Lynette Wallworth is an Australian artist and filmmaker, known for her use of emerging technologies such as virtual reality (VR), and interactive installations. She is known for her 2016 VR project Collisions, which tells of the "collision" between Aboriginal Australians and western culture in the form of British nuclear testing at Maralinga in the 1950s. She has won two Emmy Awards for her work: one for Collisions and one for Awavena.
Early life and education
Wallworth attended the UNSW Art & Design.
Media, themes and practice
Wallworth's works span virtual reality 360 film, feature documentary, and digital fulldome and interactive video installations.
Wallworth's work reflects on the connections between people and the natural world. She often works in series or meditations on one theme, and her works experiment with using the latest technology. She aims to build a sense of community, compassion, revelation and wonder. The environments often rely on interaction with the participant/viewer.
Works
In 2010, Wallworth was invited to the Netherlands to create video imagery for the Hungarian composer György Kurtág's piece, Kafka Fragmente. Her visual imagery accompanied the performance of the work. In the same year she developed interactive she developed interactive video for the English National Opera performance of Henze's Elegy for Young Lovers, directed by Fiona Shaw.
Significant works
CORAL (2012) Wallworth's 2012 work CORAL Rekindling Venus creates an immersive film experience in a digital full-dome planetarium. The film uses underwater footage of coral reefs and sea life to portray a fragile ecosystem under threat from global warming. The work was launched on the Transit of Venus 2012, and screened in 23 different cities worldwide during the week of the Transit. It screened as part of the World Science Festival NYC, the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad and at the Sundance Film Festival 2013 as part of New Frontier. New York-based composer and performer Antony Hegarty wrote the song "Rise" for the film. The music of Max Richter, Tanya Tagaq Gillis, Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu, Fennesz and Sakamoto, also feature in the film.
She developed a companion artwork for CORAL in the form of a set of interactive posters that are triggered into life by a mobile phone app called coral RKV.
Collisions (2016) Wallworth's VR narrative Collisions (2016), was developed through the inaugural Sundance Institute New Frontier-Jaunt VR Residency. It was the first in a series of mixed-reality works, tells the story of Nyarri Morgan, a Martu man from the Western Australian desert, whose first contact with Western culture came in the 1950s when he witnessed the British nuclear testing at Maralinga in South Australia. It was the first theatrical screening of a VR work in the Egyptian Theatre at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival, and was the first ever screening of a VR work at the Museum of Modern Art. Collisions went on to play in festivals around the world, including Tribeca, London, San Francisco, and Sheffield DocFest. Its Australian premiere season was commissioned by the Adelaide Film Festival in October 2016.
Collisions was also shown a UN Eminent Persons Group headed by Hans Blix in Vienna relating to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (which has not yet been ratified by all parties).
The project was produced by Infinite Field, in partnership with Jaunt VR, with funding from the World Economic Forum, the Sundance Institute, the MacArthur Foundation, the Australia Council for the Arts, the Adelaide Film Festival Fund, and a number of other foundations and corporate sponsors.
In March 2017, Wallworth shared plans to turn Collisions into a five-part series, each episode focusing on a different indigenous community.
Collisions won the Outstanding New Approaches to Documentary Award at the News & Documentary Emmy Awards in October 2017, on the day after it had screened on the opening night of the Adelaide Film Festival.
Other works
Interactive video
Wallworth's interactive video installation Hold: Vessel (2001) involves the viewer with the natural world. Visitors hold a glass bowl and walk into a darkened room. The bowls "catch" falling images of microscopic marine life and telescopic astronomical imagery from video projectors positioned in the ceiling. Hold: Vessel 2 (2007) follows on from Hold: Vessel 1, and uses footage indicating changes in fragile marine environments such as Tasmania's giant kelp forests as well as footage from the 2004 Transit of Venus, a rare astronomical event, and historically an event that signals global scientific co-operation.