Acknowledgement of Country
Honi Soit is produced, published and distributed on the stolen land of the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. Sovereignty was never ceded. For over 235 years, First Nations peoples in so-called ‘Australia’ have continued to suffer under the destructive effects of invasion, genocide, and colonisation. As editors of this paper, we acknowledge that we are each living, writing, and working on stolen Gadigal, Wangal and Bidjigal land, and are beneficiaries of ongoing colonial dispossession.
We acknowledge that the University of Sydney is an inherently colonial institution which is not only physically built on stolen land, but also ideologically upholds a devaluing of Indigenous systems of knowledge and systematically excludes First Nations peoples. We recognise our complicity in such systems. We strive to remain conscious of, and actively resist and unlearn, colonial ideologies and biases, both our own and those perpetuated by the University and other institutions like it.
As a student newspaper, we pledge to stand in solidarity with both First Nations movements and all Indigenous struggles toward decolonisation worldwide, endeavouring to platform Indigenous voices. Honi is committed to countering the exclusion, censoring, and silencing of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives in mainstream media.
Always was, and always will be Aboriginal land.
Editors
Huw Bradshaw
Valerie Chidiac
Aidan Elwig Pollock
Victoria Gillespie
Ariana Haghighi
Sandra Kallarakkal
Zeina Khochaiche
Simone Maddison
Angus McGregor
Amelia Raines
Contributors
Michelle Agnelli
Purny Ahmed
Lucy Bailey
Maya Costa
Kaela Goldsmith
Mehnaaz Hossain
Veronica Lenard
Adrian Naracita Imogen Sabey
Artists, Photographers
Incognito Art Show
Mahima Singh
Crossword
Michael Smith
Cover Art
Editorial
This week’s cover derives significantly from an early work of El Lissitzky, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge. A rather literal title for such a geometric, abstract work, though of course much of Lissitzky’s career as an artist would continue to be highly prescriptive. One of his final works before succumbing to tuberculosis in 1941 was Davaite pobolshe tankov! (Give us more tanks!), a Soviet propaganda poster rallying against the encroaching Nazi Germany.
Lesser known than his mentor — that coveted Malevich — Lissitzky does not feature so much in Sydney art exhibitions. I doubt he’d care; in fact, I’d imagine he would despise Sydney, it’s art, and especially it’s artists. But Malevich, with his pure forms and notable lack of work as a propagandist remains the dominating Russian suprematist.
Why do we look down on the propagandists? Perhaps, in our present milieu, dominated by those political theorists like Arednt and Orwell (those sweethearts of the Empire!) our theory of art is simply too rooted in libertarianism to see propaganda as anything more than rubbish. In this week’s feature, we’ll talk about propaganda, art and the University campus. Far from the boldly prescriptive propagandic works of Lissitzky, the ideology disseminated through art on campus is so enduring and pervasive you could waltz through an undergraduate degree without noticing it. Many do.
This must be the part of the editorial where I talk about University. I don’t care for that part. In a few months I’ll finish my university degree and be off. I would extol you with how much I will miss the university, but frankly, like many of my peers, I can’t wait to leave it. I won’t have to do another tutorial icebreaker, I won’t have to do another Welcome Week. Thank Christ.
But do pick up this edition of Honi Soit. Have a flick through, because while I’m still here, I’ll be riding the rest of this editorship out. Thanks for reading.
Cheers, Huw (mostly) and Vicky
SRC unless specifically stated. The Council accepts no responsibility for the accuracy of any of the opinions or information
News
Clubs hate CAP
More exams! Yippee 4
Assignment help, AI bad RMIT staff strike again NTEU say cut the CAP
Scholars remain at risk ANU Israel investments
Noise at Noise
She P on my P till I E Smile, you’ll get more shifts
Art on campus Culture
Unsolicited book opinions Dead internet alert
15 Insipid iPad babies
Date with Simone
16 Incognito art show
17 Street art and zine zings
18 Booktopia
Publications (DSP): Dustin Dao, Jasmine Donnelly, Lia Perkins, Tiger Perkins, Victor Zhang, Lucinda Zheng. All
Huw Bradshaw
Victoria Gillespie, Huw Bradshaw
Cartoon Caption Contest
Submit your best caption for the above to editors@honisoit. com for a chance to WIN and be published in the next edition! Winners receive a personalised limerick from Angus McGregor.
Winner’s reward:
The Honourable Tom Stevens
Penned a caption that never weakens
Respecting birds and their diet
Makes the haters go quiet
And our love for these creatures deepens
Winning caption: POV you’re eating plain white bread
Love letters
Dear V,
Zzzing! on Zines...
“Dear editors, enough zine/journal reviews! noone is going to pay $73 for a journal about love.
Zines have become synonymous with mediocre art, being self published by white kids with rich parents. Renting a warehouse for one night to chase some aesthetic that existed authentically 20 years ago is not cool! Marrickville warehouse culture used to celebrate community, and publish art made by a working class that existed authentically. Zines were borne out of self expresssion in marginalised communities, a way to exist in a world of creative “others”. Instead it has been hijacked by an in group seeking to creatively wash themselves with the colours of a no longer existant working class.
To publish a zine is to have the disposable time to make one. Your time is not occupied by working part time to afford rent, because your parents probably have an investment property waiting for you. Zine culture is shifting into a new zone, one where othering is nonexistent. The trend toward self publishing is a tool working for this. Zines becomes published by the very ingroup it once rebelled against.
It’s become nothing but a poor excuse to throw a party in a warehouse with free mountain goat pilsners. Artistic entitlement is borne out of privilege. Zine culture no longer belongs to the inner-west. Its owned by the east.
What’s on?
Wednesday 7 August
Student General Meeting, 5pm @ Eastern Avenue Auditorium. Students will vote on two motions:
Motion 1: Demand USYD cut ties with genocide in Gaza
Motion 2: One Palestinian State, affirm the Right to Resist
Student Artist Talks, 11am–12.30pm @ Verge Gallery. Free lunch!
Thursday 8 August
The Wage Debate | Verge X PULP, 5.30–7.30pm @ Verge Gallery.
Friday 9 August
HONI X SURG X PULP Party
Join us at Manning Bar @ 7pm for free drinks and making friends aww yay
Sunday 11 August
Palestine Action Group Protest, 1pm @ Hyde Park.
Tuesday 13 August MADSOC performance, 12-2pm @ Chau Chak Wing Museum.
Wednesday 14 August
Protest: Terfs Off Our Turf, 3pm @ USyd Quadrangle. Protest transphobic Holly Lawford-Smith.
Your intellectual prowess, your fiery humour, I want it all. I want to engage with you spiritually at Schaeffer Library and every library after that. I find myself sitting at those Schaeffer desks and getting shushed by the sassyman librarian just to be within your orbit.
Even if we never sit at the same table and only smile at each other awkwardly when I walk past your seat too many times I vow to always like your sub-tweets directed at other people.
— Farts Library Lover
Yours truly, a non-creative from Western Sydney”
That’s like soooo neoliberal...
“Do all your articles need the word ‘neoliberal’ in them?”
Week 2 ‘neoliberal’ count: 7 — Honi Soit
Got something you want to get off your chest? A love letter? A limerick? Something you would tweet back when Twitter was good? Submit your letters to us! editors@honisoit.com
Ongoing shows: Reverse Archaeologies & Replica Autoprogettazione @ Tin Sheds Gallery, Darlington, Free.
Opting Out (Verge’s 15th Anniversary exhibition) @ Verge Gallery, Darlington. Free.
SUDS’ Doghole @ Cellar Theatre in Camperdown. Tickets $5–14.
Topographies @ SCA Gallery, Camperdown. Open Wednesday-Saturday this week. Free.
Dearest hacker,
It seems you got lost. Reddit is down the hall and to the left.
Honi editors
University clubs and societies of every stripe join to protest Campus Access Policy
Huw Bradshaw, Ariana Haghighi and Zeina Khochaiche
Unauthorised stalls day, organised by University of Sydney SRC Education Officers Grace Street and Shovan Bhattarai, was held on Eastern Avenue on July 31.
The protest began with a Land Acknowledgment from Street, followed by an introduction to the protest and its purpose. The stalls kicked off with music, starting with Taylor Swift in solidarity with the USyd Swiftie society, who have previously shown support for Palestine. However, a Solidarity member immediately drowns out music with a megaphone chant of “long live the intifada”. There was a large focus on Palestinian advocacy across the protest.
Grace Street once again explained the purpose of the protest to students passing by: “we are here to protest the Campus Access Policy”. USyd NTEU Vice-President David Brophy makes a speech in solidarity with protesters, denouncing the policy. A Mark Scott impersonator appears amongst the stalls.
Eddie Stephenson, first speaker of participating stalls and National
Union of Students Queer Officer speaks about the significance of fighting the Campus Access Policy: “every student unionist needs to make it their cause … this affects each and every one of us.” Stephenson then spoke to past struggles with unjust university policy, in particular the fight at Macquarie University for gay rights.
Several members of the USyd SRC then came forward to speak from their stall, letting students know they were still providing stickers and tote bags from their unauthorised stall as they were from their official stall yesterday.
SRC Disability Officer Khanh Tran spoke of the Campus Access Policy as a “direct attack on freedom of speech”, while SRC President Harrison Brennan, representing the USyd branch of Greens on Campus, spoke to the similarities between the CAP and the protest laws passed in 2022 by NSW Parliament.
Various University clubs and societies unaffiliated with any political movements then spoke, including the Sydney University Drama Society, United Nations Society, Sydney
College of the Arts Students Society, Improv Society and Board Games society, who emphasised the point that the CAP is opposed by “even just us silly people who play board games”.
The Psychology Society stated simply that “we do believe in freedom of speech”, while the French Society drew attention to the similar repression
Humanities courses shift towards exams to preserve academic integrity
Angus McGregor
An analysis of first year core courses across the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences has revealed that multiple units have switched from essays to exams or shifted from take-home exams to supervised ones in an effort the University of Sydney concedes is to preserve academic integrity.
Majors impacted include Politics, International Relations, Socio-Legal Studies, Asian Studies, and Ancient History which all now have an exam in their first year core unit. These exams often make up half of the students final mark.
Philosophy has also been impacted with the core first year course and the elective unit Society, Knowledge, and Self both now containing exams, replacing multiple short essays.
The University has recently provided new guidance to academics, introducing a two lane system for assessments.
Lane 1 assessments are directly supervised and are designed to test specific skills. This could take the form of an exam or oral interview. Lane 2 assessments are not directly supervised and are for “students to learn, and teach them to engage responsibly with AI.”
Even though many humanities courses are adding exams for the first time, the guidance tells academics that most assessments should still be Lane 2.
When creating assignments of any kind, unit coordinators have to explicitly tell students whether generative AI is allowed.
A University spokesperson told Honi Soit that “we are in the process of overhauling our assessments to meet the challenges and opportunities presented by new technologies such as generative AI.”
Unsecured assessments where generative AI is not allowed are described as “invalid” because, the guidance concedes, “there is no reliable way to prevent or detect the use of generative AI in an assessment that is not supervised.”
The University reported 1038 cases of prohibited AI usage to the regulator in 2023, up from just 92 in 2021. 940 cases of contract cheating were recorded in 2023 and the government has now blocked over 400 websites that offer essay writing services to students.
A first year Politics and History student taking Introduction to International Relations this semester, which had an exam added this year, expressed disappointment at the switch.
“The exam format is less ideal,” she said. She told Honi that important skills like narrow research and revising ideas over multiple drafts were lost in exams.
Another first year Politics major who took the same unit last semester when there was still a final research essay told Honi that “assignments give you flexibility to mould the question in creative ways in the way a timeconstrained exam does not.”
Most of the students Honi spoke to thought that the changes were
reasonable if the University was concerned about cheating.
SRC Education Officer Grace Street, while conceding that “it is hard to exactly track if and how students are using AI and contract cheating for assessments,” told Honi that the University had to focus on tackling the structural issues students faced rather than just reforming the assessments.
“Untenable class sizes and teacher-student ratios reduce learning quality; the cost-of-living crisis pushes students to sacrifice their studies to work more shifts; extortionate course fees can encourage cheating to avoid the costs of failing a subject,” she said.
Street also thought that exams were largely an ineffective way to teach students in the humanities. “It is an outdated idea that Arts subjects necessitate exams,” she said.
“Being in my fourth year of an Arts degree, I know that the best learning in these subjects comes from assignments that encourage individual research and creativity.”
When asked if students were being consulted on the changes the spokesperson said that “a group of students have been redeveloping the AI in Education website to ensure all students are equipped to productively and responsibly use AI in their learning and assessments.”
“Having a variety of assessments is good teaching practice and our Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences is committed to ensuring the integrity of our degrees and providing our students with a world-class educational experience.”
seen in the May ‘68 protests.
Victor Zhang, a member of Labor Left, noted that his stand was the “only authorised Labor faction participating in an unauthorised protest”, continuing that “we stand by the principle of solidarity.”
Solidarity, Students Against War and United Nations society all also made speeches, followed by a Bake sale raising funds for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. The Snickerdoodle cookie was scrumptious, a contented protester told Honi
Representing post-graduate students, Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association (SUPRA) made an appearance, stating that the CAP represented a failure of the university to “engage in meaningful conversation with students.”
As the final speaker, Greens Member for Newtown Jenny Leong spoke of how the University “prides itself on the idea that graduates can change society” yet noted that the majority of the experience gained at university comes from participation at stalls, discussions, and protests that would all be prohibited by the CAP. She continued on to point out how many stalls at this semester’s Welcome Week belonged to commercial enterprises, while the actual students of the university have their position threatened.
