Year zero of tomorrow’s pasts

Abstract

ABSTRACT We will discuss the impact of AI on storytelling, particularly in the context of Indigenous media-making. We will do this broadly in reference to our own practices and artistic processes and our current collaboration, Tomorrow’s Pasts, specifically in relation to our experience of developing and creating artistic and creative projects with AI-generative media.We will speak to the notion that Indigenous knowledge systems tend to be relational whereas Western knowledge systems can be cumulative and extractive, and that these points of difference expose a colonial imprint on conceptualizing and producing projects that deal with artistic and cultural production in general and emerging technologies in the narrative space in particular. In this we will refer to the growing field of research into indigenous data sovereignty.We will draw directly on 3 ‘events’ in which we participated in 2023: (1) Frame Doco Lab, Victoria, Australia (2) The International Sami Film Institute’s Indigenous Film Conference in Guovdageaidnu, Norway and (3) Art + Australia’s Study-In on AI + Race + Art, Melbourne, Australia. our in-conversation at the Indigenous Film Conference (August 17–20) presented by the International Sami Film Institute in Norway.