Over the past few months, Wharton has explored Second Life, an immersive world inhabited by several million avatars representing real life humans, as well as Assassin’s Creed, a popular video game set in thirteenth century Palestine and Syria. She is examining the effects of digital architectures on those who navigate those virtual realms. In Fall 2009, she plans to teach a course on Jerusalem in which students will join her in investigating the power of architecture in these new media.

For the past four years, Wharton has been studying “pathological architectures,” seeking to understand and describe the ways that “sick” buildings affect the people who occupy them. More broadly, she is interested in how architectures act as agents in modifying the way humans live. Her work in exploring architectures in Second Life and video games is preparation for the last chapter of her book.

“It’s impossible to understand space conventionally any longer; digital worlds and immersive spaces play too large part in our economy and culture to ignore,” Wharton said.

“I expected myself to be a kind of tourist in Second Life and in video games. But the space is invasive; it doesn’t allow you to be simply an objective observer. I have become subjectively engaged, in a way that surprised me. ”

Wharton also noted that, in Second Life, the spaces are created by the avatars themselves; both shaping and acting is an expression of their producers. As opposed to “real” life, objects retain reference to those who made them. A chair or a house in real life is anonymous; a chair or a house in Second Life, with a click of the mouse, reveals its creator. Search engines allow you to invite those makers to talk to you about their work.

For example, during the recent presidential campaign, Wharton explored the Second Life spaces created by Democrats and Republicans. Democratic spaces were functional, open, modern, information-centered. Republican sites were architecturally elaborate with classicizing buildings and the intimacy of Main Street. She drew from her observations conclusions about the working of the “public sphere” in immersive worlds.

For faculty thinking about integrating Google Earth, Second Life or video games into a course, Wharton suggests becoming familiar with the technology first. She compares it to learning a new language or visiting a new city with its own culture and conventions. Each technology may take several weeks of learning its mechanisms and exploring its the territory to feel “at home”.

With Second Life, Wharton recommends having students to visit a variety of spaces, some connected directly with the course contents and some not, in order to accustom themselves to navigating the space and interacting with other residents. But finally students can construct the historical sites they are studying in three dimensions so that they and other avatars may walk through them.

Most residents of Second Life are “in world” for social purposes or for entertainment—from soft-porn to “dancing for Jesus.” But groups engaged in politics, education, art and music are also active there. Avatars can walk around the Sistine Chapel and the Temple at Karnak or they can attend discussions of Obama’s Cairo speech with Egyptians, Turks, Iranians and other Muslims from around the real world. The first brief piece that Wharton wrote about Second Life described her first visit during the Gaza War to the newly opened Palestine Holocaust Museum (article at iReport).

“It is really worth investigating digital technologies,” Wharton says, “They give you a new means of rethinking your old assumptions—a central concern of education.”

As part of what will hopefully become a continuing trend, CIT will begin posting faculty-written reflections of their experiences teaching in the Link. Following, is the third and final post in a series from Caroline Bruzelius, Anne M. Cogan Professor of Art and Art History. Read the first post by clicking here or the second by clicking here.

During the week of December 1, the students had ten minutes to present their projects. They were free to do this in any way they liked: as a “performance” or a straightforward presentation. In evaluating each presentation, we consider the quality of the overall conception, the coherence of the three parts (fictional history, architecture and decorative program), and certain ineffable qualities in the project: brilliance of concept, and inventiveness, as well as charm and humor.

At the end of the semester, each time I teach this course, I am amazed that students who have had no previous background in the Middle Ages or in Art History are able to come up with compelling historical narratives, wonderful decorative programs, and terrific architectural designs. This year was particularly striking in its wide-ranging and inventive approaches, because there were projects set all over Europe and the Near East: Turkey, Cyprus, Northern Germany, and Spain, as well as England, Italy, and France. Although the Gothic style was born in France, the students took it “on the road” in their projects and designed it in relation to local conditions, such as the need for earthquake-proof design (Turkey), the use of locally-available materials ( brick, instead of stone in N. Germany), or the insertion of the cathedral into a former mosque (Spain).

(Note: This is a slideshow of images of the completed cathedral designs. It will cycle through images automatically, or you can click on an image to see the next image).

So now – out of a class of majors in topics such as Chemistry, Political Science, History, Engineering, etc. – we have crafted a group of wonderfully resourceful and inventive medieval architects, iconographers, and historians. In the fictional narratives, the “rediscoveries” of long-lost local saints, the recreation of ancient trade routes bringing income and ideas, the writing of “budgets” that would define income as well as the expenses of materials and labor, are stimulating exercises that on some level recreate the experience of building a major architectural project in a distant historical period.

I am so very proud of my students, and love what they do.

(Note: This is a slideshow of images of the class. It will cycle through images automatically, or you can click on an image to see the next image).

Profiles of each of the faculty are posted on the CIT website, and illustrate the various ways these faculty effectively used the Link features, including easy access to technology, wall-to-wall whiteboards, break-out (student group work) spaces, moveable furniture, and close-by technical and teaching support. If, after reading the Fellows’ experiences, you would like to try any of the approaches mentioned and would like to talk to CIT first, please contact us!

The students and Dr. Haff collaborated to create the Google Earth file, pooling their pictures and information.  The students found that using Google Earth enhanced their learning because it provided:

• a sense of scale
• the ability to make measurements
• an overview of the area
• context for what they were seeing
• orientation.

Read more about this course in Duke Magazine.

More information, examples and tutorials about Google Earth can be found on their website;  or, contact CIT for help incorporating Google Earth into your course.

As part of what will hopefully become a continuing trend, CIT will begin posting faculty-written reflections of their experiences teaching in the Link. Following, is the second in a series of posts from Caroline Bruzelius, Anne M. Cogan Professor of Art and Art History. You can also read the first post by clicking here.

The imaginary cathedrals are fully underway. There are 12 groups of 3 students each, designing buildings that range in date from about 1200 to 1350. Our churches are “going up” all over Europe and even the Crusader Kingdoms of the Near East: France, England, Wales, Northern Germany, Spain, Turkey, Cyprus, and Italy. Each group has to come up with a fictional history, a design (ground-plan, elevation, section, and façade) of the cathedral, and the decorative program: stained glass windows and portal sculpture. They also have to produce a budget: sources of income as well as the expenses for labor and materials. Each group has to invent a story about the Christianization of the site (usually a Late Antique city), including the acquisition of relics, and they have to provide a schematic description of the relationship of their cathedral to the earlier churches at the site, as well as to the topography of the town they’re in. The students can either “recreate” the history of a real place (one group is doing Milan, another Compiègne), or invent an entirely new place. In every case, though, students have to use geological maps to identify accessible supplies of stone and wood, as well as the agricultural or commercial resources that are going to support the building of the cathedral. In order to participate in trade, the cathedrals have to be located on trade routes of major rivers.

(NOTE: The following is a 4 image slideshow which will work automatically – though you can click the image to cycle through the slides faster as well)

We’re now in the last critical weeks, because each project will be “performed” the week after Thanksgiving (Dec. 1-Dec 5: 10 minutes per project). We will award prizes in a “grand closing ceremony” on the last day of class, December 5.

What’s fun about this is that we’re inventing a fake Middle Ages, with stories of miracles, relic thefts, fires and earthquakes that destroyed earlier churches, popular uprisings against the clergy by townspeople, excessive taxation and other forms oppression of the lower classes by the extravagant bishops, all of which is going to end up, however, in wonderful and beautiful buildings. Just like the real Middle Ages.