The digital twinning of Tuvalu: Deep ecology in the age of virtual reproduction

Abstract

The threat of climate change to nation-states like Tuvalu has led to a novel attempt at digital preservation through virtual reproduction. Tuvalu’s Future Now Project aims to create a ‘digital nation’ in the metaverse. This article critically analyses this state-scale digital twinning from two theoretical lenses. First, drawing on deep ecology, it argues the virtual reproduction substitutes the intrinsic value of Tuvalu’s landscape and culture with instrumental value optimised for digital capitalism’s extractive logic. Second, building on concepts from Benjamin and Baudrillard, it contends that digital twinning subverts the cultural symbolic order through semiotic transformation, rendering the ‘digital nation’ a hyperreal imitation stripped of aura. Rather than preserving sovereignty over disappeared territory, the metaverse reproduction reimagines the state itself as a simulation. While responding to the severe threat of global warming, the project raises critical questions about the politics and value of virtual reproduction.

Introduction

Faatele is a traditional form of music and dance in Tuvalu. It is a performance art that combines singing and dancing with an escalating tempo. In a typical faatele performance, a group of seated singers and a group of standing dancers perform together. The singers chant verses repetitively while the dancers act out the lyrics with corresponding movements. As the performance progresses, the tempo of both the singing and the dancing increases, leading to an energetic and intense climax. Faatele can be performed in a variety of contexts, including competitions between different groups, as part of larger festive events, or simply as entertainment during family gatherings. This art form is highly valued in Tuvaluan culture for its expressive and communal nature, embodying both artistic and social functions. The principal artistic traditions in Tuvalu are predominantly performance-oriented, encompassing oratory, plays composed for specific events, and, most notably, faatele. Faatele is part of the strong guest and gift culture in Tuvalu, including a responsibility of community members to share resources and give of themselves by participating in community-supporting events. These aspects of Tuvaluan identity are strongly related to home island identity and context (Corlew, 2012).

Faatele, and Tuvalu itself, is at existential risk. The realities of global warming and rising sea levels means that several low-lying nations face an existential threat with regards to not only their territory, but also the social, political and cultural aspects of society that are tied to that territory. Tuvalu is undoubtedly such a nation. The state is poised to become the first state to lose its territory due to climate change. With rising sea levels poised to engulf its lands within a century, Tuvalu’s leaders took an unprecedented step at the 2022 COP27 conference. Their solution? A digital twin of Tuvalu in the Metaverse, where the nation’s culture, stories and essence can persist.

Tuvalu has become a pioneer nation to declare its intention to forge a self-digital replica in the metaverse, with the aim of conserving its cultural heritage. Tuvalu’s Foreign Minister, Simon Kofe, framed this as a safeguard for their ‘land, ocean, and culture’ (Fainu, 2023), deemed the most precious assets of their people at COP27. The Future Now Project consists of three strategies designed to ensure the survival of Tuvaluan nationhood, governance and culture. The first involves galvanising global cooperation to tackle climate change. The second is a legal safeguard of Tuvalu’s statehood and maritime boundaries. The final strategy involves the establishment of a digital nation, to preserve Tuvalu’s identity beyond physical boundaries.

So, the digitisation of Tuvalu is not merely a technical process; it has been posed as a cultural lifeline for acts like the faatele.

The government will utilise virtual reality (VR) to sustain the cultural identity of its people. Batty (2013) argues that VR can serve as a powerful tool for spatial learning, enabling users to engage critically with digital environments. In the case of Tuvalu, the use of VR may provoke reflections on climate change and cultural heritage. in line with how technological mediation can inform understandings of culture (Bos, 2021; Kinsley, 2014). In this context, VR is a platform for displaced and future generations of Tuvaluans to engage with each other in the Metaverse, in a virtual space that mirrors real life and preserves the shared language and customs. The intention is to capture and nurture the spiritual connections of citizens to their ancestors and their land. To perpetuate this cultural narrative, Tuvalu aims to capture stories and experiences within their cultural and socio-historical contexts. For the Tuvaluan diaspora, the digital nation is intended to be a space where traditional cultural ceremonies and histories, as well as the native language – which is at risk of fading with successive generations – can thrive.

