“Who is Nature?”: Ancient Traditions Meet Virtual Reality
The urgent need for environmental action is generating new forms of human interaction with nature. Among these is growing awareness that First Nation communities around the world have already developed sophisticated mechanisms of give-and-take with lakes, plants, landscapes, and other natural phenomena. I witnessed this philosophy in practice during my teenage years in Madison, Wisconsin, where a Menominee community invited me into its weekly drumming ceremonies. At the time I had been inspired by my grandfather from Rio de Janeiro to explore Brazilian cultural heritage in the spiritual music of Afoxê and Candomblé.
To investigate the nexus of humanity and nature, in 2019 I visited sacred sites introduced by community elders in Mexico, Cuba, and Australia. Their responses to my question, “what does nature mean to you?” revealed a holistic vision: nature is not a resource to be extracted but a living entity to engage in a relationship. At least as complex as any human being or sentient entity, nature is not a “what” but a “who.”
Returning to Melbourne in 2020 I began creating a 360-degrees interactive film to share this perspective in an immersive and engaging way. The result is the film “Who is Nature?”, which takes viewers on a journey to a Mayan sacred cenote lake and sanctuary in Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula, a medicinal forest in Havana, the Afrekete Afro-Cuban festival on Australia’s Gold Coast, and the landscape of Western Australia as it is sculpted by the Aboriginal Dreamtime serpent Beemarra. Some of the creative minds behind the project are Mexican Temazcal healer Leticia Renteria, Venezuelan ecology animator Victor Holder Rodríguez, Cuban dance educator Adrian Medina Scull, Venezuelan composer Daniel Jauregui, and Nanda elder Dr. Steven Kelly from Western Australia. Below are some thoughts from each of these innovators about the project.
Leticia Renteria
Temazcal Ceremonial Healer
“Participating in this project was an opportunity to reflect and think about the ancestral cultures that still live on our planet. My interview appears in scene 2, which shows the sacred importance of cenote lakes in Mayan culture. For me, communities that are connected with their ancestries and natural surroundings have so much to teach us about their visions of life and the universe. These visions confirm that the human species has available to it many ways to gain knowledge. For example, it is possible to reach a precise atomic understanding of natural cycles through personal observation and integration with nature’s teachings.
It would be of great benefit to our technologised Western society to open itself, listen, recognise, and adopt the truths safeguarded by Indigenous cultures. We could all come to appreciate the profound simplicity, respect, and wisdom that encompass a leaf on a tree, a drop of water, our bodies, and every part of the universe.” (Leticia Renteria)
Victor Holder
Animation artist
“My role in “Who is Nature?” was to work with Indigenous (Nanda) elder Dr. Steve Kelly to visually portray the Dreamtime story of Beemarra the serpent. I animated the story with a magical realism approach to show Beemarra creating the Murchison River region of Western Australia in 360 virtual reality.
As a Latin American with Afro and Indigenous heritage I have always been sensitive to the importance of cultural roots in building our relationship with nature. This project is really about sharing this awareness so that viewers get a sense of how First Nation and Afro-descended communities respect the spirit of nature. Our goal is to show how we can all reconnect with the environment and with each other by seeing nature as a living organism and not as something separated from us.
Recent advances in interactive video make it easier to teach people about awareness of everyday actions and interactions with the environment. Everyone in the world is connected to nature and everyone can experience this film because it is free and online. Hopefully we will encourage a sense of care for waters, landscapes, wildlife, and all that our mother earth provides to us for free and unconditionally. Projects like this can help people to remember that nature is their home.” (Victor Holder)
Adrian Medina
Cuban babalawo healer
“In my opinion, the true cure for almost all the problems we face as human beings comes from nature. This is a perspective I have grown up with as a Cuban of African descent and I was happy to share it in the film. For me, the more I look at nature the more I continue to learn.
