The opening scenes of Ridley Scott’s film Bladerunner (1982) -  oft cited for its portrayal of Los Angeles in a starkly post-modern future world – provide a fictional impression of what, if taken to an extreme, augmented spaces might look like in the future. Harvey (1990, p. 308) discussed this film as both a visual expression of post-modernity and as an emblem of postmodern culture and representation: as a discussion of current ambiguities relating to time and space in contemporary culture as well being useful for its articulation of the components of the urban environment that constitute what is now called augmented public space. Many features of this film contain components of this highly visual and electronic landscape. For example, the entire face of high-rise buildings is taken up by massive digital screens displaying advertising and other forms of media. The striking aspect of these scenes is the sheer scale and saturation of media spaces in the cinematic version of this futuristic urban environment albeit via a somewhat dystopian vision. Yet many of the features of the contemporary built environment already contain features that bear out this vision. Manovich (2006, p. 219) gives a further impression of these spaces, listing major international economic centres such as, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Seoul. But one could easily add New York’s Times Square and major European cities such as London and Berlin to this list. However, the advent of urban screens in many city centres in the UK and the sheer pervasiveness of a wide variety of mobile communications – including cell phones, PDAs and laptop computers  – means that augmented spaces have now become a distinctive reality in the majority of city centres in the UK. What has happened with mobile media is a notable overlapping of media content onto the urban environment. A similar phenomenon is to be found in the combination of architecture and forms of display technology, from large LED screens being the most prominent example, to smaller scale digital signage and so forth. Representations that are available in alternative modalities, say, for example, those that are provided by mobile communications devices are one of the many layers of representation implied in the notion of augmented public space – that is, the “overlaying of physical space with dynamic data” (Manovich, 2006, p. 223).
The overabundance of information and events in this environment has the effect of disassociating the person from the space as a real or authentic experience. Thus, the individual is not only distracted from the living space, but is caught up in a world of private messages which are not connected to any single location or scene. Transformations in the experience of public space form an important historical backdrop to current investigations of augmented public space (Manovich 2006). Such transformations also emphasise the visual nature of the urban environment from the placement of advertising hoardings to the existence of large cinema sized digital screens. These transformations are distinct from what, over the last decade, has been labelled “Augmented Reality” (Haller, Billinghurst and Thomas, 2006). This can be expressed as an experienced reality, combined with some form of computer generated simulation or modelling in which technological artefacts are adopted because of their ability to provide adjuncts to the real. In contrast, attention here is given to the physical experience of urban environments and space that is overlaid with dynamic information and media content (Manovich, 2006, p. 219). Augmented public space is dominated by information spaces and for the most part these have been an integral part of the built environment ranging from simple street signage, advertising, pedestrian and traffic control systems, to more sophisticated electronic display mechanisms and the current use of “digital signage” (Latta, 2006). A relatively new feature of the urban environment is the large LED screen placed in central locations within the city that provides another layer of information and media content. Add to this the use of personal communications devices in the form of PDAs, mobile telephones and so forth, and you have a rich layering of signs, information and media that is superimposed onto the urban scene.