Network anarchy and unstable diffusions

Once imagined as a decentralised utopia of free knowledge, DIY culture, and radical sharing, the internet has now evolved into a dystopia of crypto millionaires, fascist bots, doomscrolling, and algorithmic control. What we imagined as an infrastructure for openness, stability and resilience has left us instead feeling profoundly unstable, polarized, and trapped inside a chaotic walled garden of nothing but noise. To borrow a phrase from media theorist Wendy Chun, our ground truths have all turned out to be deep fakes.

This event, spanning a performance program at Miscellania, and two days of workshops and talks at RMIT, will explore how artists, writers, thinkers, and other cultural workers can help us come to terms with the broken promises and chaotic realities of the 21st century internet.

Misc performance night featuring:

JODI (jodi.org), groundbreaking Dutch pioneers of net.art, visit Melbourne in July 2025 for a series of performances, talks, and workshops, in connection with their work as part of the Signal to Noise exhibition at National Communcation Museum.

Active since 1995, JODI were among the first artists to investigate and subvert the conventions of the Internet, computer programs, and video and computer games. Their work radically disrupts the very language of these systems—visual aesthetics, interface elements, commands, errors, and code—staging extreme digital interventions that destabilise the relationship between computer technology and its users.

JODI’s practice spans installations, software, websites, performances, and exhibitions. Their work is featured in major volumes on digital and media art and has been exhibited internationally at Documenta X, the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), ZKM, ICC, CCA, the Guggenheim, IMAL, Centre Pompidou, Eyebeam, FACT, MoMI, Harvard Art Museums, Rhizome, MoMA and more.

Miscellania Performance description (by JODI):

//video projection +sound
ID.ACCO Instagram Infinite%Scroll/ rject instagram.com/ig.oo_o + Live* Scrollage ?? JODI-games/gamemo ? https://maxpaynecheatsonly.net ?Retro.Digital-Emulation🀫LowBit1982 https://jetsetwilly.jodi.org/ -

Eryk Salvagio

Eryk Salvaggio is a researcher and new media artist interested in the social and cultural impacts of artificial intelligence. His work explores the creative misuse of AI and the transformation of archives into datasets for AI training: a practice designed to expose ideologies of tech and to confront the gaps between datasets and the worlds they claim to represent. A blend of hacker, researcher, designer and artist, he has been published in academic journals, spoken at music and film festivals, and consulted on tech policy at the national level. He can be found at his influential and widely read blog Cybernetic Forests.

At Miscellania, Eryk will present the ‘Human Movie: Six Meditations on a Compression Algorithm’ a 35-minute video essay contrasting computational processes of diffusion models and the human metaphors used to describe them — such as temperature, creativity, image recognition, memory, reason, and the unmodeled. It is a spiritual sequel to the 2023 film Flowers Blooming Backward Into Noise.

Curated by Joel Stern (RMIT)

Presented by RMIT Culture and National Communication Museum.

Supported by ADM+S as part of the project ‘Evaluating Automated Cultural Curating and Ranking Systems with Synthetic Data’’ in association with tSchool of Media and Communication RMIT, and the AusSTS 2025 Conference ‘Signals and Noises’, which runs from July 9-11. Details here.