Design Media Electives explore advanced topics in representation, computation, visual culture, and fabrication. The content of the elective options varies from semester to semester.SECTION DESCRIPTIONPhenomenology of Digital Perception (PDP) tackles a new emerging topic in the realm of eXtended 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 is layered onto the exploration of 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 workflows to use these elements in innovative ways.
Students will create interactive games or interfaces to understand the capacity of the tools to create engaging experiences. 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 both 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.

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