Yarluwar-Ruwe explores the potential of immersive audio-visual environment where visitors can be taken on a journey through the Ngarrindjeri land and learn about their culture, music and story as a multi sensory experience.
Background Information
This design project is about the Ngarrindjeri people who have lived and managed the inhabited lands and waters since creation. They believe the lands, waters, people and all living things are connected.
There culture and economy have depended on the resources of the land and waters. There knowledge of the sea country contributes heavily to their survival and a sustainable society. Ngarrindjeri people hold cultural and spiritual connections to specific places, in particular animals, plants and elements of the environment being able to capture these and present these in a way that people can experience acoustically will fulfill my purpose of creating a stronger connection to this rich culture and educate people on some of the current issues facing the Ngarrindjeri people.
The design concept is to use sounds to create an immersive environment that is made up of sounds from Ngarrindjeri land, culture, music and story. This soundscape will create a connectivity to a culture that spans a long history and is full of rich knowledge and understanding of the land. This concept will create a holistic way of experience the Ngarrindjeri people where sound will symbolize their cultural landscape and heritage.
This design is a form of audio-visual soundscape installation where listeners will be able to walk around the design and learn about about Ngarrindjeri culture in a multi-sensory experience.
Site Visit
Part of my research involved a site visit to Ngarrindjeri land in South Australia.
Throughout trip conducted interviews with family, community members and elders gathering first-hand knowledge from Ngarrindjeri people as well capturing sound recordings and video from locations consisting of:
-Lower Murray | Freshwater lakes | Raukkan aboriginal community | The Coorong | Murray Mouth
Speaker Layout
My design utilizes a 24.2 multi-channel audio speaker system. This includes:
-Upper ring of 8 speakers including including four ceiling speakers.
-Lower ring of 8 speakers including two sub woofers and four ground speakers.
-Three projectors will also be used projecting video of the Ngarrindjeri waterways.
These audio/visual systems were combined to create an immersive virtual environment and to create a deep listening and visual experience.
