Innovative virtual reality cinema enhances First Nations truth-telling

By Will King

Australia is still struggling to come to terms with its colonial past. Colonisation, which began with the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, impacted the lives of many First Nations people and its effect is still being felt today. Truth-telling reveals the hidden history of the harms that were perpetrated against First Nations people during colonisation. My research focuses on how truth-telling can be performed in local communities using cinematic virtual reality.

I live in Warrnambool in south-west Victoria, on the traditional lands of the Peek Wurrung and Kirrrae Wurrung people of the Marr Nation. I have been friends with a Peek Wurrung Elder, Uncle Rob Lowe, for many years. Uncle Rob grew up on the Framlingham Reserve, a small area of land outside of Warrnambool where the Peek Wurrung and Kirrae Wurrung people were segregated from the non-Indigenous population. First Nations people have lived in south-west Victoria for 35,000 years and during colonisation they were severely impacted by massacres, disease and frontier conflict. Very few non-Indigenous people in Warrnambool knew anything about their local First Nations history, so Uncle Rob introduced a program of truth-telling. He began to tell the story of the Peek Wurrung people by taking non-Indigenous people to massacre sites and by relating his own experiences of life on the Framlingham Reserve. I was inspired by Uncle Rob’s stories to work with him to ensure that First Nations history and culture became included in the shared historical narrative of Warrnambool. This led me to embark on a PhD that examined the design and use of cinematic virtual reality as a truth-telling tool.

Cinematic virtual reality (CVR) may seem like a strange choice for a truth-telling tool. When I began working with Uncle Rob on my PhD research project neither of us had much experience working with cinematic virtual reality technology. CVR is created using 360-degree cameras that have two lenses and can film an entire space rather than just the space in front of the camera. The filmed footage can then be viewed using a Meta Quest virtual reality headset that immerses the audience inside the recorded space, where they can turn their heads to follow the action they are watching.

During my PhD, I collaborated with Uncle Rob to script, produce and shoot a CVR film called The Crossing, which chronicled aspects of his life growing up as a First Nations person on the Framlingham Reserve during the 1950s and 1960s. CVR relies on the feeling of presence, where the viewer feels they are inside Uncle Rob’s stories as the action unfolds around them. This sense of presence makes CVR a powerful truth-telling tool as it directly confronts the viewer with the reality of life for First Nations people during colonisation and unsettles them while eliciting feelings of empathy for Uncle Rob.

Collaborating with Uncle Rob involved understanding how to bring First Nations and Western design practices together. During our yarning sessions, Rob and I discussed how First Nations design concepts such as Country, relationality, oral storytelling and connections with Ancestors might intersect with CVR design discourse. Each stage of the film’s design from the scripting to the editing demonstrated an entangling of these two knowledge systems. The results of my research will give CVR designers a set of guidelines that will help them to work respectfully with First Nations people.

Will King and Uncle Rob with VR equipment.

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