Sarah Barns

notes & essays

Writing

On technology, place, governance, and the slow work of paying attention.

  • 26 May 2026 AI Sovereignty 1 min read Note
    Noticing what Anthropic are doing

    All I can do is watch and wonder and make a video player.

  • 15 Apr 2026 Civic AI 1 min read Paper
    From Platform Urbanism to Civic AI

    At a presentation at the American Association of Geography (AAG) conference in San Francisco I spoke on my pivot from platform urbanism to civic AI enablement.

  • 14 Mar 2026 AI Sovereignty 1 min read Essay
    Curating Sovereignties: Mapping AI Factories

    How I'm thinking about AI sovereignty.

  • 18 Feb 2026 Civic Interplay 1 min read Workshop
    Gathering Intelligences and Agencies: Designing for Multi-Species Encounter

    What kinds of intelligences and sense-making capabilities do we need to cultivate in ourselves, as we learn to adapt to these newer kinds of agencies?.

  • 5 Feb 2026 1 min read STORYBOX
    Her Place: Safety, Gender, and Public Space

    Notes on designing a STORYBOX program around women's perceptions of safety in public spaces — for the NSW Safer Cities grant.

  • 20 Jan 2026 1 min read Practice
    Community Walls and Digital Commons

    Deploying STORYBOX at the Inner West Museum of Rugby League — QR codes, Cloudflare Workers, and what civic storytelling actually looks like when it's live.

  • 8 Jan 2026 1 min read Deep Time
    Still Here: Excavating Sites of Encounter

    Early notes on a book structured as topographical excavation — six modes of encounter (listening, reading, installing, diagnosing, gathering, letting go) across twenty years of work.

  • 22 Nov 2025 Civic AI 22 min read Essay
    Towards Civic AI? Examining the potential for civic learning systems

    Examining the emergence of civic AI as a framework for civic learning and community health

  • 5 Oct 2025 1 min read Research
    Real Times of Space: Revisiting the PhD

    Returning to the ideas behind my doctoral work — ambient sound archives, mobile listening experiences, and contested spatial histories as experimental public history.

  • 10 Nov 2024 Attention & Care 8 min read Workshop
    Altered States: Conversations with otherselves in the ambient surrounds

    A workshop with Professor Annette Markham on emergent states of attentional curation

© 2026 Sarah Barns