Taking the Impression of Reality to the Lab

Seminar im SoSe20, Sigrid Leyssen

Zeit: Dienstag, 19:00 - 20:30

Ort:

Beschreibung: The impression of reality has long been a main trope in Film and Media Studies. In recent years, Virtual and Augmented Reality technologies are taking new expanded forms. Integrating 3D objects and environments, the possibility of free movement, various actions and interactions, but also the role of sociality and language, VR and AR are being expanded in different directions beyond the visual and auditory. These technologies and their integration in various environments are exploring what else it could mean to create an impression of reality. They make it important to keep rethinking what the power of this particular impression is, what is central in its creation, and how this has changed over time.
How can we understand the history and future of the real? In this seminar we take the impression of reality back to the labs where it has been investigated and shaped: labs in computer science departments or film studios, psychology labs or art studios. We look at the history of testing VR technologies and scientific or artistic experiments to understand the way the impression of reality was understood in these explorations. This seminar is a reading seminar integrating some more hands-on methodologies. We will read key texts from the history of the impression of reality from film and media studies and bring these in relation to texts, experiments and technologies by experimental psychologists, computer scientists, and artists. Understanding how it has changed over time what media presentations are experienced as real might offer us a better grasp of today’s developments and their challenges.
Together with the seminar “Understanding Movement”, this seminar forms the MA Study Module Media Worlds. Offered as a Bauhaus Seminar, this seminar is open to all interested students, and is especially welcoming students from Media Studies, Media Architecture, Computer Science, Art and Design.

The course will be offered in English.

Course Requirements: weekly readings, active participation in class meetings, short presentations, course paper on a topic of your choice related to the course theme (in English or German).