DOI: 10.5176/2251-3566_L316.3
Authors: Dr. Bryan Carter
Abstract: The soulful rhythms of blues and jazz music signaled an explosion of African American creativity in the US in the 1920-30s. During this period, known as the New Negro Movement and later known as the Harlem Renaissance, musicians, dancers, visual artists, writers, and scholars sought to define their African heritage in American culture. Prior, from after World War I until just after the stock market crash in 1929, the vibrancy of newly discovered African-American art, music and literature were celebrated in Harlem, NY and other African-American urban centers like Bronzeville in Chicago, IL, St. Louis, MO, Kansas City, MO, and a few locations out west. The Virtual Harlem Project represents one of the earliest Virtual Environments focused on this exciting period. Having evolved from an original CAVE virtual environment in the ‘90s, through distributed virtual worlds like Second Life and Open Simulator, the most recent version is being reconstructed using Unity 3D and can be experienced using a variety of displays, to include the CAVE, Oculus and on the PC. The evolution of this project encourages visitors to experience how the Jazz Age is brought to life through Virtual Harlem.
Keywords: virtual worlds virtual reality virtual harlem african american literature
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