Attuning to the environment through media: Escape and incorporation through fire, plague and video game development software

Abstract

This article proposes the possibility of an attunement to the environment through media. The aim of this work is to observe how one might attune and re-tune their consideration of the environment, and environmental issues, through the media they make and consume. It does so by examining the short video Memories of Australia, made by Andrew Svanberg Hamilton. The video was crafted in the digital game development software Unreal Engine 4, and this is addressed in part via a discussion of Jean Baudrillard’s work on simulation, considering the idea of a lack of real-world referentials. This lack of geographic specificity is latterly considered through Timothy Morton’s notion of nonlocality, and Marc Augé’s concept of non-places. Primarily, though, a formal analysis of Hamilton’s piece is considered alongside digital game studies research, specifically models of player involvement and the concept of embodied textuality as means of measuring and modelling engagement not just with videogames, but with media more broadly. Hamilton’s video uses elements captured using photogrammetry, but he has replicated these pieces multiple times in order to craft a three-dimensional world. The idea of attunement is drawn from Kathleen Stewart’s work, and is re-offered here as a means of engaging with media and surviving the uncertain times to come. The article considers how a digitally constructed environment might be attuned to by the viewer, through Hamilton’s creation of a world based on memory and sensation, rather than any real-world geographical elements; this emotional resonance is proffered not only as an example of incorporation, but also as a tool for communicating other environmental attunements and issues.