12.1 Emerging trends and technologies in art and social justice

Emerging technologies are reshaping art and social justice activism. Digital platforms, immersive tech, and social media amplify voices and create powerful experiences. These tools enable artists to reach wider audiences and drive social change in new ways.

However, new tech also brings challenges. Issues of access, privacy, and sustainability must be addressed. Artists must balance innovation with core social justice goals, ensuring their work remains inclusive and impactful.

Digital Platforms for Social Justice

Immersive Technologies for Empathy and Understanding

Top images from around the web for Immersive Technologies for Empathy and Understanding

• 

  How VR Will Change Soft Skills Training – Tech Trends – Medium View original

  Is this image relevant?

• 

  Immersive Tech Transforming Learning – AR/VR Journey: Augmented & Virtual Reality Magazine View original

  Is this image relevant?

• 

  Frontiers | Learning Empathy Through Virtual Reality: Multiple Strategies for Training Empathy ... View original

  Is this image relevant?

• 

  How VR Will Change Soft Skills Training – Tech Trends – Medium View original

  Is this image relevant?

• 

  Immersive Tech Transforming Learning – AR/VR Journey: Augmented & Virtual Reality Magazine View original

  Is this image relevant?

1 of 3

Top images from around the web for Immersive Technologies for Empathy and Understanding

• 

  How VR Will Change Soft Skills Training – Tech Trends – Medium View original

  Is this image relevant?

• 

  Immersive Tech Transforming Learning – AR/VR Journey: Augmented & Virtual Reality Magazine View original

  Is this image relevant?

• 

  Frontiers | Learning Empathy Through Virtual Reality: Multiple Strategies for Training Empathy ... View original

  Is this image relevant?

• 

  How VR Will Change Soft Skills Training – Tech Trends – Medium View original

  Is this image relevant?

• 

  Immersive Tech Transforming Learning – AR/VR Journey: Augmented & Virtual Reality Magazine View original

  Is this image relevant?

1 of 3

• Virtual and augmented reality create immersive experiences that build empathy and understanding around social issues
  • Projects address refugee crises, racial injustice, and climate change
  • Immersive media may build deeper empathy and investment compared to traditional formats
• Projection mapping and digital installations in public spaces engage wider audiences with activist messages and calls to action
  • Large-scale projections on buildings and monuments amplify voices and make social justice issues impossible to ignore
  • Can enable novel forms of community-building and collective action among artists and activists

Blockchain and AI for Ownership and Representation

• Blockchain technology and NFTs provide new ways for artists to assert ownership over digital works and fundraise for social causes
  • Artists mint NFTs and donate proceeds to organizations fighting for social equity
  • Decentralized networks can bring together intersectional coalitions to collaborate on social justice projects
• Artificial intelligence is leveraged to create generative art that evolves based on data about social inequities
  • AI algorithms trained on datasets about issues like income inequality or police brutality visually represent disparities and systemic problems
  • Raises ethical concerns around privacy, surveillance, and algorithmic bias that activist artists must grapple with

Social Media and Art Activism

Democratizing Access and Amplifying Voices

• Social media has democratized access to art and activism, allowing a more diverse range of voices and perspectives to be heard
  • Artists from marginalized communities can build followings and spread messages without relying on traditional gatekeepers
  • Platforms like Instagram and TikTok have become key spaces for artists to share work, build community, and mobilize audiences around social justice causes
• Online activism, often fueled by art and visual culture, has played a major role in recent social justice movements
  • #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo movements spread virally through images, videos, and graphics
  • "Hashtag activism" links conversations, organizes actions, and measures the reach of social justice messaging

Challenges of Speed, Saturation, and Co-option

• The instantaneous, participatory nature of social media has accelerated the cycle of creation and response in activist art
  • Artists can quickly react to current events and crises, creating works that spread in real-time as situations unfold
  • Speed and volume of information can contribute to oversaturation and "activism fatigue"
• Online activist art faces challenges around co-option, commodification, and performative "slacktivism"
  • Corporate brands and bad actors can appropriate grassroots art for profit or clout, diluting radical messages
  • Artists must find ways to sustain engagement and avoid audiences becoming numb to social justice messaging over time

Emerging Technologies in Art and Activism

Potentials for Reach and Impact

• Emerging technologies can help activist artists reach wider audiences and create visceral, multisensory experiences that drive home social justice messages
  • High-tech activist art can sometimes be seen as exclusionary or inaccessible, leaving behind those without digital literacy or resources
  • Artists must balance the allure of new technologies with the need to engage marginalized communities
• New tech tools and platforms enable novel forms of community-building and collective action among artists and activists
  • Decentralized networks and digital organizing can bring together intersectional coalitions to collaborate on social justice projects

Pitfalls and Ethical Considerations

• Some emerging technologies, like AI and facial recognition, raise ethical concerns around privacy, surveillance, and algorithmic bias
  • The same tools used to fight oppression can also enable new forms of inequity
  • Artists should be wary of tech becoming an end unto itself rather than a means for making change
• Environmental and economic critiques suggest that resource-intensive technologies like blockchain and VR may reinforce extractive, unsustainable systems
  • Activist artists should consider whether their tools and practices align with social and ecological justice
  • An overemphasis on technological novelty and "innovation" in activist art can distract from core social justice goals