I am an Assistant Professor in Media Studies and Research Creation at the Université de Montréal, where I am a co-director of the Artefact Lab. My primary interests are the politics and aesthetics of media technologies as materials and infrastructures; the meeting points between cultural practices and technological innovation; and historical and theoretical perspectives that emerge from “marginal” media objects. Along the way, I find myself continuously returning to questions on the mediation of identity and authenticity, whether of people, cultures, or things. My first book is Polish Media Art in an Expanded Field (Intellect/University of Chicago Press, 2016).
My next book project is a media history of high-tech paper and security printing, where I am looking to understand the technical ways we mark and inscribe authenticity, value, legitimacy and trust in paper or paper-like substrates. In another project I am working on the ways technologies of recognition (of bodies, identities, physical states) are used in the media arts, a topic I explore by considering the political dimensions of recognition, and by engaging with both instrumental and critical applications.
I also participate in two collaborative projects. First, I am a co-investigator in Archive/Counter-Archive: Activating Canada’s Moving Image Heritage, a nation-wide partnership working to research and remediate audiovisual archives created by women, Indigenous Peoples, the LGBTQ2+ community, and immigrant communities. Second, Nano-Verses is an ongoing research project with artists and scientists that is at once a speculation on the possibilities of new nano-optical medium and a reflection on the nature of interdisciplinary work. (See projects for details.)
I also have a longstanding interest in publishing, especially in small press and arts publishing, including analog revivals, digital platforms, and the “artisanal web,” and I previously worked as the Managing Editor of PUBLIC: Art/Culture/Ideas in Toronto and with Continuum Publishing (now Bloomsbury) in New York.
I am a member of Hexagram, an editorial board member of the journal Intermédialités, and a member-at-large of the Canadian Communication Association.
