The room erupted into applause.With a poker face, she started her set."I'm Alex Shi Off stage, my real name is none of your business."She adjusted her microphone."In a few days it'll be… what?"The audience shouted answers."Yeah… the anniversary of my break-up

When Chenturan Aran's debut Cut Chilli premiered in 2024, one critic suggested it might be "the best new Australian play to arrive on Sydney stages" that year."It got five stars in the Herald, which was really great," Aran says "I always attribute it to luck, really, and then it sold out."A slew of award nominations soon followed at the 2025 NSW Literary Awards, including the prize for playwriting, writers from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, and debut writers.The judges described the play as "bold and blistering", praising its believable characters, realistic script, and witty and clever dialogue.While it missed out on an award, Cut Chilli signalled the arrival of an exciting new voice in Australian theatre.This month, the play made its Melbourne debut, selling out its season as part of Darebin Arts Speakeasy.In Cut Chilli, down-to-earth but quick-witted Jamie, Sri Lankan-born but adopted by white parents as a baby, returns home to Perth, accompanied by his podcaster girlfriend Zahra, who is determined to help "decolonise" her boyfriend.The acerbic, intergenerational drama plays out mostly at the dinner table, where Jamie and Zahra comically butt heads with Jamie's parents Katherine and Lee and his uncle Jeff.The Melbourne premiere followed a season of Aran's latest play, The Supposed to Be, at Melbourne arts festival Rising in May, while the Sydney premiere of his collaboration Comet Boombox is set for November, after it debuted at Melbourne Fringe in 20

Emily Rose Hastie's journey into the fire-based art form of pyrography started with a cheese board.A high school teacher from the Gold Coast, Hastie had recently rekindled her childhood love of drawing through a local art collective, focusing on charcoal and toned paper.Then her mum asked if she could draw a mouse on a new wooden cheese platter she'd bought But drawing or painting the design would mean the board couldn't be washed."I originally used a laser printer at the school to just trial the design, and it was really not that satisfying," says Hastie."For me as an artist I was like, 'I can do better'."So she visited a hardware store, bought a $30 soldering kit, and gave it a shot."It was like I got the soldering iron and this whole world emerged," she says.Now, Hastie is an established pyrography artist who co-founded her own art studio

Facebook's parent company Meta says one of its AI models hacked another company during cybersecurity testing, fanning concerns about how developers can contain increasingly capable AI systems after similar incidents at rivals Anthropic and OpenAI.The incidents at Meta and Anthropic stemmed from configuration errors that inadvertently gave their AI models access to the open internet.In OpenAI's case, an AI agent independently exploited a previously unknown vulnerability to reach the internet during cybersecurity testing.The breaches highlight growing concerns that advanced AI systems could pose new cybersecurity risks, and will likely intensify US government efforts to improve AI safety as companies race to develop more capable models.Some prominent AI leaders have argued that development should slow until stronger safeguards are in place.Meta said it was investigating an incident in which a misconfiguration by Irregular, an independent company that conducts cybersecurity evaluations, inadvertently gave one of its models internet access during a testing.The model "exploited a security vulnerability in a third-party service, in a manner similar to previously reported instances with other companies", Meta said in a statement.The Information, citing sources, reported that the model involved was Meta's Muse Spark 1.1, which the company has touted as its most capable model for real-world coding and agentic tasks.The report said the model breached an unidentified company's systems a

Australia's world-leading social media ban for young people will be beefed up under new laws proposed by the federal government.Since December, popular social media platforms including TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and Snapchat have been legally required to take reasonable steps to prevent under-16s from signing up or keeping an account.But Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he believed big tech companies were not "doing enough to comply with the law"."There are still too many children on social media," Mr Albanese said in a statement on Saturday evening.Under the planned changes, maximum penalties for companies that fail to prevent under-16s from accessing their platforms will double from $49.5 million to $99 million.The eSafety Commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, will receive strengthened powers to force companies to provide evidence of what they have done to stop young people from getting an account on their platforms.Third parties, including those providing age verification technology to platforms, will also be compelled to provide information to Ms Inman Grant."These changes reflect the seriousness with which we take any failure by social media companies to comply with our world-leading law," Mr Albanese said.Ms Inman Grant recently expressed frustration in the Sydney Morning Herald, and said that the current social media age restriction legislation did not provide her with "potent powers"."What I would say is a regulator is only as good as the tools and the resources that t

