This lecture, prepared for my Media Ecology unit at Swinburne University, explores the history and current state of AI, debunking myths about its inevitability and benefits. It discusses the problematic ideologies driving AI development, its environmental impact, and the negative effects on labour and cognitive functions. I argue that AI is not a predetermined technology but one that can be shaped by societal choices and activism.

Dedicated to the forests and people of Sarawak, KNOW ME, is now streaming on CINEMATA, a video platform for social issue films about the Asia-Pacific.

Independent journalism finds its moment With extreme views populating mainstream media and increased use of generative AI within once respected news media outlets and platforms, how do we make sense of the world? Who is left to hold power to account, where do we find...

The footage that inspired my film, KNOW ME, was originally shot in Sarawak, on the island of Borneo, between 1954 to 1963 by Ian Urquhart. This footage is now available for non-commercial and educational use.

Homeland, portraiture, the curated self and war Family photos led my family and I to discover our father's Ukraine homeland and stories of resilience in the face of impending crisis, war and occupied territory I won't be able to visit any time soon. Oleg Garton...

On 16 October 2024 musician, composer, visionary and collaborator extraordinaire, Ollie Olsen returned to star dust. Ollie had been a tremendous support and influence to countless.

My story with the Blacksmiths’ Tree began in 2011. Its own story began in 2009, but if truth be told it began much earlier than that.

For decades I believed I had come from the stars. For many of them I would recount my adventures as Zandor, Master Explorer, first to my younger sister and brother, then to my daughter. But what I truly am is far more astonishing than the fancy of a lonely boy with an eye to the stars.

Unlike countries with a fair use exemption, copyright laws in Australia require artists to secure prohibitively expensive licences for even the smallest quotation of others’ work.

In the Borneo Highlands of Sarawak, warriors from Kalimantan would enter the ancestral homelands of the Bidayuh Tibiya, and raid the densely forested jungle for their heads. That was a long time ago. Their descendants no longer fear for their heads, but they do fear for their lands.