In this presentation, Dr Kathleen Williams (University of Tasmania), explores the relationship between waste and media. Her work maps how media technologies are disposed of or recirculated in ad hoc economies and networks; creatively reused by hoarders and collectors; or destined for the scrapheap. Through interviews and site visits with waste management and community resource initiatives, this research charts how decisions are made around what becomes waste, how organisations seek to engage communities, and how the lifecycle of media objects can be extended or disrupted. Her work also turns to representations of waste in order to understand our mediatised relationship to it. As media objects become trash, how are these objects being used differently, and how does this influence everyday practice? Drawing upon work in waste studies, memory studies and media archaeology, this presentation combines theoretical understandings of media materiality and disuse alongside emergent community practice and engagement (image: chinatechnews.com).
Dr Kathleen Williams is a lecturer in media at the University of Tasmania. Her work looks at how media technologies can be co-opted from their intended or assumed uses, particularly through the relationship between screen and digital cultures, and nostalgia.