Hi, I am Aurélie.

I’m a social and visual researcher of animation and technology. You can contact me here.

I’m a PhD Candidate in the Film Studies department at Concordia University, Montréal. In my doctoral work From Usenet to 4Chan: Online anime fandom and the Alt-right, I theorize the discriminatory digital practices experienced by women and gender-diverse people in the U.S. online Japanese anime fandom during the right-wing shift of web cultures.

My research examined the intersection of technology and animation, with a focus on gender and sexuality. I’m particularly interested in ethical debates about non-realistic adult media, whether these be cartoons or AI-generated. What are concepts like consent, age, violence when there are no real bodies involved?

I am currently a PhD intern for the Canada Research Chair in Digital Regulation at Work and in Life (Université du Québec à Montréal) where I am working on fictionalized AI technologies in pornography and the performance of remediated AI labor. Over the last year, I was a Doctoral Fellow in AI and Inclusion at the AI + Society Initiative (University of Ottawa) where I worked on the ethics of AI pornography. In the Summer 2023, I was a PhD intern in Sociotechnical Systems at Microsoft Research New England, where I worked with Tarleton Gillespie on the limits of automated moderation for adult animation.

Before my PhD, I graduated with a MA in Film and Media Studies at La Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris.

News and blog

23/10/2024

My Ottawa International Animation Festival review is now online: I talk about the difficult past year for animation lovers, as record box-office numbers contrast with the increasing precarious working conditions in the industry, and why festivals like the OIAF are so, so very important in this context. Last week, I was invited to give a talk on AI Unzipped: The Naked Truth about Algorithmic "Art" (more info on the event here) as part of the AI Impact Alliance’s series of workshops on the social impacts of generative AI at the intersection of art, culture, law and the digital and creative economy. I was also invited to be part of the jury for the AIA’s Art-Laws grants ($5,000 for three artists in Canada), so I am looking forward to going over the projects!! And my Hentai Streaming Platform Wars paper for Porn Studies is on its way to publication, yay!

Earlier this month, I also facilitated a collage workshop, Crafting AI Imaginaries, on making better images of AI for the Applied AI Institute at Concordia University. A video of the event is available on Youtube, where you can see our hands collaging (v cool).

01/10/2024

I just got back from the Ottawa International Animation Festival that I attended as Media for the Fantasy/Animation website (watch out for my upcoming review —we’re gonna talk about AI in animation and WARS). I am always so happy to see friends from the industry and meet new people (animation students!!), but I can feel that I reached my limit in terms of travels: I did Viborg-> Amsterdam-> Ottawa in the last three weeks and it was TWEE much. I look very much forward to spending a weekend doing nothing. There shouldn’t be events I must attend in October, apart from the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma in Montreal (to finally watch Flow ) so I’ll have time to work on grants application and thesis ! I am always very grateful for new research opportunities but I am also trying to do this whole academia thing in a way that is sustainable in the long run.

16/09/2024

My B̷l̷a̷c̷k̷ ̷P̷u̷d̷d̷i̷n̷g̷: A Speculative Visual Indexproject I worked on for the MUTEK Forum is now online ! It doubles as a Generative AI project that questions the limits of AI adult content generators and a bibliographic resource for Black Pudding (1969) a lost pornographic feminist film by Nancy Edell. I also just came back from Viborg (Denmark), where I presented my work on the ethics of GenAI and porn at my favourite conference in a while: The (R)Evolution of Animation: Current Challenges and Futures Directions —I wrote a cute post about the experience on LinkedIn here.

I also just started my PhD Internship for the Canada Research Chair on Digital Regulation at Work and in Life at UQAM, where I will continue working on the ethics of non-human visual pornography, more specifically on robots and pornography. Fun! I’m excited to be in a very different environment (School of management!!), and get familiar with new research methods and approaches.

Another little fun thing was getting mentioned in Numerama’s #Règle30 latest newsletter for my work on women-exclusionary practices and anime. It’s a French online publication I often read!

Aaaaaaand someone is making a 16 parts video essay on my ‘Do female anime exist?’ and they said it’s written like a highschooler essay LOL. The evergreen of being a woman writing about anime!

01/08/2024

Check out my new interview with TURBODRIVER, creator of the Sims 4 WickedWhims adult mod. We discuss content creation, the ethics of adult modding, and how to make responsible design decisions when you can represent anything. Later this month, I will present my Generative AI art project at the MUTEK Forum.

Contact

aurelievirginiepetit@gmail.com