From Understanding to Action: the social impact potential of XR

Immersive technology has an exceptional capacity to alter the viewer’s existing ‘positioning’ and to enable them to truly experience events and situations from another’s point of view.

In this sense it is an ideal vehicle for exploring alterity/otherness. With such a capacity comes an enormous opportunity - some might say responsibility - to contribute to a better functioning society. XR can be a powerful vehicle to:

• challenge stereotypes

• overturn preconceived ideas

• generate compassion and understanding

• learn new ways of thinking

But what then? What happens after an initial shift in consciousness? How does one build a bridge between the original XR experience, a temporary state of altered perception and substantive change in the real world? How might XR generate a momentum from understanding to action?

This workshop explores these ideas. We will consider the strategies and methods used to implement social impact campaigns for traditional media; we will discuss a recent case-study from the XR repertoire - ‘Soul Paint’ - in the presence of its creator Sarah Ticho (Best Health and Wellness Prize at Games for Change, XR Prize for Creative Advocacy at SIMA); and we will reflect upon the manner in which insights might apply to participants’ own projets.