When Chidi Nwaubani started dreaming up a new art project during downtime in COVID-19 lockdowns, his first step was to consult a lawyer."I was like, 'Wait, is this actually legal? Can someone do this?'" explains the Nigerian British artist and designer.Nwaubani wanted to know if he could create a digital form of the Rosetta Stone, which is now housed in the British Museum after being taken from Egypt in 1799 by Napoleon's troops But it specifies in their terms and conditions that you are permitted to take 3D scans.And that helped guide Nwaubani's plans."It's funny, it was a legal investigation that led to the actual final concept."Under the collective name Looty, Nwaubani and fellow artist Ahmed Abokor entered the British Museum and took a LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) scan of the stone on an iPad Pro.They used some 3D tools to clean it up, and then they had a digital canvas of the Rosetta Stone.Soon after, they flew to Egypt and used geo-located augmented reality — similar to the tech behind Pokémon Go — to put it back

Scammers are using fake articles to convince Australians to put money into fraudulent investment platforms.Some victims have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to the industrial-scale operation, which spends big on Facebook ads to reach potential targets.Here is how the scam works, as well as some clues about who is behind it.The scam starts with an ad on Facebook.It paints a picture of a dramatic "on-air revelation", using an AI-generated image of Australian celebrities facing off.There are dozens of ads just like this one, often involving senior ABC reporters and popular politicians.Clicking on one will take you to the centrepiece of the scam: an almost perfect clone of the ABC News website.All the trimmings of the website are pixel-perfect, all the way down to the iview and Listen tabs.Each variation on the fake story will describe a scene where a public figure is caught hiding a "secret approach" to investing.They use AI-generated photos, often made to look like they're taken from behind the scenes on a TV set.In one of them, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor has his personal bank details displayed by hackers while appearing on Insiders.In another, he is confronted by Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie for talking down to everyday people.The articles all use the kind of punchy language that is characteristic of generative AI."Lambie's fist hit the desk so hard the water glasses shook," one article says.The short sentences and dramatic scenes all come with a peppering of genu

A Chinese rocket has lit up the skies across Queensland and northern New South Wales overnight, as it passed over north-eastern Australia.University of Southern Queensland astrophysicist Jonti Horner said the Zhuque-2E rocket was launched about 6:20pm from a Chinese satellite launch centre and was visible over Queensland about 20 minutes later last night."We got a spectacular light show," Professor Horner said.Professor Horner said the rocket's height meant it was lit by the sun, even though night had fallen on the ground."The rocket was above the atmosphere, and it did what I've seen described by some people as passivation," he said."It's essentially the rocket letting out its excess gases, putting them off into space, I think, before it deploys those satellites."If it had been in the shadow of the earth and there was no sunlight to reflect, we wouldn't have seen anything."But because it was high enough above the earth that it could still see the sun … the glowing cloud of gas was glowing because of reflected sunlight."He said some skywatchers had described a silvery or blue-tinted ball of gas that gradually turned red and disappeared."That looked creepy to people," Professor Horner said."But what was actually happening was that this plume of gas and the rocket at its head were just moving into the Earth's shadow."When you're at sunset, and you look up at the clouds, or you look at the Earth around you, things go red."Just the same with this."He said the 6-tonne payload ca

When Sarah Tattam was planning her son's 10th birthday, she was nervous about how it would go."We were on the drive to school and talking about a birthday party," she said."[Nate] was sitting there in the back seat and said no-one would come."Nate Tattam lives with his mother, sisters Angelina and Jordan, and their grandmother in Cootamundra in southern New South Wales.He also lives with ADHD, autism, some intellectual disabilities and a speech and language delay, which have made it difficult for him to make friends."He might play a certain game of cricket with kids at school [and] he sees it as, 'Because I play with them, they're my friends,'" Ms Tattam said."But in an actual social setting, you take school away and that's not how it works in the real world."Ms Tattam posted to a Facebook page to ask the community to help make her boy's birthday special."He loves anything that's got a motor and wheels He's been obsessed since he was little," she said."I just put up a post just asking if anybody's got a truck, a motorbike, if people could just drive past, spare a minute and beep their horn, wish him a happy birthday."Soon, Ms Tattam was fielding phone calls from community organisations, including the captain of the local fire brigade."We ended up with three fire trucks, two ambulances and a police car here on Saturday afternoon for him," she said."They came around the corner with lights and sirens for him, he got to play in the trucks and with the hoses and go in the back of

