Cynergies: Technologies that Hybridize Physical and Cyberspaces

This paper presents ways in which cybrids depend for their technology upon three existing models of architectural hybrid: display space, environmental computing, and augmented/mixed reality. Cybrids bring these techniques together into a synergistic whole that depends as much on the observer for its consistency as it does on its comprising technologies. This synergy is a product of corroborative behavior between different modes, which provide cybrid users with a coherent social/spatial experience. The paper notes cybrids’ similarity to theater, not only for their technological dependency, but also for the tacit yet vital role of the observer in their effect.