Networks of the Songlines, Networks of the Online Space

Sourced from: http://www.snipview.com/q/Songlines

The aboriginal people believe that the world was created by the dreaming of their ancestors, who are believed to have left a trail of words and music along the line of their footprints (Chatwin, 1987). These trails of words are known as the songlines. These songlines weave a network through the continent and can be visualised in much the same way as networks form online.

“The whole of Australia could be read as a musical score. There was hardly a rock or creek in the country that could not or had not been sung. One should perhaps visualize the song lines as a spaghetti of Iliad’s and odysseys, writhing this way and that, in which every ‘episode’ was readable in terms of geology” (Chatwin, 1987).

The quote above is a best attempt to describe the nature of the songlines on the Australian landscape; where the aboriginal peoples trace the paths of their ancestors, linking them to their past and sacred sites. A song to the aboriginal people is perceived as a map and direction-finder. If you knew the song you could find your way (Chatwin, 1987).

As the ancient Greeks understood it, “The way we tell a story shapes the way that we see the world”(Luyn, 2015).

To aboriginals, in the dreamtime nothing existed before everything was sung into existence. Now, as then, things do not truly exist until they are sung into existence again. The land must exist as a concept of the mind, to be sung before it can exist. To a degree this concept is similar to that of an online network, which must be perceived in the minds of those who make use of it before it can be said to have any form. They both allow people to connect to what is important to them.

However, the networks formed in the online space are different from the networks that are formed through the songlines across the Australian continent. Where the songlines take up physical space and connect peoples and sacred sites across measurable distances the networks formed online do not take up physical space. Online people are connected more to ideas, which tend to collect together with other like-minded ideas. Communication between people is also far faster in online networks than along the songlines but far less permanent to those who participate.

References:

Chadwin, B. (1987). The Songlines. London [EBL Version]. Retrieved from https://miptnjupfirstyearstudents.wikispaces.com/file/view/Bruce+Chatwin+-+The+Songlines+(pdf).pdf

Luyn, A.V. (2015). BA1002: Our Space: Networks and Narrative and the Meaning of Place, week 3 notes [PowerPoint Slides]. Retrieved from: https://learnjcu.jcu.edu.au

Dreamtime traveller. (2015) The Dreamtime or the Dreaming. Retrieved from http://www.dreamtimetraveller.com.au/the-dreamtime/

Snipview. (2008). Songlines[image]. Retrieved from http://www.snipview.com/q/Songlines