PRAGM/e

Founded in 2018 and directed by André Gaudreault (in collaboration with Santiago Hidalgo and Laurent Le Forestier), the Programme de recherche sur l’archéologie et la généalogie du montage/editing (PRAGM/e) investigates the history of montage and in particular its advent as a practice. Its current research project is entitled Capturer le rythme de la vie moderne: le montage rapide comme symptôme et modèle pour les sociétés du début du XX^e siècle jusqu’à aujourd'hui (SSHRC, 2022-2026). Building on the achievements of an initial project, L’invention du concept du montage au cinéma: ses sources, son développement, ses migrations (SSHRC, 2018-2022), which traced the series of semantic fields associated with different historical moments in the development of montage, the main aim of this new research project, in operation since 2022, is to produce an intermedial, intersectoral and transnational history of the emergence of "rapid editing". More specifically, the aim is to trace the triple origin of rapid editing as a practice, a notion and a concept.

In response to recent advances in artificial intelligence, PRAGM/e is also developing an editing research project based on this technology. As part of this complementary project, entitled Impacts industriels, créatifs et sociétaux sur la production audiovisuelle générée par les systèmes d'intelligence artificielle (Inven_T, Centre d'innovation technosociale de l'Université de Montréal, 2024-2025), a research team led by André Gaudreault is studying the processes and practices of generative artificial intelligence editing in audiovisual media (cinema, video games, animation, etc.).

Research activities

PRAGM/e's first colloquium, entitled The emergence of the concept of "montage" was held in Lausanne, Switzerland, in November 2019. An issue of the journal Écrans bringing together some of the contributions from this colloquium, "Aux marges de l'idée de montage: pensées et pratiques" (edited by Robin Cauche and Raphaël Jaudon), was published in 2022.

A book bringing together the work of PRAGM/e researchers is currently being edited by André Gaudreault, Laurent Le Forestier, Santiago Hidalgo and Anna Kolesnikov. Co-edited by Presses de l'Université de Montréal (PUM) and Presses universitaires de Rennes (PUR), it will be published in 2025.

In addition to this book, the PRAGM/e team is planning a series of scientific activities to be announced in March 2025.

Management team

André GAUDREAULT
(Université de Montréal)

in collaboration with 

Santiago HIDALGO
(Université de Montréal)

Laurent LE FORESTIER
(University of Lausanne)

Other members of the scientific team

Coordination team

All members of the coordination team are based at the Université de Montréal.

Postdoctoral fellows: Anna KOLESNIKOV and Marie-Odile DEMAY-DEGOUSTINE

Research assistants: Tanzia MOBARAK, William PEDNEAULT-POULIOT and Hugo SAMSON

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