The digital twinning of Tuvalu raises profound questions about the nature of cultural heritage in the digital age. As the country seeks to preserve its heritage, it prompts us to contemplate the value attached to a landscape and culture that is restored and replicated virtually. The debate is philosophical as much as it is technological: in translating a nation’s heritage into a digital medium, how is it transformed? Is this endeavour creating a mere proxy, a double, or perhaps birthing an entirely new form of existence for Tuvalu? The effects of digital twinning in this sense evoke Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory (ANT). Latour (2005) posits that the relationships between human and non-human entities form networks that shape social realities. In the context of Tuvalu’s digital twin, this draws attention to how the digital technologies and cultural artefacts and actors interact to reconstruct the identity of place and people. Tuvalu’s digital twin is a sociocultural process that redefines what constitutes the nation, but also redefines the relations between people, place and culture. The technological artefacts used and created are integral to this vision, mediating and transforming human relations and identities (Callon, 1986; Latour, 2005). Latour’s analysis raises the question of whether the technological products of the Anthropocene can be used to mediate the effects of the activities of the Anthropocene itself, in this case climate change.

This article assesses the mediation and transformation through an analysis of what could be lost and what could be created in this process, while acknowledging the truth of this situation: land and culture will be lost to climate change. First, the notion of the digital twin in this context of physical and cultural preservation will be defined and considered. This ideation of the digital twin as a tool for preservation will be contextualised in the deep ecology approach to restoration of the environment, to identify issues with the approach and the uniqueness of the approach within philosophical debates on environmental restoration. The analysis will then approach what will be lost through contextualisation in Walter Benjamin’s ideas on the aura and authenticity of the original work of art. What will be created is contextualised in the work of Jean Baudrillard on the transformation of symbolic exchange to semiotic exchange. The intention here is to cast a critical perspective on the process of digital twinning in the metaverse; the conclusion to this article situates that debate in the concrete situation of Tuvalu and other states at risk of annihilation from climate change.

Digital twinning

A digital twin (DT) is classically defined as the virtual replica of a real-world product, system, being, communities, even cities that are continuously updated with data from its physical counterpart, as well as its environment. A DT is a digital replica of a living or non-living physical entity (Wang et al., 2022). In 2002, Grieves (2002) defined the concept of the DT as a virtual instance of physical assets capable of continuously mirroring them. DTs should offer seamless monitoring, analysis and predictions for complex systems, but (as with any complex system) face challenges in communication, data accumulation and inter-system communications (Mihai et al., 2022). DTs are primarily industrial applications (Jiang et al., 2021), efficiently utilising big data produced by engineering software and digitalised equipment (Rathore et al., 2021). The aim in such environments is to offer seamless data integration between physical and virtual machines (Fuller et al., 2020) and therefore seamless data transmission between physical and virtual worlds (Wu et al., 2021).

In technical fields, DTs offer benefits in design, optimisation, process control, virtual testing, predictive maintenance and lifetime estimation (Ferko et al., 2022). The potential of optimisation from DTs as opposed to traditional models is a function of modelling the physical world in an interconnected digital model which reflects physical changes in real time (Thelen et al., 2022). The reflexivity and accuracy of DTs make the technology attractive in heritage projects. The use of DT technologies to preserve cultural heritage has become increasingly common over the past two decades (Hutson et al., 2023). This use has evolved from the use of virtual environments (VEs) and digital reconstructions. Those technologies required multiple phases of workflow, multiple software applications and different hardware to create a useable experience. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) and the latest generation of photogrammetric scanning in the creation of DTs means that these time-consuming and complex initiatives are simplified. The digital twinning of Tuvalu will involve using platforms such as Unity and Unreal Engine for 3D modelling and rendering. This requires coding in Python and C++, and photogrammetry and AI-driven reconstruction (Ferko et al., 2022). The replication of Tuvalu’s cultural sites aims to be a collaborative effort between local groups and international tech firms, but cultural sensitivity and accuracy will be mediated by the platform and programming constraints. This twinning will be a technological translation of the cultural and spatial aspects of Tuvalu. Nora’s (1989) concept of lieux de mémoire and Smith’s (2006) notion of authorised heritage discourse (AHD) argue that dominant narratives shape the representation of cultural heritage. The extent to which a DT, mediated by these processes, can encode diverse memories is unclear. In Tuvalu’s DT, these are not only narratives of the selected citizens of Tuvalu but also the developers.

The Future Now Project of Tuvalu is a realisation of the advantages of the DT with the ‘metaverse’ as a platform for that DT. The metaverse is a messy concept, to be charitable. Evans et al. (2022: 6) define the metaverse as

An all-encompassing virtual world that is persistent and combines virtual spaces for unrelated tasks into the same platform and enables people to perform many of the activities currently performed in the physical world in this interconnected virtual space.

