The law of feeling: Experiments in a Yolngu museology

This chapter provides a short, step-by-step introduction to Paul Gurrumuruwuy’s credo for dhakay-nanhawuy as it guides his approach to digital museology. Gurrumuruwuy is a senior member of one branch of the Dhalwangu clan from the East Arnhem region of northern Australia. Part of what makes Miyarrka Media’s work novel is that because it has been funded as a form of collaborative practice-led research. Gurrumuruwuy considers that he knows something worth sharing, not only about the stories, songs and affinities that bind Yolngu families across generations, but about the potential performative and affective power of digital media more generally. Dhakay-nanhawuy rom is the Yolngu term that Gurrumuruwuy uses to describes the social aesthetics at the heart of all Miyarrka Media’s projects. The chapter shows how a Yolngu, ritual-honed social aesthetics can be given form and expression through digital media.