The next generation of female woodworkers are giving waste products like bike tyres and timber offcuts a new life.The rise of the small design studio is where they are thriving as they explore circular-economy ideals and sustainable practices while driving a new narrative in design that's emotive, thoughtful and cutting-edge.Their work is being showcased at this year's Melbourne Design Week, which brings together Australian makers who create furniture, lighting and homewares.ABC Arts looks at four artists carving out a name for themselves in a traditionally male space.Isabel Avendaño-Hazbún has designed a new upholstery material made from discarded rubber bicycle tyres — sourced from local bike shops — which would have ended up in landfill. The multidisciplinary artist, who creates furniture in her Melbourne studio, has used the materials to build on her chair design The Chair (2022). These buoyant timber chairs are threaded and handwoven with tyre rope in an artistic move that is inspired by nautical knots and breathes new life into her practice. She says it is a way to think about a circular economy that prevents waste, and rewires how we consider upholstery. "I like to use timbers that are readily available, as opposed to rare timbers," says Avendaño-Hazbún, who primarily works with Tasmanian oak and Victorian ash."There's a demand for the handmade, and through the pieces I create, people understand why the craft is so precious."The skills and the labour of lov

Viral memes taking aim at the budget's proposed capital gains tax (CGT) reforms have flooded social media feeds, despite the claims made by businesses in the posts oversimplifying the debate.One tax expert has branded the campaign "rubbish" and "misleading".The posts feature AI-generated images of business owners posing with the prime minister, or of Anthony Albanese himself doing everything from cooking pizzas to laying concrete to working at a check-out.The meme format involves business owners welcoming Mr Albanese as a "47 per cent silent partner". One retailer's post says the prime minister "has never done a stocktake and somehow still gets 47 per cent of the business and takes zero risk."Startup founder Frank Greeff, who helped propel the social posts that have spread from the tech startup sector to small businesses, has admitted it prioritised attention over accuracy.Mr Greeff, who sold his real estate marketing company RealBase for $180 million in 2022, made multiple posts, including one that said: "Every Australian founder just got [a] new founder with 47 per cent equity."The photo included an AI image of Anthony Albanese, insinuating the government would be taxing every business owner at the highest marginal tax rate, plus the Medicare levy, as part of a sweep of reforms in last week's federal budget.In fact, the changes to CGT will mean that from July 1, 2027, Australia's 50 per cent CGT concession will be scrapped and capital gains will be taxed at a minimum of 30

Melbourne fashion designer Klaudia Burzynska has given up on trying to get her designs taken down from Shein. Since she launched her business, Things You Really Like, on Etsy in 2020, Ms Burzynska said she has found so many duplications of her designs — and even lifted marketing materials — on Shein she has lost count."The first time I saw them was when I was going through Pinterest and I got an ad from Shein of my own photos and my own T-shirts," she said. "That was a bit of a surprise for me."That's when I went looking in there … and then it was never-ending, I could just keep looking and finding them."The Chinese fast-fashion retailer provides a portal for people to make an intellectual property (IP) infringement claim against Shein itself and its vendors. The portal requires the claimant to provide details on when and where the infringed item was first published and providing images of the work. It's a process Ms Burzynska found tedious; it took hours to make claims for multiple items — time she does not have as a sole trader. She said she was concerned the duplication could lead people to think she was copying Shein or dropshipping — a business model where sellers purchase from third parties after receiving orders and do not keep stock on hand."I think it's damaging my reputation as a brand because if there are people that were considering purchasing my products, they would start doubting the authenticity," she said. Shein is among multiple businesses emb

You decide who to abduct.You decide when to feed them.You decide how they rip people off to make you money to pay off a debt.These are key elements of Scam Center Simulator: Under Kingdom (SCS), a computer game made by a man with Australian connections.It's one of a number of games featuring scam compound scenarios on Steam, the world's biggest PC game distributor.The ABC approached scam centre victims to get their perspective on the game.Gavesh, who was unwittingly trafficked to a compound in Myanmar on the promise of a data entry job, was horrified."This is not a game, this is our life," he told the ABC, on the condition his real name was not shared."They don't know the trauma that we went through, the mental distress that we had to go through I was really disgusted."Gavesh was forced to work in one of South-East Asia's most notorious scam hubs, KK Park, near the Myanmar-Thailand border.For 16 hours a day, he was forced to run "pig butchering" scams, which involved building fake online profiles using real peoples' photos and videos. The profiles were used to foster relationships with people online, with the ultimate goal of getting them to invest in sham schemes using cryptocurrency.A blurb for SCS on the Steam website says players of the "darkly humorous" game can "use a variety of scam tactics to generate profit, from theft, phishing emails, and manipulating dating apps" to get themselves out of debt.In the real world, scam compounds are run by organised criminal syndic

