OLIVIA J. BENNETT

I’m an arts writer, researcher and critic based in Brisbane, Australia.

My work examines how digital culture, new media art, film and sound shape contemporary experience through futurology, incongruity and absurdity. I track how aesthetic movements absorb, resist or mutate alongside technological and economic shifts, often through fragmentation, multiplicity and nonlinear forms that mirror media saturation’s effect on perception and meaning.

Beyond writing, I’ve worked across programming, digital production and major cultural projects in Australia’s film and music industries. In 2019 I participated in the Melbourne International Film Festival’s Critics Campus and in 2020 I was part of Gertrude Contemporary’s Emerging Writers Program.

I also work as a freelance copywriter, content writer and strategist. With over five years of freelancing, three years in agency environments and two years navigating Melbourne’s strictest COVID-19 lockdowns, I’ve built a sharp adaptability—crafting strategy and storytelling across diverse industries. If you’d like to see my portfolio, shoot me an email.

I hold a BA in Art History and Curating from Monash University, majoring in Film Studies. My first-class Honours thesis at Melbourne University examined how the films of Harvard University’s Sensory Ethnography Lab function as object-oriented cinema, aligning with Timothy Morton’s concept of hyperobjects. Through this lens I explored how their films destabilise human-centred narratives, attune audiences to the nonhuman and engage with the inescapable entanglements of contemporary existence.

Open to new projects, commissions and creative collaborations—if you’re working on something interesting, let’s talk!

PERVERT

Ethel Cain

Written by Olivia J. Bennett
Edited by Isabella Trimboli
Published in print by The Big Issue AU
Issue #729 | 31 January 2024

Ethel Cain’s long-anticipated sophomore album Pervert is a pivot so strong, so well visioned, reminding die-hard fans that world-building comes at the expense of easy listening. Alongside the more palatable poetess of Lana Del Rey, Cain pushes in her stake to claim a new gothic romanticisation of the American South. Pervert’s languid composition layers deeply downtrodden ambient sounds with her characters’ subdued cries and siren calls. Red rusting strings, the fervent fuzz of thirsting electrical towers and the learned comfort of slack-handed chord progression. “I love you. I love you. I love you…” monotonously meditates ‘Houseofpsychoticwown’ into soft, sludge-filled oblivion. ‘Vacillator’ turns an outro drum tempo into a long drawn edge that only Cain can satisfy, but chooses to deny: “If you love me, then keep it to yourself.” It’s an album that washes into you, rather than over you. Uninvited but unconsciously welcome, Pervert inspires a feeling of deep peace that can only come from skulking a rock bottom untoward faith—a place where very few dare to dance.

SIREN SONGS

Sacred Hearts

Written by Olivia J. Bennett
Edited by Isabella Trimboli
Published in print by The Big Issue AU
Issue #726 | 09 December 2024

This debut EP delivers devilish post-punk with a nod to the waterways and wayward ways of a not-so Sunshine State. Opener ‘Is It Cold?’ cuts through mist and mud, with heavy power chords and a wall of wails slicing through chilling synths and a relentless drumbeat. In ‘Concrete Bikini’, Ophelia is invoked as the protagonist sinks into the Enoggera Reservoir: “Seduced by the murky brown water/So I let it sink into me, I knew my fate.” Drawing from The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees and Joy Division, yet remaining distinctly their own, the tracks revel in a timeless tug-of-war between so-called good and evil. ‘Virgin/Whore’ twists the complexities of feminine experience into a swampy death roll. Meanwhile, ‘Crocodile Tears’ picks up the pace, closing the EP with an industrial Prodigy-like rage: “Take the silver spoon from your mouth/Replace it with tetanus and rust.” The EP’s pulsing, tachycardic heart thrums with raw cathartic energy–like an electric shock for those ready to ignite their rebellion.

LURE

Exhibition by Seren Wagstaff & Joseph Botica
@ Outer Space (1 November – 7 December 2024)

Exhibition text by Olivia J. Bennett
Published online and in print by Outer Space

Lures are confusing. They’re mimetic in how they try to replicate the amphibious and memetic in the shapeshifting play they engage with. At first cast, their performance feels calculatedly vulnerable, even as their purpose remains crystal clear. It’s this very calculation that slips through your fingers—a chasm of desire and denial ignited by the anxious churn of choppy water, with Bundy rum sloshing in the boat’s bowels and the chum, both fish and friend, surfacing along the way.

Exhibition text (Front). Retrieved from Outer Space website.
Image Courtesy of the artists.

Exhibition text (Back). Retrieved from Outer Space website.

YOU, ME & EUGENE

Written by Olivia J. Bennett
Self-published on Substack

It’s the same loop of never-ending think pieces blaming social media for our alienation—"the internet controls everything," then, "the internet isn’t real life." Well, which is it? The Code forces these anal-gazing auteurs to confront themselves, answering back with: "You signed up for this, remember?"

Still from The Code (2024), dir. Eugene Kotlyarenko, featuring Peter Vack and Dasha Nekrasova.

VULTURES 2

Kanye West & Ty Dolla $ign

Written by Olivia J. Bennett
Edited by Isabella Trimboli
Published in print by The Big Issue AU
Issue #719 | 30 August 2024

Kanye West and Ty Dolla $ign’s Vultures 2 stumbles under the weight of its predecessor's hype, perfectly failing a reverse Bechdel test. The album’s delayed release—a now typical move for the duo—only adds to the disservice. What was once a world of sonic innovation feels rushed and uninspired, with tracks like "PROMOTION" and "HUSBAND" not only objectify women but cross into a more sinister, coercive narrative. Lyrics like “I just put your b**** on another b**** and hit ‘em both” or “All you really need is a husband/The only thought you ever need is ‘I trust him’” highlight this disturbing shift. Despite technically polished production, the album lacks careful consideration. "SKY HIGH" offers a fleeting moment of sincerity through its interpolation of The Five Stairsteps' "O-o-h Child" with the line, "Ooh, child, things are going to get easier." Ultimately, Vultures 2 is blinded by self-indulgence, leaving listeners with little more than a hollow echo of what once was.

