Augmented reality in urban places: Contested content and the duplicity of code

Through detailed explorations of 'augmented realities', this chapter provides a broad overview of not only the ways that those augmented realities matter but also the complex and often duplicitous manner that code and content can congeal in experiences of augmented places. Specifically, it demonstrates there are four key ways in which power is manifested in augmented realities: two performed largely by social actors - distributed power and communication power - and two enacted primarily via software - code power and timeless power. All spatial representations are both the products and producers of specific configurations of power relations, and thus a key question is whether the ways power in augmented reality is constructed and exercised is novel. The chapter concludes by calling for redoubled attention to both the layering of content and the duplicity and ephemerality of code in shaping the uneven and power-laden practices of representations and the experiences of place augmentations in urban places.