DIGITAL MUNYA 2.0: USING UNITY & VR FOR IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES OF A MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC VILLA

Creative Informatics blog post on my research project in Digital Lab for Islamic Visual Culture & Collections, on using the Unity video game engine to create an immersive digital experience of al-Rummaniyya, the only villa (Arabic munya) with extant remains from 10th century Islamic Spain. The aim was to update the original Unity 3D build, to further develop the immersive experience of the space by adding 3D models of artefacts and ‘lore’ about the artefacts and the villa, and to introduce auditory elements to convey the villa’s function as a medieval space of musical and poetic performance.