The metaverse allows for the performance of everyday activities. The Futures Now Project aims to capture both the geography and culture of Tuvalu. So, the DT of Tuvalu in the metaverse is an attempt to reproduce the country in terms of culture and terrain. While a clear idea of a DT and the role of the DT in this project is important, an understanding of the discursive function of DTs is also critical in understanding the trajectories of the cultural aspects of Tuvalu. As Deborah Lupton (2021) argues in the context of healthcare, the DT metaphor in promotes accuracy, customisation and individualisation while producing a technology that shapes understanding of the phenomenon at hand.

The DT is an instance of a ‘sociomaterial imaginary’ (Lupton, 2021: 409). The function of such a device is to support and promote novel technologies and that choice of language is both symbolic and persuasive. A sociomaterial imaginary intervenes in political and policy debates; it has material effects and affects. The use of a sociomaterial imaginary in this context is both reflective and constitutive of current sociocultural preoccupations. This imaginary is representative of solutionist approaches to wide reaching problems like Climate Change (Morozov, 2013). The metaphor of the DT is therefore working to shape how a solution to the issues facing Tuvalu can be understood as an entanglement of language and material practices that is culturally and historically contextual. As Lupton (2021: 410) argues, the DT metaphor is another example of using language drawn from the biological world to describe novel technologies. The word ‘twin’ implies a very strong resemblance, particularly if it suggests human identical rather than fraternal twins. There is a choice made with the use of the term as opposed to simulation or computerised model. Those terms would not convey the degree of exactitude that the DT does, as close to the real as possible. The choice of the word ‘twin’ is deliberate. In the context of Tuvalu, the Futures Now Project – capturing both the geography and culture of Tuvalu – is aiming to be a twin in accuracy. The comprehensive nature of the reproduction, the dual articulation of territory and culture and the implied accuracy of the twinning in the metaverse are indicative of the project as a DT sociomaterial imaginary.

In addition to constructing Tuvalu, the DT of Tuvalu configures the digital persona of the ‘visitor’. According to Marshall et al. (2020), digital personas are crafted narratives that individuals and groups use to present themselves online. This digital persona is a strategic reconstruction that partially constructs historical, cultural and contemporary elements to create a digital visitor identity in the metaverse. This configuration is critical to any appreciation of the original. The DT will no doubt attract global audiences, providing economic and educational opportunities. However, this also raises concerns about the commodification and authenticity of cultural heritage in digital spaces (Urry, 2002) and could create a hyperreal tourist attraction, overshadowing the physical and cultural realities of the island nation (Champion, 2015; Hannam et al., 2014).

The value of reproduction: deep ecology

The digital twinning of Tuvalu, as an instantiation of the sociomaterial imaginary of the DT, is an attempt to restore Tuvalu in the metaverse. The notion of the social, the cultural and the political value of the restoration of Tuvalu is central to understanding the project. A reproduction or restoration of something has a different value to the original. We are familiar with this in art, for example, where the economic value of the copy is not considered as commensurate with the value of the original. In this case, the loss of intentionality on the part of the artist is a critical factor in the decrease in value. In terms of the reconstruction of the physical environment, economic value is a potential factor (and in the case of Tuvalu, it is worthwhile considering that the metaverse twin could be more economically valuable in the age of surveillance capitalism). The reproduction in this instance is a virtual reproduction generated with data and algorithms, an algorithmic restoration.

While there has not been, until now, a consideration of the value of this restorative technique, there is precedent from the physical restoration of the environment. The philosophical framework of deep ecology offers a lens through which to consider the value of a restored landscape, as it distinguishes between intrinsic and instrumental values. Intrinsic value is inherent, the value that something possesses, for its own sake or ontologically. The natural landscape, according to deep ecology, is valued not for its utility to others but for its very existence. However, when a landscape is damaged and then restored, it is said to lose this intrinsic value. Instead, the restored landscape holds an instrumental value as a means to an end, not an end in itself. While this might involve recreating the landscape as closely as possible to its original state, it will always be a facsimile, judged against the aesthetic of the original with a different value to that original. Deep ecology, in its broad meaning, is used by Naess (1973) to refer to the broad eco-centric grass-root effort as contrasted with an anthropocentric approach to achieve an ecologically balanced future. Deep ecology embraces a deep approach by speaking about the intrinsic value of nature. In this connection, Naess advocates the principle of biospheric egalitarianism claiming equal moral worth of all beings, human and non-human alike. It is an approach of realising man’s position in the larger web of things. In practice, deep ecology is a movement which is concerned with the solution of grass-root social and political problems for an ecologically sustainable future (Abakare, 2021).