SEASHELL ANGEL
LUCKY CHARM

Armlock

Written by Olivia J. Bennett
Edited by Isabella Trimboli
Published in print by The Big Issue AU
Issue #717 | 02 August 2024

Melbourne duo Armlock have returned with new LP Seashell Angel Lucky Charm. The album expands on the intricate world built on their last record Trust (2021), with chord-forward melodies, steady beats, angelic harmonies, and intricate noise elements infused with whimsical vocal snippets. Like Trust, Seashell Angel Lucky Charm radiates a bittersweet charm, but perhaps a bit more bitter this time, with Simon Lam’s lead vocals front and centre—muted, reserved, yet masterful. His tone is soothing, like scratching a soft, satisfying itch. The introspective, indie-rock sensibility of Something For Kate’s Echolalia is present in the lyrics that navigate the battle for space in one’s mind, a tug-of-war between fears and desires. Whether it's the feeling of being stuck in an open door in ‘Guardian,’ turning a step into a pirouette to ‘Godsend’s’ synthy piano, locking elbows in ‘Fear, or the imagery of being ankle-deep in ‘Ice Cold’, this album delicately dances between idolatry and iconoclasm. It’s an album about loving purposefully yet unrequitedly, and an exercise in seeing devotion as a pattern of release and capture.

C, XOXO

Camilla Cabello

Written by Olivia J. Bennett
Edited by Isabella Trimboli
Published in print by The Big Issue AU
Issue #716 | 19 July 2024

Since leaving Fifth Harmony in 2018, Camila Cabello shot to fame with ‘Señorita’ featuring Shawn Mendes, a track that owes its two billion Spotify listens more to department store airplay than genuine acclaim. Cabello’s fourth album, C, XOXO, runs on empty emotions, speeding full tilt with no direction, enlisting every trick in the book. The single ‘I LUV IT’ featuring Playboi Carti is perhaps redeemable, more of an earworm than the rest of the album. There are lots of cameos here: BLP Kosher contributes a 46-second track with a superficial narrative of loss. Drake pops up on ‘HOT UPTOWN’ but also bizarrely has a solo track ‘Uuugly’ in the middle of the album. The track titles, ranging from lowercase to uppercase, reflect the album’s manic nature. Themes of 00s nostalgia and the I’m just a girl sentiment abound, especially in tracks like ‘DREAM-GIRL’ and “Twentysomethings.” The album is dismal, a clear cry of desperation from a declining industry plant.

RECESSION POP
IS MAKING A COMEBACK

Written by Olivia J. Bennett
Edited by Güseli Yalcinkaya
Published online by DAZED

As we navigate today’s financial challenges, the recession pop revival captures our collective longing for nostalgia, but also signals a desire to go deeper in our sonic storytelling.

Kesha, ‘JOYRIDE’ (2024)

BRAT

Charli XCX

Written by Olivia J. Bennett
Edited by Isabella Trimboli
Published in print by The Big Issue AU
Issue #715 | 05 July 2024

With over a decade under her belt, the people’s party princess Charli XCX’s Brat has firmly secured her position in pop’s hall of fame. Rallying a 19-piece girl gang of pop culture’s off-kilter elite for the launch of headline track "360," Charli defines a unique vision of womanhood. Not one to mince words, the album captures the silly, sad, sexy, and sensational feelings of being a girl while delicately reinventing genre-worn tropes. Featuring nasty synths, electro-disco beats, frenetic bass, and 00s earworms, all supported by producer A.G. Cook, it’s a masterclass in modern pop. From the anxieties of missing out on motherhood in “I think about it all the time” (I think I might run out of time / But I finally met my baby / And a baby might be mine), to “Girl, so confusing” exploring the compassionate competitiveness of female friendships, to “So I” paying a painfully honest tribute to late collaborator SOPHIE, and “Guess” exploiting the playful power dynamics of desire, Charli struck untouched chords with this decade-defining album.

DENNIS

Sega Bodega

Written by Olivia J. Bennett
Edited by Isabella Trimboli
Published in print by The Big Issue AU
Issue #713 | 07 June 2024

Sega Bodega returns feverishly with his third, folkloric album Dennis, the product of a self-professed manic episode. We ride scattered highs with tracks like ‘Adulter8’, which fuse Bodega’s industrial, bass-heavy stylings with 8-bit melodies – a nod to the artist’s name and a broader feeling of insatiable yearning. Dancehall beats mix with chopped and screwed vocals, roller-coasting high and low in ‘Elk Skin’, before speeding into the hectic BPM and rambling lyricism of ‘Kepko’. Most impressive is ‘Tears & Sighs’, where Bodega’s deep voice convincingly pleads, “Give into me, give into me,” as a throbbing club beat builds. Suddenly, dropping into acoustic guitar, we’re pushed away by “Don’t talk to me, don’t even look at me”. Flinging between these opposites, Bodega blurs the line between nostalgia and fantasy, tradition and experimentation, ecstasy and misery to produce a beautifully tortured release. It’s only in the final track, ‘Coma Salv’, with its twinkling keys and soft resonance, that we find rest, sinking into an otherworld Bodega seems desperately striving to reach.