Adam Goodes's AFL data, its entanglement with Aboriginal knowledge systems, and the sacred wirra that's protecting it

For the past four years, Adam Goodes, Angie Abdilla and Baden Pailthorpe have been working with Adnyamathana Custodians and Yarta (Country) to show how Goodes's AFL data marries with the metaphysics of Aboriginal knowledge systems. (Supplied: Tracker Data Project/Baden Pailthorpe)

There is power in sound. Racist booing inside Australia's sporting crucible, the MCG, carried an ugly energy as it made its way to the ears of the man it was aimed at: Adam Goodes.

It's an experience inflicted upon him at many football grounds around the country during the final two years of his AFL career. There was the uplifting sound also, when his supporters stood and cheered for him as one, like a modern-day King Canute ordering the tide not to rise.