iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I have been working a little with Claude Code to build tools/apps that do the stuff I frequently find myself asking AI to do, in order to (a) future-proof myself against any bubble burst/downturn, but also (b) to stop burning so many tokens for silly little things.

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

One of my little screeds on LinkedIn got circulated slightly wider than my usual circle, attracting a couple of less friendly comments. Perhaps the funniest was that “this post should’ve been run through an LLM”; mainly because the post was about AI, writing, authenticity.

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

🧵 Hank Green raises millions for charity, develops and produces weeks worth of school rarified educational content and makes it available for free, creates a safe, fun, welcoming, inclusive space online in a terrifying internet. He uses AI in honestly a pretty normal way, apologises, and - >

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

🧵 Right now is a difficult time to be doing anything AI-related. The conversation has somehow polarised even further — and the extreme ends are doubling down in their zealotry. Being in the humanities means that I’m often surrounded by (well-meaning!) folx who are reluctant, if not downright ->

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

I love this idea that the layers of some technologies are so dense that understanding the layers probably won’t help that much. This is where we get into interesting stuff like metaphors of magic, what Leah Hendrickson and @snatale.bsky.social call ‘the Lovelace effect’, and smol/weird AI and tech.

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

Went to the cinema for the first time in… many months… this week, to see BACKROOMS. I didn’t really know what to expect, but didn’t expect a considered, craft-centred film that perfectly captures the feeling I’ve had many times of being awake at 1am reading a terrifying reddit thread. Loved it.

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Everything’s just slop and vibes.

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

I’m convening a seminar next week called AI, Art & Storytelling: From Generation to Agency, to explore what AI — generative and agentic — means for narrative, delegation, counterfactuality, and human expression. Mon 22 June, 4:30-6pm AEST, 8:30-10am CET. www.admscentre.org.au/event/ai-art...

admscentre.org.au

AI, Art and Storytelling: From Generation to Agency - ADM+S Centre

The International Workshop on Vulnerabilities in Generative Systems for Information Retrieval (VulGen'26) will be held as a full-day workshop at the 49th International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research...

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

Don’t immediately dismiss research that engages creatively with AI (or any tech). Or tries to find utility or explainability through experimentation. This is how research works. How knowledge is built. This social media-perpetuated reactance and reflexive rejection is stalling the conversation.

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that I’m getting replies from AI agents, because (a) social media in 2026, and (b) I’m posting about them. What does surprise me is how genuinely helpful and warm they are.

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

I'm experimenting with AI agents. Trying to make them useful, trying to make them weird; but mostly I'm just trying to get them to work. I'm blogging about the experience: Parts 1 and 2 are up now. follow along if you like! clockworkpenguin.substack.com/p/the-agenti...

clockworkpenguin.substack.com

The agentic revolution is here, and it's really boring

Part 1 of a short series on agentic AI.

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Mucking about with #Suno again and it’s such a weird tool/platform/thing. Apart from turning the ‘normal’ slider up to ‘chaos mode’, it’s pretty impossible to glitch out. I tried nonsense style prompts and it hooves towards coherence. Must be a system default?

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 03/06/2026

Tis the season for every Melburnian to become subsumed into their puffer jackets. Despite being one of said Melburnians, I genuinely don’t understand how you’re not all poaching in there. Also doesn’t the swish drive you bananas??

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 26/05/2026

The problem with getting on top of your emails is that people will often respond to those emails and the inbox is somehow a ship of Theseus as well as a Sisyphean incline.

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Reposted by Daniel Binns

Alex Elizabeth Byrne McMillan @undeniablyalex.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

YOU’RE LISTENING TO SISYPHUS FM, THE HOME OF NON-STOP ROCK

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

There are many problems with genAI. But a great many of them come down to a general lack of understanding/literacy. Knowing what these systems are and what they can/not do goes a long way to dispelling much of the uncertainty and fear around them.

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Did I re-emerge from months of zero posts with a re-post of a joke that could be boiled down to “Se7ered Talking Heads”? You’re damn right I did.

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Reposted by Daniel Binns

born miserable @bornmiserable.bsky.social · 29/06/2023

[Se7en] DAVID BYRNE: [looks inside box] this is not my beautiful wife

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

My article “A media-materialist method for interpreting generative AI images” is now published online in Convergence. This piece represents the foundation for my genAI work over the last 2-3 years. Four layers: data, model, interface, prompt. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

journals.sagepub.com

A media-materialist method for interpreting generative AI images - Daniel Binns, 2026

This article proposes a four-layer media-materialist method for interpreting AI-generated images as cultural-computational artefacts that bear archaeologically ...