The deep ecology perspective argues that natural landscapes exist independently of human intention to control the environment (Katz, 1992). They are autonomous, unshaped by deliberate human actions. Restored landscapes, in contrast, are born of intentional human intervention and are often necessitated by the impacts of such actions. The intrinsic value of natural landscapes is distinct from any instrumental value derived from human exploitation. The value of the natural tied to the causal genesis of the landscape and the understanding that emanates from it – elements that are non-replicable. Deep ecology therefore offers a radical and comprehensive approach to environmental issues (Devall, 1980). Deep ecology rejects the reformist environmentalist approach, that attempts to control some of the worst of the air and water pollution and inefficient land use practices in industrialised nations and to save a few of the remaining pieces of wildlands as ‘designated wilderness areas’ by questioning the premise of this paradigm. The other stream supports many of the reformist goals but is revolutionary, seeking a new metaphysics, epistemology, cosmology and environmental ethics of person/planet (Dragana, 2012). Although reformist environmentalism treats some of the symptoms of the environmental crisis and challenges some of the assumptions of the dominant social paradigm (such as growth of the economy at any cost), deep ecology questions the fundamental premises of the dominant social paradigm. So, deep ecology rejects any principle of a reductionist, dualistic paradigm in favour of one based on biospheric egalitarianism and holism (O’Sullivan, 1987; Devall, 1991).

While the deep ecology perspective was not intended for virtual, algorithmic restoration it does raise two critical questions for the transformation proposed with Tuvalu. First, the transitioning from a symbolic or intrinsic to a semiotic or intentional basis of value in restoration is a critical issue in the Tuvalu project. Second, the perspective emphasises that in restoration, something is lost. Indeed, that which is lost is not lost in the process of restoration – it has already been lost from the original. The approach indicates that the act of restoration itself is loaded with implications – considering who undertakes it and for what purposes shapes the result and its value. The digitisation of Tuvalu can therefore be interrogated in terms of those two critical questions.

What will be lost: Benjamin, aura and authenticity

The creation of the DT of Tuvalu is both a reproduction and a replacement. The argument from deep ecology essentially argues that reproduction and restoration is replacement, a replacement of landscape and value. Deep ecology argues that any restoration involves a change from intrinsic value to instrumental value. This is, of course, in the context of the restoration of a physical environment by another physical environment. In the case of Tuvalu, the restoration is a digital, virtually experienced representation of the geography and culture of the country. While the deep ecology focus on instrumentality is relevant, there is more lost than the value of the landscape here. To understand this notion of loss, I employ Walter Benjamin’s reflections on art in the age of mechanical reproduction, which heralds a shift from ’cult value’ to ‘exhibition value’. Benjamin’s focus on the reproduction of art allows for an examination of the cultural aspect of the Tuvalu metaverse project which a deep ecology-informed approach would only consider in terms of a wider instrumentalization arising from the physical. As the transformation here is purely to a virtual experience, the cultural aspect of the reproduction is critical.

Benjamin (1969 [1936]) argues that reproduction of art emancipates it from its ritualistic context, altering its value from a cultural artefact to an object of mass consumption. Benjamin introduces the concept of ‘aura’, the unique presence (or authenticity) of a work of art that is inherent to its being in time and space (the physical and cultural) (Benjamin, 1969 [1936]). Benjamin (2010 [1935]: 15) defines the aura as ‘a strange tissue of space and time: the unique appearance of a distance, however near it may be’. The aura is ‘a form of perception that . . . endows a phenomenon’ (Hansen, 2008: 339) or as Benjamin states, the ‘distance opened up with the look that awakens in an object perceived’ (Benjamin, [1927-1940] 1999: 314). The aura is therefore a phenomenon experienced when in proximity to an experience such as the faatele. The notion of distance is critical to this phenomenon. Aura is a necessary property of symbolic representation (Peim, 2008). In looking at an artwork in a symbolic fashion (such as in the phenomenon of aura) we focus on the self-referential qualities of symbols and their relations to other symbols. An analysis of that work is then an analysis of meaning, in the spatial and temporal context in which that meaning was meant to be communicated.

