On the occasion of International Women’s Day, Snapchat decided to pay tribute to eight exceptional women. The idea? Allow users to discover virtual statues of these personalities through augmented reality. An original way to give a place to its icons in the public space.
Snapchat is one of the first companies to bet on augmented reality. This interest in this promising technology has been reinforced with the launch in November 2022 of the Snap AR Studio in Paris.
We can summarize the vocation of the AR Studio in two points:
- generate interest and promote augmented realityand train content creators who want to use it for free
- Design experiencesin partnership with cultural institutions, and offer them free access to all Snapchat users
Despite its youth, the small AR Studio team (14 members for the moment) has already launched several significant experiments, such as the one dedicated to the reopening of the National Library of France. Via a Snap Code, users could go back in time and discover through virtual reality a reconstruction of the building at the beginning of the last century.
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Snapchat pays tribute to these famous women with AR
And on the occasion of International Women’s Day this Wednesday, March 8, 2023, Snapchat and AR Studio are back with an unprecedented AR experience. The idea is the following: honoring 8 emblematic women in 8 different citiesnamely Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Lille, Strasbourg, Metz and Nantes.
To do this, the AR Studio has imagined and developed virtual statues of these women who each marked history in their field, whether in politics, in the arts and letters, or even during their engagement during the Second World War like Josephine Baker, recently introduced to the Pantheon.
Will be honored the painter Elisabeth Vigée Le Brun, the women of letters and philosophers Simone de Beauvoir and Françoise de Graffigny, the political icon Simone Veil, the resistance fighters Manon Tardon and Joséphine Baker, the pioneer of French feminism Olympe de Gouges, journalist and activist Hubertine Auclert.
Giving women back their place in the public space
These statues, which will be visible thanks to augmented reality, are placed next to statues of famous men. With this project, AR Studio wants to give these icons the place they deserve in the public spacewhich mainly highlights the famous men of our history.
“Thanks to Snap’s augmented reality technologies, we were able to increase the place given to these 8 women in the public space by placing their statues alongside statues of men. By establishing a silent dialogue between these historical figures, our wish is to contribute to the effort to raise public awareness of the fight for women’s rights”. said Donatien Bozon, director of AR Studio.
For our part, we were able to try this experience in preview during an event in Marseille. The result is stunning and any user can easily benefit from it. Once near the statue, it will be enough to access the AR filter via the carousel from the Snapchat app to see the virtual statue appear on your screen seconds later.
It will be necessary to activate the localization on your smartphone for a better result. Moreover, by clicking on the purple question mark present on your screen, you will be able to get background information about each personality, such as his milestones and a quote. In addition, note that this experience is destined to last over time.
