Making Virtual Worlds: Space, Place, and Human Experience

Catalog description

In this class, we will explore virtual worlds as they shape identities, foster social interactions, and redefine our understanding of history and human experience. This class will provide equal parts of technical skill-building in virtual reality design, and engaged discussion on readings. It considers virtual reality as a way of making media, conducting scientific experiments, and probing the limits of humanity. Over the course of the semester, discussions, activities, and workshops will help you incrementally build a small-scale virtual world/gathering/or experience as your final project, informed by insights from design anthropology, neuroscience, psychology and philosophy. Key readings of scholars like Manuel Delanda and Donna Haraway will be supplemented with immersive “field trips” to boundary-breaking 3D virtual worlds crafted by contemporary artists, historically-accurate recreations of landscapes and buildings, as well as virtual worlds built by scientists to better understand the ways that brains work and bodies can be healed. At the end of the course, you will emerge with a technical skill set as well as a critical anthropological perspective on virtualized worlds. You will be able to: Integrate anthropological approaches to visual ethnography and participatory design Understand the core principles and techniques of virtual reality landscape design and development Employ industry-standard software tools to create virtual worlds, Analyze virtual reality landscapes, informed by anthropological perspectives on social interaction, identity construction, and community formation. Apply virtual reality landscape design techniques to a real-world project, employing ethnographic methods to understand user experiences, cultural contexts, and social dynamics. This course requires a basic understanding of 3D modeling software. If you have completed at least one course…