Collisions review: early, innovative and rule-breaking

Lynette Wallworth’s 360 video Collisions explores the story of an Aboriginal man, Nyarri Nyarri Morgan, whose first exposure to western culture was witnessing an atomic bomb explosion in remote Australian desert. That would’ve been one hell of a moment; imagine the thoughts running through his mind. This explosion is recreated by Wallworth, a renown Australian artist whose oeuvre includes a range of works in emerging and interactive mediums. 

At the time of its release in 2016, this historically significant experience—which helped develop VR’s emerging grammar and syntax, and won an Emmy award in 2017—was unusually long (15 minutes) for a 360 video. It also broke several key “rules” content creators took seriously during this early period in present era VR.

I interviewed Wallworth for The Guardian in 2016, and she recounted that the three key rules were: “Rule one, you can’t move the camera. Rule two, you can’t go any longer than 10 minutes. Rule three, your brain can’t handle scene-to-scene transitions. You have to fade in and out of black.” The director proceeded to break each of them, exceeded the recommended runtime, moving the camera and deploying cuts instead of fades and dissolves. 

For me, the most interesting part of Collisions is how Wallworth welcomes us into a space—a space that’s not ours or hers. She treats and portrays her subject with great respect, carefully framing the narrative. The first words she speaks (via voiceover) are: “This is not my story. This is Nyarri’s story.” After brief vision of desert shrubbery burning, Wallworth cuts to an orange-burn dirt road, the camera mounted on the back of a ute moving briskly down it. She continues: “He has a story he wants to share, and that is why I’m traveling, and bringing you with me.”

Virtual reality has long been associated with hyperbolic claims that the medium enables people to “go anywhere and do anything.” This is never true (there are always rules to the realities we inhabit) and Wallworth rejects the idea outright. Her message is that we must be welcomed into this setting; we must be invited; we must be respectful. When we meet Niarai, he’s sitting atop a rocky hill and singing a welcoming song. Outside his house there’s an open gate, reiterating that our presence is permitted. Then, through a translator, Nyarri says: “Welcome. You have come from a long way away.” 

Wallworth then begins unpacking Collision’s key themes. She captures the personal recollections of the subject, leading into the aforementioned recreation—the equivalent of a big movie set piece or money shot. 

Another example—this one in a fictional context—of a VR experience that does a good job welcoming us into a space is the forest exploration game Gnomes and Goblins. We begin in the woods and see a tiny fairy omitting a trail of pretty golden light above a stone path. When we follow it we arrive at a large book, labeled a guest log, positioned next to a tree trump and a glowing blue portal. The guest log prompts us, in a gentle way, to recognise that we’re a visitor to this world before we enter it. The portal transports us into “Goblin Forest,” where an adorable little goblin looks up at us and scurries away. This cute character returns and acts as our tour guide, opening a gate and escorting us through a gorgeous little world full of precious things.

Given Collisions is a 360 video, we need to be brought rather than led through its space, because we cannot choose to walk or explore on our own terms. We have presence but no agency. In a sense Wallworth as the content creator reflects the opposite: she has agency—an ability to shape and steer the narrative—but reduces her presence, emphasising that this is not her story. She does however assume a role not found in all that many VR experiences: of the content creator directly addressing the audience through voice-over narration. 

It’s far more common for the subject to speak directly to us. Though there are of course exceptions—such as the lovely The Book of Distance, in which director Randall Okita appears in virtual form to introduce a narrative about his grandfather, periodically returning to lead us into different soundstage-esque tableaus. Like Okita, Wallworth’s role is less a guide than a conduit, bridging the gap between worlds.