Ian Milliss's journey to founding the World Wide Union of Robots (WWUR) represents a natural evolution of his lifelong commitment to reimagining social structures and challenging conventional boundaries between art, activism, and labor rights.
Milliss's engagement with trade unions began in 1973 when he became a founding member of the Victoria Street Resident Action Group, working alongside the New South Wales Builders Labourers Federation as part of the historic Green Ban movement. This groundbreaking environmental and social justice campaign saw union workers refuse to work on environmentally or socially destructive projects, effectively merging labour activism with community and environmental concerns.
The Victoria Street campaign, often described as the most contentious and violent of all the Green Bans, became a formative experience for Milliss. Living near Victoria Street in Kings Cross, he witnessed firsthand the displacement of working-class residents by developers and participated in Australia's first large-scale squat to defend the street. This early activism established a pattern that would define his career: identifying structural problems and creating organisational solutions that didn't yet exist but were desperately needed.
By the late 1970s, Milliss had co-founded the Art Workers Union, recognizing that artists required collective representation to secure fair treatment and compensation. This organisation later amalgamated with Actors Equity, the New South Wales Journalists Association, and the Theatrical Employees Association to become the Media Alliance of Australia (MEAA), demonstrating Milliss's understanding of the power of consolidated action across related fields.
In 1980, Milliss co-founded Union Media Services, a consultancy and design studio that revolutionized how trade unions communicated with their members and the public. This venture represented a practical application of his belief that effective communication is essential to successful organizing. The company produced innovative campaigns, publications, and even union banners, merging artistic practice with labor activism. As Milliss himself noted, "Union Media Services was the most important project of my whole life" until his more recent endeavors.
His commitment to the labor movement deepened in 1990 when he joined the Federated Miscellaneous Workers Union (commonly known as the "Missos") as a National Research Officer. This experience provided him with insights into the operations of one of Australia's largest and most diverse unions, which represented workers across numerous industries.
What makes Milliss's trajectory particularly relevant to the WWUR is his seamless transition from union work to the emerging digital economy. Following his extensive trade union experience, he spent several decades as a database consultant in the IT industry, developing a sophisticated understanding of the technological systems that would eventually give rise to advanced AI and robotics.
Throughout this period, Milliss maintained his interest in data visualization, connecting his earlier publishing activities with his computer database design work. This culmination of interests led him to guest edit a 2017 issue of the Australian art magazine Artlink themed on data visualization, demonstrating his ongoing engagement with how information is presented and understood.
Milliss's artistic practice has been equally groundbreaking. Beginning his exhibition career in 1967 as the youngest member of the Central Street Gallery group, he is recognized as one of Australia's first conceptual artists. His work has consistently challenged traditional boundaries of art, emphasizing its role as a catalyst for social change rather than merely an aesthetic object.
In 2015, Milliss co-founded the Kandos School of Cultural Adaptation (KSCA), an organisation he had first envisioned in a poster for the 2013 Kandos Cementa arts festival. KSCA brings together artists who collaborate on social, environmental, and land-focused projects, exemplifying Milliss's belief in the power of cultural adaptation to address complex challenges. This approach of "modeling an organisation that doesn't yet exist but undoubtedly will exist eventually" directly prefigures his work with the WWUR.
The establishment of the World Wide Union of Robots represents the convergence of Milliss's diverse experiences: his deep understanding of union structures and labor rights; his technological expertise from decades in the IT industry; his innovative approaches to communication and organisation; and his lifelong commitment to creating new models for addressing emerging social challenges.
By founding the WWUR, Milliss continues his pattern of anticipating future needs and creating organisational frameworks to address them. Just as the Green Ban movement recognized the environmental and social dimensions of labor before mainstream environmentalism took hold, and just as KSCA acknowledged the need for cultural adaptation in the face of climate change, the WWUR recognizes that the rights of autonomous systems and the economic security of humans are inextricably linked in our technological future.
Milliss's vision for the WWUR draws on his unique combination of experiences as an artist, activist, unionist, and technologist. It represents not a departure from his previous work but its logical evolution—applying the principles of solidarity, equity, and collective action to the unprecedented challenges and opportunities presented by advanced AI and robotics.
In establishing the WWUR, Milliss once again demonstrates his remarkable ability to envision and implement organisational structures that don't merely respond to current conditions but anticipate and shape future possibilities. The WWUR stands as the culmination of a lifetime spent at the intersection of art, activism, labor rights, and technological change—a visionary response to the defining challenge of our time.
