The pandemic has delayed the in-person public opening of one of New Haven’s new landmarks, the $150 million Schwarzman Center encompassing the university’s Woolsey Hall, Commons, and other spaces at Grove and College streets.
But the place is ready. And it is offering the public a “virtual reality” sneak peek inside.
The following release from the center offers details:
The Yale Schwarzman Center (YSC) is inviting the world to experience its highly anticipated new spaces through the power of augmented reality. Through a partnership with the Center for Collaborative Arts and Media (CCAM) at Yale, the YSC launches its Augmented Reality Experience At Schwarzman (AREAS) through the AREAS app available on both the Apple and Google stores. Scannable posters will be displayed on campus and around New Haven for students, staff and local residents to get a first look — virtually!— inside the YSC before the public unveiling.
Through a series of augmented reality episodes, AREAS will take audiences on an immersive virtual journey that animates the dynamic spaces of the YSC through student-led and produced art, music, dance, architecture and poetry performances, while taking a 360-degree exploration of the refurbished Dome, the newly-minted The Underground, and — the unmissable heart of campus — Commons.
“The New Haven community has long supported the arts at Yale, and through AREAS, we can use augmented reality and animation to provide art, architecture and technology lovers with a multisensory experience,” said Jennifer Harrison Newman, associate artistic director at the YSC. “AREAS also gives students an unprecedented opportunity to share their art beyond the boundaries of the Yale campus, while building global communities that bridge gaps between the digital and the physical in our present reality.”
Students and New Haven residents can unlock each episode of AREAS by scanning posters on campus, and those beyond the New Haven area can unlock episodes from digital posters through the YSC website. Once unlocked, they will be immersed into a high-resolution augmented reality experience that animates the YSC and the arts allowing students, alumni, the New Haven community, and art lovers around the world to connect to Yale’s campus in this new way.
Additional episodes of AREAS will be released through spring 2021, offering multiple chances to experience, meet, collaborate and eat — virtually, at least — until the YSC moves into physical programming when the doors officially open later in the year.
AREAS is designed by the Yale Student Immersive Media collective — an initiative founded in 2019 by students in the Arts, Computer Science and Computing and the Arts disciplines with support from the CCAM’s Blended Reality program, which aims to blur the lines between the physical and digital worlds, “easing the transition of an idea from imagination, to design, to realization.”
For more information, visit the YSC website and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at @yale_schwarzman.
