What's the ecological footprint of your digital life? What's the material intensity of your digital footprint? This experimental calculator creates a material footprint of a gen-AI conversation. Sarah Barns • Work Sheets
What can you do here? Civic Interplay is a Think + Do Space. It's inspired by the idea that change not only comes from tools and skills and facts, but also different imaginaries, and different ways of seeing the world. Sarah Barns • Introduction
Image: Indonesian artist Jayanto Tan shares his perspective in climate futures for the STORYBOX Climate Futures program in Sydney, 2021. Learning to be Planetary Citizens: An Introduction Somehow, in the not too distant past, who we are as citizens changed. Our allegiances shifted, our field of vision changed. Our everyday sensory realities morphed. Somehow, we became citizens of a different kind of political order. Through this change, we became citizens of novel training grounds for a new Sarah Barns • Introduction
They gathered inside a makeshift structure at De Ceuvel. Irina was there to hug people on arrival. Many had not yet met. Some had cycled here from nearby, others had left their bicycles at home, flown by aircraft, walked, caught the train across Europe. Sarah Barns • Training Grounds
What is the active interface we chose? The Active Interface Learning (again) from Ursula LeGuin The late science fiction writer Ursula LeGuin, in her infinite wisdom, shared a definition of technology that resonates here deeply. Technology, she said, is the ‘active human interface with the world’. It is, quite simply, all the things we humans - rather technology-obsessed, curious beings Sarah Barns
WeCare A participatory digital storytelling project for RMIT's City North Social Innovation Precinct Sarah Barns • Training Grounds
How do we retune attention? Can we shift our mindset? Many of us spend huge amounts of time online and connected, but are worried about the negative impacts of digital technology - on the planet, on our mental health, on our politics, maybe in our communities.These are important things to worry about. But we also need to try to make better. Sarah Barns • The Guides
Mystical language loops: A moment with Walter Benjamin A refreshed newsletter focus for 2025, and an actual-imaginary encounter with Walter Benjamin to guide a mystical love of language & storytelling. Sarah Barns • The Guides
How do we retune attention? Can we shift our mindset? Many of us spend huge amounts of time online and connected, but are worried about the negative impacts of digital technology - on the planet, on our mental health, on our politics, maybe in our communities.These are important things to worry about. But we also need to try to make better. Sarah Barns • The Guides
My dear Albert Einstein, what's happening to you? Einstein's afterlives continue to morph and change. How do we protect what we love most about this creative misfit? Sarah Barns • Training Grounds
Mystical language loops: A moment with Walter Benjamin A refreshed newsletter focus for 2025, and an actual-imaginary encounter with Walter Benjamin to guide a mystical love of language & storytelling. Sarah Barns • The Guides