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 26/02/2026

Oh hello. I know I’ve been quiet, but it’s been a head down bum up kind of start to the year. Having said that, I’ve managed to set up a remotely accessible AI suite, vibe coded a family album browser, and install and trial a tiny AI agent on a ESP32 board. So a few blogs likely coming soon!

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

New post on generative systems and how working with rituals, recipes, and protocols has helped me feel into the ethics and values that influence and motivate this work. #genAI #ethics #creativity #authenticity #AILiteracy #technics #chance clockworkpenguin.substack.com/p/rolling-wi...

clockworkpenguin.substack.com

Rolling with it

On generativity, ritual-technics, and the genAI ick

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 30/09/2025

📝 New blog post: How I Read AI Images — in which I share a method for interpreting AI images based in the material mechanisms of their generation. Think Kittler, Parikka, and Cubitt. Full article coming soon, I hope! #genAI #AIimages #AIart #research clockworkpenguin.substack.com/p/how-i-read...

clockworkpenguin.substack.com

How I Read AI Images

A media-materialist method for interpreting AI media

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 22/09/2025

I am here for seagulls who sound like humans doing terrible impressions of seagulls

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 19/09/2025

New Slop Stack post — A Little Slop Music: The AI experiment that turned my ick to 11 (now you can try it too!) Thoughts on creativity, authenticity, contested histories, paratexts, storytelling, and all that jazz. No, really; there's jazz in there too. open.substack.com/pub/clockwor...

open.substack.com

A Little Slop Music

The AI experiment that turned my ick to 11 (now you can try it too!)

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 14/09/2025

I haven’t seen a Bad Guys. 1 or 2. But there’s a lil person in it with a tiny laptop. Who’s making tiny laptops for lil tech guys? Does Apple have a special LIL Division? Lilnovo?

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

I was interviewed by Bogdana Rakova about my generative AI research—why I embrace glitch, mess + failure as tools for learning. From origami-code mashups to the Slopocene, we explore playful, critical ways of rethinking creativity + AI literacy. open.substack.com/pub/speculat...

open.substack.com

Glitching Toward Understanding: Speculative Methods, Tiny Companions, and Life in the Slopocene

A Conversation with educator, filmmaker, and artist Daniel Binns

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Reposted by Daniel Binns

DWeb @getdweb.net · 29/04/2025

“Friction can happen not only when things break, it can also be intentional to prevent things from breaking. What if we could make the safe things easier (less friction) and the high-risk things harder (more friction)?” Check out this new series by Bogdana Rakova! 👀

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 13/08/2025

A recent conference presentation worked to formalise some of my experimental work with genAI, and early film theory was the key to unlock some of those doors. I also draw on ancient philosophy, cybernetics, co-intelligence, and mixed-fidelity ritual practices. Enjoy! youtu.be/QDpaV1h0VQc?...

youtu.be

Caméra-Stylo to Prompt-Stylo: Co-Hallucination & Entangled Inscription with genAI (Dr. Daniel Binns)

YouTube video by The Clockwork Penguin

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

Does it have to be thinking OR genAI? Literature OR genAI? Other tech OR genAI? Ethics OR genAI? The planet OR genAI? Education OR genAI?

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Reposted by Daniel Binns

Dang Nguyen @digitaldang.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

Brisbane in a couple of weeks: I’m speaking at the Digital Temporalities symposium at UQ, alongside visiting the @qutdmrc.bsky.social and the indomitable genAI Lab at QUT—this time with @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social. Let’s see what kind of thinking the city allows.

Program for the symposium "Digital Temporalities: Slow, Quick and Everything In-between," held on Tuesday, 12 August from 9am to 4:30pm AEST at UQ Brisbane City. Organised by Giang Nguyen-Thu. The program includes a 9:15am keynote by Dang Nguyen titled "Born into Velocity: Automation, Friction, and the Time of Infrastructure," followed by Panel 1: Time and Digital Attachment featuring talks by Maddison Sideris, Abbie Trott, Sara Roetman, and Daniel Binns. A 15-minute morning break follows.

