PhD Thesis | University of Toronto (St. George) Faculty of Information

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Title: Gay Dreams and Feeling Machines: Queering Mediating Technologies in Performance

Thesis Supervisor: Dr. Patrick Keilty 

Thesis Committee: Dr. Jasmine Rault, Dr. Nikki Cesare-Schotzko, Dr. Zach Blas

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Abstract: What would it mean to let ourselves—as trans-feminist and queer (TFQ) subjects—transform and be transformed by mediating technologies in ways that are creative, and not extractivist? In an increasingly precarious climate for artists and humanities researchers, TFQ creators working at the intersections of art, research, and technology have spearheaded subversive approaches to working with emerging technologies in order to undermine their functionality as tools of neoliberal progress, social control, and state violence; instead, they emphasize the timeliness of crafting alternate technological-poetic realities through creative practice. This dissertation builds from TFQ approaches to research-creation, phenomenology, and new media to design and analyze the conceptual-material ‘queering’ of three emergent new media practices—virtual reality design, intermedial theatre, and AI text generation—to imagine and model their creative directions. The first case study, “Bisexual Bedroom Imaginaries,” retroactively analyzes a queer virtual reality design practice which rejects the positioning of virtual reality as an ‘empathy machine’ to promote an experience of ‘identity tourism,’ instead positioning VR as a tool to perform and safeguard sensitive queer ephemera. The second theorizes a queer intermedial theatre practice through the research and development of “JANE,” a one-act speculative fiction drama which uses shadow-based illusions to externalize and aestheticize critical TFQ ethico-political considerations of deepfake technology. Finally, the third involves the fine-tuning of a GPT-2 model to produce queer-feminist lyrical poetry for performance, interrogating the simultaneous possibilities and limits of engaging artificially intelligent models in collaborative creations of knowledge. This project ultimately demonstrates the possibilities of crafting alternate relations with technologies that may already be oriented against TFQ subjects, arguing for the urgency of practice-based interventional approaches to new media, technology, and design studies to procure the continued survival of TFQ people, politics, and poetics.

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This work comes generously funded by a SSHRC Joseph Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship - Doctoral (CGS-D) Award. During my tenure at the University of Toronto, I was also the recipient of the Hilda Wilson Fellowship in Technology, Information and Culture (2024/2025), Centre for Culture and Technology Graduate Research Fellowship (2023/2024), and two Marcia J. Nauratil Memorial Fellowships (2023/2024 - 2022/2023).

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Education History
 

• Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Information (University of Toronto, St. George) | 2020 - 2025
  Thesis Title: Gay Dreams and Feeling Machines: Queering Mediating Technologies in Performance
  Collaborative Specialization in Knowledge Media Design
  Collaborative Specialization in Sexual Diversity Studies
   

• Master of Arts (M.A.) in Performance Practice as Research (Royal Central School of Speech and Drama) | 2019 - 2020
  Thesis Title: Intimacy betweenspace/s: Towards a Performance Practice of Digital Intimacy
  Graduated with Distinction
   

• Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in Arts and Humanities
  Honours Double Major in English Language and Literature and Theatre Studies
  Graduated with Honours, Western Scholars

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Academic Awards and Scholarships - Postgraduate
 

• Hilda Wilson Fellowship in Technology, Information and Culture

• Marcia J. Nauratil Memorial Fellowship | University of Toronto

• CDHI Critical DH Learning Community Grant | University of Toronto

• Joseph Armand-Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship - Doctoral | University of Toronto

• Embassy Postgraduate Scholarship | Royal Central School of Speech and Drama

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Research Experience

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• Research Assistant, Centre for Culture and Technology (under Dr. Scott Richmond) | University of Toronto

• Studio Assistant, Centre for Culture and Technology (under Simone Browne) | University of Toronto

• Studio Assistant, Daniels Faculty (under Dr. Zach Blas) | University of Toronto

• Research Assistant, Sexual Representation Collection (under Dr. Patrick Keilty) | University of Toronto

• Research Assistant, Bell University Labs Chair/CAMH (under Dr. Matt Ratto) | University of Toronto

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Conference Presentation Experience

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• The Great Escape of 1944: The Baltic Experience (VEMU Estonian Museum of Canada) | September 2024

• Art For Sustenance: 17th Annual Conference on the Arts in Society | May 2024 

• The 17th Ammerman Centre Biennial Symposium on Arts and Technology | November 2022

• Digital Research in the Humanities (DHRA) Conference | September 2022

• International Federation for Theatre Research (IFTR) World Congress | June 2022

• Material Selves: Gender, Health, and Performance at University College London | June 2022

• International Association of Libraries, Museums, Archives, and Documentation Centres of the Performing Arts (SIBMAS) "Performing the Future" Conference | June 2022

• International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) Student Design Competition | March 2022

• Society for Social Studies of Science Annual Meeting | October 2021

• Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH) Conference | July 2021

• Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI) Conference and Colloquium | June 2021

• Canadian Communication Association (CCA) Annual Conference | June 2021

• Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) | May 2021

• Communities and Communication International Interdisciplinary Conference and Festival | April 2021

• International Documentation of Contemporary Dance Education (IDOCDE) Symposium | July 2020

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