Directed by Caitlin Fisher, Canada Research Chair in Digital Culture, York’s Augmented Reality Lab (AR Lab) is dedicated to producing innovative expressive tools, research methods, interfaces and content that challenges cinematic and literary conventions and aim to enhance how people interact with their physical environment and with each other.
Situated in the Faculty of Fine Arts, the Augmented Reality Lab offers researchers the opportunity to explore new screen technologies, approaches and techniques through both production and theoretical study of this emerging medium. The lab offers some of the most advanced technology available to practitioners in a fine arts context anywhere in the world. Researchers in the lab have produced international award-winning immersive AR pieces, interactive theatre, AR fiction and poetry for iPads and iPhones as well as AR installations and mobile media.
Students in the lab are undertaking research at the cutting edge of art/science collaborations and are often involved in international partnerships. Graduate trainees have presented work at Congress, published documentation of prototypes in arts/culture journals, participated in SIGGRAPH, ISEA, DAC, ISMAR, TEDx Dubai, ELO, MLA, HASTAC and SCMS, delivered keynote addresses internationally and launched software and publishing ventures. The AR Lab is part of the Ontario Augmented Reality Network and has collaborated with Georgia Tech, the Ontario Science Centre, TIFF/Nexus and Millenium3 Engineering among others.
The AR Lab is also involved in public outreach initiatives, often delivering hands-on workshops – to women in the gaming industry, to Women and Film and television, for the Ontario Augmented Reality Association, to historians, schoolchildren and museum go-ers.
