Metro Australia – July 2019

Asenvironmentalconcernscontinuetomobiliseartists,

filmmakersand mediapractitioners,new technologies

are increasinglybeing employednot only to call attention

to problems,but also to presenthopefulfutures.Just be-

fore Melbourne’sAustralianCentrefor the MovingImage

(ACMI)shut down for its extensiveupgrade,^1 I caught

two recentvirtualreality (VR) titles: Joan Ross’DidYou

AsktheRiver?(2019)and LynetteWallworth’sAwavena

(2018).Thesetwo workshave little in commonother than

femaleprotagonists,environmentalmessagesand their

use of the virtualspace.However,they both draw on

variousVR techniquesthat allow creatorsto explorethe

potentialof the technologyto implicatethe viewer/userin

embodiedand interactiveexperiences.Both make use of

simulatednaturalenvironmentsin respondingto colonial

pasts and issues surrounding the Anthropocene.

Thisspread,L–R:Awavenadirector

LynetteWallworth(right)withYawanawá

chiefTashka;theYawanawá’sfirstfemale

shaman, Hushahu, as seeninAwavena

DESTRUCTIVE

PASTS,

HOPEFUL

POSSIBILITIES

TheSimulated Environment

in AwavenaandDid You

Ask the River?

Virtualrealityofferssignificantopportunities

for expansiveworld-building,particularly

in counterpointto cinema’sadherenceto

the singleperspectiveof the filmmaker.As

theseVR worksby LynetteWallworthand

Joan Ross demonstrate,developmentsin

technologyare enablingmediacreators

to go beyondrepresentationsrootedin

realism– and to challengeour destructive

relationshipwith the worldbeyond the

screen, writesKim Munro.

82 • Metro Magazine 201 | © ATOM