Augmented Reality Activism - Augmented Reality Art - page 16

1.11 Augmented Reality Distributed Action

#arOCCUPY May Day was the occupation of the planet earth by AR activists from
around the globe on May 1st (see Fig. 1.12 ). The event was part OWS's May Day
general strike which called for people around the world not to show up for work
and to participate in a global strike. AR activists performed a “distributed action”
in which they collaborated from across the globe to occupy the earth with AR.
The project was organized by an open call that was posted on public websites and
forums across the internet. Activists from around the world participated creating
work(s) related to OWS. The works were shared with all those participating and
combined into a mass AR protest. The mass AR protest was distributed across the
globe at the location of each participating activist as well as people from the general
public who were willing to participate. On May 1, 2012 the AR activists and public
were instructed to view and show the protest to others. As they did so they were
told to take pictures and video which they were to posted to their social networks.
The first images posted came from Australia and then Japan. As the day went on
excitement grew to see what country would be next and who could get the best
image. Over 20 countries and 42 artists from around the world contributed to the

Fig. 1.12 #arOCCUPY May Day, Switzerland [L] Screenshot (Image reproduced courtesy of
Lalie Schewadron), Tokyo, Japan [R] (Image reproduced courtesy of Yuichi Irimoto) Screenshot
(2012)