London-based nature movement Nowadays On Earth is gamifying climate justice, using AR technology to rewild our urban environment.
Far more of us have a phone in our hands than a spade or a rake, traversing the algorithm instead of the soil. We have access to more information than ever before, yet we have never been so disconnected from our natural environment. But what if we could use the digital world to redesign our cities into something greener?
Created by Nowadays on Earth, in partnership with Pitch Studios, Glitch is a world-building, cyber gardening tool that empowers users to transform their local environment. With the help of an AI cyber bug chat function, you can ‘hack’ your street, using AR technology to plant virtual blossom trees. All you need is a smartphone and an imagination to turn unused, concrete space into pockets of sprawling plant life.
“A lot of people have described Glitch as like Pokémon Go, but for plants.”
Kalpana Arias, founder of Nowadays on Earth.
“A lot of people have described Glitch as like Pokémon Go, but for plants,” says Kalpana Arias, founder of Nowadays on Earth. “This gamified element has become a really accessible entry point for people to connect with the climate movement and with community gardening, who otherwise didn’t feel represented in that space.”
Arias started the community nature movement, Nowadays on Earth, in the midst of the pandemic era, when many national parks and community gardens closed in line with lockdown restrictions. What began as a guerrilla gardening project, with Arias and friends scattering seeds and planting bulbs on sidewalks and tree verges, gradually grew into a climate justice network, facilitating events and workshops across London and beyond.
“At the same time that Nowadays was getting started, I was learning how to code and program. For me, it felt like a no-brainer to use tech to help scale out these nature projects, using that intersection to focus on citizen placemaking and urban design.” Arias cites architect Michael Murphy’s belief that “great design is a human right” as a grounding ethos for Nowaday’s approach, reimagining the digital space as a tool for people and nature, not for capitalism.
Glitch was co-designed with communities through a series of hackathons across London, New York and Cali, Columbia, says Arias. For the visual elements, Nowadays on Earth teamed up with Pitch Studios to design AR blossom trees with a dreamy, retro quality. At their London launch event in late June, gardeners and gamers joined forces to try the platform for the first time, navigating the mutual space with curiosity.
“AR can help overcome physical world limitations, especially in activism. You can create multi-layered narratives where you are the catalyst of change.”
Kalpana Arias
“As a species at the moment, we are chronically online. One of the things that we wanted to do was turn this online engagement into offline action,” says Arias. Through the augmented reality tools embedded within Glitch, users are invited to access their radical imagination: “AR can help overcome physical world limitations, especially in activism. You can create multi-layered narratives where you are the catalyst of change.”
When you identify a green gap in your environment, Glitch’s cyber bug asks you to identify the tools you would need to make your dream blossom a reality, whether this be plant pots and spades, more information, or a group to garden with.
“We wanted to take that civic input and combine it with local biodiversity data.” Currently, users can choose to plant a cherry, damson, hawthorn, plum or apple tree, all of which can be found in green sites around London. “We’re building our database, adding more edible plants and floral species to indicate the array of reasons why you might want to improve biodiversity, whether that’s for food, community or your mental health.”
Glitch doubles as an education tool, and provides information around the plant’s properties, origins and cultural relevance. When users are ready to transform their blossom from code to soil, they can access bite-sized learning modules provided by Earthed to get started on their urban gardening journey.
While the map function is currently limited to the London area, Glitch can be used wherever you are in the world, and Nowadays on Earth plans to bring the platform to urban cities. “I think if we can create this wave of citizen players across cities, I’m very hopeful for the future,” says Arias.
“You need to make the revolution sexy. You need to make it fun.”
The power of play cannot be underestimated within the climate justice space, as soft technologies become a resource to mobilize and connect a new generation of activists. Re-wilding and conservation movements have a history of elitism, and Nowadays on Earth are on a mission to provide the resources to anyone who wants to grow.
“Especially with younger generations, who are being born into an age of AI, we want to make sure that the nature education gap is being filled in ways that are immersive and engaging. You need to make the revolution sexy. You need to make it fun,” says Arias.
In an era where conversations on AI and the environment feel particularly gloomy, Glitch gives communities a space to engage with the digital realm for good. Perhaps softer technologies that disrupt our endless doomscrolling and reconnect us with the world around us could be a way forward in our increasingly online world.
All imagery courtesy of Nowadays on Earth.