Though the stalls were organised solely in protest of the Campus Access Policy, many speakers noted the nature of the policy as a measure introduced specifically in response to increasing student protests against the Universities complicity in Israeli genocide, in particular the USyd Gaza Solidarity encampment.
A University spokesperson told Honi before the protest began that while the University was “aware of the planned protests we don’t intend to shut down today’s activity or adopt a general disciplinary approach”. Throughout the protest, university staff were spotted handing out flyers to protesters advising them of acceptable and unacceptable activities under the Campus Access Policy.
University offers writing and assignment help service to ‘dissuade’ students from using AI and contract cheating services
Angus McGregor
The University of Sydney has partnered with private equity owned tutoring company Studiosity to provide students access to assignment feedback and free online tutoring services, as contract cheating and AI usage become sector wide concerns.
Studiosity, founded 20 years ago, is used by students at over 25 Australian universities across every state and territory including UNSW, Curtin, Maqauire, and Monash. The company also does business with British and Canadian universities.
The service was initially trialled for postgraduate students in 2023 and then rolled out for all students in Semester 1 this year.
Starting in Semester 2, the service has been added to all Canvas course pages as a plugin and has its own section on the canvas home page.
Every student can upload up to 10 assignments of any kind including essays, research papers, reports, and reflections to the service every semester and receive feedback within 24 hours on structure, spelling, grammar, and citations.
Honi tested this service, submitting two first year essays requesting feedback on all three categories. A response was received within the 24-hour deadline.
The tutor acted as a copy editor, explaining spelling and grammar suggestions in detail and providing general essay style feedback like suggesting the student signpost body paragraph points in their introduction.
RMIT
The students whose papers were reviewed did not think the feedback differed from free online editing tools, telling Honi that “Grammarly or Quillbot could spot similar mistakes and make the same suggestions.”
However, other students Honi spoke to, including two international students from China, said they would use the service. When submitting, the service provides a feature for students to flag if their primary language is not English.
“It’s hard to tell sometimes when your language is odd or maybe does not sound right,” one student said. “Having someone professional read over it could be very helpful.”
While a human reviews each submission, digital tools also provide some feedback, referencing a “system” that detects American spelling and notes grammar errors such as missing commas. The feedback also includes links to Studiosity produced videos on basic grammar rules like subject verb agreement and the use of apostrophes.
A University of Sydney did not provide any data on student outcomes so far from the trial or the rollout this year, but multiple other Universities have told Honi they had evidence the service improved student outcomes and retention.
A UNSW spokesperson said that over 4,000 students had used Studiosity since 2020 and that use was associated with “higher performance”, while UTS told Honi that a study of over 1,500 uses of the
staff commence two week strike
The vocational education staff at RMIT have commenced a two-week strike, aiming to receive a fair pay rise and better working conditions. This strike marks the longest industrial action conducted in RMIT’s history.
This strike takes place in the context of lengthy bargaining discussions, with the previous enterprise agreement expiring over 900 days ago. NTEU branch members have voted against management’s newest offer, maintaining that it has failed to deliver meaningful changes to working conditions, and an improved deal.
NTEU Victorian Division Secretary Sarah Roberts noted that “RMIT’s vocational education teachers have been forced into an unprecedented two-week strike by management’s refusal to get serious on a fair pay rise.”
“A lot of vocational education teachers at RMIT are juggling multiple jobs just to put food on the table, while the vice-chancellor pockets upwards of $1 million a year.” she said.
Roberts told Honi “teachers in vocational education at RMIT haven’t had an agreement for more than 900
writing feedback showed an increase in student confidence and academic performance.
Studiosity also allows students to access ‘Peer Mentors’ over voice call or chat if they have any question related to a university assignment.
Honi also tested this service asking a tutor to give advice on how to write in a reflective style that was still academic. The answers provided were generalised and did not address the content of the assignment but were easy to understand and addressed queries directly.
Students can view which university the tutor comes from and their rating from other students. The University of Sydney spokesperson confirmed to Honi that student feedback was provided to the University in monthly reports and said that “any negative rating prompts Studiosity to conduct a review to ensure the feedback aligns with their service standards.”
The spokesperson told Honi that the service was being offered as a supplement to existing academic support services like Learning Hub but would also function “outside of regular office hours and on the weekend.”
There have been concerns from the NTEU in the past that casual staff like tutors are not paid enough to do the same work and some tutors due to the payment code of the assignment are unable to give detailed feedback.
The rollout of Studiosity coincides with a massive increase in serious academic misconduct cases across
Australian universities.
The University of Sydney reported 1038 cases referred to the regulator in 2023, up from just 92 in 2021. 940 cases of contract cheating were recorded in 2023 and the government has now blocked over 400 websites that offer essay writing services to students.
A student wide canvas announcement this week warning students against using contrast cheating services contained links to Studiosity. The university has also launched an AI in education page, informing students how to use AI tools like ChatGPT in a way that maintains academic integrity.
Students who implement Studiosity feedback are required to cite the service in their final assignment.
One education agent who has also worked for tutoring services targeting international students told Honi universities were “worried” about losing control of cheating and these services were attempts at mirroring the academic support outside services provided.
“This is clearly an attempt to dissuade students from going elsewhere,” he said. “Keeping students in house also allows universities to keep the data and track student behaviour.”
All the universities Honi contacted, including the University of Sydney, declined to disclose how much they are paying for the services, citing confidential vendor agreements.
Cut the CAP: NTEU protest “draconian” new policy
days, and are some of the lowest paid members of our union.
Roberts emphasised the importance of the vocational education sector for the community saying that it is “absolutely essential because it’s a common entry point to tertiary study for lower socioeconomic groups and marginalised learners.”
In a statement, Roberts also situated the strike within the context of a cost of living crisis, compounding the need for efficient bargaining and fair pay.
A RMIT Spokesperson told Honi “Our priority is ensuring continuity of teaching and support to our students, and we have contingency plans in place to help minimise any disruption.”
“RMIT acknowledges NTEU members’ right to take protected industrial action and we are committed to continuing to bargain in good faith to get the right outcomes for our community,” they said.
Roberts told Honi that “on Monday when we’re in the Fair Work Commission, we’re looking for significant progress in bargaining or the strike will just have to continue. Not cool RMIT.”
Huw Bradshaw and Victoria Gillespie
On August 1, the University of Sydney branch of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), held a protest outside F23 Administration Building on Eastern Avenue, resisting the new Campus Access Policy (CAP).
The rally was attended by students, staff and delegates from various unions including Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), Unions NSW and the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU).
In the cold, blistering wind, attendees stood, chanted, and listened to speeches from USyd NTEU President Nick Riemer, NSW Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi, NTEU General Secretary Damien Cahill, SRC President Harrison Brennan, MUA Sydney Branch Secretary Paul McAleer, and rank-and-file NTEU member and USyd librarian Dr Kayla Maloney.
See online for full protest coverage.
Amelia Raines
Above: Paul McAleer, MUA Sydney Branch Secretary, speaks out against the new Campus Access Policy. Right: A Mark Scott impersonator joins Riemer.
Geopolitical hypocrisy: Examining the University’s responses to Ukraine and Palestine
Sandra Kallarakkal and Huw Bradshaw analyse.
It has been over 300 days since Israel’s most recent escalation of the genocide against Palestinans.
The University of Sydney’s initial statement on October 9 “expressed the University’s deep sympathy for those affected by the conflict in the Middle East.” Though the statement notes that the University “reached out to students of Israeli and Palestinian citizenship or country of residence to offer additional support”, and ViceChancellor Mark Scott stated that “our campuses… do not tolerate antiSemitic or anti-Muslim language or behaviour,” no part of the statement acknowledged or expanded on the October 7 attack or Israel’s disproportionate response. While it may not inherently be considered out of the ordinary for the University to not take a stance on geopolitical issues, there has been precedent of the University actively taking action.
The University’s initial statement in 2022 regarding the RussianUkraine war not only explicitly named Ukraine, it also professed support for “Ukrainian sovereignty.” The language
of the statement is markedly different, making note that the “situation in Ukraine” is a direct result of an “invasion by Russia”. It also states that the University extends their sympathy to “those in our community with Russian citizenship or ties to the Russian community who deplore this act of violence against their Ukrainian neighbours.”
Significantly, the statement also declares the University’s intention to “cease working with Russian suppliers” in accordance with the Australian government’s sanctions on the Russian Federation.
No such sanctions were made by the Australian government following the ethnic cleansing committed by Israel against Palestinians, and predictably the University has yet to cut ties with Israeli companies. This is just the first of many disparities we find between the University’s responses to the two cases.
Despite these glaring discrepancies between responses to these conflicts, in many of the universities responses, particularly with regard to humanitarian
scholarships and programs, we find a shared insufficiency. Despite a 2023 yearly pledge of $180,000 to Scholars at Risk (made almost a year after the invasion of Ukraine), the University has only managed to host four Ukrainian scholars since the 2022 invasion.
The University, following the closure of the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, stated it will be “doubling our expenditure over the next three years to support academics and PhD students under the Scholars-at-Risk Program”. It remains unclear, however, how much of this expenditure would go towards supporting Palestinian academics, given that the program encompasses all international scholars at risk, including those from Ukraine. The university spokesperson told Honi that the University is “working with the Scholars at Risk Network to better understand the needs and requirements of Palestinian scholars but have been advised it is extremely difficult for scholars in Palestine to leave at this time.” They also stated that the University had one inquiry
from a Palestinian scholar “however the scholar was offered a position at another university soon after.”
For both Palestinian scholars and students, not only is it difficult and expensive to leave Gaza, there are limited visa pathways into Australia. Unlike Ukrainians, Palestinians have not been offered humanitarian pathways. For the 7,000 tourist visas that have been applied for by Palestinans since October, as of the end of May, more than 4,600 of these applications had been rejected. In comparison, about 4,877 Ukrainians were offered three-year temporary humanitarian stay visas in 2022, with fewer than five applications rejected.
In both the Palestinian and Ukrainian responses, it becomes evident the university has toed the line of the Australian government, in sanctions, aid, and language. As a democratic, educational institution, the University of Sydney should instead be leading such humanitarian responses rather than shyly play ball with an increasingly conservative government.
Australian National University invests more than half a million dollars in blacklisted Israeli companies
Khanh Tran (SRC Disabilities Officer) crunches the numbers.
The Australian National University has disclosed shares in a number of United Nations-blacklisted businesses who do business in illegal Israeli settlements in the Palestinian occupied territories like the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
The ANU also revealed that it sold shares in Israel’s largest banks between December 2023 and January 2024, Bank Leumi and the First International Bank of Israel. Bank Leumi is Israel’s largest stateowned bank and was founded by Theodor Herzl in London as the colonial Anglo-Palestine Bank and was the first Zionist bank.
The First International Bank of Israel was founded in 1970 and finances illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Golan Heights.
Motorola produces “perimeter surveillance systems” that detect human movements around settlements and military camps in the West Bank.
The ANU refused the vast majority of the Disabilities Collective’s broader application on the grounds that the request constituted an “unreasonable diversion of our agencies’ resources”.
In a statement to Honi Soit, the ANU did not directly address
its investments in businesses connected to the illegal settlements nor the recent ICJ decision, instead pointing to an ongoing investment policy review process conducted by a working group of “subject matter experts and representatives” from the staff and student body.
“As part of the review process, ANU held a general townhall for ANU staff and students on Tuesday 16 July. The townhall provided an opportunity for ANU staff and students to hear how the socially responsible investment policy and investments at ANU work, as well as ask questions about these processes.
“The feedback will be collated and synthesised by [a] working group to support the development of any updates to the policy,” a spokesperson said.
In 2021, Norway’s largest pension fund KLP divested from the First International Bank and other blacklisted companies following the publication of the UN’s list in 2020, citing “an unacceptable risk that the excluded companies are contributing to the abuse of human rights in situations of war and conflict through their links with the Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank”. US investment
firm Morningstar divested its stake in Motorola for similar reasons in 2023.
This revelation follows ANU Students Against War’s analysis of the University’s disclosure logs and freedom of information request detailing just over $1 million of investments in arm manufacturers including Lockheed Martin, Thales, and Northrop Grumman.
One week ago, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered a scathing advisory opinion on Israel’s occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. The region operates on an unequal two-tiered legal system with Israel applying civil law to Jewish settlers and military law to Palestinians living under the Palestinian Authority that has been recognised by the ICJ as constituting a form of “apartheid”.
Earlier this week, the federal government, in a joint statement with Canada and New Zealand, called for an “immediate ceasefire” and imposed sanctions on a small number of extremist Israeli settlers.
The Australian National University Students’ Association (ANUSA) was contacted for comments and has yet to issue a response at the time of writing.
Silencing students’ right to protest stifles necessary change
Nafeesa Rahman and Mehnaaz Hossain look to the present, and to the past.
In our interconnected world, picking up the phone and hearing muffled voices against static or a completely dead line feels a little post-apocalyptic. But recently, many Bangladeshis around the world have experienced something similar. A governmentimposed telecommunications blackout left thousands stranded and unaware of the nation’s current affairs, and unable to contact family and friends back home. Amidst the nationwide anti-government protests by university students demanding reforms to the government’s quota system, the crackdown has been brutal and unprecedented.
Initially introduced in 1972, the quota system was designed to reserve more than half of prestigious public service roles for specific members of the community, including women, the disabled, and those from marginalised districts. Yet 30% of these jobs were also reserved for descendants of war veterans known as “freedom fighters”, who fought to liberate Bangladesh during the War of Independence in 1971. The 30% is a significant percentage — one which disproportionately benefits members of Bangladesh’s ruling party, The Awami League, more than genuinely deserving candidates. Since 1971, the Awami League has put forth the political narrative of being the true champions of Bangladeshi liberation, and anyone in opposition is thus thought to be against the spirit of independence that the party espouses.
