Simulating Reality: The (Curious) History and Science of Immersive Experiences.

Can an experimental approach enhance our critical-historical understanding of immersive experiences? We will look at the history of 3D vision from an interdisciplinary perspective combining the science of perception and the cultural history of technology. Through a series of collaborative activities and team experiments, we will learn how popular, pre-digital optical devices (such as camerae obscurae, magic lanterns, panoramas or stereoscopes) foreshadow contemporary VR, AR, or XR experiences designed for education and entertainment. Among the themes explored: virtual travel, social voyeurism and surveillance, utopian and dystopian imagination.