Supa-Fans will be able to embark on an inspiring journey at Supanova in Sydney (22-23 June) as 3D sci-fi project THERMONUCLEARTANTRUMTIME (TNT2) and the accompanying Parallel Wilds workshops educate, entertain and empower the next generation.

After introducing the project last year, Supanova catches up with Creative Director Craig Dent to find out what patrons can expect from the exciting TNT2 debut, their engaging workshops and panel!

As Dent tells Supanova, “We really enjoy empowering youth to dream and create a more positive world.”

Tell us about the story fans will experience via VR and the downloadable book at your booth at Supanova in Sydney?

Designs by Craig Dent from video capture by John Kovacs & Tony Grace

There has been a recent direction to make THERMONUCLEARTANTRUMTIME free at the 3 levels for a 13+ audience. The virtual reality headsets [at Supanova in Sydney] will give the audience a taste of this fictional world, and we have a visual QR code that provides free access to the website.

This expands into a second level of the virtual story, which shows there are metaphoric links between [fictitious graphic novelist Gyan Singe’s] new story and his adolescent car crash. There is also a link to the triple j Unearthed page for Assume Crash Positions, who are responsible for the soundtrack.

The third level is a free downloadable PDF book, which can be read on-screen or printed. This phase explores the love story of the graphic novelist and his wife, Chloe, who becomes the central protagonist of the story when she discovers that fact and fiction are inextricably linked. As co-creator John Walker says, “It’s a story within a story within a story.”

Run us through the Parallel Wilds workshops you’ll be hosting at Supanova in Sydney, and what fans can expect…

Graphic from 2021 pilot project ‘Silvereye’ featuring Beechworth Secondary College students

Youth booked into the Parallel Wilds workshops will have the opportunity to create their very own ‘superhero to species’ as they design a 3D Speculative Universe on the Future of Wilderness. They will be photographed on a green screen and embedded into the visual narrative of this powerful virtual story.

We have pre-shot a fantastic area of Stanley Forest near Beechworth in North-East Victoria, and Justin Dallinger [on the creative team] has made this in black & white which gradually transforms to colour as the ‘superheroes’ discover and rewild native species back into the wilderness.

There will be some enthusiastic mind-mapping and creative writing, gathered around the boardroom table, of how our world may look in 2050 with young people dreaming of how they can save their world. In a way, as a group, they are creating their own inspiring ‘sci-fi film’ or ‘graphic novel’ within the 3D creative platform.

What do you hope participants will take away from the workshop?

In our Young Somerset project, The Stream of Freedom, which has now made the national exhibition of the UK Creative Freedom Award, two of the participants became members of the Young Rangers program, which is involved on the ground in Exmoor National Park.

‘Young Somerset: Stream of Freedom’ won the Group Category for the Creative Freedom Exhibition in the UK

So here, the aim is to have young people feel that they can make a difference to endangered species in Australia, whether that be through discovering their creativity as a way of expressing their thoughts, or physically becoming a member of Landcare or other environmental agencies.

My brother described Parallel Wilds as creating a virtual army of ‘Greta Thunbergs’, which I feel is important, for providing a forum for multiple youth voices. I watch heaps of music videos, especially on Rage, and there are video concepts such as The Chemical Brothers’ The Test, which move me with their very subtle message on the future of whales, and so many others. If Parallel Wilds gives one youth one line that they remember for the future, then that is an achievement.

What else will be on offer at your booth?

For the sci-fi project, our mantra is, “We don’t want your cash, we want your hits!” So, what we are really offering is an opportunity for people to engage with our creativity in a way that we don’t get in regional Victoria, and to connect with one another.

We have the 360 camera mounted on a 6ft tripod and hope to capture this human interaction at our display and workshop.

To me, this is a stark contrast to the lockdowns of 2020-2021 and it is now magical to see so many people together, at the AFL, at Supanova, at gigs in stadiums. There was a reality check of how important family and friends are, how we all need to connect with people and new experiences. There is a real sense of isolation in the sci-fi story, and one of the subplots of the corporatisation of traditional family-based farms, and how that impacts regional towns and communities.

In many ways, our digital storytelling is to allow youth in regional areas to connect with a metro audience. Regional youth get to show what they had made, and this is shared at the workshop with metro youth.

How did this all get started?

When this started at Outdoor School Bogong in 2021, the enthusiasm of the 9 young people from Beechworth Secondary College, who modelled as the characters in ‘Silvereye’, gave energy to the platform.

‘TNT2’: Hannah Lewin as Denizen Z

Before this, there was a session at Tallangatta Secondary College, and the mind-mapping of a story concept, and two Year 9 girls at the very back of the hall were firing their hands up and down, so I knew they had an idea they really wanted to put forward. It became the driving force, where it was 2050 and crops and wilderness were failing in the future, and there was the mass extinction of bees. The group then decided their interactive story was one of teams of youth going out into the Alpine National Park in search of native bees, to save humanity and nature as we know it.

This was further enhanced by their 5 days in wilderness on the Future Makers program, with no mobile phones, and fully immersed in nature and conversations and activities. They came back with inspirational reflections.

When Young Somerset came on board in 2022, and navigating the fact that we were online between Australia and England, I was stunned when the group formed a huddle and came back with their idea: that an abandoned paper mill in Somerset would be repurposed to bioengineer endangered and extinct species. These two concepts show how powerful youth imagination can be, and how critical it is to provide them with alternate ways of telling stories: dreaming over streaming…

‘TNT2’: John Walker as General X and Alex Andrews as Trip Hazard

Anything else you’d like to add?

We have never had a display of this magnitude, so it’s the great unknown for our creative team and our youth volunteers on the VR headsets, and as regional people we are excited about engaging with people in Sydney and beyond.

There’s a level of experimentation and a sense of expectation, and we are looking forward to a positive experience at Supanova in Sydney and making new fans and friends.

I am very appreciative of this opportunity on behalf of Team TNT2 and Parallel Wilds. It will be interesting to see where this journey sends us…

The Parallel Wilds workshop is $25 per person with 20 spaces available in each group, and can be booked via Moshtix.