BENGALURU: “We are no more watching Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (collectively known as immersive technology), but we are in it and this is where creative artists should take responsibility of what is being presented,” believes Monica Bielskyte, renowned futurist and world builder.
Speaking to DC, the Lithuanian national who has worked along with a varied mix of companies ranging from media brands to tech leaders to governments adds that the rise of anti-intellectuals and “flat-earthers” has popped up more lately, referring to the “superhero figure and the narrative, people like Donald Trump are trying to perpetuate.”
Immersive tech can bridge fiction and real-world
Being a creative director at Hollywood, who has also redesigned cities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Ms Bielskyte speaks from her experience that the two spheres when bridged together helped her imagine the future better. “Bringing together design professionals, economists, sci-fi directors, concept artists and illustrators from the film canvas to work around an idea to foresee the future of a city have contributed success towards our ventures,” she said.
VR and AR make it to politics too
Revealing a latest offer she received from the political strata, Bielskyte elaborated on how she was approached to strategise VR and AR methods to be used for an upcoming national election campaign.
“Prototyping real-world scenarios to help voters see how the near future would be if the same party was re-elected there versus how it would be if my client-party came into power was one of the ideas that got lauded. This is yet another way of purposing immersive tech which has got immense scope in future as well,” ascertained Bielskyte.
Direct brain-computer interface is the (scary) future
“The human relationship with the digital space and how we move through it different from how we are now stuck in a screen-based paradigm is something that leads to our thoughts towards the future as of now,” said Bielskyte pointing towards the developments in and around areas of direct brain-computer interface.
Bringing back future thoughts back to present, the futurist with an artist’s eye and an inventor’s mind sums up, “The media we create becomes us, the spaces we design inhabit us and the compelling fictions we tell always bleed back into reality.”
Bielskyte was in town for a pre-event of DesignUp 2017, a national go-to conference for design in technology scheduled to be held in November.
