I’m an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at the Université de Montréal, working in media studies, media arts, and research-creation. I work primarily at the intersection of media aesthetics, material and visual cultures, and history of science and technology.
I’m particularly interested in print and paper (see for ex. the Paperology RAG or a recent article on the Bowater Papers). My next book project is High-Tech Paper: Security Printing and the Aesthetics of Trust. This a historical and theoretical study of security printing and document aesthetics that investigates the material protocols of identification, authentication, and recognition. It argues for a history of printing that follows the trail of luxury, fine, and secure papers.
From 2021–2023 I’m co-directing a collaborative research-creation project called The Sociability of Sleep with Alanna Thain (McGill) that brings together artists, scientists, medical doctors, and researchers in the humanities to generate new interdisciplinary knowledge and empathies for sleep conditions. I’m especially interested in sleep disorders and disabilities; communities of sleepers; media and technologies of sleep; and popular and cultural treatments of sleep. Our exhibition InSomnolence is in Montreal in summer 2023. (Details on these and other past and current projects here.)
A few other things:
- I’m a founding co-director of the Artefact Lab and the Bricolab.
- I’m a member of Hexagram, an editorial board member of the journals Intermédialités and the Canadian Journal of Communication, and past secretary of the Canadian Communication Association.
- I’ve edited a few collections. My first book is Polish Media Art in an Expanded Field (Intellect/University of Chicago Press, 2016).
- I previously worked as the Managing Editor of PUBLIC: Art/Culture/Ideas in Toronto and with Continuum Publishing (now Bloomsbury) in New York.
Aleksandra Kaminska 