Walking with the digital: Heartlands – ’Ere Be Dragons and A Conversation Between Trees

Against the backdrop of a generalised negative attitude towards technology within environmentally oriented discourse, especially in literary forms such as nature writing, whose primary mode of exploration is often walking, this chapter investigates the potential of certain interactive digital artworks, in which walking is also an integral component, to foster ecological or environmental awareness. Through a case study of Heartlands – ’Ere Be Dragons and A Conversation Between Trees, created by Active Ingredient, the chapter draws on theoretical developments in the emerging field of digital environmental humanities to assess the ways in which these walking-based works explore environmental questions in new ways through their deployment of digital, interactive and data-driven technologies. Significant features of these works include their ludic elements, their emphasis on embodiment, their ability to bring the local and the global into dialogue, and their creative representation of the kinds of ‘big data’ involved in discussion of climate change that might otherwise represent a challenge to human imaginative and cognitive capacities. The case study is augmented by audience/participant responses to these works.