My research concerns the history and sociology of science and technology and, more specifically, since 1990, the history and sociology of cyberculture. I began by conducting in-depth research into the origins of personal informatics, by describing the evolution of Douglas Engelbart’s laboratory at the Stanford Research Institute and how his ideas and creations (the mouse, the proto graphic interface, hypertext) migrated to Xerox PARC and Apple. Since 2001 I have been extending this work with research into the other fundamental evolution of cybernetic synthesis, i.e. molecular biology, by reconstructing its recent history from its lesser-known side, the “non-coding” part of DNA, which American researchers dubbed “junk DNA.” This research was published in 2011 by the University of Minnesota Press, as Junkware. Since 2008 I have been concentrating on combining my analyses of these two cybernetic evolutions, informatics and molecular biology, for a study of the issue of post-humanity, or more generally the engineering of the post-human (but also post-animal and post-machine) creature.

I am currently completing a research program funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, entitled “Post-animaux : ce que les animaux technologiquement modifiés peuvent nous révéler du futur (post)humain.” My goal is to make a “detour via animals” to develop an ethnographic view of bio-engineering without analyzing the essentially discursive practices of bioethics and science fiction.

My interdisciplinary research-creation lies at the intersection of (new) media and participatory performance. For more than a decade, my work has focused on developing a sensory methodology to foster dialogue about issues of biodiversity in so-called public spaces. I am concerned with site-specificity and the live events I create often extend place-based encounters through mobile media, online interactive maps and other digital media. I am particularly interested in hybrid perceptions of embodiment resulting from sensing across physical and virtual registers. In recent publications, I have investigated immersive and participatory art forms in combination with sensory methods such as eating and walking as modes of public engagement. In my current research, I examine the notions of "embodied illusions" and "sensations of presence" that are often invoked in relation to virtual reality experiences.

My research interests are fueled by questions concerning the ways in which practices, discourses and cultural dispositifs (apparatuses), in their articulations to the different forms in which power is exercised, contribute to produce what prevails as if it could be taken for granted. Popular music is a fertile field for exploring these questions, given its strategic role in the shaping of identities and belongings, and the mediation of public culture, particularly in Québec. This has led me to study the valorization of top-selling products, music-related industries and policies, and the effectivity of fame/celebrity.

I am currently working on two main projects. The first one concerns small venues in Montréal. I study regimes of circulation, mainly those that orient and reconfigure "live music."   The second project deals with a music contest for people aged 65 and over. I analyze the relationships between media, memory and mobility, focusing particularly on various forms of "successful ageing" and "ageing well."

I'm an Associate Professor in media studies, media arts, and research-creation. I work primarily at the intersection of media aesthetics, material and visual cultures, and history and philosophy of science and technology. I’m particularly interested in my current research in print and paper histories, technologies, and practices.

I’m currently working on a book called High-Tech Paper: Security Printing and the Aesthetics of Trust, a historical and theoretical study of security printing and document aesthetics that investigates the material protocols of identification, authentication, and recognition.

I’m also co-directing a collaborative project on sleep. The Sociability of Sleep is an interdisciplinary research-creation project exploring the epistemologies and equities of sleep. We are interested in both the everyday and the exceptional experiences of sleep and its disturbances. Our approach is rooted in art-science experimentation, collaboration, prototyping, and various forms of “critical making” that integrate and engage with qualitative or quantitative research data. We aim for interventions into sleep in art, design, media, and performance to generate novel sleep situations that can enrich knowledge, understanding, and normative treatment of sleep conditions, as well as the collective care of all sleepers.

My research follows two principal directions of inquiry, guided by a common philosophical approach. The first bears on the aesthetic dimensions of contemporary issues in communications. This research focuses on emergent modes of expression and modalities of experience, individual and collective, in particular as revealed by contemporary practices in digital and interactive art. The second is concerned with contemporary theories of power in the context of globalized capitalism. The philosophical perspective linking these two research directions is “radical empiricism,” which asserts the primacy of relation and becoming (Bergson, James, Whitehead, Simondon, Deleuze/Guattari).