Student frustration towards the 30% freedom fighters quota has been brewing for a while. Quota reform protests have occurred previously in 2013, and in the wake of mass protests again in 2018, the government abolished the system entirely, before that ruling was deemed “illegal” and the quota system was reinstated by the High Court in June this year. With Bangladesh currently facing an economic downturn, youth unemployment rates skyrocket while jobs grow stagnant in the private sector. Fed up with a quota system that seemed to unfairly disregard deserving candidates for government jobs, university graduates and students from Bangladesh’s leading universities took to the streets to peacefully protest.
The government’s response has been nothing short of brutal. Hundreds have been injured and killed in state-sponsored attacks by police and paramilitary forces using unlawful force to quell protests, including beatings and use of tear gas, rubber bullets, and in extreme cases, live ammunition. There have also been reports of the police detaining and torturing protest leaders. In response to the anarchy, a nation-wide curfew was announced, and the police were given permission to “shoot on sight”
anyone violating its terms. The death toll is officially reported by the Awami League to be in the hundreds, and reported by the protestors to be well into the thousands. The government imposed curfew and civilians were blocked from accessing mobile networks, social media, and the internet, essentially siloing them from the rest of the world.
Peaceful protest is a fundamental right of any student and a leading catalyst for real societal change. When the right to protest, to access information transparently, and to voice concerns online is violently denied, it threatens the democratic status of any free and independent state.
The importance of student voices is entrenched in Bangladesh’s history. Prior to the nation’s independence from Pakistan, Bangladeshi university students famously protested in the Bengali Language Movement of 1952. The Government of the Dominion of Pakistan — situated in ‘West Pakistan’, now Pakistan — enshrined Urdu as the sole federal language, sparking extensive protests among the Bengalispeaking majority. Despite the ban on protests and rallies, students at the University of Dhaka organised a peaceful protest on February 21 to demand Bangla be the state language, which turned violent when the Pakistani army opened fire on students, killing many. The event catalysed Bengali identity formation and the nationalist movement for independence. This date is now celebrated as Ekushey February (Language Movement Day) and is a national holiday. Globally, this date is commemorated as International Mother Language Day.
Ironically, in a nation founded on the efforts of student uprisings, outspoken university students today are not awarded a national holiday, but met with bullets and blackouts. It is even more hypocritical that this statesponsored violence is taking place on campus’ such as Dhaka University, which is the same site that the Pakistani government undertook Operation Searchlight in 1971 — an operation designed to cripple the burgeoning resistance movements by invading the university campus and murdering the most meritorious changemakers of society: students, academics, and their families. Operation Searchlight is a dark moment in the history of Bangladeshi independence, and yet the same atrocities are occuring on the same campus by an independent, free, Bangladeshi government. The suppression of student voice paints a bleak picture of the future of free speech in the country.
Unfortunately for us as University of Sydney students, the silencing of student voices overseas does not seem too far from home ground. Just last
month, changes to university policy saw the introduction of the ‘Campus Access Policy’ (CAP) which revokes student and staff rights to organise protests, put up posters, or set up stalls on campus without first gaining approval from university management. It comes after the months-long Gaza solidarity encampment spearheaded by university students on campus grounds, as a protest against the university’s profiting off ties with Israeli universities and investments in weapons manufacturing companies.
The CAP is designed to restrict students’ fundamental right to speak freely against the University, undermining the spontaneity of student voice, and curtailing the impact of collective action led by students. At a university like USyd with such a zealous history of protest and student action, the CAP feels like an attack on the integrity and legacy of student activism. It reveals one thing: bureaucratic institutions are afraid of the inherent power of student voice because they know what a significant impact it can have on reputation.
In a recent update, the High Court of Bangladesh has reluctantly agreed to the initial demands of protestors. As of July 21, the quota system has been amended to be 93% merit-based, 5% for the grand/children of freedom fighters, and 2% for ethnic minorities and those with disabilities. The small quota for women has been abolished entirely. This reformed system remains questionable, as the percentages for minorities, women, and disabled people — those for whom a quota system is necessary to access equal opportunities — has become either much lower or nonexistent and leaves them more vulnerable. The quota reform movement was always in opposition to the ‘Freedom Fighter
Quota’, and in favour of “reserving jobs for ethnic minorities and people with disabilities”.
Nevertheless, protesters are continuing to mobilise and demonstrate against the government, now focussing their movement towards a 9-point-demand list which includes a public apology from the Prime Minister for the mass killing of students, the reopening of schools and universities, and consequences for the elected officials, military, and policemen who presided over extrajudicial killings. Updates on the current situation are difficult to accurately gather due to state-sponsored underreporting and unstable internet access. These methods of restricting and manipulating communication in Bangladesh have eerie resonances with Israel’s war tactics in Palestine. The Awami League government has purchased mass surveillance equipment from Israel — despite a longstanding ban on travelling to Israel with a Bangladeshi passport — capable of intercepting communications.
The situation in Palestine and the situation in Bangladesh, despite differing contexts and scales, is interconnected by the common thread of state-sponsored violence and human rights abuses against vulnerable civilian populations. In the 21st century, attacking the free flow of information and communication is a lethal tactic, employed as a weapon against the people in order to advance government agendas.
We must remain vigilant in supporting and protecting the right for students to assemble, protest, and advocate for themselves against institutions geared towards preserving the power of a select, elite few.
The new world of marketing degrees Musical Chairs
It is almost a cliché these days to discuss the cutting of the humanities. Just this year the Studies of Religion major was discontinued, and the philosophy department gutted. If high school students looked at past handbooks they would see hundreds of classes that are no more.
Instead, Arts students starting in 2025 are allegedly being offered a whole seven new degrees to choose from. This includes a flashy new Politics Philosophy and Economics (PPE) course as well as new degrees in Media, Languages, and International Studies.
The latter three are less new degrees, and more the university finally moving away from the Advanced Studies model which began in 2016. A University spokesperson confirmed to Honi Soit that the Advanced Studies streams in Politics and International Relations, Media and Communications, and Languages (sound familiar?) will no longer be available starting next year.
For the very few at USyd who understand what Advanced Studies is, the University would like you to know that the degree will still be available for Arts, Science, Economics, and Commerce students next year and those still in streams will be able to complete their courses.
Not only do the new degrees have the same names as their predecessors, but also the same ATAR requirements and largely the same unit descriptions. When I asked if the new degrees included newly developed units, the University largely ducked the question. There is a new ‘International Studies’ major but if anything that is a vaguer version of global studies or politics and international relations.
Whether the marketing trick of renaming Arts degrees works on students and employers is hard to know, but it certainly worked on me. When I was choosing my course in year 12, the idea of a “double degree”, or “advanced coursework”, or a “shared pool of majors” worked wonders, making me preach to my friends that the Usyd arts degree was structured in a ‘superior’ way.
Usyd is not alone in going down this path. ANU has even more Arts degrees to choose from. What is the difference between a Bachelor of Pacific Studies and a Bachelor of Asian Pacific Affairs? Who knows! What are just majors at most universities in the world like European or Asian Studies are now whole courses.
The introduction of PPE, while more novel, is concerning for other reasons. The Oxford based degree is spreading across Australia like wildfire, with most universities adding it to their options in the past decade. ANU and UNSW both did so in 2016 and
2019 respectively. There is nothing inherently wrong or special with that combination of disciplines, but students can already take all of them within a traditional Arts degree. That begs the question, why the new name?
Firstly, the Oxbridge heritage creates an element of constructed prestige. As Andy Beckett, writing for The Guardian, pointed out years ago, a disproportionate amount of the political elite — including former Conservative Prime Minister’s Rishi Sunak, Boris Johnson, and David Cameron — took PPE. It is not uncommon for a policy in Parliament to be debated by PPE graduates as another commentates in the media.
Australian universities like UNSW have latched onto that marketing. Because this degree is for supposed thought leaders, universities can also rack up the ATAR with Usyd asking for 91, 11 points higher than an Arts degree.
This would be fine if the degree offered anything new but the only three units that are exclusively for PPE students have titles that sound borderline satirical: BPPE1000 ‘Politics and Philosophy’, BPPE2000 ‘Economics and Political Economy’, and BPPE3000 ‘Philosophy and Political Economy.’
Imagine walking into a unit called “English and History” or “Biology and Chemistry.” Students would be better off taking the majors outside the degree to avoid something so general. It is unfortunate that a former Honi editor, Juliette Marchant, has hopped on the gravy train, doing a flashy interview with Usyd’s PR team to promote the course.
Increasing the number of labels students can have on their diploma is masking a slow, painful march away from choice in Australian Arts degrees. My Ancient Greek Democracies lecturer informed the class last week that this was the last time this unit would be taught. “In the university’s infinite wisdom,” he said, the Athens focused unit would be merged with another Ancient History unit focused on Sparta.
The spokesperson maintained that the new degrees did provide “more options” to students telling, Honi that they were “excited to be expanding on our comprehensive range of bachelor’s degrees — which draw on a broad range of disciplinary expertise across the University and build on our academic strengths, industry partnerships and global network.”
Moving away from Advanced Studies may be welcome, but the larger trend is darker. Students, according to universities, demand choice when perusing a catalogue on Year 12 Open Day, only to forget about it as soon as classes actually start.
Head to head
Noise and Gamamari
Ariana Haghighi, Zeina Khochaiche and Angus McGregor turn up the volume.
Following the controversial hiatus of the University of New South Wales’ now-defunct student publication, Tharunka, the UNSW student media landscape was stuck in purgatory.
After the culmination of a social media campaign and censorship battles earlier this year, the student publication has since been revived and renamed to Gamamari due to concerns that its prior name was either inappropriately stolen from an Indigenous community, or made up. But after the ‘70 Years of Tharunka’ anniversary event on June 17 and new name launch, their online presence, publishing and social media is yet to be fully revived.
In the meantime, Noise — the self-funded, independent student publication born in March of this year — is striving to fill the student mediasized hole at UNSW.
Noise coordinator Pepsi Sharma sat down with Honi to update us on how Noise stands today and their durability in the face of Gamamari’s attempted resurgence.
Diving straight into the ethos of Noise, Sharma explained that one of the publication’s missions is to hold Arc — the university’s student organisation — to account but also stated that “[Noise] can be critical of Arc and still publish the broader student landscape stuff”.
Sharma claims that Gamamari’s recent name change is an attempt to “continue the legacy of the name so they don’t have to do new reputation building”.
Currently, Noise is funded out of the pocket of the volunteering editors and crowdfunding. They are currently unable to pay editors or contributors but told Honi that they “would like to find a funding model to afford Noise and compensate their team”.
Sharma did note, however, that unlike the University of Sydney which allocates 78% of SSAF to student-run bodies, UNSW only allocates 37%. A recent change in the Federal Budget stipulates all universities to allocate at least 40%. That 3%, Sharma said, has to go somewhere — it could be Noise
Unlike other student media, Noise is completely open about its books. On its website, every cost and donation is documented with goals created to encourage people to donate. Sharma conceded updating this page was a large administrative burden but they were proud of its transparency.
As it stands Noise’s team structure includes 13 members in the main editorial team, 11 more in the broader team and have few guest writers.
A current editor of Gamamari told Honi that “the new publication follows a consensus model approach for approvals and does not require Arc Marketing approval. However,
Gamamari is still required to consult their in-house legal team before publishing any content that may be deemed high risk.”
Interestingly, that model is not dissimilar to Honi’s own obligations under the SRC.
To what extent student bodies intervene in student publications are often based on norms rather than an explcit rule. Honi has DSP checks and the SRC President Harrison Brennan could theoretically raise issues with our articles but it almost never happens.
The Gamamari editor claimed that “the new editorial team will have discretion in that process, once the media law training has been completed.” Historically, however, Arc has revealed itself to be a more cautious institution with less of a culture of independence. While there is no evidence any articles have been blocked so far, it would be unsurprising if the threshold for legal risk was much lower than it would be at other publications.
To what extent the fallout over Tharunka has impacted Gamamari’s reputation is contested. Sharma suggested that the paper was “struggling” to recruit students who were flocking to Noise instead. That is disputed by the editor who told Honi “Gamamari has successfully recruited a team of student volunteers which is ever-growing.”
Noise has been the most active publication, publishing more articles, a new podcast, and consistent social media content, including breaking the story last week that Honi had been hacked.
Sharma was still careful not to become complacent. “They [Arc] were always going to put out a new paper,” they said. And unlike Noise, Sharma argued, that had to “start from the ground up,” Gamamari still had an over 50 year activist legacy to draw on which gave it influence.
Even though Noise was founded in opposition to Arc and Tharunka, both publications are in principle supportive of media diversity. Having more publications is “always a good thing,” Sharma argues and Dominique Lakis, Arc’s Media Coordinator agreed, saying that “they showcase different perspectives and cover the immense variety of things going on at UNSW.”
Whether there is a demand for either publication will depend on if Noise can secure more funding and become self-sustaining and Gamamari can shed its past to some extent and become fully operational.
The very impetus to create Noise highlights the clear demand for student-run media. That, if nothing else, is a reason to be optimistic about the future.
Angus McGregor has a whinge about PPE.
Smile, you might get more shifts
Maya Costa rants about retail.
CW: misogyny, racism, homophobia, sexual harassment, mention of rape.
About six months ago, I started collating a list titled ‘All of the times I have felt uncomfortable or vicariously uncomfortable at work’. If I had recorded every instance of harassment, the list would be the length of a small manifesto.
