SHANNON BUTTS 

Race, Space, and Equality Augmenting Atlanta is an augmented reality walking tour and advocacy project that examines the history of race and mobility in Atlanta, Georgia. The tour analyzes the Atlanta Beltline project, a plan to connect 45 neighborhoods through a network of public parks, multi-use trails, and new transit. However, Atlanta has a long history of urban redevelopment, often encumbered by racist policies, economic inequality, and special interest construction that divide the city. Building on Michel De Certeau’s theories of space and place and Jeff Rice’s networks of Digital Detroit, Augmenting Atlanta critiques the Beltline discourse, advocates for racial equality, and uses AR to participate in the evolving mobility of the historic city. This project is currently being revised for submission to Enculturation: a journal of rhetoric, writing, and culture. To learn more about development in the Atlanta area, visit the Atlanta Beltline website.

Protest as Public Pedagogy In May 1968, over 11 million people marched through Paris pasting posters and spraying Marxist graffiti to protest unfair labor conditions and capitalist ideology. I argue these images instigated people to move and wrote a script in the streets directing resistance. Using posters and graffiti from May 1968, Mobilizing P(AR)IS maps the circulation of texts on the streets and crafts a walkable AR route that reunites the spread of images with the spread of people and protest. Built with images from the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the AR tour creates an actionable archive that emplaces the protest back into the very streets that created the movement. This project unites the physical space of Paris and the digital tools of mobile technologies to augment space, initiate movements, and visualize history.

Environmental Advocacy and Education EcoTour is a mobile, augmented reality app that connects the history of Paynes Prairie State Park to current environmental issues. Using an interactive map, visitors can scan signs within the park to access multimedia AR overlays - audio-visual media related to the park's history, wildlife, indigenous peoples, climate change, and environmental threats. EcoTour helps visitors visualize the complex relationships between the park's natural environment and human development. Built as part of an upper division writing course, EcoTour created an opportunity for students to research, design, and create public media that promotes environmental education. By encouraging the community to engage with the Park in this way, we hope to provide not only awareness of the damage being done to our ecosystem or the erasure of local histories, but to foster change by enacting a sustainable and emplaced critique. Visit ecotourapp.com to learn more.

Advocacy through Augmented Reality Museums across the globe are using augmented reality technolgies to help visitors connect with exhibits and learn more about art. Working with the Harn Museum of Art in Gainesville, Florida, I led a group of local scholars and created a collaborative AR takeover tour. The event offered an experiental learning workshop and discussed art, public humanities, and emerging technologies. Participants interviewed artists, curators, and fellow scholars and built AR overlays emphasizing the value of digital humanities and critical public discourse. The tour, "Augmenting the Harn," addresses issues such as technofeminisms, social advocacy, public pedagogy, racial bias in tech, and UX/UI theory.

Race, Space, and Equality Augmenting Atlanta is an augmented reality walking tour and advocacy project that examines the history of race and mobility in Atlanta, Georgia. The tour analyzes the Atlanta Beltline project, a plan to connect 45 neighborhoods through a network of public parks, multi-use trails, and new transit. However, Atlanta has a long history of urban redevelopment, often encumbered by racist policies, economic inequality, and special interest construction that divide the city. Building on Michel De Certeau’s theories of space and place and Jeff Rice’s networks of Digital Detroit, Augmenting Atlanta critiques the Beltline discourse, advocates for racial equality, and uses AR to participate in the evolving mobility of the historic city. This project is currently being revised for submission to Enculturation: a journal of rhetoric, writing, and culture. To learn more about development in the Atlanta area, visit the Atlanta Beltline website.

Protest as Public Pedagogy In May 1968, over 11 million people marched through Paris pasting posters and spraying Marxist graffiti to protest unfair labor conditions and capitalist ideology. I argue these images instigated people to move and wrote a script in the streets directing resistance. Using posters and graffiti from May 1968, Mobilizing P(AR)IS maps the circulation of texts on the streets and crafts a walkable AR route that reunites the spread of images with the spread of people and protest. Built with images from the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the AR tour creates an actionable archive that emplaces the protest back into the very streets that created the movement. This project unites the physical space of Paris and the digital tools of mobile technologies to augment space, initiate movements, and visualize history.

