Mobile Tagging as Tools to create Mixed Reality in eLit

The objective of this paper is to describe the potentialities of Mobile Tagging as a tool for increasing and spreading the effects of Mixed Realities in Electronic Literature. In this sense, we will start introducing the main concepts and some examples of Mixed Realities followed by the concepts and examples of Mobile Tagging, showing that they are connected and benefit each other and can benefit eLit as well. Mixed Reality (or MR) refers to the fusion of the physical and virtual worlds to produce new environments and visualizations where physical and digital objects co-­‐exist and interact in real time. On the other hand, mobile tagging is the process of reading a 2D barcode using a mobile device camera. Allowing the encryption of URLs in the barcodes, the mobile tagging can add a digital and/or online layer to any physical object, providing so several levels of mixed realities related to that object. Although Mixed Realities technologies have already existed for decades, in the past they were very expensive. Recently, mobile devices have also become tools for mixed realities. Due their pervasiveness, their potentiality for increasing the dissemination of mixed realities is enormous and can be leveraged by mobile tagging. Since mobile tags are simple tags that can be placed on virtually any place, physical object or person, added to the fact that the cell phones with cameras have become a very inexpensive and common device, the mobile tagging process can be said as one of the easiest and simplest ways to create mixed realities. The uses of mobile tagging and the several levels of mixed realities have applications in many areas going from medicine and engineering to literature and arts. Mobile Tags work like physical links to the web, allowing so that virtually anything can be part of an expanded mixed reality environment, including printed books, e-­‐books, poetry and any kind of text. This paper/presentation will use examples in the fields of art and literature to illustrate the functionality of the mobile tagging to create mixed realities.

(Source: Author's abstract for ELO_AI)