Development of an XR-Art Studio Application to Enhance Remote Learning of the Traditional Arts

Abstract

The shift from in-person studio instruction to virtual classrooms, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, revealed many learning disparities in the visual Arts associated with developing proper prediction of colour to nurturing colour sensitivities of cross-cultural perspectives. Our XR learning tool assists students both in the context of their own work and a broader artistic discourse, enabling a new generation of creators to develop transferable knowledge as well as psychomotor skills. Combining the Game and XR development expertise at Ontario Tech University with the Traditional Fine Arts expertise at OCADU, the XRAS is an innovative and effective solution to the challenges presented by remote learning.

The XRAS app goal is to simulate the fundamental aspects of a traditional art studio using XR to bring the studio into students’ own homes. XR, an umbrella of rapidly-advancing, immersive technologies including virtual (VR), augmented (AR) and mixed (MR) reality. XR is an exciting tool for developing engaging virtual experiences for creators, facilitating the visualization and practice of skills otherwise dependent on specialized equipment and in-person educational settings. XR provides opportunities to democratize and disseminate learning tools cost-effectively and enables long-distance collaboration from urban to remote communities, both at home and abroad.