Like many women and non-binary people, I have occasionally experienced sexual harassment. However, these experiences were disconnected, and with time, seem almost satirical. A 2024 study titled “Just Another Day in Retail” characterised sexual harassment in retail as ‘pervasive’, whereby inappropriate behaviours are perpetuated by industry standards. When I started my new retail job, I did not connect the dots between my theoretical awareness of this prevalence and my workplace. It was suddenly difficult to shrug off behaviour overtly recognised as pervasive while maintaining my financial security. The rapid turnover rate of staff at this store reflected this tension — workers eventually are forced to choose between constant harassment and a steady income or financial uncertainty.
ENTRY #1: I am wearing long 90s-style shorts to work. My Manager tells me that they make my calves “pop”. He comments on the shorts a total of five times throughout my shift. For some reason I keep count.
A common defence used to justify sexual harassment is that the behaviour was intended as a ‘compliment’. This minimises the experience of feeling uncomfortable, and assumes that one is incapable of appreciating ‘harmless’ compliments.
ENTRY #6: I am wearing a tighter shirt to work instead of the oversized one I usually wear. My Manager says, “You actually look human now. It’s a compliment, the other shirt was like a dress on you.”
Most of us have at some point been exposed to spaces that are hostile to our gender identity or expression. I have found that my worldview is inevitably distorted by my surroundings. It is like peering into a fish-eye lens; where my young, queer friends are the entire foreground, disproportionate and goofy. I sometimes forget that this lens is not the “real world”; that those patriarchal and colonial structures around us have yet to disintegrate.
ENTRY #14: I’m in the lunchroom, I have headphones in. My coworker asks if I have Facebook. I say yes. He wants to add me. I pretend not to hear. Next shift he asks again, and the shift after.
The most effective way to survive a retail shift is to dissociate. You untether your thoughts and opinions from your material reality; the fluorescent lights, the too-still air, the grating radio. You barely register when you speak to customers, sometimes you even forget to reply until your co-worker nudges you meaningfully. You feel half asleep, the hours melting slowly.
ENTRY #9: I’m sitting at the computer, my Manager comes up behind me. “How was your holiday? You’re so fucken brown, I almost didn’t recognise you.”
As a lighter skinned person, I wondered if he felt safe making racist comments to me, compared with my other non-white co-workers.
Recently, I had a long conversation with my dad about work. I was looking for other jobs but feeling lethargic, suspecting that any alternative job I might find would be equally miserable. Having worked a range of soul-crushing jobs himself, he gave me some advice. “There are some fights that aren’t worth having. If you have to smile and act fake, do it. This is just a means to an end, it’s not your career.” He was right: there is no way to ‘win’ as a worker for a major retail corporation. My dad told me about a particularly awful boss that he had, a story that ended with him losing his temper and getting fired. I wondered if it was worth it, for that one cathartic moment.
In my Manager’s office, I tried to apply my dad’s advice. I was in his office because we were having a “chat” about my “attitude”. Taking this “chat” as an opportunity, I brought up the issue that I wasn’t receiving enough shifts since the company cut hours for the entire store. He replied with:
ENTRY #17: “Maybe if you smile more, you will get more shifts”.
I couldn’t tell if my Manager was joking or simply out of touch with reality. I often think about this line, a perfect representation of my former workplace. One of my coworkers had endured many “chats” with the same Manager. In one meeting, she was commended on the basis that her “mood swings” had improved. Although she was counselled, she still had a lot of work to do.
It is hard to imagine a reality where my male coworkers would be punished for being assertive and decisive. Or told that their expression is “hostile” and a threat to the company image, as I was told more than once. I successfully managed to nod and smile throughout the “chat”, until my Manager asked if he may give me some life advice. Purely for the plot, I prompted him to go on.
“Being approachable and friendly is a skill that you will use throughout your whole career, not just here. I’m trying to do you a favour by giving you this advice.”
It was like he wanted me to argue back.
“What if I work in academia? My expression has never affected my grades.”
I cannot remember what he said because I was trying to stop visibly fuming as I walked out of the office to begin my shift.
Being instructed to smile is relatively benign compared to the comprehensive instances of sexual harassment and homophobia I have witnessed in this workplace.
ENTRY #22: I am talking to the only other outwardly queer woman who works for the store, we are sharing our experiences of misogyny at work. She says that on one occasion, she was standing by the registers and overheard the former store Manager talking to the teenage girl working there. She hears him say, “you wouldn’t mind being raped right?”.
I am relieved to say that I no longer work in retail. I wanted to leave from the beginning, but a combination of inertia and cynicism prevented me from taking any real steps. As time went
by, it became more difficult to see my job as “a means to an end”, and to compartmentalise my work life from my ‘real’ life.
Unfortunately, quitting is not an option for many workers, who are forced to survive toxic workplaces for much longer than I did. While I am not optimistic about change in this industry, I am aware that these issues are starting to be talked about openly. In the meantime, I hope that others might locate some sense of solidarity within their workplaces. I found it through whispered conversations, shared eyerolls, and inside jokes with trusted co-workers.
Where does
Art lie?
Huw Bradshaw and Victoria Gillespie canvas the campus.
Our campus is scattered with paintings, sculptures, reliefs, and sitespecific installations. Old and new acquisitions line corridors and walls, occupy pedestrian space or sit in various campus galleries while others are squirrelled away in archives, administration offices and boardrooms. The University’s deep investment in this art immediately seems at odds with their chronic disregard for arts and fine arts education. What appears at first to be a contradiction to be resolved becomes, on closer inspection, an innate quality of the modern, neoliberal university; as in capitalism, we find this contradiction integral to its structure. What then do we, as students, make of the artwork itself — the art of campus — while at the same time grappling with such a contradiction?
HISTORY
Before we meander through campus’ current curiosities, we must comb through the past. The University collections are almost as old as the university itself, instigated by Charles Nicholson in 1860. The University’s entire collection — spread across the institution’s archives, Fisher Library’s rare books collection, Power, Nicholson, and Macleay Museum collections — contains 700,000 artefacts. In the foreword to Into the Light: 150 Years of Cultural Treasures at the University of Sydney, then-Vice Chancellor Michael Spence justifies these collections as a “rich and fertile ground for research and teaching”. There is little self-consciousness of the University’s colonial history, with Spence lauding the collections for acquiring “the earliest known Aboriginal bark paintings” and other Indigenous artefacts, procured through dubious means. In corridors and official rooms, other historic Eurocentric works, like portraits, busts, reliefs and statues, enable the University to construct its Enlightenment legacy.
Today, much of the University’s art is housed in the flagship gallery, Chau Chak Wing Museum (CCWM). Combining the Macleay, Nicholson and University Art Collections, the CCWM opened in November 2020. While displaying Tom Bass’ 1953 sculpture, The Student, on its forecourt, the CCWM is distinctly separate from the student community. Excluding various excursions, many students have never entered this sunken grey block. CCWM’s rooms are used for conferences and management meetings: just last semester, meetings between Scott and the encampment representatives occurred in the boardroom. Named after a billionaire, the project seems more like a product of philanthropy and university marketing rather than any engagement with student life.
Elsewhere, art on campus occurs in the Tin Sheds Gallery, the Sydney College of the Arts (SCA) Gallery, USUrun Verge Gallery, and the student-run Backspace Gallery. Shows in these spaces seem to be advertised to and frequented by primarily artschool students and staff, rather than the University’s general community. Outside these buildings lay the public campus works, the most visible but ironically the most overlooked. Most of the acquisition of this art is recent; only in 2010 did University curator Ann Stephen note “relatively few public artworks or monuments are visible along the grand promenade of Australia’s oldest university”. Coincidentally, this decade of art acquisitions occurred in parallel to the attempted shut down of SCA, and the University’s growing disdain for arts and fine arts education.
UNIVERSITY’S AGENDA
As students at a university that persistently and ruthlessly guts the arts, it seems obvious to declare USyd as a philistine institution that is inherently against art, the artist, and the cultivation of both. While one would not be wrong in asserting such, they would certainly not be arriving at the entire truth. Seemingly in contradiction to its
larger actions, the University buys, displays, and commissions art at a scale so staggering that such an assertion seems to become not only unstable, but unprovable. Obviously, this raises the question: why would an increasingly corporatised, mercenary institution devote time and money to something seemingly at odds with their larger agenda?
The University’s public art strategy falls under the remit of the Office of External Relations, the peak group of communications and marketing. This rather telling position of PR in the procurement of art is seen further within the 2018 Art in the Public Realm strategy document and its purported principles of ‘excellence, collaboration, partnerships, and place-making’.
Rather than ‘placemaking’, such art, especially public works, constitutes ‘place marketing’: advertising the University as an appealing eductational investment. The University co-opts art in their own way of seeing, offering themselves as a liberal institution decorated by culturally meaningful symbols. The space that is ‘The Campus’ is not constituted merely by interstitial roads and eating areas, but sites of pedagogical contemplation. Pressing on through bustling crowds of first years, we grow ignorant of these areas, yet their larger effect still permeates. Whether it be a brisk walk past Chau Chak Wing Museum, a cursory glance at the many chancellor portraits lining the Great Hall, or even the works of architecture that so often we forget exist for our viewing pleasure, it seems the effect of art on campus is largely unconscious. Ignoring art, sleepwalking through campus, its ideological purpose becomes only twice as potent.
Art on campus is our ‘free lunch’ as students. We walk about absorbing this great mass of culture without ever questioning for the most part why we
are provided this opportunity by an institution that debases and degrades us for pursuing the study, critique, or creation of said culture.
DEVALUING OF ARTISTIC EDUCATION
The University’s interest in certain types of art makes their agenda overt. The University’s recent — and rightfully maligned — Campus Access Policy effectively places any largescale political, social and artistic expression on campus under the thumb of the University. The simple act of postering becomes one needing notification and approval. Even in instances of controlled art spaces, as with the Graffiti Tunnel, we see this power dynamic play out, when Honi uncovered the University’s deliberate removal of pro-Palestine messaging in the tunnel.
While your visual arts education hangs on by a thread, in your study break you can visit all five of the Camperdown/Darlington campus galleries. The University’s economic interests in art accession seem to synchronise with their flailing support for the discipline’s education.
Speaking to figures in the art school community, Honi has uncovered a culture of uncertainty and a cloud of cuts descending SCA. They state “SCA has been consistently underfunded and the staff are often overworked and underpaid”. They go on to explain that the SCA receives little institutional support. As explicated in an article last year, this passes on costs to students, with one such example being the $200 fee for mere inclusion in their own grad show. Yet this is historically unsurprising. In 2016, the University attempted to detach itself from SCA, and it was only due to student activism that the art school was revived, but moved from its expansive Rozelle campus to a few floors of Old Teachers College. Many students reported feeling unsupported in the move, and the school became a department at the mercy of coursecutting administrators. Sydney College of the Arts Student Society (SCASS) also receives little support. Amidst plans to demolish Wentworth, the existence of SCASS-run Backspace remains under perpetual threat.
CAMPUS ART AND GALLERIES
So what is the state of art on campus? To summarise campus’ art offerings is not a simple task, so we shall start with the obvious: the sculptures and installations peppered in pedestrian areas. In recent years, under the Walanga Wingara Mura Design Principles and the Art in the Public Realm strategy, the University has commissioned a few contemporary Indigenous art pieces. This seems, ostensibly, an acknowledgement of the University’s problematic museal inheritance. Dale Harding’s imposing sandstone blocks greet students, staff and visitors on Eastern Avenue in site-specific work Spine 2. This work is adjoined by Spine 1 in the Life, Earth and Environmental Sciences Building and Spine 3 on the side of Carslaw Building. On the side of the Social Sciences Building, Robert Andrews’ Garabara (2018) uses iron oxidisation to explore local Indigenous history.
Elsewhere, we also seem to walk past these carefully chosen works. Outside the Law Library, Andrew Roger’s’ Individuals (2013) deploys modulating bronze forms as a metaphor for individualism. Students living amid a cost-of-living crisis would be surprised to find this artwork they may walk past each day is valued at $1.4 million. A little further on, the 2015-esque neon lights adorning the side of the Footbridge Theatre are part of a site-specific installation, The Dash Wall (2019), representing design computing hardware platforms. Close by, an audio-based installation called Moodulation (2019), aurally disperses Parramatta Road noise pollution through nature sounds.
Beyond historic artworks housed in hallways, various sculptures speak to the institution’s history; The Raven in the Anderson Stuart Building courtyard, Spring (1910) in the Old Teachers College,and Gilgamesh (2000) outside it, the greyhound standing in the Vice-Chancellor’s garden and all the gargoyles hidden above. The libraries also house commissioned works. A neon installation in a former study room in the Law Library, Carolyn McKay’s Floating Between Couches & Motels (2023), depicts McKay’s research on motels as a place of crime and transgression. In the Conservatorium Library, three busts describe musical inheritances from women composers. Throughout Fisher, the ArtBoxes showcase student work while modernist and contemporary landscapes sit in the stairwells. Between Levels 3 and 4, Jeremy Smith’s cartographical Queer Sydney: A History (2022) reflects on local queer stories.
Connected to the architecture school, Tin Shed Gallery’s exhibitions tend to focus on design and its role. Nearby on City Rd, celebrating 15 years of life, Verge Gallery’s showings are diverse and often eccentric. Across
campus in the Old Teachers College, the SCA Gallery regularly displays work by local and international artists. While CCWM may not be as studentfacing as we would like, works like LEGO Pompeii undoubtedly capture student interest.
At this point, it becomes increasingly hard to criticise the University’s patronage to the arts, when it becomes evident that this patronage is not only tangible, but often artistically and socially progressive. The works displayed across campus are not just portraits of dead white men but include modernist statues, avantgarde digital art, and queer storytelling. Even more significant than this, over the last decade the University has increasingly platformed and commissioned the works of First Nations artists, such as Jessie Waratah’s mural Walking on Country (2024), Christian Thompson’s video triptych Heat (2010), and Judy Watson’s work jugama (2023). How can one criticise the University’s commitment to art when it so clearly reflects an endeavour not only artistically sound, but politically progressive?
