6pm-10pm Friday June 31st 2026
A dystopian pain echoes through our virtual world, machine-made and intent to control.
It’s seen in rage-bait videos, A.I. reels and porn, in deep fakes, trend jacking and filter bubbles. It’s felt in the doomscroll buzz that entraps exhausted minds, in a raw sense of disconnection, in rising mental isolation, extremism, polarisation, and a society fragmenting into angry pieces.
Insta feeds are optimised for engagement; film franchises are calibrated to audience testing; Spotify playlists are designed to maximise listening time (while syphoning funds to killer drones) – a bleak and predictable uniformity tuned to the flashpoint where generic taste, limited expectation and aggressive commercial demand converge.
Behind it all is an algorithm, built not to understand you, but to flatten you. To turn a living contradictory human into a predictable profile, a demographic, a consumer category and a political reaction waiting to be triggered…
A computation, an equation, a mathematical process designed to solve a problem, they exist in cascades, silent extraction engines powered by prediction, fear, convenience and synthetic noise, sorting, searching, determining, encrypting. Taking control.
The moment the system can fully predict you, it can replace you.
Featuring the work of some of Sydney’s most subversive artists, Overthrow the Algorithm explores the counter moves required to resist the psychological terrain of algorithmic control. It urges us to break the feedback loop, to work together, embrace the idea of unknowability, and fight for a new sense of freedom.
Pete Strong
Justin Maynard
H Morgan-Harris + Azelia Maybolt
Lu Campbell Smith
Alessandro Berini and Selina Springett
Alien Proof Construction
Rod Nash
Datascene
Alex Holver
Brian P
Luigi Rossi
Graham Power
Maylei Hunt
Margaret Mayhem
Roberto Cáceres
+ more to be announced
Sounds from:
Organarchy
Lahgo
Charlie McMahon and Gondwana
Food with…
Food Not Bombs
Save the date. On a post-it note, in a diary, or scrawled in a corner of your mind.
Together we are better.
10% art sales to Black Caucus
https://www.facebook.com/events/4003199756477956
Friday 31st July
6pm – 10pm
TORTUGA STUDIOS
31 Princes Hwy, St Peters
