Ngapulara Ngarngarnyi Wirra (Our Family Tree)
Adam Goodes, Angie Abdilla, Baden Pailthorpe
What is the connection between our data and kinship?
During every AFL Adam Goodes played, his movements were tracked by a global satellite network. His phenomenal spatial awareness and ability to predict patterns comes from his deep connection to Country. Ngapulara Ngarngarnyi Wirra is a cultural dive into the significance of Goodes’ dataset expressed through the Adnyamathanha kinship system.
The Ararru (North Wind) and Mathari (South Wind) you hear in this exhibition space were recorded on Adnyamathanha Yarta as they swirled around the Wirra (tree).
Inside the Wirra, Adnyamathanha Elder Uncle Terrence Coulthard tells the Adnyamathanha Muda (stories) of Ikara (Wilpena Pound) in the Adnyamathanha Yura Ngwarla (language).
Through machine learning, key Adnyamathanha Muda are translated into the sound of the Ararru and Mathari winds via the algorithm. This materialises the connection between Country and Kinship systems through an embodied experience enabled by the cultural initiation of machine learning.
Adam Goodes
An Andyamathanha and Narungga man born in Wallaroo, Adam Goodes made his senior AFL debut in 1999, and won the AFL Rising Star Award that year. Adam has achieved everything to which an AFL footballer can aspire. He is the games record holder with the Sydney Swans, has twice tasted Grand Final victory, has twice been the recipient of Australian Football’s highest individual honour, the Brownlow Medal, has been named his club’s Best and Fairest player three times, has earned All-Australian honours four times, has captained Australia against Ireland in International Rules football and is a member of the AFL’s Indigenous Team of the Century. In recognition of his community involvement and his firm yet compassionate campaign against racism, Adam was named Australian of the Year in 2014.
Angie Abdilla is a palawa~trawlwoolway woman. She is a Professor of Practice at UNSW within the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, and is the founder and CEO of Old Ways, New. As a consultant she works as a strategic designer, facilitating Country Centered Design, a methodology based on systems thinking and Indigenous design principles which brings a cultural lens to resolving complex problem states. As a creative technologist and published researcher, she works with Indigenous knowledges and systems in the design of places and experiences with deep technologies. Angie is a member of the Global Futures Council on AI for Humanity as part of the World Economic Forum, co-founded the Indigenous Protocols and AI working group (IP//AI), and a winner of the Women in AI Awards, 2022.
Baden Pailthorpe is a contemporary artist who works with emerging and experimental technologies. He is a Senior Lecturer at the Australian National University School of Art & Design, Canberra. His artistic practice examines the relationship between aesthetics and power, interrogating the politics of technological and economic structures across Sport, Finance and the Military-Industrial Complex. Since 2011, Baden’s practice has integrated performance and installation alongside screen-based interventions. Examples include: a commissioned performance at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2014); video work depicting a hacked military simulator at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012); documentation of a video game performance exhibited at the Triennale di Milano, Milan (2016); a ‘start-up as artwork’ at Sullivan+Strumpf (2017); and an experimental data visualisation of AFL player GPS data at UTS Art, Sydney (2017).
Originally commissioned by MOD, UniSA, with ongoing support from the Australian National University.