After thinking so much about our perplexing present moment of art criticism, we must turn to its past.
GREENBERG, POLLOCK AND THE CIA
1939. Clement Greenberg pens an essay entitled ‘Avant-Garde and Kitsch’ in the Partisan Review. The modernist, the Avant-Garde artist, the Pollock — whom Greenberg praised and adored — was to be the bulwark against consumerism, propaganda, and eventually, fascism. By refusing to innovate, to push forward into dangerous areas of individual expression and feeling, we would be embracing a “simulacra of genuine culture” that is kitsch; from here, Greenberg asserted, began propaganda, authoritarianism and all their nasty associations.
Greenberg, though, was perhaps a touch naive in his conception of propaganda and its pervasion of forms. Much simpler and identifiable back in ‘39, propaganda even took on distinct national styles: socialist realism in the USSR and vulgar Neoclassicism in Nazi Germany. Postwar, propaganda had to adapt, and it was the Americans who saw this most clearly. Against the dominant nostalgic, sentimentalist style of the USSR, America would achieve cultural victory through its bold avant-garde scene emerging in New York. Opposed to the USSR’s cultural conservatism, the abstract expressionists like Rothko and Pollock would spread individualism and internationalism through their non-figurative works,
works that could transcend borders and nationalities: ironically, much like the early Soviet artists. Yet these ideas of egalitarianism and liberalism retained their material basis as works produced under a capitalist system. It was not just art that they exported, but American imperialism. It comes rather unsurprisingly, then, to find out the abstract expressionist movement received significant support and funding from the CIA.
What then, if he was wrong, do we take from Greenberg? That all art is propaganda? That the abstract expressionists were imperialist agents? Plain and vulgar nihilism?
All this is to say that art, particularly good art, may be created, distributed, and displayed within a larger contextual purpose antithetical to our values that we are obliged to oppose. We should not be afraid then to be critical of art — even boldly, cruelly so — for its role in the material and social construction of our world.
A REHEARSAL FOR THE FUTURE
What we see in the conjoining of art and the University campus is the future neoliberalism intends for both of these institutions. We see fantastic artworks become playthings of ‘place marketing’, deprived of any consequential appreciation or meaning, absorbed into the culture machine of the corporate University. We see increasing attacks by University management on any field in which ‘art’ exists as more than frames on walls and tax breaks. We see art captured by an institution that seeks to pacify and eliminate its democratic and radical nature. The presence of propaganda — fueled by base consumerism — that Greenberg failed to note in the works of the abstract expressionists has now gone beyond even the abstract form of Pollock to inhabit art itself.
Though it seems almost instinctual to denounce the University as a philistine institution, to insist they do not care for art, it is in fact the opposite that is true: the University cares about art, it must care about art, for art underpins its entire existence as a neoliberal institution.
The future we envision is not one in which art is allowed to die. In death perhaps, there is dignity. More horrifying, it is one in which art — zombified, pacified, artificially animated — is made to live.
The University’s first modernist art acquisition: Tom Bass’ The Student (1953).
Step aside New York Times:
Honi’s 100 “Best”
Books List
It is 2024, and the New York Times Book Review has published their list of 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. They compiled the list by asking famed writers to provide a list of their favourite books. In the weeks following, book critics castigated the list for its cronyism and elitism, supporting a small coterie of high-status writers. But do the most-lauded writers pen the best books? And where is the literature from marginalised voices?
Enter Honi Soit, in our navel-gazing attempt to rectify the New York Times’ nepotistic crimes. Honi has endeavoured to select books — fiction, nonfiction, memoirs, poetry collections — that have left an imprint on our reading. Not all are perfect but all remain memorable. We haven’t ranked the books, because who are we to do so, but all ten of us have provided a slice of praise for our favourite work. Is our list any more expansive and antiestablishmentarian? You can put us to the test…
The 21st century is only dawning on us, and there will be plenty more stories and voices to come. Search out for them — and not just the loudest.
READ 4 THE STYLE
The Testament of Mary (2012) — Colm Tóibín
10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in This Strange World (2019) — Elif Shafak Dropbear (2021) — Evelyn Araluen
All That’s Left Unsaid (2022) — Tracey Lien
The House of Youssef (2019) — Yumna Kassab Are You My Mother? (2012) — Alison Bechdel Exit West (2017) — Mohsin Hamid Frankenstein in Baghdad (2013) — Ahmed Saadawi Girl, Woman, Other (2019) — Bernadine Evaristo Liveblog (2015) — Megan Boyle
The Gypsy Goddess (2014) — Meena Kandasamy Silence is a Sense (2021) — Layla AlAmmar Alphabetical Diaries (2024) — Sheila Heti
Taking Off Emily Dickinson’s Clothes (2000) — Billy Collins Crush (2004) — Richard Siken Embroideries (2003) — Marjane Satrapi
De Niro’s Game (2006) — Rawi Hage
As Good a Woman as Ever Broke Bread (2021) — Alex McInnis
When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities (2017) — Chen Chen
Bright Dead Things (2015) — Ada Limon
This All Come Back Now: An Anthology of First Nations Speculative Fictions (2022) — ed. Mykaula Saunders
The Twilight Zone (2016) — Nona Fernandez
An Unnecessary Woman (2014) — Rabih Alameddine
I was reading Alba Donati’s memoir Diary of a Tuscan Bookshop (2022) and she spent a paragraph recommending this book. It follows a 72-year-old woman who has spent much of her life translating Western novels into Arabic but never publishing them. The novel oscillates between recounting her life experiences and her love of reading. I was drawn to the novel because it’s set in Beirut, even if it, like most contemporary Lebanese literature, is concentrated with depictions of the civil war. I love that the choice to live in solitude is not diminished nor makes you feel constrained as a reader, only rewarded. And who can claim to liken a city to Elizabeth Taylor and make it work? (Valerie Chidiac)
Bad Art Mother (2022) — Edwina Preston
Ironically, my mum bought this for me after I picked it up at Harry Hartog’s in Marrickville. The pages were weighty and glossy, and I was intrigued. I read it quite quickly and enjoyed it immensely. My Goodreads review stated, “so good…20th century melbourne, feminism, poetry, art, Italian food, letters. I <3 women’s literary rage!”. The epistolary form feels intimate, allowing you into the imagined lives of a Melbourne woman poet and her son in the 1950s-60s. Talking about the Melbourne artistic scene and its contradictions, the book flattens the past and loops it in with the future. (Victoria Gillespie)
The Library Book (2018) — Susan Orlean
Student journalists, book lovers and library devotees, feast your eyes! This book is a masterclass in long-form investigation, as we accompany seasoned journalist Susan Orlean as she probes into the who, what, when, where and why of the 1986 fire at the Los Angeles Central Library. With illustrious prose and razor-sharp intuition, Orlean serves up a delicious platter of truths, suspicions and fictions. Her years of research illuminate new angles of the mystery, and also develop the key characters such that they hang in the background of your mind. The book’s subject matter is both esoteric and thrilling, making the book unputdownable, which remains a rarity for non-fiction. I would read it again, and again, and again, without boredom creeping in. (Ariana Haghighi)
Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens (2022) — Shankari Chandran
Set in Western Sydney, Chandran’s book tells the story of a culture war surrounding a Sri Lankan owned aged care home. The novel has multiple layers, simultaneously recounting the families’ experiences as academics during the Sri Lankan Civil War while also painting a vivid picture of the heavily racialised local politics of Sydney. We meet migrant aged care workers with PhDs and go inside the allegedly drab meeting rooms of councils to find out how the sausage is made. Chandran’s novel captures modern Australia because the message lacks clarity. Australia is revealed to have a harsh racist underbelly yet the culture war started over a Western Sydney nursing home ends up also highlighting the resilience of multicultural communities. (Angus McGregor)
Shifting the Silence (2020) — Etel Adnan
I was sceptical about prose poetry until I read this work by Etel Adnan. Her meditations on ageing and introspection sway between reality and mythology — she revels in her own convictions bending, expanding, and mutating within the form. Adnan grips the reader by the wrist, petitioning them to keep up with the pace of her poetry, the interruptions of thought, and the strobe-like imposition of her imagery. She interlaces the aesthetics of poetic scenery and the rhetoric of soliloquy. (Amelia Raines)
READ 2 LEARN
By Night In Chile (2000) — Roberto Bolaño
While you could easily classify this short work as firmly grounded in the 20th century, those duds at the NYT threw The Savage Detectives into their list, and that wasn’t even written in this century. While Bolaño grapples with heavy, ugly political realities in By Night in Chile, it feels as if this novella operates largely on a spiritual level, tearing apart the intricate interior defences and safeguards of Father Urrutia Lacroix, exploring guilt and cowardice at a level so intimate we begin to feel for such a vile protagonist. Few works feel so rooted in the past yet aware of the future to come: “And then the storm of shit begins.” (Huw Bradshaw)
Multiple Choice (2014) — Alejandro Zambra
What do stories, university entrance exams and multiple choice questions have in common? This book! Following the structure of Chile’s Academic Aptitude Test, Alejandro Zambra’s Multiple Choice contains stories within stories within 90 multiple-choice questions. I was first recommended this book by a friend in Year 12, at a time when reading felt like a chore and I was slightly too fixated on Chilean history. Multiple Choice was unlike anything I had read before. A strange blend of history, legacy, nostalgia and satire, it feels like it shouldn’t work but somehow it does. If you enjoy (a) Word-plays, (b) Double meanings, (c) Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style endings, then this is a book for you. (Sandra Kallarakkal)
Three Stories (2014) — J.M.Coetzee
When I lost my joie for reading earlier in the year I was recommended I read Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee. A striking voice for the post-apartheid South African landscape, I immediately took to his sobering and at-times uncomfortable writing style. Exploring his oeuvre I then found Three Stories — a captivating trilogy of short stories about a connection to a house, wheat threshing and Coetzee’s writer experience. The third story is in fact Coetzee’s Nobel recipient speech that carves an intimate rumination on the many transitional phases in his world. Whilst Disgrace holds an undeniable spot in the broader contemporary canon, I chose Three Stories because it serves as a refreshing and inspiring meditation on a “double self”. So if you have lost your joie, here is my recommendation to you. (Zeina Khochaiche)
Are we there yet? A journey around Australia (2004) — Alison Lester
This beautiful book will be familiar to anyone who had an early childhood in the Australia of the 2000s. All wrapped up in funny prose and exquisite illustration, I have yet to see a better representation of the Australian travel experience. The way Lester perfectly captured the wistful, eerie beauty of the Flinders Ranges is especially notable but the book has too many highlights to list. Anyone who knows me will describe my passion for travelling our continent; only I can tell you that this book sparked that love. I have no doubt that any children I might have will read this book. It is indelibly special and worth revisiting as an adult. (Aidan Elwig Pollock)
Americanah (2013) — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Having read this book shortly after my first break-up, I felt that I could finally articulate all of the hardest — and most brilliant — memories I was holding onto. Centred on the love between strongspirited Ifemelu and her teenage boyfriend Obinze, this story follows both protagonists as they immigrate, learn and change between Nigeria, England and the US. Ambitious in its use of flashbacks and refreshing in its portrayal of 2010s-blog-posting, Americanah is one of the most moving tableaus of race, gender, culture, migration and politics from this century. (Simone Maddison)
Peripathetic (2024) — Cher Tan
The Mars Room (2018) — Rachel Kushner
Black Butterflies (2022) — Priscilla Morris
The Palestine Laboratory (2023) — Antony Loewenstein
Root and Branch (2023) — Eda Gunaydin
Azadi (2020) — Arundhati Roy
I Was Born There, I Was Born Here (2012) — Mourid Barghouti
What the Colonists Never Knew: a History of
Aboriginal Sydney (2020) — Dennis Foley, Peter Read
Maoism: A global history (2019) — Julia Lovell
The Drone Eats with Me (2015) — Atef Abu Saif
The Real Lolita (2018) — Sarah Weinman
Translating Myself and Others (2022) — Jhumpa Lahiri
Tell Them I Said No (2017) — Martin Herbert
Growing Up in Australia (2021) — Various authors
Men Explain Things to Me (2014) — Rebecca Solnit
Minor Detail (2017) — Adania Shibli
The Refugees (2017) — Viet Thanh Nguyen
READ 4 A WARMED HEART
Gentle and Fierce (2021) — Vanessa Berry
Unconditional Love (2019) — Jocelyn Moorhouse
The Argonauts (2015) — Maggie Nelson
Knife (2024) — Salman Rushdie
The Thirty Names of Night (2020) — Zeyn Joukhadar
DallerGut Dream Department Store (2019) — Miye Lee
Bound to Happen (2023) — Jonathan Shannon
Station Eleven (2014) — Emily St. John Mandel
Time Shelter (2020) — Georgi Gospodinov
What you are looking for is in the library (2023) — Michiko Aoyama
The Mysterious Benedict Society (2007) — Trenton Lee Stewart
The Sense of an Ending (2011) — Julian Barnes
On Animals (2021) — Susan Orlean
Convenience Store Woman (2016) — Sayaka Murata
Dirt Poor Islanders (2024) — Winnie Dunn
Ruby Redford Look Into My Eyes (2011) — Lauren Child
The Swan Book (2013) — Alexis Wright
READ 4 EMOTIONAL DEATH
In the Dream House (2019) — Carmen Maria Machado
Against the Loveless World (2019) — Susan Abulhawa
Honor (2022) — Thrity Umrigar
The Girl in the Green Dress (2022) — Jeni Haynes
Insomniac City: New York, Oliver and Me (2017) — Bill Hayes
You Could Make This Place Beautiful (2023) — Maggie Smith
Night Sky with Exit Wounds (2016) — Ocean Vuong
Tidelines (2024) — Sarah Sasson
Rapture (2005) — Carol Ann Duffy
The Year of Magical Thinking (2005) — Joan Didion
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal (2011) — Jeanette Winterson
Cold Enough for Snow (2022) — Jessica Au
The Arsonists’ City (2021) — Hala Alyan
Bluets (2009) — Maggie Nelson
Nightcrawling (2022) — Leila Mottley
Inside My Mother (2013) — Ali Cobby Eckermann
Songs for the Dead and the Living (2023) — Sara M. Saleh
READ 2 ESCAPE
The Eyes Are The Best Part (2024) — Monica Kim
Populate and Perish (2016) — George Haddad
Paradise Estate (2023) — Max Easton
Victory City (2023) — Salman Rushdie
Priestdaddy (2017) — Patricia Lockwood
Mirror Sydney (2017) — Vanessa Berry
Portable Curiosities (2016) — Julie Koh
Roman Stories (2023) — Jhumpa Lahiri
Laurinda (2014) — Alice Pung
Whereabouts (2021) — Jhumpa Lahiri
The Inheritance of Loss (2006) — Kiran Desai
Losing Face (2021) — George Haddad
Walking on the ceiling (2019) — Aysegül Savas
Lola in the Mirror (2023) — Trent Dalton
Behind My Eyes (2008) — Li-Young Lee
Severance (2018) — Ling Ma
The Palace of Illusions (2008) — Chitra Banerjee Divakurni
THE INTERNET MUST DIE
Lucy Bailey wanders through the internet’s history and asks: can it actually die?
