Notes on Improvisation
Culture James Wily Culture James Wily

Notes on Improvisation

“The improviser, that loafing, cocky, impulsive thing, who shamelessly indulges in one of the purest modes of creative play — of total absorption in the present. How magical! How disgusting.”

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Reviews Sasha Blackman Reviews Sasha Blackman

Will I Ever Get To Dance at a Venue Without 300 Homophobic Dudes? — PULP’s Sam Alfred Experience

Maybe we’re just living in a different time. After the concert, I reviewed Alfred’s Boiler Room X AVA set, noticing that the majority of the audience at that event were also white dudes with the same low taper fade haircuts and sunglasses. They bobbed their heads ambivalently and attempted to film the majority of the set, unable to just be in the moment. As events like Boiler Room have become increasingly popular, I sometimes wonder — are people coming to these things to have a boogie and support artists? Or are they going to find the validation that they seek?

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Micra Musings
Comedy Olivia Russell Comedy Olivia Russell

Micra Musings

“I had bared my heart and my feelings were seemingly reciprocated, sharing five years of itemised service invoices, lamenting night shifts, even travelling to the south side of the Bridge for me.”

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Parasite
Art Madeleine Cahill Art Madeleine Cahill

Parasite

Parasites lead to heightened immune activity, making the body more capable of dealing with other invaders like pollen and bacteria. This idea parallels how, despite their destructive power, emotions can catalyse resilience and enlightenment.”

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131
Art Bipasha Chakraborty Art Bipasha Chakraborty

131

“With each ink roll, I think of those wronged by the police system. With each carving, I think of those lost in the grips of the police system. The police force needs to be defunded, dismantled, and abolished. No justice, no peace.”

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Finding Faye
Music Lizzy Kwok Music Lizzy Kwok

Finding Faye

“When I listen to Faye yearn for her past/present lover, I can’t help but romanticise the early stages of any relationship; nothing mattered other than surrendering to the feeling.”

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WHO IS NEWTOWN AFFIRMATIONS ????
Culture China Meldrum Culture China Meldrum

WHO IS NEWTOWN AFFIRMATIONS ????

“I started to see The Admin in all my friends, everyone at every function, in every person I passed on King Street. I knew I had to uncover the uncoverable. I had to find the true face of The Admin of the famously anonymous @newtown.affirmations.”

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Big Slick
Art Vienna Curran-Stanovsek Art Vienna Curran-Stanovsek

Big Slick

“Through drawing, this emphasis is placed on the physical labor and materiality involved in archiving digital sensibilities. An intention to elevate elements often dismissed as ‘low-brow art’ — such as text

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Hum Dekhenge ہم دیکھیں گے
Art Murtaza Bandukwala Art Murtaza Bandukwala

Hum Dekhenge ہم دیکھیں گے

“When we - the dispossessed - the faithful - 

Who have been barred out of sacred places 

Will be seated on high cushions 

When the crowns will be tossed, 

When the thrones will be brought down.”

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The Intelligence of Contemporary Art - Review
Reviews Stella Feltham Reviews Stella Feltham

The Intelligence of Contemporary Art - Review

The Museum of Contemporary Art’s autumn 2025 season celebrates the diversity of Australian Contemporary Art with two exciting new exhibitions: ‘The Intelligence of Painting’, which features the work of fourteen women artists for whom the paint medium is a vital part of their practice, and Warraba Weatherall’s ‘Shadow and Substance’,  the first solo show by the Kamilaroi artist. ‘The Intelligence of Painting’ will run until 20 July 2025, while Weatherall’s work can be viewed until 21 September 2025. These two exhibitions are wildly different – just as the contemporary art scene itself is diverse and unpredictable. 

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Reviews Sam Harding Reviews Sam Harding

What Are We Left With? — A review of SUDS’ The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?

SUDS’ Slot 1 performance of Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? was an hour-and-forty-minute absurdist romp that left the audience in both stitches and a state of moral panic. The play, brilliantly directed by Felix Tonkin and produced by Ruby Scott-Wishart, documents the aftermath of a father’s bewildering extramarital affair, and serves as a hilarious allegory of liberal society. It is this element that SUDS’ production claws at so well, unravelling the philosophical thread that weaves its way through the narrative. 

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The Flesh of the Lychee
Literature Holly Gerrard Literature Holly Gerrard

The Flesh of the Lychee

“I think of her sometimes, on nights like this, when my shirt is low and the wind kisses my chest as greedy eyes stare. They don’t know there is nothing there anymore. I ate her years ago, splitting the tough skin with my front teeth to reach the fruit inside. But tonight, here, with the moon hiding behind low, yellow clouds, Beautiful Girl walks with me.”

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First
Literature Ella Nguyễn & Miles Hiroshi Huỳnh Literature Ella Nguyễn & Miles Hiroshi Huỳnh

First

When he slept, I chiseled out a keyhole 

in his back to peek inside the crushed 

velvet cavity, the bone cage of a person 

who did not: a traveling ball of saliva,

surging breaths, simmering bile.”

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I went to Joy Orbison and all I got was a great sense of joy, good music, and fun times
Reviews China Meldrum Reviews China Meldrum

I went to Joy Orbison and all I got was a great sense of joy, good music, and fun times

Walking past the slightly uncanny midnight pickleball league in a mostly asleep Entertainment Quarter, I wondered if anyone else was aware of the musical significance of what was going to happen inside Liberty Hall. Joy Orbison, the London-born and based DJ and producer, was about to play his first show in Australia. I reached Liberty Hall, pretty set in my conviction that there wasn’t a good chance many pickleball players knew about Joy Orbison. I was pleasantly and incredibly surprised

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Art Ashray Kumar Art Ashray Kumar

External influences, memories, and interactions are central to the formation of identity, continuously shaping the self. In this series, I scanned various elements — my own self, calligraphy, and found graffiti/visuals — and superimposed them to create a layered composition, reflecting identity as a performative construct that is not fixed, but always in flux.

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