Sophie Bagster 5/4/25 Sophie Bagster 5/4/25

IN THE ENTRAILS OF THE PRETTY MACHINE

“So I’m there, walking around with L0V3 D0ll and she’s wearing these awfully tight shoes and she tells me it’s so she can always remember her bondage or whatever. Some sexbot thing, I thought. They must know she wants to be a model.”

Joan de la Kagsawa 5/4/25 Joan de la Kagsawa 5/4/25

Angels Don't Fly

“I want to look as beautiful as my casket.

I want to live forever and be afraid of everything.

Life is so good and it’s only going to get worse.

And in dreams, I don’t have to tuck my wings inside my dress.

There are angels sitting next to you in the train,

Yet to earn their halo, yet to enter heaven.”

Mia Retallack 5/4/25 Mia Retallack 5/4/25

The Sound of Sydney: AN ORAL HISTORY OF FBI’S CD LIBRARY

“August 29, 2003. Since 1995, fbi (Free Broadcast Inc) Radio 94.5FM has been broadcast on special occasions, in unlikely places. From an empty shop next to the Clock Hotel in Surry Hills, on milk crates in a caravan in Bondi Beach, or above a suckling pig restaurant on George Street.”

Vieve Carnsew 5/4/25 Vieve Carnsew 5/4/25

In our Thousands in our Millions

“The fight for Palestine is a fight that everyone must be involved in — the fight against war and imperialism is a fight for a better world for all of us.”

Clara Medanić 5/4/25 Clara Medanić 5/4/25

Kick on Girl

“The play symbol bulges stupidly before the sub-saharan beauty of your jungle. Is heaven nothing but a blank slate? THE END. Play again? What’s wrong? Why are you crying? Here is a gift, do not dwell. Here, a new environment. Let me lead you to a new life. You can always begin again.”

Ellie Robertson 5/4/25 Ellie Robertson 5/4/25

Bystander

“I wipe it with my other hand to take a deeper look, but it leaves a smear of sheer colour. It looks almost brown. I can feel my eyebrows knit in confusion. I pull my hand to my nose to smell the strange mystery liquid. It smells sweet with a touch of copper.”

Sylvestre Lattao 5/4/25 Sylvestre Lattao 5/4/25

Best Before Date

Mo Sturgess Giddy 5/4/25 Mo Sturgess Giddy 5/4/25

Poems

Roon 5/4/25 Roon 5/4/25

Momento Mori

“Drawing skeletons on things that should not have skeletons on them has been a mainstay of mine for more than five years now”

Zara Ishka 5/4/25 Zara Ishka 5/4/25

17191 CA-46 Suite A, Lost Hills, CA 93249, United States

“This intensity that morphed into a sense of overwhelm so consuming I felt that nothing could be funnelled into a singular actuality. I let that feeling — whatever it was, consume me.”

Sasha Blackman 5/4/25 Sasha Blackman 5/4/25

Cross-Cultural Conversations: Kyoto’s National Museum of Modern Art

Harry Gay 5/4/25 Harry Gay 5/4/25

The Art of Pooping in the Age of Digital Remediation

James Wily 5/4/25 James Wily 5/4/25

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.”

Sasha Blackman 4/16/25 Sasha Blackman 4/16/25

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?

Olivia Russell 4/14/25 Olivia Russell 4/14/25

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.”

Madeleine Cahill 4/14/25 Madeleine Cahill 4/14/25

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.”

Ethan Floyd 4/14/25 Ethan Floyd 4/14/25

Towards a Blak Australia Policy: A Manifesto for Decolonial Socialism

“For Australia to become truly free, it must cease to exist in its current form. A Blak socialist future envisions a society where land and people are no longer commodities but kin, where power flows from the wisdom of Elders and the collective strength of communities.”

Bipasha Chakraborty 4/14/25 Bipasha Chakraborty 4/14/25

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.”

Lizzy Kwok 4/14/25 Lizzy Kwok 4/14/25

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.”

China Meldrum 4/14/25 China Meldrum 4/14/25

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.”