There’s something uncanny going on with Facebook lately: posts from friends, family and groups are quickly outnumbered by images of Jesus, newborn babies and smiling families with too many fingers, each with a string of near-identical comments underneath. At the same time, every tech company is rolling out AI tools on their website or app. You can use ChatGPT for anything — even writing your university essays or composing your wedding vows. You keep seeing the same tweet, some variation of “I hate texting”, showing up on your timeline with tens of thousands of likes. Something is wrong.
The average Google search now conjures pages upon pages of asinine blog content created using AI tools, with users being forced to add “Reddit” to the end of every search.
This unnerving feeling is the basis of a conspiracy theory that has risen to prominence in the last month: the dead internet. Its disciples claim that the vast majority of web content and activity is not “real”, but has been automatically generated using AI or bots. That is, the internet of authentic, human users has been almost entirely replaced by AIgenerated art, stories and blog posts and funnelled into echo chambers where chatbots comments “Amen” or “Amazing picture” hundreds of times. Moreover, these theorists claim that this artificial content is being intentionally put out by bad actors to manipulate the public. It’s not entirely accurate, there are still plenty of real users on the internet, but scholars say that it’s a framework through which to view some of the most pressing issues shaping the future of the web. Basically, the internet’s death may not yet be literal, but it is a pervasive feeling.
The web has not always been this way. Since first introduced, it has gone through multiple stages of development. The first web, known as the Web 1.0, was “read only”, with static web pages making up the majority of the internet. The Web 2.0, ushered in around the mid 2000s, describes the internet’s social or participatory dimension. Static pages were replaced by platforms like Myspace, Facebook and YouTube, which encouraged and enabled users to interact and upload their own content to the internet. It was in some ways utopian: a space in which people could share and consume information and stories, unencumbered by borders. But, there were always some cracks in this facade — as the volume of online content grew and grew, the increased
sophistication and opacity of algorithmic recommendation systems presented opportunities for bad actors to exploit. 2016’s Gamergate, a mass harassment campaign led against female gamers and journalists, was accomplished using the help of bot accounts that could sustain their outrage for weeks or months on end. Russian web brigades, state-sponsored trolling bots, have also been credited with starting largescale campaigns of misinformation and running US election interference. These incidents have only accelerated in the past decade. The average Google search now conjures pages upon pages of asinine blog content created using AI tools, with users being forced to add “reddit” to the end of every search term to access traces of real people having real conversations.
The development and ubiquity of large language model AI, most infamously ChatGPT, has accelerated this issue. ChatGPT works by taking unfathomable amounts of linguistic data — found in the sentences and paragraphs in existing websites and publications — and combing it for patterns, using an unfathomable amount of energy in the process. And, because human language is built on recognisable and replicable patterns, it becomes increasingly sophisticated at putting together outputs that are probably, presumably, coherent answers that are relevant to the question it’s been asked.
The problem with such tools is that they can be used to produce large amounts of natural-sounding text almost simultaneously — generating millions of blog posts and comments each day. After all, why pay a copywriter for two hours of time when ChatGPT can write your company website, 50 blog posts and your next year’s worth of instagram captions within the hour? Because the language produced by these tools sounds so natural, it also becomes exponentially harder for platforms’ automated detection methods to pick up on artificial activity.
millions of data points. They comment “Amen” and generate pictures of Jesus and American flags because these are the things that are popular. They will reinforce the status quo because that is all they are capable of doing.
These failed detection methods allow insane amounts of ChatGPT generated content to bypass content moderation tools, and therefore to shape the kind of information we are presented with when we use the internet. The internet’s bots may not be being
Platforms, whiteknuckled, will cling to their stronghold on the majority of web traffic in whatever ways they can.
consciously controlled by bad actors, but these tools do have an ideology, and it’s inherently conservative. They can only create things that, in some sense, have already been created, and replicate patterns that are entrenched to a degree that they can be noticed among tens of
On a broader level, the ‘death’ of the internet presents wide-ranging implications for platforms. Platforms’ business models rely on a consistent stream of free original content from users in the form of posts, comments and discussions that engage others and generally work to make the platform attractive. These platforms pay their bills by placing advertisements before or between these posts, with advertisers paying based on the number of impressions their content will receive. A rise in user accounts and activity at first doesn’t seem to ring any alarm bells, especially if these users are creating seemingly high-quality and engaging posts. But, the “death” of the internet threatens to destabilise this model in two key ways. First, AI generated content inherently lacks originality and creativity — and in most cases cannot (yet) ape it convincingly enough. This results in the type of repetitive and uncanny content that leaves real users bored or repulsed. Second, the existence of millions of fake accounts, and therefore millions of potential fake impressions, drives down the value of individual impressions to potential advertisers — will they continue to allocate large portions of their marketing funds to platforms when their ads are being shown to bots with no identities, bank accounts, or capacity to make a purchase?
This is, of course, not to frame advertisers and platforms as the victims of this state of affairs. If it starts to impact their bottom lines, platforms will
inevitably create new methods of cracking down on artificial traffic that exploit the end user in novel ways. Perhaps we will see more widespread adoption of a Netflix-style subscription model. In October last year, Elon Musk announced his unorthodox plan to tackle the influx of bots and fake content on X (formerly Twitter) by introducing new subscription tiers. While users already must pay an $8 premium membership fee to access “premium features” like verification, the changes proposed by Musk would see all users charged $1 per year in the so-called “Not A Bot” program to access the basic features of the app.
Or, perhaps they will demand more and more data to create or verify an account, from bank account details to birth certificates to biometrics like fingerprints and blood type, all in an effort to qualify the humanity of each new user profile, allowing platforms to continue to craft even more accurate user profiles and sell this information on to advertisers.
Neither conclusion brings much solace. Platforms, white-knuckled, will cling to their stronghold on the majority of web traffic in whatever ways they can. And, while the internet is not quite dead yet, for now we may continue to traverse into its strangest corners, look around, and realise that we’re quite alone.
Art: Mahima Singh
Does consumption kill creativity?
Kaela
Goldsmith checks up on the iPad babies
If you open any second book that my father owns, you’ll find a face or a doodle somewhere, signed by yours truly, circa 2006. Much of the furniture in our home was refurbished through my artistry. Some would say it was scratched, I would say it was worn-down with charm. The walls of my room once provided the canvas to a stunning, golden scribble mural. Safe to say that my parents weren’t too fond of that one; too abstract, perhaps.
You might find resonance in this: as children we seek to create — and destruct. We scribble on walls. We doodle on books. We mess around with paint.
It is at this time that our creativity is in its purest form, untainted by the world and all its horrors. We are not creating art — concerned with whether this work will be able to pay the bills, or whether people will enjoy it — we create for our own enjoyment. While some take to it more than others, that foundational start encapsulates how creativity is one of our natural skills.
Today, many children are being deprived of this experience. Instead, they’re watching cocomelon. And personally, I am scared of the inevitable rise of the ‘iPad Baby’.
Many members of Generation Alpha are being babysat by screens, a byproduct of being born into a world where technology is not a scarce commodity. They will never have to rely on a landline phone, or have to fuss around with old computer modems just to get the only desktop in the house to work. iPad babies are very much embedded in an age of touchscreens, social media, and artificial intelligence.
So how will art hold up in a world
where iPad babies are leading the charge? Unlimited access to addictive technologies means that this generation is not creating art in the same way that we did, they are simply consuming miscellaneous content. With the added option of simply asking ChatGPT to whip up an artwork for them, the unavoidable question is whether these children even feel the need to create at all?
To address these thoughts, I chatted to a few people who understand art best. Solomiya Sywak, a recent Visual Arts graduate, said that “making is not separate from living” for her. Her earliest memories of creating were making artworks out of “anything she could get her hands on”. As for Connor Chen, a current Visual Arts student, his earliest memories of creating art were heavily intertwined with pop culture — drawing clip art of “My Little Pony” to give to friends, and creating artworks with colour pencil on A4 paper, as inspired by his favourite cartoons.
When probed on the topic of social media and art, Connor felt strongly about the way that some seminal pieces of art are being misunderstood and incorrectly spoken about, particularly on platforms like Tiktok: “People aren’t talking about the intention behind art, because they feel as though they need to immediately understand it as opposed to really reflecting on the themes.”
This lack of critical thinking when it comes to art in online spaces is seemingly driven by the culture of overconsumption that addictive technologies present. Now more than ever, it is important for all generations to be well equipped with media literacy,
especially Generation Alpha.
Aside from how online commentary can skew interpretations of art, Solomiya seemed concerned about the ability for young people to copy art with AI. “Art is all about examining your surroundings, and if you get someone else to do that for you, it’s not art anymore.”
This ease of access to technologies and platforms that assist in copying what already exists when matched with the potential for children to adopt a lazier approach to creation, presents a real threat to the integrity of artmaking.
With all of these concerns at play, Georgia Freebody, an artist, teacher and art therapist who works closely with young children, noted that:
“As a Gen-Xer, I attribute my innate creativity to playing in the grass, ripping things up. As a Gen-Zer, you attributed yours to doodling with pens and paper. Young people are innately creative because of the tools we have, and so I think they will continue to be with whatever tools we give them – technology included. It would be a mistake to fight technology, in the same way that it would be a shame for generations prior to having fought pens and pencils”.
“However, I do agree that children need to make meaning and create relationships with the material world. If that meaning making is being interrupted, that’s when we start to see problems”.
Georgia offered advice on the need to provide a diverse range of tools that young children create with, in order for children to remain able to “make meaning and create relationships with the material world”, as a disruption to this is where problems arise. Her
They’ll hang us in the Art Gallery of NSW
Simone Maddison takes you on a date.
No one had ever told me that the black tiles lining the stairs to the Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW) capture so much heat in the height of summer that they would make the palms of my hands sweat. No one had ever warned me that its early Greek façade would leave me stranded in the rain without cover if I failed to bring an umbrella. No one had cautioned me that wearing a backpack into its grand halls would result in a breach of delicate gallery etiquette — and a confiscation of my armour.
These observations are neither design recommendations for the state government nor shallow jibes at one of our city’s most famous cultural institutions. Rather, they are the lessons I have learned from going on many first dates at this Gallery. In some cases, these visits have sparked months-to-years long relationships with now ex-boyfriends; in others, they have smothered romance almost as quickly as a text message can be left on read.
So, why do art galleries maintain such a crucial role in our love lives?
My initial tableaux of the AGNSW may paint it as a less-than-ideal place to make romantic first impressions. In such large arenas as the Kaldor Hall and Centenary Auditorium, one might find themselves distant and separated from their romantic interest. They may descend into silence, with nothing to say except shallow observations about colours and shapes. Without appropriate footwear, the date can also become sore and uncomfortable very quickly.
Yet alongside other spaces like the Museum of Contemporary Art and the White Rabbit Gallery, the AGNSW emerges as a frontrunner for first date locations. In a gallery of over 37,000 constantly rotating artworks from around the world, one is bound to strike up a lasting conversation that may progress to a recurring joke on later dates. The experience itself is free, and will not pass you by as quickly as a coffee or lunch
own teaching practices often include bringing in natural materials so that children can tear up leaves or play with sand while exercising both their realities and imaginations.
When asked about young people’s consumption of content, Georgia was able to identify some positives, saying that “part of being creative is that you need to flow and ebb, but [another] part of that is about needing to consume culture, because you cannot create in a vacuum”.
The ability for technology to assist young artists in making connections in this digital age excited both Georgia and Connor, who also specified that the online art community is a helpful source of motivation and education.
One sentiment echoed throughout my conversations with all three artists was the feeling that since art is innate, the need to create will never truly be lost regardless of the advancements in technology. Because art relies on instinct and developing one’s talent, young artists will be driven to make art, no matter the form.
After some valid apprehensions, Georgia also provided a pertinent reminder: “I’m hopeful because through my work, I see how incredible babies and kids are. They’re all over it, and so smart, bright and energised, so it’s well worth remembering that as well.” With these comforting words, I have more faith that iPad babies will be able to keep art alive – even if it is hard to see the light (beyond an iPad screen) right now.
meet-cute would. But do not fear: even in the absence of passion on the date itself, the walls of art galleries are awash with intimacy. One of the earliest portrayals of romantic love in the AGNSW is a Pahari painting titled Lady swooning (1850), depicting a young woman surrounded by her friends and feverish with desire. The AGNSW is also home to two works titled The Kiss from the early 20th-century, one being a sculpture by British ceramicist Charles Vyse, and the other a sketch by German impressionist Lovis Corinth. More recently, artists like Li Jin have endeavoured to portray the more tumultuous elements of romance at each phase in a relationship, with disappointment and stagnation captured most elegantly in his watercolour painting Room for love (2020).
