Virtual Songlines: Exploring Indigenous Culture Through Virtual Reality
summary
Bilbie XR Labs runs Virtual Songlines, a VR cultural-heritage world built in Unity and Cesium that already maps 26 locations and indexes about 47,000 short stories. The project models museum artifacts as 3D objects, prioritizes totem animals, uses metahuman avatars, and adds localization for over 300 dialects to support language reclamation. An alpha release ships imminently with a roadmap to 100 sites and a 28-day pre‑contact survival scenario; content is co‑designed with communities and revenue-sharing is planned.
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chapters (17)
- 0:00Virtual Songlines project
- 1:04Brett Ley introduction
- 3:59Mapping cultural sites
- 6:26Totem animals in VR
- 9:15360° historical scenes
- 11:42Co-design with Indigenous leaders
- 13:08Contested lands challenges
- 14:15Virtual Songlines tech
- 16:42Survival game development
- 19:11Game engine iteration
- 21:19Language reclamation
- 22:46Authentic artifacts
- 24:33Spear mechanics
- 25:17Revenue sharing
- 26:22Future expansion plans
- 27:03Beyond gaming
- 28:06Conclusion
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