This article contains soundscapes from the web-based game Finding Gustavo. Click on the individual links to listen to the soundscapes as you read. 

SOUND

Somewhere in northern Chile, a two-lane asphalt road rolls over a dry, yellowish plain of gravel and dust. Where you and I are standing, the road's shoulder is narrow, leaving us little space. Fortunately, there is barely any traffic here. The lanes are drawn in fading white, and so are the sparse posts on either side of the carriageway. There isn't a tree or plant in sight – the sky turns yellow towards the horizon, almost seamlessly blending with the ground. One might think we found ourselves in a liminal space; the 3D artists ran out of time, there were no more assets to place in this area of our simulation. Yet something has caught our attention, we just had to stop and look.

Monumental geoglyphs created by indigenous peoples delineate the paths travelled by caravans of llamas, forming a gallery of sorts

A few inches from the asphalt's edge we spot many shoe prints, running up and down a path constructed from bright pebbles. They diverge at the other end, leading to a small pink wooden building, no taller than a dog house. A sort of plaza in front of the house is delineated by stacks of rubber tires on either side. A half-empty bottle of Coca-Cola lies in front of the building, like a devout worshipper bowing before an altar. But the scene isn't as desolate as it may sound – the roof is lined with plastic flowers, colourful ribbons and solar-powered fairy lights.

They'll start twinkling as soon as the sun sets on the desert, illuminating a small cross at the apex of the roof. The inside of the structure can be seen through a small doorway. Photos of a man in front of various lorries (semi-trucks) preside over an assortment of Catholic trinkets, burnt-out candles and a rusty license plate. There is a kind of bittersweet, solemn, yet humorous vibe to it all.

We are looking at one of the thousands of animitas: DIY roadside shrines commemorating victims of traffic accidents all around Chile

We are looking at one of the thousands of animitas: DIY roadside shrines commemorating victims of traffic accidents all around Chile. Crucially, we are also looking at infrastructure – both in its material form and in its presence as a conduit of beings, things and ideas. The Road is an essential feature of this region, which includes the Atacama desert – the driest place on earth. Monumental geoglyphs created by indigenous peoples delineate the paths travelled by caravans of llamas, forming a gallery of sorts on the mountainside. Through colonial violence, much of their original meaning is lost to us – yet the markings remain to remind us of the significance of these ancient thoroughfares.

It is a strangely pleasant experience to spend a moment looking at a road in all its mundanity. We savor it for a moment, standing in silence. I start thinking about today's Internet, a piece of infrastructure that has largely become a conduit for the consumption of Content. The way we experience its many pathways is relentlessly fast. What are we missing along the road? The "destinations" of the Internet are subject to the Algorithm, a nebulous term that slipped into everyday usage, because we needed a way to describe that thing directing our gaze without ever sensing or otherwise encountering it. Perhaps there is space between the destinations, on the hard shoulder of a road just like this one, for a little respite?

Many Chileans believe the place where a person’s anima (soul) leaves their body to be just as important as where the corpse is buried

SOUND

In the 1930s, when highways first drew violent cuts across the Chilean desert, they enabled people and goods to travel extreme distances across the country. With the advent of cars, journeys became faster and road fatalities rose sharply. At the same time, a syncretic kind of Catholicism was thriving among the diverse peoples of Chile – a mix of spiritualities tracing back to the Inca empire, breaking through the crust of Christianity. Unlike European settlers who built themselves grand, fenced-off cemeteries, impoverished Chileans saw the road itself, with its dust-filled ditches and treacherous turns, as the appropriate site to build their animitas.

Today, you’ll find roadside memorials in many Catholic countries. In Europe, the bereaved will often arrange a wreath and candles around a small cross, perhaps adding a picture of the deceased. They are modest, at times spooky, reminders that driving a 2-tonne metal box at high speed in all kinds of dubious circumstances may have consequences. But in Chile, the animitas (Spanish diminutive for “souls”) are much more than ephemeral places of mourning for a devastated family. Many Chileans believe the place where a person’s anima (soul) leaves their body to be just as important as where the corpse is buried. In particular, the soul does not stay within the body after death, only to sashay out if and when the remaining mortals decide to stick the casket in the ground and erect a granite block over it. No, it gets out as soon as it can and takes up residence right there, at the unfortunate gravel patch where the death took place. The roadside is not only the place to remember or grieve – it is the place to encounter the Dead.

SOUND

We quietly kneel down and inspect the inner chamber of the animita. The photos and inscriptions paint a vague but touching portrait of the deceased. There is an odd sense of intimacy. We decide to light the few salvageable candles. Animitas are often built and maintained by strangers, many of whom know next to nothing about the deceased. They visit these shrines in times of need, bringing offerings such as flowers, candles and bottles of water. They talk to the animita, asking them for protection, advice or a favour. If the spirit fulfills their request, they leave an ex voto, a small plaque with a grateful inscription. They keep it vague on purpose – the nature of the animita’s assistance is not to be disclosed. 

Over time, some animitas prove to be reliable helpers. People talk, and rumours of powerful spirits spread through the land. Legends arise about their manner of dying. La Difunta Correa is aspirit so famous all across Chile and Argentina that she is sometimes called an unofficial saint. She is said to have been the wife of a conscripted soldier. When she gave birth, she set out on a journey to find her man, taking the child with her. Unfortunately, she got lost in the desert and collapsed with exhaustion. Days later, her body was discovered with the baby still alive, suckling on her breast. She became the patron saint of cattle drivers, and later truck drivers, who bring her offerings of bottled water.

SOUND

We take in the desolate scenery one last time and return to the truck. You press the big white arrow hovering over the ground, and we jump a few metres ahead, again and again. A new set of .jpeg tiles flash around us as they load, completing a huge spherical image. The clicking can get exhausting at times, but we don't mind. It's an opportunity to stop and look at another rocky roadside, a cluster of tamarugo trees or the next wondrous, vibrant animita. We can go wherever the Google Street View car happened to venture, jumping between years, even decades at a moment's notice. It begins to feel strangely real after a while — what is a world, if not a series of images presented to us as a function of latitude, longitude, heading and pitch? We no longer pay attention, we give it — to the discarded tires, the rusty billboards and abandoned cabañas.

What encounters await us over this piece of Internet infrastructure?

The desert unfolds in front of us, beamed across the planet to our continents, ecosystems and communities. As we stagger between Street View’s interconnected images, I ask myself: What encounters await us over this piece of Internet infrastructure? What role do we play here, other than that of two voyeurs gobbling up 360-degree panoramas, catching glimpses of a million souls inhabiting this desert?

Could there be a way to touch them — and be touched by them — over immense distances? To hear the birds chirp, see the trees tremble? The same animitas that garnish Chilean highways now line our virtual pathways, too. I wonder if the spirits see us, ready to hear our pleas.

We must part ways at this point, but your journey is only beginning.

Continue to Finding Gustavo