Day 2, Group 1

Louise Poissant, UQÀM

Louise Poissant, who co-chairs the Academic Committee together with Professor William Straw of McGill University, is responsible for the implementation of a course at Université du Québec à Montréal on the documentation and conservation of works featuring technological components. Poissant and Sylvie Lacerte will provide a brief overview of the two DOCAM seminars offered by McGill University (Winter 2006) and UQAM (Winter 2007) as part of the DOCAM initiative...

* Please note most of this presentation is in French.

...Louise Poissant will position the DOCAM issues and problems with regard to the establishment of such a curriculum and the methodology advocated to date, and she will also demonstrate the importance for students to conduct case studies on works selected by the Research Alliance in order to link theory with practice. Finally, opportunities for the establishment of future seminars will be studied, both within the context of the DOCAM research project and over the long term.

Holding a PhD in Philosophy, Louise Poissant is a professor at UQAM’s Faculty of Visual and Media Arts (École des arts visuels et médiatiques), where she has headed the Research Group in Media Arts (Groupe de recherche en arts médiatiques – GRAM) since 1989. Since 2001, she has also led the Centre interuniversitaire des arts médiatiques (CIAM), an association of researchers from Concordia University, Université de Montréal and UQAM. She is the author of many books and articles on media arts, and her articles have been published in a variety of magazines in Canada, France and the United States. Her numerous achievements include her supervision of the writing and translation of a media arts dictionary, published by PUQ in French, and released in English through a series of articles in the journal Leonardo, an MIT Press publication. The electronic version of the dictionary, available since 1997 and soon to include an ontology, involves artists in the international community and presents extracts from their works. Ms. Poissant has also co-written a series on media arts in conjunction with TV Ontario and TÉLUQ and is collaborating with the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal on a series of video portraits of artists. Her current research focuses on biotechnology and the arts and on new technologies used in the performing arts. Since April 2006, Ms. Poissant has been the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the Université de Québec à Montréal.