feelings, but also about how different values reinforce each other and create a respectful environment for positive development. The Reality.House magazine also addresses the concept of "DIGI-GXL", representing womxn, intersex, transfolk, and non-binary people -- specializing in digital design, 3D and XR.

SEVEN - Using XR, AR or MR is not enough to be marked as “new” but the idea embedded behind a solution could be.

The article "The future of retail" addressed the fact that just adding AR technology is not fancy enough to solve the core problems that the retailers faced today. Things that were at the cutting-edge five years ago can suddenly turn upside-down and become "old-fashioned" today.

 The technology behind XR, AR, MR or even 3D is not new at all, yet they just started to be implemented on a public level ever since the pandemic (a year ago from now).

"Moving into a hyper-personalization element, with the feeling of being understood akin to being a bespoke tailor giving the customer recommendations that actually match an understanding of them rather than simple heuristics."

EIGHT - From traditional media to mixed reality, from one-way to two-ways empathy.

“With virtual reality, it is not solely for ‘empathy’. You can do both. You can create rifts or hatred. If something has powerful potential, it does so if both ways -- It’s the people behind it who decide the fate of the medium.”

 Technologies like VR generated a sense of moral ambiguity. One could develop experience whilst being extremely human.

NINE - Images, URLs, Snapchat and QR codes - your new identity.

Business card is no longer a piece of paper. The bloom of information, not just appears in Google search but also a growing capacity of storing one's digital footprints and information. That is also why Reality.House is adding a small piece of QR identity to each article. It could be directed to a URL website or someone's Snapchat account.

Maybe it is time for you to build your own QR code. 

TEN - The last trend in this article? Follow Reality.House

Reality.House magazine is the place where technological innovation and culture collide. Peruse the pages to discover how Grammy-nominated singer Mahalia is loading version 2.0, how combatants are brought off the battlefield in a virtual experience by Karim Ben Khelifa, insights from Snap Inc., tips from top international digital designers, and more.

Pre-order it's print edition here: https://zine.realityhouse.co/issues/001

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