The future of storytelling is unwritten, but the partnership might give us a hint as to who its key authors could be.
There are a lot of technologies that are going to shape the way stories are told, people are entertained, and art is made in the years to come. We spend a lot of time talking about virtual reality, and the tech and media worlds are increasingly interested in exploring augmented reality. But “mixed reality,” where virtual reality and the corporeal, physical world in which we actually live intermingle, might be the ultimate new frontier. And if you needed further proof that that’s the case, the fact that Lucasfilm and ILMxLAB—Industrial Light and Magic’s cutting edge laboratory for new technologies—announced a partnership with mixed reality pioneers Magic Leap this week ought to make it clear.