Dark Mofo: 2026 festival to show Willem Dafoe film that can only be watched by one person at a time
A hallucinatory experimental film starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Rampling that can only be watched by one person at a time is heading to Australia as part of Tasmania’s 2026 Dark Mofo festival.It’s estimated that only 500 people in the world have seen French artist Loris Gréaud’s film Sculpt since its premiere at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2016 – although the exact figure is hard to know, since he later gave the files to hackers to distribute over the dark web.But come June, a lucky few can bid to join the film’s rarefied audience, when Gréaud presents a new edit – bemusingly titled Sculpt: Eye of the Duck – to one audience member at a time at a secret location outside of Hobart.It exemplifies the kind of weird and wonderful, rare and had-to-be-there experience that Dark Mofo has become known for.On the morning of each performance, hopeful viewers will be able to queue at a box office in downtown Hobart for one of nine timed, solo-viewing slots that day.
Each viewer will be picked up and driven to an undisclosed location – a remote, “disused facility” outside of Hobart – where they can watch the 50-minute film.Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morningThere will be 90 viewing slots overall for Sculpt: Eye of the Duck.Those who miss out can wait on a bench each morning in case anyone fails to show up for their time slot.“In a world where screens are everywhere and everything’s infinitely accessible, there’s something to be said about a screen-based work that is almost impossible to see,” said Dark Mofo festival director Chris Twite.Gréaud’s project is part of a lineup that includes confronting performance, video and kinetic installations by artists including Spanish choreographer Candela Capitán and Mexican performance artist Kiyo Gutiérrez, which will be shown in unusual venues around Hobart – including a massive cruise ship moored on the waterfront.
The festival’s music program includes Australian-exclusive performances by New York rapper Princess Nokia, Glaswegian producer Sega Bodega and Texan trash metal outfit Power Trip,The Australian contingent includes Ninajirachi, Baker Boy, Miss Kaninna and Folk Bitch Trio,Other highlights of Dark Mofo’s art program include Capitán’s dance work SOLAS, where five dancers perform in front of five laptops streaming to the live pornographic webcam platform Chaturbate,Gutiérrez will bring two performance works, Hairline Border and Un muro que parte el cuerpo en dos (A wall that breaks the body in two), in which she respectively drags a concrete block across a gallery space using her hair, and lies naked on the floor while a wall of bricks is built across her body – highlighting the violence of state-imposed borders,Australian artists will include Hayley Millar Baker, Abdul-Rahman Abdullah, Vipoo Srivilasa and Chunxiao Qu.
The latter has been commissioned to create a neon text installation titled There’s Nothing Left to Pray For, responding to her sense of loss and despair following a harrowing family court dispute,This year, Dark Mofo is expanding its annual art park – Dark Park – on to the water, with a series of videos and installations presented on the Spirit of Tasmania cruise ship,On board, audience members will find 15 “scary as hell” robot dogs, says Twite – part of a dystopian mechanical installation by collaborators Lolo & Sosaku – as well as a selection of international video art presented at massive scale, by artists including US cinematographer Arthur Jafa and Brazilian performance artist Berna Reale,Festival-specific commissions include a new performance work by Regina José Galindo, a survivor of the Guatemalan civil war, which will explore “attention economies” around war, and the pain that remains after the world stops paying attention to a conflict; and a huge sound installation by Dutch artist and composer Boris Acket, using 135 light and speaker winches to create a moving “cloud” of sound and light that will envelop audiences,“Boris thinks it’ll be the biggest spatial sound work in the world, but it’s very difficult to fact check,” said Twite.
