Hello,

Below you’ll find a video pitch for a Digital Artefact project I am completing in a subject at university called Future Cultures. This subject examines the tensions between representations of our future in popular science fiction films through the ages and our lived realities.

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I have been interested in podcasting as a medium for a long time now, and I feel this idea and subject seem to fit well into the project. As both Josh and I are creative writers, it is also an opportunity for us to not only explore writing for this medium, but also get feedback outside of the writing workshops of university. And of course, to build a portfolio of work and online presence.

The premise of the podcast came to me whilst I was listening to a discussion in my documentary class about how we might make a collaborative documentary while our contact is…

As a kid in primary, I found my dad’s old Saturn Rocket V model rocket that he had as a kid in an old box that he never got around to setting up. I spent days glueing all of the intricate parts together even down to the small legs on the lunar module. It was sick. (that’s a technical term) Once I got older I fell in love with futuristic space films that took my imagination to endless places. Having an element of realism was super important to keep me interested though as I like the realistic possibilities that we have before us. But then I realised I don’t actually know what the future looks like for space travel. Movies have been shaping my understanding since I was young. Some of my favourite movies include Interstellar, The Martian, Ender’s Game, Walle and Passengers to name a few!  However, not…

Apart from Professor Istvan Csicsery-Ronay’s book, The Seven Beauties of Science Fiction, and Chris Moore’s lecture, I’ll also be using any research I can find via the Future Cultures blog, UOW students, and feedback loops from people I test my ideas on.

Below is a conversation I had with two folks, Chloe and Amelia, that I’ve met recently, outside of UOW. I was up late, trying to think of how I could focus the broadness of cyberpunk down into a topic I can research and explain relatively succinctly.

Here’s the conversation:

To summarise, their thoughts were that cyberpunk of the 80s and 90s will probably fade into being an archaic cultural aesthetic and that, if it did end up informing our future, it would most likely be accurate to a negative degree, becoming a dystopian society.

Whilst Children of Men may not be strictly relevant to cyberpunk…

This digital artefact will function as a way to speculate and provide information on where the future of care work is headed in the next 10 or so years. I have actually undertaken research on care work in a past International Studies capstone subject where I produced a major research paper on the subject of the commodification of care work. This is why I have chosen care work as the focus of my DA.

The future of care work is something that I believe needs to be talked about and discussed more as in some form or another we are all going to be affected by the many issues affecting this industry within our lifetime – be it having to put a parent or grandparent into a nursing home, a child into daycare or having to make a sacrifice and deciding to undertake the role of care provider yourself.

My DA…