ARIA/GOMARCH

Augmented Reality in Activism

ARIA was a project sponsored by HEIF to develop a prototype for using Augmented Reality (AR) as a participatory tool for social protest. The ARIA project examined some of the main barriers to physical participation in social protest, including mental and physical health challenges, fear of retribution, and a lack of time and resources. The ARIA team then developed "GoMarch", an integrated web platform and AR application to allow remote protesters or supporters to create and place a digital avatar at a given geolocation. This avatar can be viewed by users that are physically present in the location, though use of the AR smartphone application. The aim of the project was to find new ways of making the efforts of remote activists individually visible to other stakeholders and to provide a new avenue of participation.