The failure of augmented reality (AR) to capture people's imagination is partly due to the gimmicky deployment of the technology to date. But a new app launched to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the twin tower's collapse deploys AR in a haunting and poetic fashion.

New York’s skyline and population were scarred by the events of 9/11, and the trauma of that date is still felt through the absence of the World Trade Centre building. Brian August's 110 stories app makes the absence of the towers palpable through AR graphics. A person using the app is directed to point their camera at where the twin towers would have stood. Once they have snapped a photo, 110 stories then augments the picture by sketching in how the towers would have appeared in stark, wireframe fashion. Users can then comment on what the resulting image means to them and share them on the 110 stories website.

The 110 stories project illustrates a use of AR which opens the technology up to an aspect of the human condition that is ephemeral but always seeking tangible expression: trauma. 
Whether through a mourning ritual or a totemistic object, trauma is the typical instance of something which we feel is uniting us but which doesn't have a physical form of its own. 110 stories doesn't augment reality or trauma but instead provides a new channel for it to manifest and uses the affordances of photosharing technology to permit asynchronous mourning among New York’s population.