We live in a society disconnected from the environment in which we live, in a society of ignorance about the great benefits that nature offers us. We have lost the spiritual purity to realize that plants, animals and human beings are all connected through the same channel called Life. Nature is everything that surrounds us because we belong to that channel: a circle of life on this great planet.
The “Who is nature?” project stirs viewers to reflect on our connections with the circle of nature and life. It is one of those projects that should be integrated into the country's education system. I would answer the question “Who is nature?” in a very simple way: could you possibly imagine this planet without flowers?” (Adrian Medina)
Daniel Jauregui
Musical director & sound designer
“As the musical director and sound designer for “Who is Nature?” I really wanted to make the audio experience as immersive as the 360 film. The sound design needed to be crafted to make you feel like you are there in the scene.
The communities you visit in the film live and breathe nature and they know they exist within it. Most urban dwellers don’t have that level of connection with their surroundings. It’s eye-opening that so many of us have lost touch with where and what we come from. One thing we can do to restore this sense of ourselves is learn about communities that are connected to nature, and try to meet them in person.
People in cities are more familiar with digital technology than they are with nature. And if the technology is used appropriately it can be a pathway back to our natural human roots. The film creates a space in between technology and nature. The immersive VR technology is the messenger and nature is the message. When Adrian and I talked about this we came to an agreement that our goal is to inspire people to dream about making new connections with nature. Hopefully when they put down their phone or VR headset they’ll go outside and ask themselves “Who is Nature?” (Daniel Jauregui)
Dr. Steven Kelly
Narrator
“My contribution to the project was to introduce and narrate a story of Beemarra the serpent and creator of Nanda Country in the Murchison region of Western Australia. The Beemarra story is steeped in Aboriginal religion and it was a pleasure to have a platform to showcase these aspects. Beemarra laid down laws that permitted my ancestors to survive and thrive on Country for thousands of years, and this was achieved by abiding by these sets of laws.
In today’s world it is imperative that we look to Indigenous peoples’ ways of knowing, being and doing to learn how to reconfigure and adjust to our changing environment.” (Dr Steven Kelly)
The film is set to an original soundtrack, composed collaboratively by Grammy Award winner Daniel Jauregui (Harmonic Whale Studio), Leonard Barker, and community arts organisation Suns of Mercury. A highlight of the soundscape, for me, emerges at the end of the scene walking along a path at the Tsukán Sanctuary in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, when the bird songs and chirps come together in chorus with the piano and drums.
Within the film viewers can trigger “hotspots” buttons that open video interviews with healers and specialists, alongside maps and texts about the sacred sites. This interactivity was achieved with help from Mitch Buzza and Sam Taylor at the University of Melbourne’s eTeaching/eLearning team. Meanwhile, Auryn Rotten and Luis Gaitán from Learning Environments stitched together the 360 film and produced the videos interviews.
At the project’s outset I had imagined that the audio and visual interactivity would be relatively easy to achieve. Instead I found unimagined complexity: interactive 360 film is an emerging art form that is pushing innovation of new hardware and software to keep up with the creative visions of filmmakers. Figuring out how to portray the deep respect of First Nation peoples for nature in a technically effective and elegant way kept me up at night for about a year. Input from Weijia Wang (digital entertainment creator) and Thomas Keep (intern at the Digital Studio) was critical in resolving these questions.
“Who is Nature?” is currently being used as a research and learning tool in the University of Melbourne Spanish and Latin American Studies program and Master of International Relations. The project was selected the Cuban embassy in Australia to showcase in Cuban Culture Day (here) and will be a feature exhibition of the 2021 Ventana Latin America Festival. Its positive reception has inspired the team to begin creating two other interactive 360 video projects: one funded by the Melbourne Social Equity Institute to celebrate the cultural heritage of Melbourne’s Nigerian community, and another funded by the Australian embassy in Mexico to explore the social impact of a community garden in Cuba.
Watch the “Who is Nature?” 360 film here.
A webinar about “Who is Nature?” for the Indigenous-Settler Relations Collaboration can be viewed here.