Here is why I find Augmented Reality offensive, regardless of its alleged usage ---- whether for military fighter pilots, or selling hamburgers ---- whether for terrorism or poetry or playing games ---- no matter what it is used for, I find it offensive because of its world view and inherent bias.

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My research and artistic practice asks the question "to see or not to see", or "to watch or not to watch".  Specifically I'm interested in the question "to watch back or not to watch back", i.e. to see both ways or to [be] see[n] in one direction only.  Equivalently: "to do" or "to suffer".  To watch both ways (veillance) or in one direction only (surveillance).

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What we call things often sets the stage with their hidden agenda.  For example, "Surveillance Studies" is often presented as if it espoused a neutral agenda --- neither in favour nor against surveillance.  But it is no more neutral than saying we're going to create a faculty of "Conservative Political Studies" in a country where there are both conservatives and liberals.  "Surveillance Studies" (studying the act of watching-from-above) has a hidden agenda, which is to focus on the one-directional gaze of surveillance --- to focus only on watching from above.

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Likewise Augmented Reality studies is one-sided, and fails to see a more balanced view that includes the computerized seeing aid, and other technologies that actually help people see better and live better lives --- often by modifying --- not just adding to (whether adding poetry, signal, or noise) reality.

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The issue I take here is not whether the additions to reality are signal or noise --- the additions may well be poetry for example --- but that a world view that is biased toward the act of only adding, is a world view that is one-sided.

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The table below compares one-sided views of the world with their more balanced and inclusive views --- inclusive design rather than design that shuts down consideration to the true origins of AR which is that it was originally envisioned as a vision aid to actually help people see better.

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Please consider the following table of one-sided agendas (all of which I find disturbing) and their more balanced and neutral forms (which I find fascinating and worth advancing):

<pre>
<strong>One-sided view</strong>         <strong>Balanced (neutral) view</strong>
----------------------------------------------
Surveillance           Veillance
Surveillance Studies   Veillance Studies
Oversight              Sight
Augmented Reality      Augmediated Reality
Military program       Program
Consumers              Citizens
Male gaze              Gaze
Conservative politics  Politics
Capitalist society     Society
National Security      Human Security
</pre>


Please let me know your thoughts, and I am also happy to read any of your work you'd like to send my way.