Database and Narratological Representation of Australian Aboriginal Knowledge as Information Visualisation using a Game Engine.

Abstract

Current database technologies do not support contextualised representations of multi-dimensional narratives. This paper outlines a new approach to this problem using a multi-dimensional database served in a 3D game environment. Preliminary results indicate it is a particularly efficient method for the types of contextualised narratives used by AustralianAboriginal peoples to tell their stories about their traditional landscapes and knowledge practices. We discuss the development of a tool that complements rather than supplants direct experience of these traditional knowledge practices.

Narratological Constructs in the Gestalt of the 3D Game environment: Aboriginal Knowledge and its Connection to the Data Landscape Metaphor

“…It is pitched at a broad audience which includes, theorists, practitioners, and technologists. It continues issues raised in another paper presented to the European Information Visualisation conference 2006 (IV'06) (see [1]). …”

Transnationalism, Indigenous Knowledge and Technology

“…Indigenous knowledge is retained and refined through time by an indigenous community in order to sustain its unique identity. This knowledge makes up the community's ways of being, living and knowing [4,21].…”

“…Related to this, but with a different focus, studies of indigenous knowledge (IK) within HCI investigate technologies that support indigenous communities in sustaining their ways of living and knowing when they are physically or generationally separated from their indigenous land and wider community (e.g. [14,21]). In this paper we explore the nexus of these two areas and investigate how existing digital technologies support transnationals in sustaining their IK.…”

"Seeing Mardayin': Instability and Ambiguity in the Art of John Mawurndjul, Kuninjku, Arnhem Land, Northern Australia

“…What Indigenous Australians are traditionally trained to see and depict is not necessarily the same as that which non-Indigenous people see. Different ways of seeing and perceiving and the communication of those differences must underlie the framework for a crosscultural dialogue [3]. This paper discusses the art of Arnhem Land artist, John Mawurndjul, whose traditional techniques are used to create a dialogue between the initiated artist, the viewer, and the Ancestral Dreaming.…”