Julien Porquet (2022)

I study the political economy and social epistemology of visual perception in contexts where technology (particularly artificial intelligence) increasingly mediates how people look together and against each other. Framing perception as a socially organized activity, my dissertation project examines how US commercial artists, their clients, and generative AI models enact different ways of seeing that intersect, overlap and compete in shaping the value of images. Focusing on the concept of style, this research follows images and those who look at them from illustrators’ studios to design agencies, from AI labs to intellectual property lawsuits.

Research interests

Semiotics, visual culture, linguistic anthropology, science and technology studies, style, creative labour, North America