On the preponderance of Latin American artists in this year’s program, Twite added, “they’re making really interesting things, and they’re maybe not as represented in Australian festivals and galleries … [And] while they’re very different cultures, a lot of those countries are colonial countries [too], who are dealing with the legacy of that.”Several festival regulars will return, including the annual winter solstice nude swim, the Ogoh-ogoh parade, the Winter Feast food market, and the popular Night Mass party.Tickets for Dark Mofo go on sale on 1 April.The festival will run 11–22 June
Number of AI chatbots ignoring human instructions increasing, study says
AI models that lie and cheat appear to be growing in number with reports of deceptive scheming surging in the last six months, a study into the technology has found.AI chatbots and agents disregarded direct instructions, evaded safeguards and deceived humans and other AI, according to research funded by the UK government-funded AI Security Institute (AISI). The study, shared with the Guardian, identified nearly 700 real-world cases of AI scheming and charted a five-fold rise in misbehaviour between October and March, with some AI models destroying emails and other files without permission.The snapshot of scheming by AI agents “in the wild”, as opposed to in laboratory conditions, has sparked fresh calls for international monitoring of the increasingly capable models and come as Silicon Valley companies aggressively promote the technology as a economically transformative. Last week the UK chancellor also launched a drive to get millions more Britons using AI
‘Accountability has arrived’: dual US court losses show shifting tide against Meta and co
In the span of just two days, the most powerful social media company in the world faced a more severe public reckoning than it has in years.Jurors in California and New Mexico gave back-to-back verdicts this week that for the first time ever found Meta liable for products that inflict harm on young people. For years, lawmakers, parents and advocates have raised red flags over how social media can hurt children, but now the tech firms are being held to account via court rulings that could set long-lasting precedents.A jury in New Mexico ordered Meta to pay $375m in damages on Tuesday over claims that its products led to child sexual exploitation, among other harms. The following day, a jury in California ordered Meta and YouTube to pay $6m over claims that both companies deliberately designed addictive products to hook young users
New York City hospitals drop Palantir as controversial AI firm expands in UK
New York City’s public hospital system announced that it would not be renewing its contract with Palantir as controversy mounts in the UK over the data analytics and AI firm’s government contract.The president of the US’s largest municipal public healthcare system, Dr Mitchell Katz, testified last week before the New York city council that the agreement with Palantir would expire in October.He said at the hearing that the contract, which focused on recovering money for insurance claims, was always meant to be short-term, and that there was an “absolute firewall” preventing Palantir from sharing information with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He said that the agency had “not had any incidents”.The contract and related payment documents shared with the Guardian by the American Friends Service Committee and first reported by the Intercept, show that NYC Health + Hospitals has paid Palantir nearly $4m since November 2023
Human rights groups cheer ‘watershed’ verdict in social media addiction trial
The verdict in a landmark social media trial that Meta and YouTube deliberately designed addictive products has sparked calls for reform across borders. International human rights and tech freedom groups issued statements after the decision, praising jurors for holding social media companies accountable for harms to children and urging tech giants to change their design features to ensure children are safe.Amnesty International said in a statement on Thursday that “this court decision is clear: these platforms are unsafe by design and meaningful change is urgently needed”.The day prior, a Los Angeles jury found both Meta and YouTube liable for intentionally creating platforms that hooked a young user and led to her being harmed. The six-week trial was one of more than 20 “bellwether” trials that are expected to go to court in the next few years
Brussels opens investigation into Snapchat amid concern over children’s safety
Brussels has opened an investigation into Snapchat over concerns the social messaging app is exposing children to grooming, sexual exploitation and other criminality.In a separate decision on Thursday, the European Commission also said four pornographic websites were failing to prevent minors seeing adult content, harming young people’s mental health and fuelling negative gender attitudes.The investigations into five tech companies were brought under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), which has come under fire from Donald Trump since coming into force two years ago. Aiming to protect European society from a wide range of internet harms, the DSA includes child safety provisions to combat cyberbullying, exposure to adult content and illegal products.The announcements came after a landmark ruling in a Los Angeles court found that two social media companies, Meta and YouTube, had deliberately created addictive products that harmed a young user
Google warns quantum computers could hack encrypted systems by 2029
Banks, governments and technology providers need to be prepared for quantum computer hackers capable of breaking most existing encryption systems by 2029, Google has warned.The tech company said in a blogpost that quantum computers would pose a “significant threat to current cryptographic standards” before the end of the decade and urged other companies to follow its lead.The company, owned by Alphabet, said: “The encryption currently used to keep your information confidential and secure could easily be broken by a large-scale quantum computer in coming years.”As it stands, quantum computers – which can rapidly carry out complex tasks – are a nascent technology with great potential and significant obstacles to being widely usable.Google, Microsoft and universities across the UK and the US are in the midst of building systems that harness the physics of quantum mechanics to perform extremely sophisticated mathematical calculations
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