The hologram craze first hit with Michael Jackson, then Whitney Houston and now political protesters. The second-ever holographic protest was held Wednesday in South Korea, NPR reported. Amnesty Korea organized the event in response to the Seoul Metropolitan Police shutting down an in-person protest due to concerns about disrupting the city’s traffic.
The police threatened to arrest anyone who chanted along to the holograms and repeatedly asserted that the holograms were a part of a cultural festival, not a rally, NPR reported.
The protest was held in opposition to South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s crackdown on free speech in the country.
Holographic projection was likely the only way Koreans would have been able to publicly voice their concerns with the government. Ahn Se-young, an Amnesty Korea campaign manager, told NPR, “Freedom of speech and assembly has deteriorated since Park Geun-hye took office. Why can we hold a demonstration here only as ghosts? That’s what we want to ask.”
The idea of a holographic protest is fascinating, but the whole point of a protest is to show that people are willing to put their lives on the line to support an opinion they care deeply about. A holographic protest doesn’t strike that powerful of a blow.
A holographic sit-in wouldn’t hold much weight if you could sit on the projections sitting in. Holograms can be ignored, and that directly contrasts the very nature of a protest. The power and intensity that come from crowds of people banding together doesn’t translate well to a light projection.
Additionally, protests can escalate and build on themselves. A roaring crowd’s passion is infectious, and it’s easy to get swept up in the sheer power of an actual protest. But with holograms, that dimension no longer exists. There are no people yelling in the streets, but people yelling through a screen. The raw human aspect is diminished.
The best use for holographic protests would be in cases similar to the one in South Korea, in which protesters unable to show their support in-person can still show solidarity with their cause. On the international stage, holograms could be projected between countries to generate international interest in issues that seem intangible to most domestic citizens.
All of the usual ruckus that comes with protests is eliminated, allowing for the cause, and not the chaos, to take the spotlight. That being said, part of a protest’s effectiveness is in the disruption it causes, and using holograms creates no public disturbance. One can walk through a hologram, but a teeming crowd of people is difficult to ignore.
Holographic protests are also the most practical for security purposes. In countries where protesting is dangerous, people could use the technology to protest from afar without risking their lives to fight for their rights. Protesting could be easier — albeit less impactful — than it has ever been.
Holographic protests are more similar to performance art than actual protests, especially in the United States, where the right to assemble is just that — a right. Protestors can still make points, but simply projecting bodies in front of a political space is more symbolic, if anything. There’s little consequence, little impact and little disruption. Daily life wouldn’t be halted by them, just paused. It will motivate public discourse, but not public mobilization.
Holograms aren’t likely to revolutionize the protesting game any time soon. Taking the time out of your day to gather in protest of something shows real dedication to an issue. A pre-recorded hologram doesn’t pack the same punch. But the holograms send the message to the South Korean government that even if protesters can’t assemble, they’ll find other ways to have their voices heard.
