Augmented and Virtual Reality Art
Prof. Fabian Winkler

AD41700 Augmented and Virtual Reality Art gives students the opportunity to create immersive Virtual Reality (VR) content for the Oculus Rift headset as well as Augmented Reality (AR) content for mobile devices. Students learn to use the Unity3D development platform (unity3d.com - no prior experience required) and explore the artistic and critical potential of AR and VR content researching both historical precursors and contemporary trends.

Specifically, this class consists of technical workshops, hands-on project work creating AR and VR applications as well as class discussions and critiques of student work. Students will also research artists working with AR and VR technologies, the history of the medium as well as critical cultural topics in VR and AR content and present their findings in class presentations. While no prior expertise in AR or VR technologies is required, this is an upper level undergraduate course, so a certain level of independent research and work beyond the introductory workshops in class is expected.

Students will use Unity as the main software application in the course, creating two projects - one developing a mobile AR app for smartphones. This project allows students to augment physical objects and/or sites on the Purdue West Lafayette campus that are important to them with meaningful visual content for the purpose of expression, aesthetic experimentation or commentary. In the second project students are scanning sites on campus with a low-cost Scanse SWEEP Lidar system and represent these sites immersively using HTC Vive and/or Oculus headsets. Both projects will require students to think more deeply about the relationship of real and digital sites, embodiment as well as new hybrid forms of nature/architecture/space.



Course Number: AD41700
Instructor: Fabian Winkler
Mondays/Wednesdays, 2:30-5:20pm

Location: FPRD 204 (studio/seminar space) and Pao B179 (computer lab)

Course web site:
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~fwinkler/AD41700_F19