- This event has passed.
Liz Canner presents to the DDI
May 17, 2023 @ 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Award-winning media artist Liz Canner has produced many documentaries and transmedia projects that investigate social and environmental in/justice issues. She often utilizes emerging technologies to interrogate mainstream narratives, explore new language for communication and inspire user engagement. Her critically acclaimed interactive documentary Symphony of A City, explores the housing crisis from a new perspective. Orgasm Inc., a NY Times “Critic’s Pick”, investigates the pharmaceutical industry. Lost City of Mer, an award-winning smartphone app and VR experience, uses a unique living narrative structure to immerse players in a mysterious underwater civilization devastated by climate change. Canner has received over 60 awards and honors including a Rockefeller Foundation Next Generation Leadership Fellowship, a Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellowship at Harvard, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Canner’s award-winning films have been theatrically released, shown extensively on the international festival circuit, streamed on Netflix (“Most Popular”) and Kanopy (“Most Popular”) and broadcast on PBS, cable stations and internationally in many countries.
During her interactive talk at SFU, award winning media artist Liz Canner will discuss her work, process, and the history of cyber-democracy. This includes how she chased down orgasm disease-mongers, uncovered decades of ritualized violence on college campuses, had her investigative work on police brutality censored, and built a fantastical underwater lost civilization devastated by climate change – all in the pursuit of using media as a tool for social and environmental justice. She’ll go into her use of emerging technologies to challenge dominant paradigms and deconstruct power dynamics while exploring its potential for inspiring user action and positive change. The research questions she’ll be exploring while on campus will also be discussed.
Email ddi_comms@sfu.ca for details and Zoom link.