Taking stories as old as time to a contemporary setting in the heart of Sydney
It’s a part of Sydney traditionally associated with Australia’s colonial past, but a cultural shift signals a more layered approach to history through public art
3 min
If Sydney is Australia’s premier destination, then Circular Quay is the gateway to the Emerald City. Best known for its access to the harbour, with the Sydney Opera House on one peninsular and the sandstone terraces of The Rocks on the other, it’s a hotspot for tourists and history buffs alike.
Unless, of course, your notion of history extends beyond the past 250 years.
In recent years, there’s been a move to reflect a more layered notion of the past that better reflects First Nations’ stories – a history that stretches back thousands of years. As this part of the city undergoes yet another renewal process, developers have taken the opportunity to engage with Indigenous artists to integrate stories that are thousands of years old into some of the newest buildings.
The latest edition are art installations that form part of Sydney Place, a new casual dining precinct connecting Pitt and George Streets near Circular Quay.
Following on from his success at the Venice Biennale, Indigenous artist Daniel Boyd was invited to create an interactive art installation as an entry point to the dining space at Sydney Place. Working with architect David Adjaye, Boyd has designed a soaring steel canopy on the George Street frontage featuring a roof punctuated with round holes to reflect the constellations of the night sky.
The full extent of Indigenous understanding of astronomy is only just beginning to be revealed but the artwork stands as a reminder that even in the centre of the CBD, there are larger forces at play.
“I was trying to create a building and space that wasn’t static and trying to use light to take the building into motion,” Boyd said. “It’s macro and micro at the same time, understanding that point in time and space.”
Boyd said the notion of layering histories over such a built-up site was one to be welcomed.
“It’s about acknowledging the history of the site in a more inclusive and equitable way,” Boyd said. “These opportunities to open spaces give First Nations people the chance to feel comfortable.
“They don’t have to grapple with the language of the built environment because it’s an open space that invites layers of association.”
Kamilaroi man Dennis Golding and fellow artist Louise Zhang also created work for Sydney Place in a collaboration using neon lights combined with traditional Chinese and Indigenous motifs.
Golding said both he and Zhang drew on their family experiences as migrants – Zhang’s from China and Golding’s from Gamilaroi and Biripi country – to create an artwork in the heart of Sydney.
“My family moved to Redfern for affordable housing, work opportunities and education and that’s where that community grew from the late 60s as families moved into the city,” Golding said. “We all worked on the rails. It’s that shared experience of being from somewhere else and coming to Sydney for work.”
The latest works in Sydney Place are part of the growing Indigenous art presence, which includes five integrated artworks Wiradjuri/Kamilaroi man Jonathan Jones created for the nearby Quay Quarter Lanes redevelopment, as well as the bara, or fish hook sculpture, by Judy Watson on the Tarpeian Precinct Lawn on the edge of the Royal Botanic Gardens.
Curated by Hetti Perkins, bara is part of City of Sydney’s Eora Journey, and is designed to offer greater recognition of Indigenous culture and heritage.
It follows an international review of cultural interpretation undertaken by Perkins and architect Julie Cracknell in 2010. Public art is one of four components of the Eora Journey, which also includes access to education and employment and training opportunities.
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As AI productivity trackers reshape workplace evaluations, employees are learning how to manage calendars, activity levels and AI usage to ensure their contributions are recognized.
4 min
What’s more important than being a good employee right now? Looking like a good employee in the eyes of AI productivity trackers that more managers are using to evaluate their teams.
Employee-monitoring systems are especially popular at tech companies and are also used by other white-collar firms that want to probe how people spend company time. The scary thing: You might not even know you’re being watched because many states don’t require disclosure.
Metrics can include performance data that is undoubtedly relevant, such as sales results. But it also can employ dubious proxies like keyboard strokes and how often your computer screen goes into sleep mode.
We generally accepted, or at least understood, heightened surveillance during the work-from-home era. Back then it seemed reasonable for bosses to keep tabs on employees they couldn’t see.
