David Burns works in media and space, and is co-founder of Fiction Feeling Frame.

His current research examines the role of media in the historiographies of sites of nuclear colonialism. His PhD research at the Centre for Research Architecture, Goldsmiths was concerned with the Woomera Rocket Range in South Australia, specifically the British nuclear weapons tests in the 1950s and 1960s at Maralinga. His dissertation traced multiple histories of Maralinga via its evolving and highly mediated landscape, the trauma of repeated acts of colonisation, and the devastating effects of the tests on Indigenous peoples and their modes of living. The project was accompanied by an archive of found photography, drawings, court records, newsreels, scientific studies, and memorabilia combined with new photography and moving image work completed by David during fieldwork in South Australia and the Northern Territory.

For two decades David has written and led transdisciplinary curricula in architecture, art, and design. He leads Media Studies at the RCA School of Architecture and was previously the inaugural Director of Photography and Situated Media at the University of Technology Sydney.

David co-founded Fiction Feeling Frame with Thandi Loewenson and Adam Kaasa in 2020.