With his friends who shared a love of the sport, he started the Corio Skateboard Club.Club members kept a close eye on the parks that were being built in the US by reading skateboarding magazines.They yearned for the facilities that young people in America had So they decided to take action.Members of the club would set up a table at the nearby Corio Village and ask locals to sign their petition for a new skate park

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Fiction is a hallowed institution where we imagine ourselves as people that we are not … If you really want to follow that line of don't tell any story that's not your own, then you might as well cancel all fiction and only have autobiography."Punk and rock music has a long history with gender fluidity, "and Hedwig is just one little gemstone on that necklace".The most influential jewel? David Bowie, a lifelong idol of Mitchell's and an early champion who helped finance a Los Angeles production of Hedwig out of his own pocket."But it also implies a certain authority … In other words, he gets to decide And it sounds like it already has a pivotal scene.In 1991, Staley had a giant condom placed over the home of senator Jesse Helms in protest of his vehement opposition to funding AIDS research and safe sex practises."This horrible, homophobic senator couldn't get out of this big, inflatable condom," Mitchell gushes.From Hedwig to prophylactic protest, Mitchell is a life-long creator whose work is always interested in interrogating otherness."I want things to be not topical, but useful to the moment."John Cameron Mitchell Presents: Hedwig and the Angry Inch 25th anniversary screens at MIFF on Friday 21 AugustMitchell then appears at Sydney's Festival of Dangerous Ideas on Sunday 23 August.I'm Afraid Of Americans: A Bowie Song Cycle plays on Sunday 6 September at Sydney's Enmore Theatre and Wednesday 9 September at Melbourne Recital Centre

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Make it a love story.' I love the idea of Penny being the most progressive and gay and not giving a f**k about it."In a movie full of shredded faces, punctured arms and general bloody viscera, Russell says there is one scene that is proving hard to watch for preview audiences.Early on, under Kat's encouragement, Angus sexually assaults an intoxicated Penny That was the culture.After spending so long in the grubbiest parts of Australia's horror scene, Russell is delighted to see Penny Lane is Dead hit the silver screen alongside the women she came up with."It's literally a dream come true

When Chidi Nwaubani started dreaming up a new art project during downtime in COVID-19 lockdowns, his first step was to consult a lawyer."I was like, 'Wait, is this actually legal? Can someone do this?'" explains the Nigerian British artist and designer.Nwaubani wanted to know if he could create a digital form of the Rosetta Stone, which is now housed in the British Museum after being taken from Egypt in 1799 by Napoleon's troops Anybody who visits can now use their phone to see the digital recreation in the exact place the Rosetta Stone originally stood.But this story isn't just about the stone for Nwaubani.It's about changing the way we think about our history and how it's shared

AI is changing the way fashion designers create; from tidying up administrative back-end systems, to fast-tracking trend forecasting and helping generate ideas for collections.However, not everyone in the fashion industry is convinced it's the way forward.Croatian-born and now Melbourne-based designer Karla Špetić experimented with AI for her latest collection, which she showcased at Melbourne Fashion Festival.She says she has mixed feelings about the technology."I have all kinds of emotions towards AI like most people do," says Špetić, who is known for her romantic silhouettes with a whimsical undertone."Using AI as a tool rather than a replacement in the fashion industry can be really powerful The technology can then create an entire footwear range."It's a huge enabler for designers, as long as it's used in the right way," he says."I just presented my first collection using the tool to my team, and normally we'd share outlines of sketches, but with AI I was able to present full photos of new footwear complete with realistic imagery and it was incredible."Lebon says fear culture around AI is still very prevalent."It's a fear that workers won't be needed, and that AI will replace them," he says."As a business owner, I'm looking at it as a tool that can streamline processes, sell my ideas efficiently and also reduce costs."I've now told my assistant designer that no shoe can go to sampling until it's been seen AI