Living pasts: a multidisciplinary course on the history of Utrecht

Looking for a challenging, innovative and fun course to boost your optional course profile? University College Utrecht and the Utrecht University faculties of Humanities, Geosciences, Science and Social Sciences offer a joint course combining historical data across disciplines to realise an augmented reality (AR) application that tells the story of Janskerkhof across the centuries.

During this interdisciplinary co-design course, the students will build prototypes for Utrecht Timemachine, which is part of a European initiative that aims to visualise 2,000 years of European history.

Ivar Troost, one of the coordinators of the course: “The course is unique in its kind because it combines the use of historical data and augmented reality. Our goal is to revive history by uncovering Janskerkhof square in Utrecht. Students will go out on the streets and employ various research methods to obtain more information about the square, the dynamics and the people. We have added some entrepreneurial elements to it, the students are going to translate their concept into a sustainable business case and need to find partners who are willing to collaborate. The course is very practically oriented, students acquire new skills by going out on the streets, designing their prototypes and finding interesting partners.”

Interested? ‘Living Pasts: Augmenting Urban Landscapes and Cultural Heritage in the Digital Age’ runs from February until April 2020. University College Utrecht and Utrecht University students may sign up for this elective course in Osiris (course code: BETA-B3LH) on January 20th and 21st 2020. There are still some spots left!