DESTRUCTIVE PASTS, HOPEFUL POSSIBILITIES The Simulated Environment in Awavena and Did You Ask the River?
As environmental concerns continue to mobilise artists, filmmakers and media practitioners, new technologies are increasingly being employed not only to call attention to problems, but also to present hopeful futures. Just before Melbourne’s Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) shut down for its extensive upgrade,1 I caught two recent virtual reality (VR) titles: Joan Ross’ Did You Ask the River? (2019) and Lynette Wallworth’s Awavena (2018). These two works have little in common other than female protagonists, environmental messages and their use of the virtual space. However, they both draw on various VR techniques that allow creators to explore the potential of the technology to implicate the viewer/user in embodied and interactive experiences. Both make use of simulated natural environments in responding to colonial pasts and issues surrounding the Anthropocene.
Wreaking havoc: Did You Ask the River?
Arriving at ACMI on the final day of Did You Ask the River?, I was relieved to discover that, despite the session being booked out, a few people hadn’t turned up. Therefore, I was given the opportunity to experience this work by the winner of the 2018 Mordant Family VR Commission.
Donning the headset, I assume the first-person avatar of an eighteenth-century colonial female explorer, complete with impractical dress and giant hat (in what I later learn is
