Future Text Lab
Our research question is simple: How can we improve academic reading, writing and thinking in XR?
We feel strongly that as we move through increasingly large and complex information environments we will need greater agility to thrive and not be overwhelmed, manipulated or disconnected. Interacting with your knowledge should be as immersive and engaging as playing a great game, dancing, painting or flying.
In XR we should be like superheroes with powerful abilities, far beyond a keyboard, mouse and screen. We feel the future will be multidimensional and multi-device, with much important work left to do for tradition interfaces, such as computers and smartphones, as well as in VR, which we believe will be a hugely important dimension to our work.
We are working on building an environment for interacting with text in XR, initially for reading and Library interaction, and later for authoring. This work is in support of The Future of Text Initiative.
Lab Meetings
If you are interested in getting involved, please get in touch via email or on Twitter/X if you’d like to join us. The result of our dialog is an annual Symposium and series of books, as well as our continually updated records:
- We have been hosting an annual Symposium on the Future of Text for over a decade. thefutureoftext.org
- We publish an annual ‘Future of Text’ series of books which are available for download, as well as the Future of Text Journal.
futuretextpublishing.com - Continually updated Meeting Records
Who We Are
The Future of Text Lab Team is Adam Wern, Alan Laidlaw, Andrew Thompson, Brandel Zachernuk, Fabien Benetou, Leon Van Kammen, Mark Anderson & Peter J. Wasilko, Rob Swigart, with Lab Directors Dene Grigar, Frode Hegland and the Advisory Board.
This work is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation