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. This initiative has received three SSHRC Knowledge grants, each of which constituted a research phase. The first phase focused on 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 film editing. The second phase was titled 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) and had as its primary objective the production of an intermedial, intersectoral, and transnational history of the emergence of "rapid editing." More specifically, the aim was to trace the triple origin of rapid editing as a practice, notion, and concept. The third phase now focuses on Les nouveaux rythmes de l'hypermodernité : impacts de l'IA générative sur les médias de l'audiovisuel (SSHRC, 2026–2031) and proposes to analyze and situate the advent of editing via generative artificial intelligence within the continuum of technological transformations that have shaped audiovisual media since the dawn of cinema. The team will conduct this cross-sectoral research along three axes: historical, theoretical, and societal.

In preparation for the third phase of PRAGM/e, a research team based at the Université de Montréal and led by André Gaudreault and Marie-Odile Demay has begun studying the processes and practices of editing using generative artificial intelligence in the audiovisual media (film, video games, animation, etc.). This research, conducted between 2024 and 2026, has received four grants from the Inven_T, the University of Montreal's technosocial innovation center, the SSHRC, the International Observatory on the Societal Impacts of AI and Digital Technologies (Obvia), and the Université de Montréal's Office of Research Services and Development.

Research Activities

PRAGM/e's first colloquium, entitled L’émergence du concept de "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 2027.

As part of the third phase, PRAGM/e organized the first edition of the Débats croisés autour de l’IA in February 2026 and is conducting, in collaboration with the CoCoLab, a laboratory study on the impacts of AI in audiovisual content shared on social media.

Leadership Team

André GAUDREAULT
(Université de Montréal)

in collaboration with

Team Members

Phase 1

Phase 2

Phase 3

Student Members from Université de Montréal

News