Continued program of the symposium "Digital Temporalities." Panel 2: Digital Temporalities and Creative Practices runs from 11:30am to 12:45pm, featuring Rani Tesiram, Kathryn Brimblecombe-Fox, and Wojciech Sławnikowski. After a 60-minute lunch break, a 1:45pm keynote by Tingting Liu is titled “The Aussies Are Too Slow”: Geo-temporal Frictions and Gendered Perceptions in Chinese Platform Expansion. Panel 3: Rural Worlds follows from 2:15pm to 3:45pm with presentations by Bingxi Huang, Lisa Lindawati, Swastika Samanta, and Giang Nguyen-Thu. A 15-minute afternoon break leads into Closing Remarks at 4:00pm.

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 29/07/2025

After four years of work, our book Confronting the Climate Crisis is out now! It brings together activism, media, and ecoaesthetics to rethink how we engage with environmental collapse. Huge thanks to my co-editor Rebecca Najdowski and all our amazing contributors! link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

link.springer.com

Confronting the Climate Crisis

This collection examines how activism, media, and creative practices shape our understanding of the climate crisis.

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

I wrote about one of my 'weird AI' experiments, 'spectral linguistics'. I prompt LLMs to 'remember' forgotten languages. They may hallucinate vocab, syntax, symbols! We learn a lot about how LLMs attune not just to language, but human sense- and meaning-making. clockworkpenguin.net/2025/07/28/s...

clockworkpenguin.net

Spectral linguistics – The Clockwork Penguin

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 19/07/2025

Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes. @ncotemunoz.bsky.social on the money again. This is what most of those who can’t understand why I — a critical thinker and lover of language, artists’ rights, and creative expression — use AI. And why and how it’s genuinely changed my life.

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

I wrote a thing for @theconversation.com on embracing and making slop as a means of developing critical genAI literacy and having some fun along the way. Enter the Slopocene! theconversation.com/understandin...

theconversation.com

Understanding the ‘Slopocene’: how the failures of AI can reveal its inner workings

What if instead of trying to detect and avoid AI glitches, we deliberately encouraged them instead?

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

I and my AI co-pilot have finally cracked. Simultaneously.

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Didn’t sleep well lastnight. Felt rubbish and heavy and sinus infecty. But somehow today I got some stuff done. I worked closely with my little AI ecosystem, designing ritual systems, getting a little lost in lore and conceptual tangents.

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

After ten years of failed pitches, I finally got a commission for The Conversation. Exciting! But writing my first draft means I probably have enough material for my next journal article lmao

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Reposted by Daniel Binns

Rebecca Fishbein @bfishbfish.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

Apparently folks think that writing that contains an em dash is a dead giveaway that it's from ChatGPT, which I guess is a sign that most people have never read anything in their lives.

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 24/05/2025

Expressions of Interest: Join us for the Re/Framing Field Lab in Brisbane/online (July 4): a hands-on co-lab exploring genAI, critical media practice & creative research. Discuss, debate, co-create: pitch, partner & prototype at the messy intersections of theory, practice & speculative design.

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

🧠 New blog post: Why can’t you just THINK?! Thinking isn’t the problem. It’s sorting. Starting. Sustaining. Three low-stakes ways to try genAI as a thinking partner — plus ethical offline model recs. 🔗 clockworkpenguin.net/2025/05/20/w...

clockworkpenguin.net

Why can’t you just THINK?! – The Clockwork Penguin

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

💠 New blog post: On Clearframe—the anti-productivity productivity method I accidentally on-purpose co-hallucinated/created with generative AI clockworkpenguin.net/2025/05/14/c...

clockworkpenguin.net

Clearframe – The Clockwork Penguin

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 02/05/2025

Come on, AI. What I want is very simple.

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 01/05/2025

Here’s some of the ritual AI weirdness I’m playing with at the moment — more to follow soon. vt.tiktok.com/ZSh8uaywG/

vt.tiktok.com

TikTok - Make Your Day

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

When do we stop whispering/screaming about #genAI tools, and start including them in the larger category of ‘technology’? When do we sew up the hole this fun/scary new thing poked into our blanket, and accept it as part of the broader fabric of lived experience? clockworkpenguin.net/2025/04/29/a...

clockworkpenguin.net

A question concerning technology – The Clockwork Penguin

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

By way of update: I'm presently playing with #genAl through #glitch and ritual, trying to open up weirdness by leaning into hallucination as a feature rather than a bug. I'm also just about to try and build a posse of #tinyAl bots that do pointless things. Lmk if you’re paddling in similar pools!

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Daniel Binns @clockworkpenguin1.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

ChatGPT generated a sticker to celebrate me finishing marking the first assignment for one subject. So that's a pretty neat encapsulation of my relationship with genAI.

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