Explore emerging tech, digital experimentation and all things library-futures.
SLV LAB is State Library Victoria's prototyping and innovation lab. We experiment with technology to open access to collections, data and spaces. In our Conversations series, we discuss emerging technology, digital experimentation and library futures with artists, technologists and workers in the cultural sector.
Publisher
State Library Victoria
Category
arts · education · news · science · society & culture · technology
The creative case for engaging with AI – Angela Stengel
For much of her career, Angela Stengel has worked where technology meets creativity. During her 17 years at the ABC, including as Head of Digital Content and Innovation, she helped teams experiment with new platforms, formats and ways of connecting with audiences. Today, she advises organisations across media, arts, culture and government on AI, strategy and innovation.
In this wide-ranging conversation, Stengel reflects on the promises and pitfalls of emerging technology, from the early optimism of the web to the current wave of AI development. She discusses why innovation teams matter, how organisations can navigate uncertainty, and why storytelling remains one of the most important human skills regardless of how technology changes. The episode offers a practical and optimistic perspective on how cultural organisations can engage with AI while remaining grounded in their mission, values, and communities.
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
7 Aug 2026
Our sexual desires built the internet – Mindy Seu
We spoke with 'the internet's sexual historian' about the surprisingly horny origins of our digital tools, as well as her upcoming communal performance lecture at State Library Victoria.
Our digital tools are steeped in pleasure. From mobile phones flooding our senses with stimuli to the yonic nature of the computer mouse (with its clitoral scrolling wheel), to the rise of 'Big Porn', the industry of arousal has played a key part in the development of tools and interfaces through which we access the internet.
Who better than "the internet's sexual historian" Mindy Seu to explain how this all came about and explore where it's going?
The LA-based artist, technologist and professor joined us ahead of her August performance lecture of The Sexual History of the Internet at State Library Victoria for Now or Never. In conversation with Ana Tiquia, Mindy discussed how internet history can be retold through human sexuality and the collective act of gathering histories and stories without resorting to extraction. Here, phones become performance tools, libraries are cathedrals of polyvocality, and the future of a liberated internet may depend on many small acts of change.
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
30 Jun 2026
Creative technology beyond AI hype – Kathryn Gledhill-Tucker
What happens when we slow down, make things ourselves and ask who our tools are really built to serve?
Nyungar artist and technologist Kathryn Gledhill-Tucker joined SLV LAB in June 2026 to discuss why the future of technology should not be treated as inevitable, particularly amid pressure to embed AI into every system and workflow. In conversation with Ana Tiquia, Kathryn reflects on leaving parts of the tech sector behind to focus on creative practice, speculative fiction, game making, First Peoples knowledges, repair culture and community-owned tools. The episode considers how cultural institutions might approach digital futures with greater care, agency and responsibility.
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
10 Jun 2026
A new era for orphan works in Australia – Elliott Bledsoe [lecture recording]
In this Creative Technologist Talk, Elliott Bledsoe (https://lab.slv.vic.gov.au/team/elliott-bledsoe) explored Australia’s new orphan works copyright scheme (https://elliottbledsoe.wtf/a-new-orphan-works-scheme-is-coming-to-australia/) and what it might mean for cultural organisations and their publics. Alongside its timely discussion of the new legislation, Elliott's talk provides a helpful introduction to copyright and orphan works more broadly, opening up a wider conversation about access, reuse and public benefit in GLAM.
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
20 May 2026
The social life of mixed reality – Yoyo Munk
How can mixed reality technologies create emergent social experiences? Scientist-artist Yoyo Munk (US) joined SLV's Paula Bray and CEO Paul Duldig to discuss blending virtual geometries with shared physical space in their recent KAGAMI and Medusa projects. Yoyo asks how technological imperfections can evoke meaning, and explains their journey from scientist to artist by finding the signal in the noise. Together, they wonder how mixed reality might interact with library collections, and the potential for digital visualisations to not only reveal the dynamic evolution of knowledge archives, but to shape future collecting practices.
This conversation was recorded in March 2025, a few months before Yoyo joined SLV LAB as its first Creative Technologist‑in‑Residence. His resulting project, In Memory | Of Being (https://lab.slv.vic.gov.au/articles/yoyo-munk-cultural-amnesia), was a mixed reality installation built from the Library’s digitised holdings: thousands of unidentified portraits, fragile glass‑plate negatives, vintage stereographs and oral history recordings.
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
4 May 2026
Building better AI speech tech with global voices – Kathy Reid
Voice assistants and auto-captions are everywhere now, but they can quickly fall apart when someone speaks with an accent the system wasn’t trained to recognise, or in a language it rarely “hears”.
In this episode of the SLV LAB Conversations podcast, we were joined by technologist, linguist and researcher Kathy Reid who unpacked why that happens and what can be done about it. She introduces Mozilla Common Voice, a community-led project that collects speech in hundreds of languages and dialects. Kathy also talks through the Mozilla Data Collective and what it could mean for libraries and other cultural institutions facing constant scraping of online collections.
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
20 Apr 2026
Mapping Planetary AI – Kate Crawford [lecture recording]
As Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems pull data from across the internet, library databases and our online presence, it generates a significant change in our relationship with knowledge. But what do we really know about this pervasive technology? Do our societies have robust guardrails in place to protect people and democracies, and have we reckoned with AI’s environmental impact?
