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Augmented spaces in Sherlock Holmes universe technology and the Art of Deduction

Everyday contemporary life takes place only partly in the material world indefinite
numbers of parallel realities, so to say virtual spaces, are present, created and destroyed by
every step we take in a modern city. Generations Y and Z took over the streets, we can call
them generation Google or generation iPhone as well, doesnt really matter what label we tag
on ourselves. The important thing is that walking in the streets is not the same as it was in as
little as 10 years ago, and one has to face an immeasurable amount of sign systems if he were
to find his way and read the City, as such, effectively.
From a 2000s point of view, the strangest thing will be probably that the bigger part of
these signs cannot be even precept by mere physical means. Almost everybody has a new,
almost integrated cyborg part uncomfortably near his body a smartphone, smartwatch,
tablet, PDA or any other device of this kind to be able to access additional information
wireless. The built environment has always been decorated with various carriers of additional
information, and in our brave new world the network of systems outgrew the measure of
human perception, demanding the constant and extensive usage of lexicons and databases
from which only these portable gadgets can gain information effectively.
In this contrast of the old and new, Sherlock Holmes is the missing link, who can
effectively read and use the networks of meanings for his advantage, both in 19 th century
London, and the modern, virtual world. Based on the oeuvre of Arthur Conan Doyle, the
characters adequacy in the cutting-edge technology of his own time matches very well with
the way the BBC series depicted Sherlock Holmes, and the adaptation effectively combines

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this technocratic feature of the old-and-new Doylian world to show as a theatrical tour de
force, creating a 21st century spectacle that does not come through as far-fetched.
As for the original depiction of Sherlock Holmes, it may sound surprising that he would
depend technology to such considerable extent. Yet, as Siddiqi remarks about the novellas,
the stories make frequent allusions to Holmes use of modern technology to telegraphs and
trains in particular. This technology is not merely innovative; it is revolutionary in its
transforming effects on the space and time of everyday life. Holmes reach is hugely
augmented by technology.
This passage is telling for several reasons. First, the augmentation of Holmes reach is
crucial in every novel and novella he leaves London, like in The Final Problem or in the
Hound Of The Baskervilles to mention some. This way he is not able to gain intel via nonpersonal presence, but he can be virtually at several places at the same time, most often by
communicating his aides, like Watson. One of the most effective, not to mention most
appealing feature of the character is that he is seemingly omnipresent. The fact that he is
always one step before his opponents borrows him superpower-like abilities, at least in their
eyes.
The most obvious superhuman ability of Sherlock is obviously his master craftsmanship
in the Art of Deduction. If we wanted to be very strict about that faculty, it basically takes a
huge database of a finite number of records, and a very good talent in combining these records
and making conclusions of the given situations according to them. That is what Sherlock does
most of the time, solving mysteries.
Of course this scheme can be applied to only part of the stories, the reason I pointed it
out is firstly, to raise awareness that several times Sherlock works with factual details
objects and phenomena that are only important because they deictically point out some
happening, relation or fact that is crucial for the investigation (of course, this raises an

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expectation in us, which both inspires us to take part in the combining game, and to believe
that every detail, however incongruous it may be, is worthy of attention. In these cases, the
most ostentatious clues are often proved to be red herrings, and Sherlock cant stop laughing
at us for that.), and secondly, to show how mechanically it works.
Sherlock recombines the factual details to a new, more comprehensible order than the
one we see in the crime scene, and the model is not revealed to us until the end of the story,
when of course the protagonist deliver to surprisingly simple solution.
This is the point when the easiest is to connect this to modern lifes augmented spaces.
According to Manovich, although historically built environments were almost always
covered with ornament, texts (for instance, shop signs), and images (fresco paintings, icons,
sculptures, etc. think of churches in most cultures), the phenomenon of the dynamic
multimedia information in these environments is new. Also, new is the delivery of such
information to a small personal device such as a cell phone, which space dwellers can carry
around with them. (2)
In our lives, we dont need such a unique combinatory talent, nor such memory and
multidisciplinary wisdom like Sherlocks. All we have to know is to where should we look up
things, and our little gadgets will sort out more data than any man in history would be able to
memorize. The fun begins, when a modern day Sherlock gains access to these possibilities,
and begins to use them for his advance. And the fun even augments, when we the audience
are able to see what he sees by CGI, multi-layered cuts, timelapse, mise-en-abyme techniques
and more.
Cinematic representations of augmented spaces go back for a while, for instance the
Terminator movie used filtered images with additional textual content to depict the sight of
a robotic being. For a more current example, Stranger Than Fiction uses augmented spacerepresentations to describe a mans vision of the world, who lives a monotonous, precise life.

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In both cases, the augmented space-depiction underlines the calculable, inhuman aspect of the
virtually supplemented reality. Yet, in the case of Sherlock, he is the most alive when he is
operating his full capacity deducting and detecting skills, which would be much more dull to
see if we only had the narrators text to enrich our fantasy. As in our world, multiple channels
are constantly bombing as with incoming data, we are to constantly accept, deny, sort,
approve and erase it, Sherlock constantly renders the clues to different models, finding the
best possible scheme for the time being.
Similarly to the original texts, spatially speaking, there are two aspects of Sherlocks
detective skills. The original Doyle stories gave the impressions of patriotic tendencies, and as
such, made London the symbol of Englishness. Vaguely speaking, they can be interpreted as
metropolis-novels, and they showed Sherlock as being completely familiar with every part of
the city, and often benefiting from that.
Being familiar with a whole city is practically similar to being able to create a working
narrative of seemingly unconnected clues, but on a lot larger scale. Sherlock, albeit is often
accused by Watson of not having any practical knowledge outside the forensic world, is quite
aware every little trivia of London. That serves him well on couple of occasions when for
example he can tell from a fistful of earth that from which part of London it is, or from a letter
that which post office delivered it.
The TV adaptation also deal with this, and create wonderful animations of how
Sherlock envisions the city. In the Study in Pink episode, we can observe how he is able to
keep track of the whole network of traffic, and with the help of this, outrun a taxi. In the
Blind Banker, augmented spaces and original, personally decodable signs coincide, with the
activity of the Chinese crime syndicate, whose members are trying to send word each other
with the usage of graffiti.

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All in all, the utilization of the augmented space in the BBC Sherlock series was a great
choice. It gives an unprecedentedly fascinating peak into the characters mind, it shows that
Sherlock-adaptations can be fresh and new in the 21st century, and also helps us see the
original corpus in the different color, giving way to new possible interpretations.

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Works Cited
Doyle, Arthur Conan. Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories. New York:
Bantam, 1986. Print.
Manovich, L. "The Poetics of Augmented Space." Visual Communication 5.2 (2006):
219-40. Web. 15 Dec. 2014.
Siddiqi, Yumna. Anxieties of Empire and the Fiction of Intrigue. Google Books. 2008.
Web. 15 Dec. 2014.
"Stranger Than Fiction." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 15 Dec. 2014.
"The Terminator." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 15 Dec. 2014.