Museums also remain one of the only public spaces within which we are comfortable seeing romance unfold. When its protagonists ran through the Louvre in an effort to set
a Guinness World Record, Jean-Luc Godard’s 1964 film Band à part (Band of Outsiders) became a reference for all future directors hoping to capture the confusion, drama and ecstasy of a young love triangle. While John Hughes’ 1986 release of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off took a far more comedic tone, it nonetheless cemented the Art Gallery of Chicago as a site of indulgence, bonding and beauty. Since then, movies including When Harry Met Sally (1989) and Midnight In Paris (2011) have shown us the myriad of ways life imitates art.
There is something to be said for the opportunity to look love right in the face, in broad daylight, surrounded by people but enchanted only by the one standing next to you. The heat, the rain, the noise — it all becomes a kind of pathetic fallacy colouring the scene you are directing. All that is left to do is frame it.
Undercover artists: The Incognito Art Show’s freeing anonymity
Michelle Agnelli looks at some art.
Amidst the exclusionary national art scene, the Incognito Art Show stands as a vibrant haven for artists and collectors.
With good reason, the show coins itself Australia’s most inclusive art show. Any artist can register to receive an ‘artist pack’ of three A5 cards on which to create their original artwork. These are then sold at an annual art fair — both online and in-person at a pop-up gallery in Paddington — on a first-come-first-served basis for the flat rate of $100. The catch: artists remain ‘incognito’. Collectors don’t know whose artwork they chose until after they buy it, removing the purchasing allure of status. For all aspiring artists, lovers of art, or simply curious cats, the art show is the perfect place to quench your thirst for creativity.
It’s hard to ignore the creative buzz around the Art Show. The show has grabbed headlines in SBS World News, The Sydney Morning Herald and ABC News, being widely praised for its innovative and inclusive approach to art sales. In an SBS feature, cofounder Dave Liston shared its explosive growth—from 1,800 artwork submissions in 2021 to nearly 18,000 in 2024.
The Incognito Art Show is a registered non-for-profit organisation committed to making art accessible to all. In 2024, the profits are being donated to organisations providing professional support to artists living with disability: We Are Studios, the first disability-led artist-run initiative for Western Sydney artists with disabilities, and Studio A, a Sydneybased organisation that facilitates the career development of artists with an intellectual disability.
Beyond their philanthropic purpose, the initiative dissolves barriers for emerging artists by providing professional pathways. Although open to international artists, the show receives 95% of submissions from Australian artists and should be credited with revitalising Sydney’s art scene.
The show attracts many young artists, offering a crucial platform to sell and showcase quality art that would otherwise likely remain unseen, or struggle to attract the same scale of audience. Once purchased, the show promotes the artists, tagging them on Instagram to help build their following and giving aspiring talents a chance to be discovered. Recognising the challenges of juggling life as both a struggling artist and student, the show has its sights set on young people. Co-founder David Liston shares that in 2021, the show’s debut year, they delivered artist packs to students at the National Art School. Since then, they have reached out to art school staff across the board, urging more students to get involved.
This year’s submissions include 23 Archibald, Wynne and Sulman Prize finalists, including the 2024 Archibald prize winner, Laura Jones. While the presence of renowned artists is undeniably magnetic, the true focus remains on the art itself. The Incognito Art Show encourages the ultimate democratisation of art; all works are regarded as equal, so buyers are encouraged to choose what they love rather than a name they want.
Engaging in visual art, whether that be creating, viewing, or owning, is a human necessity. The 2022 National Arts Participation Survey reveals that nearly all Australians, 97%, engage in the arts in some way. However, participation in visual arts is often limited to profit-driven institutions. For the vast majority of us, art galleries are sites for spectating and admiring art which, although meaningful, are framed by elitism and the inevitable and disproportionate exclusion of voices. And — needless to say — collecting is available to those of a certain age and class. It is largely limited by tight wallets and inconceivable prices, and is something we can aspire to only once disposable income is sufficient to spare. Even once collecting is within reach, it is alltoo-often filtered through the lens of financial investment and aspirations for inflated resale value, or as a status symbol, rather than for a personal aesthetic appreciation.
The Incognito Art Show provides a solution to these accessibility issues. Anyone who steps through the doors or visits the online sale can become a collector, experiencing art for its personal value and engaging in an aesthetic — rather than fiscal — experience. The show breaks through the elitism of the art scene by eliminating the need for gallery curators and corporate interests, freeing art from institutional constraints.
Does knowing whether an artwork was made by a child or a prize-winning artist change your perspective? The art show makes no such distinction, hanging each piece side by side without obvious curation, inviting viewers to explore freely. Registration is open to all — amateur, lapsed, emerging, or seasoned professionals. In this community, free from formal art criticism, creativity flourishes, evoking the childhood joy of creating fridge-worthy art.
The Incognito Art Show reminds us to be creative, because art matters.
An estimated 6,000 artworks were sold over the sale weekend on July 13 and 14. Although this date has passed, there are still 11,000 artworks available to be purchased online. Click here to view and purchase an Incognito Art piece, and here to be notified when registrations open for artists in 2025.
Photos provided by Incognito Art Show.
Art under the light of the sun
Adrian Naracita goes on a sculpture walk.
The art of Will Coles
Okay, I said it: real art should be out on the streets, not under the sanctified lights of a gallery. If only some people can see it, can you even call it art?
So when I first came across the Washing Machine near the Newtown police station, it instantly piqued my interest. Of course, it’s not actually a washing machine, but rather a concrete replica of one that’s so meticulously detailed to the point that you can’t really tell from afar. With the word “finite” etched on its side, among the rest of the graffiti tags sprawled all around it, the piece appears to sink into the earth, as if pretending to act out the very word that is written on it.
But that wasn’t the end of it. I soon noticed other concrete sculptures lying around the area: a telephone under the streetlights, a crushed can at the foot of a wall, an oil gallon beneath a different streetlight, each with their own ironic inscriptions. Once I began noticing casts like these in other suburbs (gloves near Erskineville oval with “forgotten” written on it, a Louis-Vuitton handbag saying “fake” in Paddington), I realised that they must be a serialised body of work by one artist.
Thus began my foray into the rabbit-hole that is Will Coles’ Concrete Street Art. I began to be on the lookout for these hidden trinkets every time I would venture out into the city, a kind of little treasure hunt to inject more colour into my university life.
What
are they? And where can I find them?
In many ways they are like sculptural graffiti, a way of challenging the city and marking — or should I say tagging — its walls.
Except instead of words or images, they are replicas of objects taken out of context; from everyday items like electronics, gloves, shoes, and bags, to more politically charged items such as balaclavas, guns with their barrels bent, and AK-47s, and even more abstract, poetic forms like skull plaques and dead birds.
Hidden throughout the streets in Sydney, in corners and alleyways, nooks and crannies, you can find these cast objects in the most unsuspecting places. A balaclava, for instance, lies on a transformer box across the Commonwealth Bank branch in the CBD. On Trafalgar street down Enmore road, the same balaclava rests on a wall covered with graffiti.
I could tell you all the places where you could find them, but where’s the fun in that?
Who made these things and left them there?
A travelling artist from Europe, Will Coles migrated to Sydney sometime in the 1990s, and continued to live here up until 2015, during which he left his casts around the streets in the dead of night.
He is a guerilla artist, leaving his unsolicited works to be found by anyone and everyone, not just those who spend their days roaming art galleries and public parks with state sponsored artwork.
But why? And why should I care?
A recurring theme in each of the casts seems to be ephemerality and irony. Besides the iconic Washing Machine one for instance, crushed cans have “eternity” written on them, and gloves and shoes are “forgotten”.
Taken out of their original contexts, these objects provoke passersby to question the values that we live by simply through their existence. Besides, wouldn’t you feel at least a little bit lucky to serendipitously come across one of them by chance? The joy of art is in discovery, and Coles doesn’t spoon feed us a prescribed message like a catalogue or statement in a gallery piece would.
RAG Zine Launch
Zeina Khochaiche sinks her teeth in.
Late on Thursday 25th, under the warm light of Sydney St in Marrickville, Honi walked into the side alley of Mothership studios to satiate their intellectual cravings at RAG’s zine and exhibition launch.
RAG is releasing their second edition, titled RIPE, following their successful maiden launch, ROUGH AS GUTS. Previously characterised by their frayed visuals and dare I say, grungey aesthetic, RAG’s second edition took on a bright, fruity and sensual palette.
Swimming in the froth of our gingerly caressed beers is the latest Inner West phenomenon, the ‘zine’. While zines are often released and showcased, RAG opted to accompany RIPE’s launch with an impressive display of portraiture, miniature sculptures, photography, moving image and graphic design. Notably, Alexander Wong’s sculpture installation titled ‘baby’, Nicholas Di Benedetto’s miniature sculptures titled ‘Lil Guys’ and Jacob Rendina’s video piece stationed at the front of the event were some of the diverse pieces on display.
RAG’s Founder and Director, Shea Donohoe in partnership with her coeditor Zoe Kemp and Designer Tamasin Stanton, told Honi that the theme took great inspiration from “poets like Wendy Cope and photographers like Elaine Constantine” to produce a zine that provides “everyone a bit of juicy, tender, unabashed warmth”.
The atmosphere of the event was friendly and curated. On entry, you are met with stalls selling the RIPE Zine and prints from exhibiting artists. Aptly situated next to the zine was a woven basket of lemons and mandarins, making for a personal and inviting touch. With zines selling for $10, anticipation for the publication’s quality was building amongst the crowd.
Familiar written contributors to the zine included Gus Mchue and his eclectic short stories along with Paris Huxley’s flagrant and striking prose amongst the mix of 14 other contributors.
Throughout the night groups of friends stood in different corners of the gallery, giggling and drinking to the Jazz stationed in the corner of the room performed by Dylfrogz, Cairn Peterson and Ruby Firmstone.
When asked what we can expect next from RAG, Donohoe revealed “we try to make each edition REALLY different from each other — each one a little pocket of a specific feeling. So I guess just expect something super different.”
Ultimately ticking all the criteria, the RAG event had the beverages and banter of another esoteric zine event entering the social ether.
Welcome to the real book dystopia
Valerie Chidiac and Aidan Elwig Pollock bookmark this chapter.
Prologue: The Email
“Dear Customer, Matthew Caddy, Damien Pasfield and I were appointed voluntary administrators (Administrators) of Booktopia on 3 July 2024. Booktopia’s records indicate you may be a creditor.”
If you received this email, congratulations, you are officially on Booktopia’s radar! But hold on, what’s this? Booktopia. Voluntary administration. Creditor.
You have officially come across the news that Booktopia hath collapsed.
What does this mean for the last order you submitted, whether that be a “pre-order” of a 21st century book on history recommended by a Guardian review or a “partially delivered order” of a 19th-century novel by Charlotte Brontë that is not Jane Eyre?
What was once a stalwart rocky island in a seething sea of Amazon advertising — because who wants to give Jeff Bezos their money — has sunk. It was the green place where one could fulfil University reading lists, purchase a bulk order that is efficiently shipped from Australia, and quickly source books not available at other retailers. So what happens next?
Well we weren’t the only ones with this question. Honi Soit endeavoured to get to the bottom of the parcel, and asked students how they felt about the situation. Most of the students we spoke to either had “no idea” what being a creditor meant, and “had to research” what they were entitled to. Only one student out of the six we
Chapter 1: Show me the money!
The book distributor that was a staple of the Australian literary industry is sitting in $60 million of debt and has entered “voluntary administration”.
Here’s the breakdown: people external to the Booktopia leadership have been assigned the role of administrators and are to manage all assets and undertakings. In other words, they are in control of the business.
They must strategise to maximise Booktopia’s existence, and represent the interests of all “creditors”, aka all the parties that are owed money. This includes customers who are considered “unsecured creditors” as they await for Booktopia to return what they may owe them.
Unfortunately, dear reader, this is not guaranteed. But the bottom line explained at the first creditors meeting: you had to register through a link sent to your email to confirm yourself as a creditor in Booktopia’s system and contact your financial institution (your bank) to pursue a refund.
As of now, no orders are being shipped by the administrators, and around 170 000 customers have unfulfilled orders or gift cards. The next move for the administrators is due for July 31: a completed preliminary investigation, and a report advising on the future of Booktopia.
Chapter 2: Guided Reading
Yet actually retrieving the money owed is no doubt an administrative burden. One student, Katniss Everdeen, said she wouldn’t follow up a refund as “it is only a book.” “I’m disappointed to write off the money because I do need it for other things,” she said, “but there are more important things going on in my life than chasing a company,
A general theme was frustration. Susan Pevensie said that she “might have to” secure a refund, as “this was my most expensive order from Booktopia.” “I was quite frustrated,” Susan said, as “I had to wait ages to receive it” before finding that the order wouldn’t be arriving at all.
But this frustration extended beyond simple disgruntlement at poor treatment at the hands of a corporate entity. Many of the students we interviewed expressed dismay at the failure of the company for broader reasons.
“I’ve always bought my books from Booktopia,” Susan said, as it was “easy to search and find when I’m looking for specific stuff.” She continued: “with a lot of in person retailers, especially regarding history, it’s hard to find variety in books and nuanced opinions. So online shopping for books has always been good.”
