Jacob Barton

This is a chance for students to create an immersive interactive experience through a new experience platform known as DreamCube. Debuting on Fast Company’s 2022 list of most innovative products, the DreamCube is an immersive reality platform featuring projection-based walls and floor with lightning fast tracking or interactive objects. It’s all that you want from VR without any of the nausea or sensory occlusion. We’ll start with a few weeks of exploration on current immersive experiences, from projection-based “Van Gogh” experiences to participatory theater “Sleep No More” experiences, and an orientation to the technical frameworks. At week four, working teams will “pitch” their concepts for building a DreamCube experience that is plausible for development within the semester. The rest of the semester will be development, testing and refining with class feedback before the final public presentation. Prerequisites: Working knowledge of Unity

Students will learn how to use the motion capturing and tracking technology and, conceive of a novel way to incorporate it into their own DreamCube experience. All students will present a case study/inspiration of an immersive experience, then gather in groups to conceive and propose a concept, and then design and iterate their projects in the DreamCube environment. A public performance to present their completed experiences will be the final.

This will be a semester-long course, will contain critical discussion about spatial design experiences, weekly assignments, midterm and final demo presentation.  Use of the Dream Cube rig will require travel to the Local Projects studiosat 123 William Street, 8th floor in downtown Manhattan in lower Manhattan for most class meetings.