Join award-winning Professor Kate Crawford, one of the world’s foremost scholars on the social and political implications of AI, as she explores how AI is reshaping our societies, ecosystems and power structures with host Natasha Mitchell in State Library Victoria's 2024 For Future Reference lecture.
Professor Kate Crawford is a leading international scholar of artificial intelligence. She is a Professor at USC Annenberg, a Senior Principal Researcher at MSR New York, and was the inaugural Visiting Chair for AI and Justice at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.
Her book Atlas of AI won multiple awards and was named one of the best books of 2021 by New Scientist and The Financial Times. Her project Anatomy of an AI System with Vladan Joler won the Design of the Year Award in 2019 and is on show at MoMA from 2022-2024.
Their latest work, Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power, won the Grand Prize of the European Commission for art and technology. She was named on the TIME100 list as one of the most influential people in AI.
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
16 Apr 2026
Mozilla Common Voice – Kathy Reid [lecture recording]
On 18 March 2026, Kathy Reid delivered a lecture at State Library Victoria exploring Mozilla Common Voice, language bias in speech tech and Mozilla Data Collective’s approach to ethical data stewardship for Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums.
Kathy Reid works at the intersection of open source, emerging technologies and technical communities. She has held several technical leadership positions, including roles in web and apps development, video conferencing and digital signage. She was previously Digital Platforms Manager at Deakin University, Director of Developer Relations at Mycroft.AI, President of Linux Australia, and a voice open source specialist at Mozilla. In 2019, she was one of 16 people from across the world to be chosen to help shape a new branch of engineering at the Australian National University's 3A Institute, where she is now a PhD candidate researching voice data and ways to prevent and respond to bias.
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
11 Mar 2026
How AI can help libraries – Ines Vodopivec [lecture recording]
AI tools are rapidly changing how we use libraries. Digital heritage leader Ines Vodopivec explains how we can stay ahead of the game, using case studies from Europe and the US.
18 Feb 2026
Three decades of hacking and history – Tim Sherratt
From the dial‑up days of 1993 to today’s data‑rich cultural landscape, historian and technologist Tim Sherratt has been rewiring how we see public collections. In this SLV Lab Conversation with State Library Victoria's Chief Digital Officer Paula Bray, Tim retraces a 30-year career so far shaped by dashboards and digitisation, political interventions and playful data experiments – a body of generous, open practice that treats interfaces, notebooks and APIs as scholarship in their own right. Along the way, he champions sector collaboration and the courage to experiment, and sharing his code and thought process so others can build on them.
15 Jan 2026
Mapping colonial bushfires through historical newspapers – Fiannuala Morgan
We caught up with Dr Fiannuala (Finn) Morgan to talk about her fascinating project, Historic Fires Near Me – an experimental visualisation of nineteenth century bushfire reporting which forms part of her ongoing research reconstructing Australian bushfire records from 1850 to 1900. The idea was sparked by the devastation of the Black Summer bushfires in 2019–20 and the troubling media narratives that downplay the growing severity of bushfires in Australia. Finn wanted to dig deeper into the historical record to see what the past could tell us.
28 Oct 2025
Creating a more accessible online world – Scott Hollier
There's a common misconception that assistive technologies only benefit a few – namely those with special access needs. However, innovations like voice assistants, text-to-speech and captions are things most of us use everyday, and at some point in our lives we or someone we know will rely on assistive technologies. The conversation looks at emerging guidelines, the pros and cons of AI-driven accessible tech and the vital role libraries play in protecting information integrity while opening access to more people.
20 Aug 2025
Rethinking Ethics in the Age of AI – Vanessa Bartlett & Jasmin Pfefferkorn
Galleries. Libraries. Archives. Museums. Every day, artists and cultural workers face tough ethical calls on AI. Could artists show us a new way forward? In the following podcast recording with Vanessa and Jasmin, we discuss how the GLAM sector – galleries, libraries, archives and museums – navigates these ethical choices, and how artists and arts workers can help us imagine new ways forward.
3 Jun 2025
Living through the creation story of AI – Amelia Winger-Bearskin
Artist and technologist Amelia Winger-Bearskin explains the definition-redefining role of the artist in Indigenous communities, and shares how storytelling can help us move from isolated paralysis to proud collective action in response to the global water crisis, as seen in her 2022 project Talk to Me About Water. Amelia introduces the concept of positive human thriving as a central focus when considering where and how to incorporate advanced technologies into our lives, and reflects on living through the creation story of AI.
This conversation is presented by State Library Victoria in partnership with Frame Documentary and the Consulate General of the United States – Melbourne.
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
30 Apr 2025
Why do libraries need innovation labs? – Paula Bray
What does an innovation "lab" look like inside a library – and why do other cultural institutions like galleries, archives and museums need them now?
On 1 May 2025, on the cusp of launching SLV LAB at State Library Victoria, Ana Tiquia (Head of Innovation and Research, State Library Victoria) and Paula Bray (Chief Digital Officer, State Library Victoria) unpacked how labs help galleries, libraries, archives and museums keep pace with fast-moving technologies, by creating space for curiosity, experimentation and shared learning.
Paula reflects on lessons from early digital work at the Powerhouse Museum (https://powerhouse.com.au/) and six years leading the State Library of NSW’s DX Lab (https://dxlab.sl.nsw.gov.au/) – where inviting technologists and artists in, documenting experiments, and publishing openly helped ideas travel beyond one organisation.
See omnystudio.com/listener (https://omnystudio.com/listener) for privacy information.
Contact SLV LAB Conversations
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Host of SLV LAB Conversations?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
