Virtual Worlds and Indigenous Narratives

Abstract

The narrative traditions of the Aboriginal Australians have the potential to contribute to the understanding and development of participatory and spatially defined narrative systems such as those found in virtual worlds. The relevance of Aboriginal narrative systems is based on the participatory first-person perspective often found in virtual worlds where embodied agents interact with places and spaces. The representation of place and space are powerful elements in narrative (Bal, 1997; Casey, 1993; Ryan, 2011). Virtual online worlds, or ‘three-dimensional augmented reality interfaces which are becoming an increasingly prominent feature of twenty-first century computing’ (Wankel and Malleck, 2010, pp. 1–2), include space and place in the creation of narratives. Likewise, the narrative systems of the Australian Aborigines that are collectively referred to as the Dreamtime are extremely developed and complex multimedia networks that rely on place and space. In both virtual worlds and the Dreamtime, performance and participation are part of the creation of narratives. In each, individual contributions to narrative creation are based on participation. In a transcultural examination of narrative, we can re purpose vocabularies for what are often described as new media narratives of the digital age according to older multimedia, performative, and participatory modes. Appropriate strategies can be developed for authoring narratives using virtual worlds, and more compelling and inclusive environments can become a reality.