Benjamin’s argument is that mechanical reproduction diminishes the aura, transforming art from a ritualistic experience to one of political function. Aura in art is a mysterious atmosphere that includes uniqueness, distance and comfort, and is demolished by mechanical reproduction, leading to commercialization and a loss of personal taste (Hansen, 2008). The ‘aura’ of the artwork, tied to its presence in time and space, diminishes with each reproduction, leaving the copy without the original’s authentic essence. The aura of a work of art is a vital element in maintaining its uniqueness and addressing the commodification of art in the age of mechanical reproduction (Axelrod, 2014). In considering Tuvalu’s DT, Benjamin’s argument prompts questions about the authenticity of the DT. The metaverse’s version of Tuvalu obviously lacks the original’s temporal and spatial presence, which are the context for the aura of the culture of Tuvalu. The replication of a physical nation into the digital realm can be seen as a loss of the aura, as the unique cultural, social and environmental qualities that define the nation are its auratic properties. As the DT facilitates interaction with a replicated environment devoid of its natural context, the aura of the original is lost.

Benjamin’s focus on art and mechanical reproduction does not map directly onto the case of Tuvalu. However, Benjamin’s concept of the aura does pertain to the spatial and temporal uniqueness of an experience. In the case of Tuvalu, the aura is tied to the lived cultural practices and the physical environment. The DT reproduction inevitably lacks the original’s context and presence, leading to a loss of aura as described by Benjamin. There is a well-established scholarship on digital reproduction, as defined by Davis (1995). The term digital reproduction has been used by scholars from wide variety of fields to reinterpret Benjamin’s theses in the age of digital and algorithmic reproduction. The relation of digital to mechanical reproduction relies on speed and acceleration of process. Benjamin states that speed and acceleration are two main characteristics that differ mechanical reproduction from manual reproduction. For Benjamin, an original retains its authenticity compared to a handmade forgery, but this is not the case with a technological reproduction of the original (Benjamin, 1969 [1936]). This is thanks to the decontextualization from time and space that mass production can enable. This provides a mechanical copy with the potential to access a large audience. However, Benjamin (1969 [1936]: 220) emphasises that this accessibility does not affect that ‘even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space’. In all cases, the detachment from time and space annihilates the aura of the artwork (Benjamin, 1969 [1936]). The presence of the original is the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity from which the aura emerges (van den Akker, 2016). Authenticity therefore comes into question when an artwork is reproduced manually, mechanically, or digitally.

As Schrijver (2020) argues, the digital age transforms notions of authenticity through process reproduction and image reproduction. In process reproduction, authenticity is transformed through the mediation of technical procedures. Benjamin’s own analysis of photography is a famous exposition of how process reproduction transforms authenticity. In the digital age, there are new questions raised as the tools and techniques are different from the age of mechanical reproduction. The tools in the Tuvalu metaverse project will be programmes, platforms, coding and algorithms. This kind of process reproduction then invites questions as to how the virtual reproduction will be constructed. The choice of programmes used, and programmers involved (who bring their own cultural heritage and preferences to the task), the choice of platform, the methods and languages of coding and the construction, deployment and work of algorithms in the DT all will mediate the authenticity and aura of Tuvalu.

In image reproduction, the question of authenticity revolves around the increasing proliferation of images. For Benjamin, ‘for the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual’, which had always been the ‘total function of work of art’ (Benjamin, 1969 [1936]: 224). Benjamin described the ritual as ‘original use value’ (Benjamin, 1969 [1936]: 224). The ritual in the context of art is the context that allows the viewer to make sense of the artwork. A work of art has a context to be seen in; a frame in which the meaning of the artwork is made available. Mechanical reproduction and mass dissemination obliterates the ritual. In doing this, the ‘cult value’ of the artwork has been replaced with ‘exhibition value’ to mesmerise the masses (Benjamin, 1969 [1936]: 224). The ‘cult value’ of a culture, such as Tuvaluan culture, is not only a reproducible set of images and performances of cultural heritage but is also linked to the temporal and spatial context of those sights, sounds and activities. The site and context of the faatele is critical. Reproducing this in the metaverse creates an exhibition value of these aspects of culture. The decay of the aura in reproduction is inevitable, as it diminishes the here and now of cultural production and expression (Kamasaki, 2020).

