Perception and Consumption of Extended Reality (XR) Content in Urban Spaces

The technological revolution that began in the 1960s, associated with the development of ICT technologies, particularly the Internet, has led to fundamental changes in many aspects of today's cities. The effects of this revolution are visible not only in the changes related to infrastructure and smart city management; they are primarily manifested in the evolving nature of human activities within urban spaces. Digital technologies enable contemporary societies to operate in diverse, often intersecting material and immaterial spaces. Additionally, humans are becoming increasingly immersed in digital technology, causing them to lose sight of the impact of the technology on their behaviours and perceptions of reality. Facing the rapid development of extended reality (XR) technologies, aspects of this immersion become even more critical. Integrating XR technologies into the smart city context introduces a new layer of complexity to how individuals interact and consume digital content. In particular, the increasing availability of devices, software, and content from the XR spectrum provides opportunities to present and interact with digital objects and the material world within a single environment. Therefore, XR technologies allow humans to immerse themselves in a virtual world, cutting them off from the surrounding reality while enriching it with digital objects. While the described phenomenon and digital technologies are not new, their functioning still leads to many questions about the consumption and production of contemporary space and the understanding of co-presence in space. This chapter addresses the challenges and role of these technologies in the emergence of new forms of spatialities and contexts of the smart city's consumption and production of space.