AUGMENTED REALITY PEACEBUILDING
In the AR peacebuilding research stream, Lisa Glybchenko investigates the potential of using AR technologies to design and implement peaceful futures in times of war. Read Lisa’s original article “Unfuturing peace: augmented reality image design for Guerilla peacebuilding” HERE and check out the abstract below (Glybchenko, 2024):
This project explores the potential of image-making in augmented reality (AR) technologies as means of designing sustaining quality peace futures—unfuturing peace, focusing on Ukraine’s heroic defense against Russia’s 2022–2024 full-scale war of aggression as a case study. Employing the methodology of compositional interpretation and the conceptual tool “futures images,” the project theoretically and practically differentiates between defuturing and unfuturing as peace design processes in developing an essay of originally designed marker-based Augmented Reality Posters in Support of Ukraine as demos of sustaining quality peace arrangements. The posters reference the topics of (physical) integrity of Ukrainian symbols, global food security and the security of the LGBTQI+ community in Ukraine. The technological artistic process/outcomes of this AR image-making experiment and their relation to power layouts in peacebuilding form the bases for theorizing how AR-supported futures design in war-affected communities—unfuturing peace—could facilitate “guerrilla peacebuilding.” In outlining theoretical and practical premises of guerilla peacebuilding, the project intersects Augmented Reality Posters in Support of Ukraine with explorations of guerilla warfare and counterinsurgency efforts leading to the 2016 Havana Peace Agreements in Colombia as well as mobile technologies/power in guerrilla approaches to democratic development.
In addition to theoretical research developments, Lisa created a series of marker-based “Augmented Reality Posters in Support of Ukraine” combining her original photography and originally developed digital art to take support to Ukraine to a new – visually, digitally and augmentedly operationalizable level to empower local peacebuilders, including making resistance to invaders in temporarily occupied territories safer for the resisting. In the video developed for Kriisinhallinta NYT 2022 (Helsinki, Finland), you can learn more about the potential of using AR to further empower Ukrainians in their heroic defense.
This podcast from the “Communicating International Security” series by Alessandro Castellani also features a conversation with Lisa Glybchenko about AR peacebuilding, including Lisa’s project that was awarded one of the 2024 Prizes for Transformative Futures in Peace ad Security, Geneva Centre for Security Policy. Listen to the podcast HERE.
