MAT 111XR: XR AND WORLDMAKING

University of California, Santa Barbara

Extended Reality (XR) shapes how people experience emotion, narrative, and embodiment. This course approaches XR as a worldmaking practice, treating v irtual space as an interface through which cultural and experiential meanin g emerges. Students explore XR environments as sites of empathy, identity, and relationality, connecting critical theory with hands-on spatial storyte lling. Through readings, case studies, and prototyping, students create XR experiences using Unity3D, photogrammetry, Gaussian splatting, and selected AI-based tools. The course culminates in a first-person XR walking simulat or presented in VR. Instruction begins from foundational concepts, and no p rior coding or XR experience is required.