Nature in Virtual Worlds

This article examines the challenges of translating Mavka: The Forest Song, a culturally rich Ukrainian animated film. It explores how translators must balance linguistic creativity, character integrity, and cultural specificity while ensuring accessibility for global audiences. As a children’s film, the English translation of Mavka plays a crucial role in fostering cross-cultural understanding. The study highlights instances where culturally embedded expressions were simplified or replaced, resulting in a more neutral text as well as a partial loss of its educational and cultural value. Additionally, it discusses how elements like colloquialisms, creative wordplay, and humor could have been better preserved. The paper critiques how the translation compromises the depth of the original by substituting culturally meaningful elements with more general expressions, particularly for young audiences who benefit from exposure to diverse traditions. Ultimately, it argues that while adaptation...

Jednom je davno jedna vještica hodala šumom noseći dijete u pletenoj naprtnjači. Bilo je veliko i ružno, imalo kosu poput čekinja, zube oštre poput šila i kandžu na malom prstu, no vještica je, naravno, smatrala da na svijetu nema ljepšeg djeteta.Uskoro je stigla do mjesta gdje se šuma malo prorijedila. Onuda je prolazila cesta, klizava i neravna od korijenja, i njome su na konjima pristizali seljak i njegova žena.Čim ih je spazila, vještica se htjela odšuljati natrag u šumu da je ne vide, ali uto je shvatila da seljakova žena u naručju nosi dijete, pa se predomislila. Baš da vidim može li ljudsko dijete biti lijepo poput mog, pomislila je i zavukla se iza velikoga grma lješnjaka što je rastao uz rub ceste.No kad su projahali kraj nje, od žara se isuviše protegnula pa su konji ugledali njezinu veliku, crnu, vještičju glavu. Propevši se na stražnje noge, dali su se u trk. Iz sedla su zamalo zbacili i seljaka i ženu mu, koji su oboje prestravljeno kriknuli, nagnuli se naprijed ne bi li d...

The rise of youth-led digital environmental movements necessitates a deeper understanding of the communication strategies that drive their influence. This study provides an analysis of how the Indonesian activist collective, Pandawara Group, builds its movement and influences public discourse through Instagram Reels. Employing a critical-social constructivist approach, this research conducts a qualitative content analysis of 137 Instagram Reels from 2024. It utilizes a dual theoretical framework, integrating media framing with the ecocultural identity framework to decode both the messaging tactics and the activist identity being performed. The findings reveal that Pandawara’s Project stems from the strategic performance of a dual identity: the empathetic “Moral Guardian,” built with “Morality/Ethics” frames, and the inclusive “Pragmatic Collaborator,” constructed with “Middle Way” frames. This dual identity is deployed through a cyclical narrative arc that adapts to the socio-political...

Digital ecologies are often shaped by the logic of the heroic arc described by Joseph Campbell, in which conflict drives the plot, a singular protagonist secures resolution, and worlds are remade through conquest. Such Campbellian narratives, common in video games and virtual reality (VR) environments, mirror cultural imaginaries where salvation arrives through domination. Against this, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction offers a different orientation (stories of relation, multiplicity, and ongoingness). This article compares four digital ecologies, comprising three video games and one virtual reality game, two of which are structured through monomythic arcs of Campbellian thought and two that turn toward Le Guinian storytelling, to demonstrate how narrative choices shape ecological imagination. Drawing on María Puig de la Bellacasa’s understanding of care as “maintenance,” “repair,” and “situated knowledge,” the analysis reframes digital ecologies as sites for culti...

The focus of the paper is on ecocritical discourses about space in the context of the climate crisis, with regard to the different levels at which the crisis manifests, and their articulations in the visual arts. Namely, while early ecological theories, including ecocriticism, were based on humans’ connection with local ecosystems, urbanization and globalization have played a role in distancing the human from the local ecosystem in which she is embedded. Such changes also caused the separation of human from the complex chain of production and consumption of economic goods and its effect on the environment. As a result of the mentioned problem, many theorists recognized the need to reconnect the human and the environment, which would result in a better understanding of environmental processes. However, new circumstances such as the development of new technologies (e.g., GPS, Google Earth, etc.) and the ever-present climate changes required overcoming the sphere of the local and the shif...

Over the last couple of years, differentiating between the real and the fabricated has become progressively more difficult, with recent technological innovations often being perceived as central contributors to this collective chaos. That being so, Lisa Messeri, with her book In the Land of the Unreal, attempts to provide informed insights into up-and-coming technology, as well as its potential to construct fantasy. Around 2016, she moved to Los Angeles in an effort to create an overview of its virtual reality community, which, according to her findings, is significantly influenced by the surreal presence of the Hollywood film industry. To properly showcase her research, the author divided this book into three main sections: Fantasy of Place, Fantasy of Being, and Fantasy of Representation. Each part embodies a version of reality she encountered in her interactions with LA’s virtual landscapes, simulated experiences, digital storytelling, and their creators. Essentially, Messeri’s dete...