Deakin Speaking

'We've exposed the worlds secrets. Been attacked by the powerful. For 500 days now I've been detained without charge, but that hasn't stopped us' (Julian Assange in the opening to The Julian Assange Show).

The Assange story has fascinated people around the world - so much so that we now have documentaries, shows and books that tell his story. However, with much media coverage increasingly focusing on Mr Assange's presence at the Ecuadorean embassy in London (and accusations that he is an 'enemy of the state' in the US), it is possible that our attention has been diverted away from what he has sacrificed his personal safety and security for. 

‘Heaven knows, I'm not comparing the internet to a hurtling death trap. But the internet has its destructive side just as the automobile does ... As with the car, criticism of the internet's shortcomings, risks, and perils has been silenced, or ignored’ (Lee Siegel) .

The cyborg-ish figure of the terminator (the T-800) blurred the boundaries between human and machine, hope and apprehension. Arnie came back in the sequels hardwired to sacrifice himself for the preferred life form (humans) and this was reassuring: machines know who their masters are. 

The sci-fi series Caprica picked these ideas apart with a ‘rise of the machines’ type of plot. Fantasy and reality are woven together as characters interact in a virtual world. This machine-human narrative of the 21st century looks to unsettle rather than reassure us. What if the machines don't come back to save us? What if they decide they are better than us?