Phenomenology of Digital Perception (PDP) tackles a new emerging topic in the realm of Virtual Reality and/or Augmented Reality each year. During the semester students will be introduced to Virtual Reality headsets, Mixed Reality headsets, Projected Augmented Reality hardware, 360 degree cameras, 3d scanning applications, and smartphone/tablet apps. This understanding will supplement the building blocks of the PDP curriculum of learning how video game engines, specifically Unreal and Unity, can influence the perception of physical and digital environments through the examination of interactive spatial software. This work will be conducted alongside a critical reading of the history of gamespaces and the potential of design and artistic workflows to use these elements in innovative ways.Students will begin by creating small interactive games or experiences to understand the capacity of the tools to create engaging experiences. This will be followed by the creation of augmented reality experiences through emerging platforms specific to AR before transitioning into the creation of their own standalone AR applications. The semester will culminate in the  development of an AR application pitch targeted for the city itself. In this current age of self-containment, quarantine and isolation, we will use this final assignment as a way to urge our users to venture out into the world and safely explore the city with an augmented reality application as their guide. Projects from past semesters have sought to harness the history of CCA’s Oakland campus or to highlight the contributions of African-American leaders, visionaries and musicians in the history of the rich landscape of the Seventh Street Oakland corridor.The course requires a mobile device and computer capable of running the free UNITY game engine (www.unity3d.com) and the free Unreal Engine 4 (www.unrealengine.com). This class engages the act of "level design" in game design terms to create spatial environments for interaction. The Spring 2022 course will have limited in person use of virtual reality head mounted displays due to concerns related to the Coronavirus.

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