The process of reproducing Tuvalu as a DT is a process of decontextualization through process and image reproduction. The cultural effect, that is, the effect on the aura and authenticity of Tuvaluan culture, is underlined by the accessibility of that culture in the metaverse. As Sigurdsson (2001: 55) argues, occurrences that previously were perceived by a limited number of physically present individuals can become accessible in a different time and space. That accessibility opens experience to an entirely different audience, which transforms the nature and value of the culture. The ‘unique existence’ of that cultural expression is replaced with a ‘mass existence’ through numerous perceptions (Benjamin, 2010 [1935]: 14). With this mass existence, the original is unchangeable and only partly mobile (or in the case of Tuvalu, unavailable) while the copy can be changed in any way one pleases, and because of its mass reproducibility, be moved anywhere (Sigurdsson, 2001: 56). This is critical, as the reproductive process and practice changes the relationship between audience and image which alters the nature of the auratic experience (Humphries, 2020: 159). Benjamin (2010 [1935]: 29) defines this new mode of perception as a ‘simultaneous collective perception’.

It is at this point that the virtual reproduction of the metaverse-enabled DT is differentiated from both the mechanical and digital. While the virtual reproduction is contingent on digital processes, the use of the metaverse as a platform implies that the audience will not just see Tuvaluan culture. Presence in the virtual Tuvalu as an avatar will afford participation in the cultural processes and rituals, such as the faatele, decided for exhibition in the virtual Tuvalu. Far from increasing authenticity and aura, from the logic of Benjamin this will be another instantiation of distancing from the aura, as the original unique spatial and temporal existence of the ritual is replaced by the universally accessible copy. Betancourt (2006) states that a spectator’s encounter with a famous artwork as an object is distinctly different from their encounter with an unknown work because it is the wide dissemination of that work through reproduction that creates the experience. Therefore, technological reproducibility becomes the source and vehicle for a work’s ‘aura’ (if any) (Betancourt, 2006). In the case of Tuvalu, the cultural practices of the original culture will be replaced with the virtual interpretation, and this will become the source of the aura – a property already withered in translation.

The creation of a metaverse-based Tuvalu draws attention to the effects of extended reality technologies on spatial and cultural reproductions that challenges us to understand the nature of experience in these media. Such extended reality technologies allow designers are often premised on an ability to invoke aura in new ways, but like all digital media these platforms maintain aura in a permanent state of oscillation or crisis, challenging the nature of our culture’s pursuit of auratic experience (Bolter et al., 2006). Graham et al. (2013: 465) define these technologies as a material/virtual nexus mediated through technology, information and code, and enacted in specific and individualised space/time configurations. It is this mixing of the material and virtual – including performance and interactivity – that provides the challenge when adapting the loss of aura and authenticity to Tuvalu. The Tuvalu DT is an example of an integrated, mixed process that merges electronic and physical territories, creating a new form and new sense of place (Lemos, 2008). That new sense of place and presence may be framed as auratic, based on the accuracy and ‘completeness’ of the DT. Some have argued that digital reproduction can maintain the aura of art by revealing ‘the extraordinary’ in human experience, challenging Walter Benjamin’s belief that mechanical reproduction erodes art’s aura (Hardiman, 2020). However, the distance from the original and the processes of interpretation and reproduction of the DT would indicate that such an auratic experience is not possible. As Tsai (2016) argues, the excessive use of digital technologies creates more of a dream-like world than an accurate reproduction of the original. A dream-like version of Tuvalu in the metaverse would be a product of social and technical construction. The contestation of authenticity from this points to the disconnecting of the experience (however that is afforded) of virtual Tuvalu from Tuvalu itself (Roberts and Ponting, 2018). The loss of aura and authenticity is still, in Benjamin’s terms, an inevitability. What value does a virtual reproduction have? Jean Baudrillard, the symbolic and the hyperreal

The loss of aura and authenticity in the virtual Tuvalu is a factor of the reproduction process. The reproduction of Tuvalu will replace that value with another value. The dilemma of this project then becomes not only a question of preserving Tuvalu’s culture but also about the longevity and integrity of the preservation. We can ask what aspects of culture are preserved, who decides on their value and who benefits from this preservation? The DT promises an enduring platform for Tuvaluan heritage, yet the realisation of that is poised balance between sustaining cultural essence and succumbing to a controlled, hyperreal exhibition.

Benjamin’s identification of the transfer from cult value to exhibition value invites an investigation of the exhibition itself in contrast to what it replaces. To understand this, it is necessary to understand what value an original, symbolic cultural exchange has and what value the semiotic replacement has in contrast. As seen above, the cultural festival – such as the faatele in Tuvalu – has a value which can be understood in terms of symbolic communication. For Emile Durkheim (1915: 225), the organised congregations of the festival are where, in the energy unleashed, the individual undergoes a genuine transformation. This event is the ‘sacred’ (Merrin, 2005: 12). In the sacred event, system of exchange is the gift, and the scene of the gift is the festival. The sacred is a collective experience, a mode of relations.