Environmental Advocacy and Education EcoTour is a mobile, augmented reality app that connects the history of Paynes Prairie State Park to current environmental issues. Using an interactive map, visitors can scan signs within the park to access multimedia AR overlays - audio-visual media related to the park's history, wildlife, indigenous peoples, climate change, and environmental threats. EcoTour helps visitors visualize the complex relationships between the park's natural environment and human development. Built as part of an upper division writing course, EcoTour created an opportunity for students to research, design, and create public media that promotes environmental education. By encouraging the community to engage with the Park in this way, we hope to provide not only awareness of the damage being done to our ecosystem or the erasure of local histories, but to foster change by enacting a sustainable and emplaced critique. Visit ecotourapp.com to learn more.

Advocacy through Augmented Reality Museums across the globe are using augmented reality technolgies to help visitors connect with exhibits and learn more about art. Working with the Harn Museum of Art in Gainesville, Florida, I led a group of local scholars and created a collaborative AR takeover tour. The event offered an experiental learning workshop and discussed art, public humanities, and emerging technologies. Participants interviewed artists, curators, and fellow scholars and built AR overlays emphasizing the value of digital humanities and critical public discourse. The tour, "Augmenting the Harn," addresses issues such as technofeminisms, social advocacy, public pedagogy, racial bias in tech, and UX/UI theory.

Race, Space, and Equality Augmenting Atlanta is an augmented reality walking tour and advocacy project that examines the history of race and mobility in Atlanta, Georgia. The tour analyzes the Atlanta Beltline project, a plan to connect 45 neighborhoods through a network of public parks, multi-use trails, and new transit. However, Atlanta has a long history of urban redevelopment, often encumbered by racist policies, economic inequality, and special interest construction that divide the city. Building on Michel De Certeau’s theories of space and place and Jeff Rice’s networks of Digital Detroit, Augmenting Atlanta critiques the Beltline discourse, advocates for racial equality, and uses AR to participate in the evolving mobility of the historic city. This project is currently being revised for submission to Enculturation: a journal of rhetoric, writing, and culture. To learn more about development in the Atlanta area, visit the Atlanta Beltline website.

Protest as Public Pedagogy In May 1968, over 11 million people marched through Paris pasting posters and spraying Marxist graffiti to protest unfair labor conditions and capitalist ideology. I argue these images instigated people to move and wrote a script in the streets directing resistance. Using posters and graffiti from May 1968, Mobilizing P(AR)IS maps the circulation of texts on the streets and crafts a walkable AR route that reunites the spread of images with the spread of people and protest. Built with images from the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the AR tour creates an actionable archive that emplaces the protest back into the very streets that created the movement. This project unites the physical space of Paris and the digital tools of mobile technologies to augment space, initiate movements, and visualize history.

Environmental Advocacy and Education EcoTour is a mobile, augmented reality app that connects the history of Paynes Prairie State Park to current environmental issues. Using an interactive map, visitors can scan signs within the park to access multimedia AR overlays - audio-visual media related to the park's history, wildlife, indigenous peoples, climate change, and environmental threats. EcoTour helps visitors visualize the complex relationships between the park's natural environment and human development. Built as part of an upper division writing course, EcoTour created an opportunity for students to research, design, and create public media that promotes environmental education. By encouraging the community to engage with the Park in this way, we hope to provide not only awareness of the damage being done to our ecosystem or the erasure of local histories, but to foster change by enacting a sustainable and emplaced critique. Visit ecotourapp.com to learn more.

Advocacy through Augmented Reality Museums across the globe are using augmented reality technolgies to help visitors connect with exhibits and learn more about art. Working with the Harn Museum of Art in Gainesville, Florida, I led a group of local scholars and created a collaborative AR takeover tour. The event offered an experiental learning workshop and discussed art, public humanities, and emerging technologies. Participants interviewed artists, curators, and fellow scholars and built AR overlays emphasizing the value of digital humanities and critical public discourse. The tour, "Augmenting the Harn," addresses issues such as technofeminisms, social advocacy, public pedagogy, racial bias in tech, and UX/UI theory.