PRESS
“A jaw-dropping feat”
— Sophie Black, The Guardian, ‘100 years in 48 hours: The ‘epic’ VR film Gondwana is set in the world’s oldest tropical rainforest’
(Podcast) Voices of VR 1046 — Ben, Emma and Lachlan chat Gondwana with Kent Bye, unpacking how 50k assets, 40+ hours of sounds evoke the degradation of an ecosystem.
‘With not one word spoken aloud, Gondwana is an open-play documentary set within a lush 3D spatial rainforest that unfolds over a 24 hour experience, as the devastating effects of a century-worth of climate crisis impacts the storyworld. Participants can roam the forest, watch the sunset on the beach, interact with precious flora, fauna — and data — as they witness the effects of real climate change data unravel a precious ecosystem. For its inventive use of long timescale and climate crisis simulation harnessed within a poetic, contemplative user experience, Gondwana wins the AIDC Best Interactive/Immersive Documentary Award for 2022’
— Jury Statement, AIDC (Australian International Documentary Festival), ‘Winner Best Interactive/Immersive Award’
‘The most potent geographical dislocation comes with Gondwana, which also experiments heavily with duration. A procedurally generated 24-hour experience, every 14 minutes, the simulated Daintree Rainforest leaps forward one year. With the details programmed based on the projected arc for the real Daintree forest should climate change continue unabated, the environment decays a little bit with each time hop. Whether one checks in several times over the course of a day or musters the stamina to actually hang around for the entire runtime, you will behold the destruction of this beautiful place in an immediate, visceral way. If the 2022 New Frontier lineup is about “biodigital” life, it is this piece that demonstrates some of the power VR immersion grants to heightening the relationship between life and technology.’
— Dan Schindel, Immerse, ‘Field Notes: Sundance New Frontier 2022’
‘I am alone. The night is dark and the rain is loud. It’s raining so hard. There is something in the forest behind me, an insect making an odd noise. I can’t quite make out what it is. I’m alarmed, but just a little. I know it’s right behind me. Or is it? And did you see that? The forest, it’s changing. It changes every hour. It’s only been a few minutes but months have flown by. How can that be? … Gondwana is a beautiful, meditative virtual representation of the world’s oldest tropical rainforest, the Daintree Rainforest in Australia. But unlike its real life counterpart, the digital version begins anew every day at 11am Mountain Time and slowly degrades over the course of the next 24 hours as a simulation of climate change. The stunningly detailed forest is always shifting and evolving in Gondwana; it’s remarkably easy to lose yourself among the insects, plants, and trees as you observe the environment around you, while the gorgeous sun rises and sets over and over… Gondwana is a stunning statement on the interconnectedness of all living beings and a reminder that even a single person can make a difference, even if it doesn’t appear so at first glance’
— Kathryn Yu, No Proscenium, ‘Sundance New Frontier Diaries 2022’
‘Resetting every 24 hours, Gondwana exists as a kind of time-lapse “What if?” of a real place rendered in a game engine. There is no story or mechanics beyond that of simple traversal, but like the act of getting lost in the words the time spent inside Gondwana is luminous. Rain falls. Jungles grow at warp speed. Night and day shift at seemingly random paces, with a sunset seemingly happening in real-time only to be replaced by the barest of dawns… It’s deeply meditative nature also goes a long way to shoring up my belief in VR as a medium who primary attribute is the ability to disrupt one’s sense of the regular passage of linear time’
— Noah Nelson, No Proscenium, ‘Sundance New Frontier Diaries 2022’