Sep 10, 2026 · 22 min · 11 segments
In this episode of Delivery: A GovTech Podcast, National Gallery of Australia chief information officer discusses the role artificial intelligence within cultural institutions, and the guardrails put…
Jade CarsonGuest
James RileyHost
Okay, so let's dig a little bit into the creative sides and what is it about managing creative spaces and creative personnel and creative collections that would make it somewhat different from a more generalized public service role?
Every time that you introduce a new, a different type of laptop or a different type of technology that you've got to support, you need the skills and the funding to go with that.
They also want to use a lot of different types of software technologies, and they're all bespoke, and you have to start investigating whether do they really need this one, or is there something out there on the market that we already have that can support them? And so that's fairly standard of what most business or IT teams do, but it's just about knowing what they need to deliver within those spaces, and in particular for those exhibitions, do we have an offering that supports us, or do we actually have to now go procure a new technology and capability to support what we're implementing here? And we see that a lot at the gallery.
So one of the, uh, fun ones that we did was we had to penetration test giant robot, and these artistic creations are made by artists, so we have to go with whatever technology they have developed.
If it's a digital presentation of art, we have to be able to support what they've built it on.
So if I'm a local company, I've got something interesting that I think might be useful to a collection like yours, how do I get involved? How do I talk to you?
So what I would say is that even though we're a small organization, we do each have the areas that we look after.
So I'm more in charge of the infrastructure and what staff use on a day-to-day basis, and supporting any unique infrastructure that we need to bring in.
But we do have a digital team, so the digital team look at the imaging and all of the online offerings.
And we also have our collection management and preservation people who have their own unique needs in terms of technology, as well as building and security.
So we are very business-driven, so if you're a small vendor or a vendor seeking to work with the gallery, it's really good to understand the gallery, understand who it is you might be targeting there, what areas are you looking to work with, because we will be brought in at the later stage as well to work alongside those business areas to deliver.
And then on digital imaging in particular, like, there's obviously a huge opportunity to expand.
I, I mean, we know that the National Gallery has huge numbers of works that don't get on show very often.
So I think the approach, and the gallery has just made an a-announcement today actually with the minister, one of the big programs that we have is sharing the national collection.
We're going through building works at the moment, and we are sharing more and more of the works out to galleries across Australia.
So I think the focus for the gallery is to ensure that all Australians can see the real painting and the actual artwork.
But alongside that, our digital team have been imaging the collection and making that available through digital means, through the online platform to be able to see that.
Okay, so let's dig a little bit into the creative sides and what is it about managing creative spaces and creative personnel and creative collections that would make it somewhat different from a more generalized public service role?
Every time that you introduce a new, a different type of laptop or a different type of technology that you've got to support, you need the skills and the funding to go with that.
They also want to use a lot of different types of software technologies, and they're all bespoke, and you have to start investigating whether do they really need this one, or is there something out there on the market that we already have that can support them? And so that's fairly standard of what most business or IT teams do, but it's just about knowing what they need to deliver within those spaces, and in particular for those exhibitions, do we have an offering that supports us, or do we actually have to now go procure a new technology and capability to support what we're implementing here? And we see that a lot at the gallery.
So one of the, uh, fun ones that we did was we had to penetration test giant robot, and these artistic creations are made by artists, so we have to go with whatever technology they have developed.
If it's a digital presentation of art, we have to be able to support what they've built it on.
So if I'm a local company, I've got something interesting that I think might be useful to a collection like yours, how do I get involved? How do I talk to you?
So what I would say is that even though we're a small organization, we do each have the areas that we look after.
So I'm more in charge of the infrastructure and what staff use on a day-to-day basis, and supporting any unique infrastructure that we need to bring in.
But we do have a digital team, so the digital team look at the imaging and all of the online offerings.
And we also have our collection management and preservation people who have their own unique needs in terms of technology, as well as building and security.
So we are very business-driven, so if you're a small vendor or a vendor seeking to work with the gallery, it's really good to understand the gallery, understand who it is you might be targeting there, what areas are you looking to work with, because we will be brought in at the later stage as well to work alongside those business areas to deliver.
And then on digital imaging in particular, like, there's obviously a huge opportunity to expand.
I, I mean, we know that the National Gallery has huge numbers of works that don't get on show very often.
So I think the approach, and the gallery has just made an a-announcement today actually with the minister, one of the big programs that we have is sharing the national collection.
We're going through building works at the moment, and we are sharing more and more of the works out to galleries across Australia.
So I think the focus for the gallery is to ensure that all Australians can see the real painting and the actual artwork.
But alongside that, our digital team have been imaging the collection and making that available through digital means, through the online platform to be able to see that.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
