Waves lap the sand and bird calls are heard from the treetops, but upon closer inspection this landscape quickly becomes familiar. Each texture, plant, geological structure, and almost tangible object is recognisable, crafted out of waste materials and found objects.
Onion-dyed printed cloth becomes rockery, cigarette butts become a tree, cardboard mountain ranges, bubble wrap waves, and reconstructed waste form a landscape of psychedelia. Polymorphic beasts sway gently and trees alike. A handwritten note lays beneath a hand-dyed felt mushroom, it says, “don’t touch.”
Above, floating shadow objects unlock audio of their uses and merge to form one bulbous creature that disappears over the horizon. Blood moon rises, and this new ominous world reveals a crown made from the very shadowy materials that disappeared into a cosmic exchange, out of sight. Your hands glow pink, both toxic and euphoric as you can play with the crown, made visible are the melted marbled HDPE jewels and LDPE braiding. Once detergent bottles and shopping bags, the crown is resurrected with a new sense of power.
This prototype uses the real world’s trashscape to mirror the potential of waste, and perhaps users will bring urgent messages from a faraway fantasy land to this world, where it is needed. The blood moon is rising upon our planet and is no longer out of sight.
by Tamzyn Botha and Tinyiko Makwakwa
Format: Immersive Virtual Reality
CREDITS
Creative Direction | Tamzyn Botha
Art Direction | Francois Knoetze
Propsmaker | Tamzyn Botha and Tinyiko Makwakwa
Unity Developer | Kyle Marais
Sound Design and Original Score | Jumping Backslash
The Design Futures Lab is a creative economy project, hosted by Electric South, Twyg, and Crossover Labs and supported by the British Council #SouthernAfricaArts. The Design Futures Lab was held in March 2022 and this is one of nine prototypes completed in June 2022.
