13-2023

WasteScapes: Augmented Documentary as Critical Place-Based Learning by Liz Miller

24th April 2023 held in the context of the virtual lecture series, hosted by the University of Bayreuth as a part of the research project Digital Documentary Practices

Wastescapes is an augmented documentary project, an App that engages creatively and critically with places, stories, and concepts related to waste in the city of Montréal, Canada. The WasteScapes App guides individuals to sites with entangled layers of history such as former dumps, underground waste infrastructures, or repurposed waste lands and challenges users to consider how our patterns of consumption have impacted land, water and other species over time. In WasteScapes being in place matters: short audio narrations and photos are unlocked only when someone visits a site. The project permitted Miller and her collaborators to think beyond fixed representation towards sensory awareness, embodied pedagogies, and expanded documentary practices. In this lecture, Miller will discuss WasteScapes and the potential of augmented documentary to shift a user's focus from character to place, from individual to ecosystem, and in doing so address the more than human as well as the power dynamics of place. Elizabeth (Liz) Miller, MFA, is a filmmaker and a Full Professor in Communication Studies at Concordia University. Her multi-platform collaborative documentary projects on timely issues such as water privatization, wetlands, environmental justice, and climate change have won awards and influenced decision makers. She is the co-author of Going Public: The Art of Participatory Practice (2017) and has written book chapters and articles on co-creation, environmental media, and place-based pedagogies. Her most recent project, WasteScapes, incorporates augmented documentary, cycling tours, installations, and educational resources. 

Elizabeth Miller elizabeth.miller@concordia.ca 

http://coms.concordia.ca/faculty/miller.html 

http://redlizardmedia.com 

http://theshorelineproject.org/