Holograms for Freedom

            This article focuses on the movement lead by the No Somos Delito (We Are Not Crime) in response to the Citizen Safety Act passed in March 2015. This law is an infringement on basic human rights including, but not limited to, the restriction to protest in front of Congress or other parliamentary buildings. Due to the limitations to protest this heinous act, No Somos Delito came up with a revolutionary and innovative way to display their injustices and fight for what they believe in: holograms.

            This was the world's first holographic demonstration and an advance for humanity technologically. The program allowed people to post videos, voice recordings of them shouting, virtual signs they wanted shown at the protest. These were then put into action in April 2015 when the holograms of these submissions were projected for an hour outside of the Congress of Deputies in Madrid by demonstrators opposing the Citizen Safety Act. Using holograms as the medium of protest was essential in the demonstrators’ protests and helped to protest the encroachment of human privileges.

            The display of the holograms was produced by a transparent scrim about twenty two feet tall and ten feet wide. This portion of the equipment would be what the holographic protesters would be projected onto throughout the rally. The New York Times explains that the second component to executing the holographic protest was “a structure about the size of a telephone booth where the leaders of No Somos Delito could give on-site interviews during the protest that would appear in real time as holograms projected onto a separate screen about five-feet tall” (Blitzer).

            One problem the producers of this rally ran into was the issue of capturing the holograms at the correct angle in accompany with the perfect lighting. They needed to ensure that the equipment was set up precisely in order to make the holograms seem as if they were actually protesting on the streets. They also planned to begin the rally around 7pm but ended up having to change the time to 9:30pm to ensure that it was dark enough to fully capture the holograms.

            I believe this article would have been stronger if the writer would have included more information on what technology was used previous to the holographic display. It was mentioned how technologically advancing this was for the scientific community so I would have liked to see what exactly this technology was an innovation of. I also would have liked to know how No Somos Delito transformed those recordings and videos into holograms. It would definitely allow the reader to understand the protest and holographic process a lot easier. Finally, I think this article lacked how this can be used in the future. What does this demonstration mean for future protests and how else can holograms be utilized? I believe that if the author of this article included these topics, I could better understand the huge advancement of this holographic demonstration.

Primary Source:

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/protest-by-hologram

Secondary Sources:

http://www.hologramasporlalibertad.org/#project

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jwmi6CguY0