Creative Australia’s political pandeing has the arts up in arms, Musk led a takeover bid of OpenAI, a copyight and AI case has received a verdict which may challenge cost savings in AI training and more.
It’s a shorter reading round-up this week as I was in Naarm Melbourne for the Future of Arts, Culture & Technology Symposium (FACT 2025) at ACMI for most of the week. Plus, there were three big stories this week that I am focusing on.
The Australian arts sector are totally asking WTF now?! after Creative Australia backflipped on its announcement of Khaled Sabsabi’s representation of Australia at the Venice Biennale 2026. Also, Elon Musk continues his crusade against Wikipedia and has made a bid to takeover OpenAI. And a verdict in an early copyright and AI case could undermine recent cost savings in AI training.
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What's going on?
Here’s WTF happened this week:
Artist Khaled Sabsabi dropped as Australia’s Venice Biennale 2026 artist nine days after being announced
Creative Australia drops Khaled Sabsabi as Australia’s representation at the Venice Biennale 2026. It’s reasoning paradoxically could be its own undoing.
Creative Australia shocked the arts sector on Thursday when it announced that its Board had unanimously decided to drop Lebanese Australian award-winning multidisciplinary artist Khaled Sabsabi and curator Michael Dagostino as the artistic team to represent Australia at the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. Here it is in full:
