Dame Edna haunts Rundle Mall | Sunday Mail veteran signs off | Wine industry bubble trouble
The weekly column sniffing out tasty Adelaide and SA tidbits while putting a pressing question to the pub test.
You’d expect the materialisation of the late Barry Humphries’s most iconic Aussie character to show up in one of the shopping strip’s eyewear shops, but the grand Dame is instead living on in an AI art installation that has been in Rundle Place since March.
The ARTofficial Truth Machine ATM001, part of the City of Adelaide’s Adelaide CreaTech City Challenge, is a vending machine made by Australian artists James Brown and Dave Court that uses AI to carry on a conversation between people and AI-generated celebrities and other characters.
Court said when they developed the concept with the University of Adelaide’s Australian Institute for Machine Learning they thought it would be fun to have the GPT-3 language model produce human-like responses from known personalities, such as Dame Edna.
Court said they hadn’t really considered taking Dame Edna out of the mix after Humphries death, which seems quite fair since the responses come from the massive bytes of data that must be stored around the world from a career spanning so many years. AI will ensure all are eternal.
Power shutdown kills the fizz in SA wine
Wine lovers don’t often contemplate the Torrens Island B power station as they sip their sparkling white but it turns out the slated closure of the plant is in the midst of dealing them a costly blow.
Carbon dioxide prices are surging as the state’s largest supplier is shut down on the days solar and wind energy make the state’s power grid go green, with its final demise expected in 2026.
Now the gas that is vital in adding bubbles to prosecco or to stop oxidisation during bottling is increasingly difficult to source, and our winemakers may have to lift prices to make ends meet.
Wine industry chief Brian Smedley says as winemakers struggle to source CO2, its price is also soaring as this year’s vintage comes to an end.
“We’ve been talking to primary industries and the department of industry, innovation and science and saying: ‘this is our problem, what’s the possible solution?” Smedley says, but reports the answer remains elusive.
AGL issued a statement in 2017 saying it was joining forces with Air Liquide Australia to build the CO2 recovery plant that would capture and purify up to 50,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions from the power station’s exhaust each year.
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“Suppliers have been getting the CO2 from interstate but they are facing similar issues because their power stations are closing down too,” Smedley says.
Sunday Mail fashion editor signs off
After almost 20 years at the helm of the Sunday Mail’s fashion pages, the very talented and always stylish Mirella Romano has parted ways with the tabloid.
The fashion editor announced the news via email to her many friends and industry contacts on April 21 and published her final double-page fashion spread on Sunday April 23, including a retrospective looking back on some of her favourite fashion shoots over the years.
It is the end of an era for both the paper and the fashionista, who is the only person to have overseen a double-page spread in the paper over nearly two decades.
In announcing the news Romano said: “I have been incredibly lucky to have started these pages close to 20 years ago; being responsible for directing the overall process of creating, planning, developing, managing and presenting a weekly double-page fashion spread.
“I forged a career that I truly loved, was passionate about and I am very proud of.
“Being Fashion Editor of the Sunday Mail has been an integral part of my life and an absolute blessing for me in a multitude of ways.
“It has been a lot of fun to work with so many interesting, creative and talented people. There have been so many special moments, and beautiful friendships made along the way!
“Special thanks to all of the creatives from pr agencies, photographers, hair, make-up and assistants who helped me create some magical photo shoots. These experiences will stay in my heart forever. “
It is thought ongoing News Corp staff cuts are behind the parting of ways.
When contacted by The Insider, Romano said she’s disappointed not just for what the move means for herself personally but for the broader Adelaide fashion scene.
“It’s sad for the industry because we were often the first port of call for young models, and hair and makeup artists, and events people,” she said.
“The fashion pages brought that community together, as well as launching so many careers, models who came in as young girls and went on to walk the catwalks of the world and appear in Marie Claire and Vogue.”
“Some of those models include local names like Lily Nova, Megan Blake Irwin and Madi Stubbington.”
Romano, who is a much loved personality about town, will continue working as a stylist and content creator.
“It really is the end of an era,” she said.
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South Australian astronaut and InDaily 40 Under 40 alumnus Katherine Bennell-Pegg is proudly flying the Aussie flag in Europe as she starts basic astronaut training with the European Space Agency.
"This is what dreams are made of ✨"
"Wearing my blue flight suit for the first time, with the ?? flag on my arm and @AusSpaceAgency patch on my chest. pic.twitter.com/b0JAQemEEa"
"— Katherine Bennell-Pegg (@AussieAstroKat) May 4, 2023"
“I’m so proud to be representing Australia on this stage, creating opportunities that will benefit our nation for years to come!” she said in the Tweet thread.
Judging by the comments that followed, she has already succeeded in inspiring Australians to reach for the stars.
The Pub Test
You may not have heard, but tomorrow there’s a historic event happening in the Mother Country. Yep, Charles will be officially crowned King. The Insider hit UniBar to determine if anyone under the age of 60 were interested in the pomp and ceremony that will flood the airwaves on Saturday evening.
“Nah I probably won’t tune in,” said Natalia, a 20-year-old law student. “I personally feel it’s more of a thing my Dad and Nanna will watch, they’re into that type of thing.”
“I’m really not interested in the idea of the royal family, I don’t know really, just too much money. Especially in today’s climate with people not being able to afford that much stuff, it seems a bit inappropriate to hold this type of event where it’s all, you know, look at me type thing.”
But 22-year-old mathematical science student Matthew disagreed.
“Honestly, although it’s pretty obvious the royal family doesn’t play as big of a part in society as they once did, I do still think they’re important,” he said.
“I think it’s important to keep that tradition that goes back hundreds of years. I will probably tune in if it’s on TV. I watched the Queen’s funeral a few months ago, watched Will and Kates’s wedding when that was on as well.
“So yeah, it’s unarguable that they’re not as relevant as they once were, but I do still think it’s a big occasion.”
Not so big for accounting student Daniel.
“I didn’t even know it was happening this week, which probably tells you how interested I am,” the 25-year-old said.
“Not that many people my age I know of are really into the royals and stuff, I feel it’s a generational thing
“I’ve just never really watched or grew up around the royal family having any degree of importance, I know it was pretty special when they came to Adelaide a few years ago, but even then I wasn’t really fussed. Just another bunch of people, I suppose.”
If, like aspiring mathematician Matt or bean counter Dan, you don’t know if it’s on TV, The InSider can confirm the ABC will have carriage-to-throne coverage starting at 5pm.
Stuff you should know…
Thanks to Splice, an informative newsletter about media in the Asia Pacific, for this story link about world press freedom. Turns out that Finland’s largest daily Helsingin Sanomat used World Press Freedom Day on Wednesday, 3 May to skirt Russian restrictions on media reports about the war in Ukraine by hiding reports in a video game.
Reuters reported that “Editor-in-chief Antero Mukka said the paper had to get creative in trying to breach the restrictions and decided to hide articles about Russia’s war in Ukraine in Russian in the shooter game Counter-Strike, which is popular worldwide and among young Russian men.”
Jump over the Reuters story to watch a video of how they created a secret room inside the popular Counter-Strike game to hold “images and texts detailing the cruelties witnessed by its reporters and photographers in Ukraine during the war”.
