NiTRO + Creative Matters

Perspectives on creative arts in higher education

WHEN AI MEETS CYBERPUNK

  • NEO XIA
CREATIVE EMPOWERMENT OR CRITICAL DISSOLUTION? — This paper investigates the pronounced tension between 'creative empowerment' and 'critical dissolution' at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cyberpunk, a genre defined by its critical engagement with technology. Grounded in my reflexive practice of generating cyberpunk transmedia (images) using AI, this study analyses how these tools – despite affording creative efficiencies and expanded visual capabilities – may undermine cyberpunk's intrinsic critical spirit, DIY ethos, and narrative depth.

This potential stems from AI’s inherent logic, commercial imperatives, and ‘black box’ opacity. The paper reveals manifestations of this paradox within the creative process, ultimately exploring pathways for practitioners to navigate AI’s empowerment while consciously safeguarding against critical dissolution.

Keywords Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cyberpunk, Creative Practice, Critical Dissolution, Reflexivity, creative practice research

DOI 10.65289/creativematters.2025.10.5

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Neo Xia is a first-year PhD student studying in the Communication and Media program at RMIT. His primary research interests focus on the cyberpunk science fiction genre and the practical applications of artificial intelligence in media production. Specifically, his doctoral project examines the concrete impacts of artificial intelligence on the generation of cyberpunk transmedia works.

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REVOLUTIONARY DYNAMICS IN CREATIVE PRACTICE RESEARCH AT THE CONVERGENCE OF CRITICAL, CREATIVE, THEORETICAL, AND ACADEMIC SPACES
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METHODOLOGIES IN FLUX
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NAVIGATING CULTURAL TRANSLATION IN PHOTOGRAPHIC PRACTICE RESEARCH — This paper examines the methodological tensions and transformations in my practice-led research exploring photographic representation of gendered bodies across Brazilian and Australian cultural contexts. Through analysing my evolving methodology, I demonstrate how convergence of feminist epistemology, decolonial theory, and photographic practice generates new knowledge at the intersection of theory and creative production.
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RECALIBRATION OF THE PĀLI JĀTAKAS THROUGH SPECTER AND SAMSARĀ
  • MESH TENNAKOON
This paper reflects on a methodology within a Creative Writing PhD that recalibrates selected Buddhist Pāli Jātakas through a parallel reading of Derrida’s Specters of Marx and Buddhist texts on samsarā (rebirth). This cross-cultural dialogue provides a nuanced context for rearticulating the Jātakas. The project’s ‘middle-way methodology’ avoids privileging either Western or Buddhist frameworks and adapts Smith and Dean’s (2009) ‘iterative cyclic web’ through oscillations across creative writing, cross-cultural reading, and critical inquiry.
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PROLIFERATING VOIDS
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GENDER’S PRESENCE IN GENDERLESS NARRATIVES — In an experimental attempt to avoid all gendered markers while writing my unpublished novel, Static Sun, Phantom Breath, traces of gender seemed to still appear and, in turn, complicate the presence/absence binary. Inspired by Anne Garréta’s novel Sphinx and her exploration of how genderless characters expand understands of love and writing form, this paper reflects on the logocentric restrictions and aporetic opportunities that come from textually avoiding gender.
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REHEARSING THE INSTITUTION: ARTISTIC LABOUR AND PEDAGOGICAL TRACE
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'The past inside the present' (2023) begins with surfaces: inscribed, weathered, and imbued with pedagogical significance. The research involves reconsidering reclaimed art school studio tabletops as artefacts of accumulated gestures. It focuses on investigating how artistic labour and the relational custodianship of educational practices become systematically blurred within contemporary institutional frameworks of higher education.
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BODY OF RESEARCH, BODY OF WORK
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BECOMING THROUGH COMPLEXITY 
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POPULAR GENRE FICTION IN THE CREATIVE WRITING DOCTORATE
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GIVING IT A NAME
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PRACTICE-BASED TOOLS FOR SELF-EXPRESSION
  • BREE GLASBERGEN
SUPPORTING WOMEN TO CLAIM THEIR VOICES POST-VIOLENCE — Can creative self-expression support women to gain or claim their voices? This research explores the dialogic nature of self-reflective questions in oracle cards as provocations for theatre and investigates if and how these provocations can assist women with self-expression. A sample deck of oracle cards – including self-reflective questions – were crafted and then tested as provocations for playwriting.
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IS THERE ENOUGH SCIENCE IN THIS FICTION?
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REFLECTIONS ON GENRE WRITING AND CREATIVE PRACTICE RESEARCH — Nearly three years into my creative practice PhD in which I wrote multiple fat and queer science fiction short stories, my supervisor asked: Is there enough science in them? This question has since underpinned my understanding of the ‘perennially revised’ (Latham 2017, p.8) genre borders of literary science fiction, and the ‘validity and rigour of practice-led research’ (Gandolfo 2012, p. 64) in academic institutions.
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