Can’t Fly to Bali? Build a Virtual Beach

Filmmaking, poetry, virtual worlds

[Download my free eBook about about the film project here.]

We’re living through plague times and I pray the pandemic does not spawn a sequel to The Walking Dead.

I am exaggerating, of course, but who can fly off to their favourite destination and sprawl on a beach towel in Brazil, Bermuda or Bali? If you crave to get away, building a virtual beach could be your best go-to option, especially one with a history that existed 200 years ago and has disappeared.

Beach Road was part of the Singapore island coastline, founded for the British East India company in 1819. Looking for Mr Gelam, my short film depicts what once fronted the South China Sea and is now buried under landfill and high rise.

I felt a sense of loss. It was time to make my own private beach.

Involved in virtual communities for more than a decade as places of digital…