Jean Baudrillard unifies the festival, gift and sacrifice in the concept of the symbolic (Merrin, 2005: 16). For Baudrillard, visual media destroys symbolic relations, leading to a ‘non-communication’ in modern society (Merrin, 1999) as part of a detribalisation of culture. Baudrillard sees the modern semiotic order as based on the destruction of these symbolic relations. A specific mode of meaning and relations of the festival – symbolic exchange – is reduced and replaced by the semiotic media (Merrin, 2005). The aspects of symbolic exchange in Tuvaluan culture – performance and gift in the faatele – will be replaced by signs of those acts. Those signs are not experienced in the same manner; as Caillois (1980: 127) states, the festival makes way for the vacation, an individualised retreat from others.

For Baudrillard, those semiotic elements become a simulacrum. The signs create a version of reality that not only mimics the authentic but also, through their ubiquity, come to replace the real with the simulacrum – a representation that has no original reference point. The DT of Tuvalu may resemble a ‘climate crisis Disneyland’ – a simulation created to address a catastrophe while potentially obscuring the gravity of the real-world crisis. This concern echoes broader societal apprehensions about the implications of distilling human experience into data and the potential consequences of allowing instrumental values to overshadow intrinsic ones (as in the deep ecology approach). The high energy consumption required for digital rendering and the development of VR systems pose additional ecological challenges (Boland, 2019). There is a fatal irony in preserving a culture lost to climate change with technology that contributes to such change.

Baudrillard extends the discourse on reproduction to the realm of simulacra – copies that depict things that either had no original or that no longer have an original (Baudrillard, 1981). For Baudrillard, the progression of societies from signs that mask and pervert meaning (simulacra) to signs that mask the absence of a basic reality (hyperreality) is a critical evolution. This hyperreality does not just imitate reality; it challenges and supplants it, creating a domain where the simulation can exert control and shape perceptions. The DT, with a reliance on the translation of territory and culture into data for algorithmic reproduction, distances the ‘real’ Tuvalu from the simulated reproduction. Furthermore, algorithmic processes to maintain the virtual Tuvalu will be generated from within the model should the original Tuvalu succumb to its grim fate. Hyperreality limits human participation to consumer or responder roles rather than producer or initiator (Luke, 1991). Baudrillard’s argument is evocative of McLuhan’s (1964: 41) argument that the power of our own extended images is to remake our psychic and sensory lives after themselves. In a world full of simulations, with nothing real outside the simulation, nothing original can be imitated. The pinnacle of hyperreality is that a person becomes a hedonist, that is has a consumptive behaviour. That behaviour becomes a habit of life. As a result, there is a change in the character of culture in society and introducing the character of society as a wasteful society (Tjahjono, 2020).

Consumption itself is a contemporary phenomenon in its semiotic organisation. The sign emerges, for Baudrillard, from the breaking of the relationship between us and the directly experienced situation (Merrin, 2005: 17). The semiotic destroys the symbolic, organising it along the logics of contemporary capitalist society. The irony of the DT of Tuvalu then is that it is both symptomatic of and productive of the attitudes and behaviours of consumption that have brought about the critical risk to Tuvalu itself – consumption and material waste in climate change. In the signified consumer society, people acquire their status identity through consuming various objects as signs (Vaccaro, 2016). The value of the exhibition is therefore the exchange value of the sign. This value form rejects the symbolic exchange, where no value is present. The semiotic logic at the centre of the political economy of the sign is freed from the utopian mystique of symbolic exchange (Smith and Doel, 2001). Culture is commodified in the transformation from sacred to sign, from cult to exhibition. Furthermore, for a DT based in the metaverse, the datafication of the consumption of the signs of culture becomes possible. This is indicative of a shift from intrinsic value to instrumentality – where cultural engagement may be dictated by the interests of the controlling company rather than the needs of Tuvaluan heritage.

