Longstanding friends and collaborators, David Pledger and Yorta Yorta/Wurundjeri man, actor, curator and director Tony Briggs have established the collaborative practice, Tomorrow’s Pasts under the moniker – briggsnpledger.
Inspired by the multimedia theatre event, K, produced by NYID, written and directed by dp and starring Tony, Tomorrow’s Pasts is a transmedia practice for digital art, theatre, videogame and television that pivots around an alternate Australian history in which a race-based civil war is a defining event.
The practice employs a unique dramaturgy that includes the responsible use of generative AI as a creative tool to develop story, character and the multiple worlds and times in which the narrative unfolds.
This process emerges from dp and Tony’s artistic and creative practices in television, performing arts, film and emerging technologies and the interplay with their respective cultural backgrounds.
The ambition of briggsnpledger is to build an alternate history of Australia as a way to imagine better futures. Their work will touch on current themes and experiences around racism and the telling of history and invite conversation around the kinds of futures we wish to create and who has the agency and authority to create them.
The project has so far been supported by Frame Doc Lab, Screen Australia and the School of Cybernetics, ANU to enable the artists to develop their videogame concept, digital art series and whole-of-practice concept.
The digital art series, Address to the Nations, will launch publicly in June 2026.
Tony Briggs and David Pledger
briggsnpledger
Mandy Nicholson (Language Consultant and Translator)
Joanne Beckwith
Mark Atkin
Lisa Meinesz
Kelton Pell
Kylie Belling
Sherry-Lee Watson
Steph Hooke
Lizzie Sharp
Damienne Pradier
Morgan Jaffit
Screen Australia (video game development)