Flight Paths, Freeways and Railroads

Flight Paths, Freeways and Railroads is a series of short film vignettes exploring how diverse participants currently experience transport mobilities and how automated technologies might be part of our future lives.

Filmmaker Jeni Lee  accompanies and films diverse participants moving around urban and regional spaces. The act of commuting is intended to elicit reflection and thoughtful responses from the research participants. Each participant's commute forms the backbone and narrative arc of a short film. Illustrations and animations created in collaboration with artists, Jan Rothuizen, and Franka Wiggers embed an additional layer of rich ethnographic insight within the films, highlighting the moods and emotions of the participants and the participants' imagined futures.

Film participants include deaf and blind individuals. The resulting short film vignettes aim to surface impacts of automated decision making (ADM) that haven’t been accounted for and explore barriers and biases propagated and amplified by ADM.

The films are critical of techno-determinist and techno-solutionist views of automated mobility. This project reveals biases and threats of automated transport mobilities and also uncovers creative opportunity and innovation. The films have research objectives while also aiming to fulfil other communication functions such as participation, advocacy and education.

Key investigators

Jeni Lee, Monash University

Sarah Pink, Monash University

Co-investigators

Sarah Pink, Monash University

Emma Quillty, Monash University

Thao Phan, Monash University

Funded by

This project is developed within the People Programme and the Transport Mobilities Focus Area of the Australia Research Council funded Centre of Excellence on Automated Decision-Making & Society (ADM+S) https://www.admscentre.org.au/

Contact: Sarah Pink

Email: sarah.pink@monash.edu