VIDI

“Saving our Planet is now a communications challenge”- Sir David Attenborough

Many are aware of the climate emergency but the majority remain unengaged. To meet our climate targets we need mass behavioural change amongst the citizens of our global cities.

VIDI is an immersive climate engagement platform delivered via a live experience to drive positive behavioural change.

It uses augmented reality, virtual reality and interactive digital models to portray climate futures for Glasgow, both good and bad.

The futures were developed in conjunction with Professor Graeme Macdonald, a member of the academic group ‘the climaginaries’, and are based upon available scientific data, societal trends and emerging technologies.

Why do we need VIDI?

The fundamental challenge of climate change for many is its imperceptibility, certainly amongst major cities in the Global North. As a time-deferred, predictive process, its incremental or haphazard nature can often make it seem impalpable to many citizens, slowing their sense of urgency and willingness to act and make the necessary changes.

The role of VIDI is to render the future with climate change, ostensibly 30 years ahead, in the now, to provide an immersive climate imaginary that allows its users to envision and contemplate the possible feel and form of the altered worlds to come – good and bad. Cities throughout history have always required and been subject to processes of re-imagining, and confronting climate’s possible re-shaping or our world is the ultimate test of that. Our urban environment will be different – visually, spatially, sensorially, organisationally. In both a positive and negative scenario, climate changed Glasgow will look smell and feel different.

Immersive technology provides a means to stimulate a speculative sense of the consequences. It can give us some agency and sentience of the world we can create given a positive transition but also the world we can degrade with a lack of proportionate measures.

VIDI is a provocative climate imaginary; giving us the opportunity to engage with positive futures in order to build consensus and react in the present.

The futures are realised as high-definition digital environments and users explore the futures via a progressive web application on an I-Pad provided.

VIDI debuted at COP26 with over 900 people demo’d VIDI and recorded feedback was universally positive.

VIDI has already returned for additional public events in 2022 and is currently being developed as a climate learning tool for Glasgow schools.