From Boris Johnson entombed in plastic to "Humanity's Impact", a new short to raise awareness
Creative company Studio Birthplace continues to evangelize and raise awareness of sustainability
An augmented reality application has also been developed to explore the individual relationship with waste
After burying the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Boris Johnson , under tons of plastic packaging to denounce the country's waste management, the creative company Studio Birthplace continues to evangelize and raise awareness about sustainability, respect for the environment and the climate emergency through through creativity.
On this occasion, they do it through "Humanity's Impact", a project made up of an animated short film and an augmented reality application with which it delves in real time into the idea of the enormous amount of plastic that is produced globally and invites users to discover their relationship with this type of material on a personal level.In this way, both the creativity and the application seek to illustrate with images the shocking numbers: 20,000 plastic bottles per second, or what is the same, approximately 1 million bottles in a minute.
With the aim of raising awareness and inspiring actions towards a more sustainable future , the short takes the discourse to “Humanity's Impact”, a fictional installation created to investigate and visualize the impact of human beings on the planet. With a setting typical of an idyllic American suburb of the 1960s inhabited by dolls or miniature mannequins, the piece uses the same technique applied in "Wasteminster", that is, burying the citizens of the peculiar place with thousands of plastics.
Thus, it is contemplated how the containers flood the streets and houses and bury people, animals and objects until creating an enormous mountain of waste. “ And to think that only 9% of all this is recycled. The rest is burned, sent to landfills or ends up sailing in the oceans ”, comments the locution of creativity. And this goes on like this every minute of every day. Do we really need that many? ”.
In the same way, the short opts for humor and a peaceful tone towards activism , while adopting an informative approach supported by entertainment. " We believe that comedy can be a powerful tool to help tell some of the saddest stories in our world. It can allow easy entry with the audience and make it easier to bring attention to the ugly side of our consumer culture." ”, the directors have pointed out.
As they explain from Studio Birthplace, in collaboration with the Method & Madness studio, the characters were given excessively happy expressions to evoke the advertisements of the 60s with the intention of alluding to the advertising industry as one of the responsible for the fact that society has accepted single-use plastics as normal. “ The film aims to create an eye-opening experience to bring a new level of awareness that a number or stat alone could never achieve. Understanding the impact of humanity on our planet is the first step towards change ”, highlighted the directors of the piece, Sil van der Woerd and Jorik Dozy.
Along these lines, at the end of the piece, in addition to an invitation to download the augmented reality application, a call to action from the Plastic Pollution Coalition is shown . The message encourages viewers to support a petition that tells our planet's largest producer of plastic bottles, The Coca-Cola Company , that consumers don't want their plastic bottles to pollute the planet.
The augmented reality of plastics
Along with the short, Studio Birthplace has developed an augmented reality application in collaboration with the interactive design studio Superposition. The tool aims to help users engage with data related to plastic consumption on an even more personal level. Thus, users can drop 20,000 bottles in their own kitchen or bedroom, commit to reducing their own plastic use, track their progress, take a photo with their details and share it on social media to encourage others to participate.
According to comments from Superposition, the application demonstrates that augmented reality can be a positive awareness tool by encouraging users to choose both the context and the location for their interactions. “ Humanity's Impact is a milestone in our exploration of the possibilities of an emotional and expressive relationship with the digital world through technology, code and design. With her we want to promote a future of increased activism .”
Source: Reason Why