Ben Joseph Andrews & Emma Roberts
Gondwana

Artist’s statement

In researching this project, we spent 5 months living off-grid in the Daintree, experiencing first-hand the immeasurable complexity, interconnectedness and sentience of this vast and ancient ecosystem. To be entangled within the dynamic flux of the Daintree’s living, breathing nature is to put the human perspective into proportionate scale. Here, we understood how small we really are: organisms floating inside the lungs of something infinitely larger. Time collapses in on itself, its cycles moving a few rings wider than normal.

Gondwana is a living, breathing virtual ecosystem. A remote server is the master controller for all manner of happenings, from seasonal weather changes, the frequency of lightning storms, the length and intensity of wet season downpours, all the way to the rarity of cassowary encounters. Each and every moment within Gondwana is truly unique, as unpredictable as the Daintree itself.

But a wider narrative lies beneath this awe-inspiring beauty. While the server generatively selects the parameters that produce the rainforest’s dynamism, so too does it control the macro story of Gondwana: the story of climate change that unfolds over each day of the exhibition.

Several climate projections are fed into Gondwana—some are business-as-usual models, some conservative, others less so. Each cycle, a different story unfolds, a different future, a speculative forecast for how things might progress. Some changes are obvious, like the bleaching of ancient trees, while others are more subtle, like the gradual receding of the canopy. The novel combinations, events and cycles of the experience mean each moment in the forest is precious and never-to-be-repeated.

We want audiences from around the world to become entranced by the Daintree, to come together to hear the call-and-response of the Wompoo dove, to experience the incredible power of a wet season deluge, to understand how the rhythms of the cicadas change as the weather does. But we also want audiences to feel the difference of the rainforest when the Wompoo doves are no longer sounding, when the rainfall is no longer frequent, when the light in the forest changes as the canopy recedes.

The speculative, procedurally degenerative nature of Gondwana acknowledges that we do not know exactly which way things might unfold—data changes, models are updated. But one thing is for sure: if we do not act, and act with urgency, we stand to lose something magical, something ancient, something irreplaceable.

– Ben Joseph Andrews & Emma Roberts

Credits and Acknowledgments

The creation of Gondwana is a feat of incredible endurance, sustained collective creativity and immeasurable technical wizardry.

Lead artists: Ben Joseph Andrews, Emma Roberts
Kuku Yalanji advisors: Uncle Mick “Spooks” Kulka, Uncle Ray Pierce, Binna Swindley
Lead developer: Lachlan Sleight
3D artist: Michelle Brown
Generative audio design: Matt Faisandier & Erin K Taylor
Wet Tropics field recordings: Andrew Skeoch

In memory of Uncle Ray Pierce – a supreme storyteller and champion for Yalanji language.
We’ll never forget you.

Supported by Screen Australia, Vicscreen, Greenpeace

Resources

• Explore Gondwana | Visit the artwork website