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 Of Tentacles and Men: How anime shaped the internet as we know it, I theorize the role that Japanese animation fandom played in shaping exclusionary practices of the alternative web.
My research examines the intersection of technology and animation, with a focus on gender and sexuality. I’m particularly interested in ethical debates about non-photorealistic media (whether these be cartoons or AI-generated). What are concepts like consent, age, violence when there are no real bodies involved? And how to include these conversations in content policies for high-risk industries? I explore this as Guest Editor for the Porn Studies journal Special Issue on Artificial Intelligence, Pornography, and Sex Work.
Last year, I was a PhD intern for the Canada Research Chair in Digital Regulation at Work and in Life (UQAM - Université du Québec à Montréal) where I researched the tension between AI adult content creators and creative porn workers. Before that, I was a Doctoral Fellow in AI and Inclusion at the AI + Society Initiative (University of Ottawa) where I worked on the ethics of moderating AI pornography. In the Summer 2023, I was a PhD intern in Sociotechnical Systems at the Social Media Collective (Microsoft Research New England), where I worked with Tarleton Gillespie on the limits of automated moderation for pornographic animation involving fictional children.
Before my PhD, I graduated with a BA and MA in Film and Media Studies from La Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris.
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