Lemuel Gulliver lamented Booktopia’s “good prices, great distribution, quick delivery and wide range,” whilst Katniss spoke to the challenges of sourcing books in regional areas without a resource like Booktopia: “Booktopia is a habit, and the range was larger than my regional town QBD [bookstore] could provide.”
For some students (including us), Booktopia represented a reliable alternative to Amazon — infamous for its dodgy employment practices and billionaire owner. “I’m so mad,” Flat Stanley said, “there’s so many books I need and Booktopia is the only place that stocks them other than Amazon.”
Chapter 3: Going Green
But there are alternatives, as raised by many students. Many identified independent bookstores as worthy of consumer support. “It might be worth now looking to local independent booksellers and second-hand stores,” Lemuel said. “Often they can source a book for you, even if they do not have it on hand, which I think a lot of people seem to forget.”
Katniss said she would “be glad to continue to buy Australian and support smaller businesses” by “pivoting and
finding a good independent bookstore that is cost effective with posting.”
Alternatives included Kinokinuya, Abbeys, Gleebooks, Harry Hartog, QBD and Dymocks.
Now why did Booktopia succumb to this fate all of a sudden? Atticus Finch argued that you need “a strong niche to survive in the book market”, explaining that Booktopia attempted to position itself in “too many lanes at once”.
“Booktopia is stuck in between Amazon and independent booksellers and I think that’s why it ultimately failed,” Atticus declared in his closing statement.
Kim Possible also pointed out that Book Fair Australia, scheduled for November, has terminated its partnership with Booktopia. Who will rise to take its place? Upon browsing their website, Better Read Than Dead has been listed as the sole bookseller partner, so it’s safe to say no matter the pressure from online giants, bookstores remain on top.
Katniss reminisced that as a 10year customer she cannot recollect how much she spent with Booktopia and that its absence “will change the landscape but our literary landscape is fairly diverse and quite strong” in that it will be able to adapt and move on.
Kobo, Booktopia’s eBook and audiobook partner, most certainly have. For those unable to access their library during this “time of change”, they have you covered:
“In case your Booktopia login does not work, please create a new account on kobo.com using the same email address you have used for your Booktopia login. This will ensure all your books are synced and transferred, and your full library will be available to you.”
Epilogue: Book Forever After?
If you have pressing enquiries and wish to address the bookkeepers, contact booktopiaenquiries@ mcgrathnicol.com. If not, we hope your orders are in book heaven, and pray that one day you will recoup the losses, page by page.
As for our final message to the Big B: goodbye old friend (2004-2024?), may our bookshelves be a testament to your existence.
Names of students have been altered to fictional characters.
SRC Elections
Notice of the 2024 Annual Elections for the Students’ Representative Council
All University of Sydney students enrolled in undergraduate degrees or diplomas, or as other non-degree students, are eligible to vote in or nominate for the Annual Elections.
Nominations are called for the following elections/positions:
Nominations will be accepted online from 9:00am July 23 2024 via the SRC nominations page: bit.ly/SRC-noms. The close of nominations shall be at 5:00pm August 16th 2024. For more information on how to nominate, please refer to the Candidate Information Pack available on the SRC website at: bit.ly/SRC-noms.
On-campus polling will be held on the 24th, 25th, and 26th, September 2024.
• Jane Foss Russell: Tues–Thurs 8:45am – 5:15pm
• Fisher Library: Wed & Thurs 8:45am – 5:15pm
• Manning House: Wed 10:45am – 3:15pm
• Conservatorium of Music: Wed 10:30am – 3:30pm
• Susan Wakil Health Building: Thurs 10:45am – 3:15pm
• Peter Nicol Russell Building: Thurs 10:45am – 3:15pm
Voters who are unable to vote in-person at the specified times above are able to request an online absentee vote via bit.ly/SRC-vote
The SRC Elections are conducted according to the SRC Constitution & Regulations, which are available here: bit.ly/SRC-regs. Appeals to the decisions of the EO can be directed to the ELA via srcela@src.usyd.edu.au
For further information, please contact the Electoral Officer via elections@src.usyd.edu.au.
SRC Reports
President’s Report
Harrison Brennan
Come to the Student General Meeting Wednesday the 7th at 4:30pm.
General Secretaries’ Report
Vice Presidents’ Report
Deaglan Godwin & Jasmine Donnelly
Welcome back to the campus. This week is the week of the STUDENT GENERAL MEETING! On Wednesday, you have the opportunity to cast your vote to demand that our university cut ties with Israel. We encourage you to attend, tell your friends and classmates about it, and let’s show our university the scale of student support for Palestine. Come along to EASTERN AVENUE AUDITORIUM @ 4:30pm THIS WEDNESDAY!
Did you know that ALL students are now prohibited from BBQing, stalling, handing out content, or even playing amplified music on campus now. Why? In a Machievellian turn of events, the University has introduced a new ‘Campus Access Policy’ (CAP) that bans all aforementioned activities, unless you get explicit permission. And if you do it anyway? Campus security have the right to shut you down and call the police.This is a massive attack on free speech and democratic rights, and we will be campaigning vigorously against it.
We have already had our first successes in this campaign! The Unauthorised Stalls Day last Wednesday involved so many students and clubs and societies, that university security felt unable to crack down on us. The next day, we joined the staff union, the NTEU, for a protest against the CAP. Other unions were also present, which was an important show of solidarity.
What can you do? Go to the societies you are active in and inform them of this issue– the SRC is circulating an open letter, which can be obtained on the SRC Instagram. If enough clubs and societies publicly stand against this policy, we can get it reversed.
Additionally, Unions Week will be happening on the 12th and 13th of August– expect arts, festivities and activities. UnionsNSW will be stalling on Eastern Avenue 10-2 both days.
Deaglan and Jasmine
Queer Officers’ Report
Esther Whitehead & Jamie Bridge
USYD Philosophy Department management have invited transphobic professor Holly Lawford-Smith to give a speech on our campus. Lawford-Smith has built her career on attacking trans people and sex workers; she spoke at Posie Parker’s transphobic rally early last year while neo-Nazis saluted on the steps of Victorian parliament, and has created a website to attack and misgender trans people, including at USYD.
In a statement to Honi, Philosophy Department Chair Kristie Miller called Lawford-Smith a “well respected political philosopher” who was invited on the basis of “academic freedom”. If Miller cared about academic freedom, she would’ve considered how inviting a transphobic bigot to our campus would threaten the academic freedom of queer students and staff to learn and teach in a safe and accepting environment.
Trans women using the bathroom isn’t a threat to women at USYD. The real issues facing women on this campus are sexual violence, discrimination against trans people and sex workers, cost of living pressures, and repression of free speech for feminist and proPalestine activists.
On August 14th at 3pm outside the Quadrangle, the USYD Queer Action Collective will be rallying to get this TERF off our turf with the following demands:
1. No student funding for bigotry - end transphobic seminars at USyd!
2. End the new Campus Access Policy - defend free speech on campus!
3. Abolish the colleges, end rape on campus!
4. Pass the Equality Bill - Self-ID and sex worker rights NOW!
Also, join us at the Student General Meeting on August 7th, 5pm at Eastern Avenue Auditorium to vote and stand in solidarity with Palestine! There is no place for the Israeli regime’s pinkwashing of genocide, which is why queer people must demand an end to genocide and all complicity in it.
P.S. Queer Honi is coming out next week! Big things coming VERY soon.
Disabilities Officers’ Report
Victor Zhang & Khanh Tran
The Federal government’s response to the Disabilities Royal Commission, where only 13 of the 172 recommendations were accepted in full and 117 were accepted in
principle, is an insult. We will have a deeper dive into the response to the Royal Commission over the coming days.
Come to the SGM on the 7th of August!
Ethnocultural Officers’ Report
Ravkaran Grewal & Sidra
Hope everyone is settling in for semester two. The Autonomous Collective Against Racism (ACAR) was busy over the holidays producing our zine Armed which is filled with antiimperialist theory and propaganda. If you’d like a copy swing by the SRC which is in the Wentworth building. Speaking of publications, pitches for ACAR Honi are now open! This is a BIPOC autonomous edition of Honi Soit that captures ACAR’s radical politics and BIPOC experience and this year we are celebrating 10 years of ACAR Honi. If you’d like to have your piece in ACAR Honi or help edit please submit your interest/ideas through the forms in our linktree: https://linktr.ee/ usydacar.
Sick and tired of your university having ties with weapons manufacturers and with Israel as it intensifies the genocide in Gaza? Come to the Student General Meeting (SGM) Wednesday 7th August at 5pm held at the Eastern Avenue Auditorium and vote to demand USyd cut ties with Thales and Israeli universities and to divest from Israeli institutions. If you support Palestine, join the ACAR contingent to the SGM and bring a friend!
Also happening on Wednesday is our Teach-in What can we learn from the Bangladesh Student Protests? At 1pm. For more details check out our Linktree.
We must continue to pressure the government to support a One State Solution, and stop arming Israel. Stop the bombing, stop the war on Lebanon, end the siege, end the genocide, end the starvation.
Free Palestine. Always Was Always Will Be.
Until Liberation, Rav & Sidra
Rose Donnelly & Daniel O’Shea
The General Secretaries did not submit a report this week.
The Sixth SenseDealing with Uni Deadlines
Tips for staying on track at uni Deadlines seem to creep out from the shadows; silent, stealthy, sleek. You may have seen them in the unit outline, or maybe a lecturer mentioned the double D – due date! Your mind is a powerful entity that locked that somewhere deep within, so that the closer it gets the more the alarms sound. Luckily, you can train your mind to avoid panic and instead be proactive in confronting looming deadlines.
The time to prepare for deadlines starts early on. You can:
Get an SRC year planner and highlight these important dates and add these dates to your phone calendar with a reminder 1 week ahead:
• Last day to add a unit – 9 August
• Census date - last day to withdraw (WD) – 2 September
• First assessments - check your unit outline and Canvas
• Date exam timetable released
– 7 October
• Last day to Discontinue Fail (DF) – 3 November
Tackle things in little bits.
For instance, you begin writing a paper 2 weeks ahead of due day, setting 20 min intervals for where you just type whatever comes to mind, without stopping to think too much or make corrections. Then a week before deadline, you start editing and refining your thoughts.
Know who you can reach out to –please know that informing your lecture about difficulties you’re having can help you. Feel free to contact a caseworker at
The time to prepare for deadlines starts early on in the semester. Plan out your due dates and other key dates in an online calander, time management module or SRC Wallplanner.
SRC Help if you’re not sure how to communicate what’s going on.
Use the learning hub’s time management module (Module 10) to map out your tasks.
Sometimes, it seems that deadlines invite other due dates: show good cause deadlines, academic honesty deadlines… submit further evidence deadlines! These can all be very confronting, but it might help to break the task into smaller bits.
For instance, respond to the person who’s set the date. Let them know if that date is feasible or if you need an extension. Explain any limits you might have or competing demands on your time. You can be honest about how busy you are. If your deadline arrives and you are not ready to act, then say so.
The university might offer you flexibility if they know what your issues are.
Finally, talk to a university academic advisor. They may be able to help you with managing your study load and give you some ideas on ways to improve the way your approach specific subjects and your degree.
Finally, if you are too stressed out and unwell to complete an assessment task, speak to your doctor or a counsellor to get a Professional Practitioner’s Certificate to be able to apply for special consideration
Ask Abe
SRC Caseworker Help Q&A Bursaries, Scholarships & Interest Free loans
Dear Abe,
I’m really struggling with the cost of living. I can’t work many hours a week as I’m studying full time. I have an unpaid placement next week and I don’t know how I’ll afford rent. Is there anything you can suggest?
JS
Dear JS,
Domestic students might be eligible for Centrelink benefits. The SRC website has information on Centrelink Payments for Students and a Living on Little Money article (linked below)
that you might find helpful. The University has bursaries, scholarships, and interest free loans that might help. Taking on too much could cause you to fail classes, so you may finish your degree quicker by reducing your study to part-time, or taking a break and coming back when you are ready.
If you would like to discuss these or other options, you can contact an SRC Caseworker through the online contact form (bit.ly/contact-a-caseworker), or by calling 9660 5222. Abe.
SRC Guide to Living on Little Money bit.ly/living-on-little-money
1. What popular fast food item derives its name from its weight?
2. Which dance style, popularised by Chubby Checker, involves twisting your feet “as if putting out a cigarette”?
3. What is thicker than water?
4. Who plays Edna Turnblad in Hairspray (2007)?
5. Uchigatana refers to which weapon?
6. In modelling, a photograph of a person’s face is referred to as what?
7. Which clothing material takes its name from the word “expands”?
8. What animal does Canis lupus refer to?
9. Which Simon and Garfunkel song features the refrain “lie-lalie”?
10. What connects all these answers?
Things that appear in Pulp Fiction
Crossword
DOWN
1. West African country that was the continent’s first modern republic
2. Wrap
3. Now-defunct retail chain whose logo features a backwards letter
4. Being rented out
6. Boom ___, hip-hop subgenre
7. Opening of some hymns
8. “It was ___!”
9. Digital asset of dubious value, in brief
13. Smallest in a measurment set, say, in brief
Dusting off the cobwebs
“You too could become an academic,” — Honi Soit, 1975, Issue 18
The Art-ification of Connections!
ACROSS
1. Oscar Isaac’s “Dune” character ___ Atreides
5. Privy to 6. Singer portrayed by Timothée Chalamet in an upcoming biopic film
10. Develop 11. With 12-Across, Art form that this puzzle’s grid is an example of 12. See 11-Across
14. What obsolete things fall into 15. Semicircular area behind a cathedral altar Gatekeeper — Huw
Crossword: Michael Smith.
Blood
John Travolta
Katana
Headshot
Spandex
Bradshaw
Always Balanced Coverage