Baudrillard posits that the process of hyperreality doesn’t just replicate reality; it creates a spectacle that both actualises and dramatises reality, making it more immediate and visceral, yet at the same time, distances us from the actual events (Baudrillard, 1981). Hyperreality is a condition in which the real and the simulated are indistinguishable, and the simulation has become more convincing than the reality it represents. This phenomenon arises from the overproduction of signs and images that aim to replicate the real, yet they often amplify certain aspects to the point of creating a reality that is ‘more real than real’ or hyperreal (Baudrillard, 1981: 81). This exhibition becomes the version of reality that we consume, which in essence is a simulation that has the effect of making the real and unreal indistinguishable. The DT of Tuvalu in the metaverse will be a simulacrum – a representation that is real enough to engage with and consume, yet it is far removed from the physical, existential crisis facing the actual islands.

As such, the DT is part of a spectacle that draws attention to the plight of Tuvalu, staging it in the metaverse. In doing so, it also de-actualises the real Tuvalu by offering a more accessible, albeit less authentic, experience of the nation. In this hyperreal experience of Tuvalu within the metaverse, the simulacrum may overshadow the authentic islands, their culture and the climate crisis they face. This raises questions about how the consumption of this digital form affects our perception of the real crisis and whether the simulation can stimulate the same depth of response as a confrontation with the actual reality. As Baudrillard would argue, in the end, we might become more engaged with the simulation than the reality it is supposed to represent, potentially deterring meaningful interaction with the true nature of Tuvalu’s predicament. This carefully constructed experience can sometimes cause emotional indifference to the original reality, as it provides an overly polished, often sanitised version of it. The simulation, thus, becomes our preferred reality because it’s more accessible, less complex and infinitely more controllable than the messy, unpredictable nature of the real world. The illusion of the end – when once events happened, now they are designed to happen. The aura of the original culture is reduced to a simulacral reproduction with no more significance than their anticipated meaning, their programming and their broadcasting (Baudrillard, 1994). The sacred becomes a generalised aesthetic, much as Heidegger (1977: 115) argued with regards to the event and experience of the world in the event being transformed into a picture.

Conclusion – loss and loss

When applying Baudrillard to digital twinning, Tuvalu’s replication in the digital world can be considered a simulacrum. It is not just a copy but a model that precedes the original in significance because the ‘original’ – the physical Tuvalu – is on the brink of nonexistence due to climate change. The DT, therefore, becomes a hyperreal version of Tuvalu, a necessary yet unreal substitute that challenges our perceptions of authenticity and existence. The integration of Benjamin’s and Baudrillard’s theories highlights a complex layer of cultural and existential paradoxes. Benjamin’s concern with the loss of aura in art through mechanical reproduction can be paralleled with the loss of cultural authenticity as Tuvalu transitions into a DT. The authentic experiences of the nation’s landscapes, sounds and social life are abstracted in their digital form, leading to a new, crafted authenticity that is entirely dependent on technological mediation. Baudrillard’s notion of hyperreality further complicates this phenomenon. The DT of Tuvalu does not just represent the nation; it both seeks to become the nation – enhancing, preserving and possibly replacing the physical reality of Tuvalu – and in this the case of Tuvalu is intended to become the nation. This transition from real to hyperreal embodies Baudrillard’s caution against the ‘murderous capacity of images’: the power to replace reality with signs of the real (Baudrillard, 1981: 167). While digital twinning can preserve aspects of Tuvalu’s national identity and heritage, it also raises profound questions about the nature of authenticity and the impact of replicating reality in the digital age.

As digital and physical realities continue to converge, the philosophical inquiries posited by Benjamin and Baudrillard will become increasingly relevant in evaluating the cultural and ethical dimensions of DTs. In the case of Tuvalu and its DT in the Metaverse, this critique is especially poignant. The translation of Tuvalu’s tangible reality into digital form might reduce the nation’s rich cultural and ecological tapestries to a series of signifiers in a virtual space. These signifiers, while carrying the representation of Tuvaluan life, will be devoid of the lived experiences and the profound human connections that give them true meaning. The danger, then, is not just the loss of the physical land to climate change, but also the loss of the depth and complexity that characterise Tuvaluan existence when its cultural artefacts become mere commodities in the marketplace of digital experiences. The loss of Tuvalu is also the loss of the aura, authenticity and symbolic nature of Tuvalu. The virtual reproduction combines both the risks of physical restoration and cultural reproduction. Yet, it is a fact that Tuvalu is in a state of existential threat. Loss is inevitable, and if there is any choice here it is between complete loss and catastrophic loss with cultural degradation. The true tragedy is the overcoming of Tuvalu by a fate beyond its control. The secondary loss in the metaverse compounds that tragedy.