Working with Deep Time: The Earth Above and Storying Country through Fulldome Cinema
🗓️ Wednesday, 24 June — 12:10pm
- 1:10pm
(60 mins)
Presenters
Image
Abstract
"The Earth Above: A Deep Time View of Australia's Epic History" is a fulldome planetarium film developed through long-term collaboration with First Nations knowledge holders, artists, and researchers. Spanning 140,000 years of human and environmental history, the project works with deep time as a living, relational knowledge system grounded in Country. Country is understood here as a living presence through which land, sea, sky, beings, story, and law are known in relation, holding people within ongoing obligations of care, responsibility, and intergenerational continuity.
This presentation positions "The Earth Above" as a co-created artistic research project that entangles Indigenous knowledges with emerging archaeological research to re-frame perceptions of place that exist under conditions of colonial extraction, epistemic marginalisation, and narrative homogenisation. Working within the immersive setting of fulldome cinema, the project brings archaeological traces, scientific research, and living cultural knowledge into relation, positioning viewers and makers within a shared field of attention shaped by responsibility, care, and deep listening. Against dominant screen cultures of speed and spectacle, "The Earth Above" foregrounds attentiveness. It re-frames deep time as something felt rather than observed, positioning ancient traces (such as fossilised footprints, shell middens and stone arrangements) as living presences. The fulldome acts as a collective shelter for thinking, feeling, and imagining futures grounded in care, sovereignty, and environmental justice.
The films distribution and outreach strategy - from on-Country premieres and community-led screenings to international fulldome festivals, the World Expo, and national educational curricula - also demonstrates how cinema can operate as a collective stronghold: a space for ethical relation, historical repair, and future-making at a moment when crisis has become a condition of the present.
This presentation positions "The Earth Above" as a co-created artistic research project that entangles Indigenous knowledges with emerging archaeological research to re-frame perceptions of place that exist under conditions of colonial extraction, epistemic marginalisation, and narrative homogenisation. Working within the immersive setting of fulldome cinema, the project brings archaeological traces, scientific research, and living cultural knowledge into relation, positioning viewers and makers within a shared field of attention shaped by responsibility, care, and deep listening. Against dominant screen cultures of speed and spectacle, "The Earth Above" foregrounds attentiveness. It re-frames deep time as something felt rather than observed, positioning ancient traces (such as fossilised footprints, shell middens and stone arrangements) as living presences. The fulldome acts as a collective shelter for thinking, feeling, and imagining futures grounded in care, sovereignty, and environmental justice.
The films distribution and outreach strategy - from on-Country premieres and community-led screenings to international fulldome festivals, the World Expo, and national educational curricula - also demonstrates how cinema can operate as a collective stronghold: a space for ethical relation, historical repair, and future-making at a moment when crisis has become a condition of the present.
Biography
Martin Potter is an academic, multi-award-winning creative director, and producer specialising in transmedia and participatory media. He is president of EngageMedia, director of the Big Stories Co. and Associate Professor at Deakin University, where he leads the MotionLab. As a creative practice-based researcher, Potter designs large-scale transmedia works and participatory models that drive sustained engagement across diverse communities. His acclaimed projects have attracted over $12 million AUD in funding, and he has produced more than 30 hours of commissioned documentaries for international broadcasters. He has published widely on participatory and transmedia practice, bridging scholarly inquiry and high-impact creative production.