Yet the oversight has only escalated, and tensions are rising, too.
A group of former Meta Platforms employees alleges in a lawsuit that the company used a “constellation of internal artificial-intelligence systems” when it began laying off about 10% of its workforce in May. Meta says humans make termination calls.
However that case shakes out, a couple of things are clear. Companies eager to gauge which employees are locked in now have sophisticated AI monitoring systems at their disposal. And they believe they have leverage in a tepid labor market.
So while we may chafe at having our worth reduced to numbers on the boss’s productivity dashboard, we have to play the game as it’s being played. Here are some tips, based on conversations with people who make employee monitoring systems—and others who game the systems.
Be meticulous about your calendar
Calendar integration is one way that productivity trackers have gotten more advanced and, ostensibly, fairer.
Let’s say you make an old-fashioned phone call or attend an in-person meeting. Your Outlook or Slack status may switch to “away,” making you appear as inactive as if you were taking an extended coffee break.
Employee monitors like one made by a company called Insightful cross-check your online status with your calendar to see whether there is a valid reason for your apparent inactivity. If that call or meeting is on your schedule, then the system will recognize that you are busy offline. If nothing is on the books, it could look like you’re slacking off.
Hit the activity sweet spot, around 80%
Let’s not go any further without addressing the underlying question: How much downtime is permissible during the workday? After all, people have been scared to let managers see anything non-work-related on their screens since personal computers first arrived in offices.
No one knows this better than Roger Wagner, who is widely credited with creating the first “boss button” in the early 1980s. He designed a keyboard shortcut to instantly display a spreadsheet if the boss walked by your cubicle while you were playing a computer game. Boss buttons have been features of countless diversions since. (I confess to using one built into a March Madness streaming app.)
Wagner, the founder of computer-education company 1010 Technologies, says his original design was a joke—more of a commentary on overbearing managers than a cover for lazy employees. Good bosses understand workers need mental breaks throughout the day, he says.
This matches what I heard from Insightful Chief Executive Ivan Petrovic. He says customers that use his company’s workforce-management platform don’t expect employees to stay on task 100% of the time.
“On average companies are aiming for 60% to 80% of your time being utilized for work during the day,” he says.
Go ahead and exhale. It’s probably OK to watch an occasional YouTube video at your desk.
And if you’re going to artificially inflate your activity level, be careful. Hitting 90% could look suspicious.
Get physical
So don’t leave your mouse jiggler on all day. Choose the right one if you must resort to shenanigans.
There are lots of software applications that mimic the movements of a computer mouse, so you can appear to be working while away from your desk. There are also devices that plug into computer ports and do the same thing.
Corporate cybersecurity systems increasingly block these apps and devices, and productivity trackers claim to be able to detect them. But some workers swear by mouse docks, like one made by Tech8 USA, that keep cursors moving. The company originally made mouse-moving software but now focuses on physical jigglers.
“People are drawn to mechanical solutions because they’re so simple and don’t require software,” says Tech8 Marketing Director Sam Matthews. “As monitoring technology becomes more sophisticated, that distinction has become even more relevant.”
Use AI, but not too much
Another popular metric for employee-monitoring systems is AI usage. Companies want to know who is embracing new tools, and it can be tempting to think more is better.
“There’s a performative aspect where employees overblow their usage of AI so that they appear relevant in the organization,” says Andrea Derler, principal researcher at Visier, which helps companies track and analyze employee work habits.
In a recent Visier survey of 1,000 U.S. workers, 48% admitted to exaggerating their AI usage.
This is already an outdated strategy. Using AI for everything used to score points for experimentation. Now it can seem wasteful because many companies are watching AI token spending more carefully.
Look, productivity theater has always been part of work. Most of us aren’t trying to cheat the system, but expectations are changing so quickly that we need to be savvy about what the latest employee trackers are looking for.
Sometimes it takes a little gamesmanship to get full credit for our contributions.
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