ABOUT ANTHROPOCENE XR LAB
Existing scholarship has dedicated to oversized impact of human activities on natural environment. Most of them focus on the actual negative consequences of human activities on the natural environment, such as carbon emissions, land use change, and pollutions. In our lab, we focus on both living and hypothetical scenarios of human interactions with the environment. We plan to support research that utilizes XR technologies in such areas. We define XR as a tool— digital media technologies that can manipulate or reconstruct actual human experiences—for example AR, VR, XR, digital fabrication, and AI generated media.
We are interested in how, in combination of physical and virtual environment, we can expand our understanding of human beings and nature. While physical environment puts a constraint on what scholars can experiment with human participants, XR technologies can enable them to experience an environment or event that is inaccessible or invisible. Consider a marine environment in deep ocean or a decisive battle in history. XR can expose participants to such conditions that previously methods in the humanities and social sciences have difficulty to provide, which enables us to explore research questions in history, art, culture, and society.
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Co-Directors
