Grand Prix CD-ROM Festival du Film de Chercheur, Nancy, 1999
Special mention of the Jury Möbius Prize, France, 1998

‘The challenge of this CD-ROM is to allow us, through the cognitive map of Warlpiri trails, to understand the astounding modernity of an ancestral way of thinking based on the projection of memory into the landscape.’

Fifty men and women, custodians of the Warlipiri land, take you through their ritual, visual and performing arts, on the tracks of some of their eternal ancestors, the Dreamings, embodied in sacred sites, the book of the earth and its memory.

This CD-ROM represents only a fraction of the complex cultural, ritual and ecological knowledge of the Warlpiri people. It is based on the network of the fourteen Dreamings most often painted by the people of Lajamanu. In fact, all named things in nature and culture have a Dreaming, or jukurrpa, so there are thousands of stories and named Dreaming places marking the Warlpiri land, their 'living book', as they call it.

The transposition of Aboriginal cognitive mapping into an interactive map allows the user to experience the interconnectivity of indigenous cosmology, emulated by the logic of CD-ROMS or the Web. Unlike conventional linear text, multimedia is an ideal tool to convey the dynamism and wealth of oral traditions. By strengthening the dialogue between elders and youth, it reinforces the transmission of indigenous knowledge.

Read reviews from:

• Australian Aboriginal Studies 2005/2
• News and Reviews, Spring 2005 Issue

>> See more photos and sample pages

Dream Trackers - Yapa art and knowledge of the Australian desert

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