Daniel Binns is a tinkerer-theorist exploring technology’s impact on storytelling and media cultures. A leading scholar on digital creativity and media transformation, Daniel has published on Netflix documentary style, drones, game engines, and the evolution of media genres including the war film and superhero media; his two monographs to date are The Hollywood War Film (2017) and Material Media-Making in the Digital Age (2021). He runs creative media practice-theory studios on storytelling, creative technologies, and media philosophy.
Daniel is on the Editorial Boards for New Cinemas: Journal of Contemporary Film and Frames Cinema Journal. He is an Associate Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society.
Daniel is presently researching the utility of generative AI, and the context of the technology within creative and media histories and industries. Other irons on the fire (and potential topics for postgraduate supervision):
- media archaeologies and histories of digital culture;
- the rise of productivity media/influencers as a by-product of toxic hyper-capitalist ideology;
- alternative/unconventional theories, practices, and histories of computers and other creative technologies.
Publications
(full list on Google Scholar)
BOOKS
2021. Material Media-Making in the Digital Age. Intellect. (paperback pub 2024)
2017. The Hollywood War Film: Critical Observations from World War I to Iraq. Intellect.
OTHER PUBLICATIONS
2024, ‘The Allure of Artificial Worlds: Aesthetic and Narrative Implications of AI Media and Simulations’, M/C Journal, 27(6).
2023, ‘Inscribing and encoding: The point of media-making’, Global Media Journal – Australian Edition, 16, pp. 1-13.
2022, ‘Bridge complexity as a factor in audience interaction in transmedia storytelling’, Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture, 7:1, pp. 85-108.
2022, ‘No Free Tickets: Blockchain and the film industry’, M/C Journal, 25:2.
2022, ‘Social Issues in Automated Decision-Making’, ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society. (co-authored with C. O’Neill, J. Sadowski, M. Andrejevic, K. Lewis, G. van Toorn, R. Lobato, A. Watson, and V. Wozniak-O’Connor)
2021, ‘Attuning to the environment through media: Escape and incorporation through fire, plague, and video game development software’, Journal of Environmental Media, 2:1, pp. 117-130.
2019, ‘Dronopoetics: Unmanned Aerial Cinematography and Ivan Sen’s Goldstone’, Journal of Asia-Pacific Pop Culture, 4:1, pp. 26-41.
2018, ‘The Netflix documentary house style: Streaming TV and slow media’, Fusion Journal, 14.