A Conversation on the Efficacies of the Game Engine to Address Notions of Sacred Space: The Digital Songlines Project and Transgressions of Sacredness

Abstract

Abstract. The Digital Songlines (DSL) game engine is used as a vehicle for Indigenous Australian storytelling. Their storytelling is inextricably linked to the 'country' from which it emerges. The game engine provides a simulation of that country for embedding of the stories to be told. Much of the 'country' referred to is sacred. However, the fundamental underlying principles of threedimensional reproduction of space in a 3D computer game (3DCG) defines all spaces as mathematically equal -there is no place for notions of sacred spaces. This presents a dilemma for those cultures that do not subscribe to the scientific notions of ontological certainty underpinning such mathematically modelled space. In the case of the DSL game engine, notions of the sacredness of the country modelled has been made explicit in order to highlight its importance for its physical-world corollary. Hence, this paper discusses notions of sacredness and its place in the simulational spaces of the DSL's 3DCG engine. It presents a series of dilemmas for the inclusion of sacred places in simulational spaces. It does not attempt to resolve these dilemmas, but rather to bring them into sharp relief with examples drawn from the DSL project experience. In so doing, it presents a new way of thinking through the significance of this issue for Western and non-Western use of the 3DCG in cultural heritage applications.

First Australians using mediatisation to preserve, maintain and promote cultural heritage

“…Pelizzon and Kennedy (2012) maintain that this concept differs diametrically from the Western notion of owning land in that First Australian people consider themselves as belonging to Country. Wyeld et al (2008) contend that the cultural foundations of the majority of First Australians are deeply rooted in ‘this notion of “Country” as an entity’ (p. 30). This central tenet was found repeatedly throughout First Australian online texts, playing a substantive role in all levels of First Australian economies.…”

“…For example, a user can explore and experiment within a gendered space that ordinarily would be off-limits to traditional media. Wyeld et al (2008) maintain that DSLs can achieve this because of theirunderpinning technological ideology and faithful reconstruction of a universalised space, which includes sacred places as part of notions of holistic integrity which sees all spaces as equal in the modelling process. (p. 26)…”

“…In addition, as DSLs’ levels increase, users are conferred with titular membership by clan Elders whose ‘Country’ the user is on. This move, explains Wyeld et al (2008), is a compromise made by Elders to merge traditional with contemporary culture, emanating from concerns that if their culture is not recorded now it will be lost forever when they are laid to rest. The generation Elders seek to engage are the ones presently too engrossed in computer games suffused with mainstream cultures to care for their own.…”