Violaine Boutet de Monvel

PhD. From video feedback to generative AI: on recursivity in the arts and media (2025)

About

I am a French researcher, art writer, and translator. I am a member of NECS (European Network for Cinema and Media Studies) and AICA-USA (the American section of the International Association of Art Critics).

Experience

I currently teach part-time in the Film and Media Studies Department at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3, where I defended my PhD in January 2025. My thesis explores recursivity in the arts and media, bridging video feedback and generative AI. It is the first doctoral study in France to examine the impact of AI on visual culture since text-to-image models emerged in 2021.

I have designed two undergraduate courses addressing the topic from a media-archaeological perspective: one focusing on aesthetics, the other on television history. Previously, I taught modern and contemporary art at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

I have presented my research at various venues, most recently at Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Universitatea Politehnica din București, and ENS-PSL. I was also the recipient of grants and residencies at NYU, Brown, and Emory University.

Regarding my freelance activity as an art writer and translator, I have authored monographs and exhibition catalogues dedicated to the work of several artists, including Benjamin Sabatier, Grégory Chatonsky, Pierre Ardouvin, and Amélie Bertrand.

I have also translated books and gallery texts on many others, such as Soufiane Ababri, Joanie Lemercier, Georges Tony Stoll, Marcel Duchamp & Bruno Munari, Ha Chong-Hyun, and Pablo Picasso & Alexander Calder, as well as entire issues of art and architecture magazines (The Steidz, Archistorm).

I have written extensively for the international press (ArtReview, Frieze, Aperture, Esse, Art Papers, Flash Art, Artpress) and for blue-chip Paris-based galleries (Perrotin, Poggi, Almine Rech, Templon, Kamel Mennour, Georges-Philippe & Nathalie Vallois, etc.).

Finally, I have created a few experimental videos that have been shown in both Europe and the United States, as well as co-directed Passage 2009 with Jeffrey Charles Stanley — a festival structured as a video exquisite corpse, bringing together original works by French, Canadian, and American artists, including Jacques Perconte, Emma Dusong, Natacha Clitandre, Johanna Vaude, Vincent Ciciliato, and Rbt. Sps.

I am primarily inspired by in situ practices, found art, conceptual wit, haunted minimalism, psychedelic painting, and nonsense, while also indulging in photography and video making through a diary-like series titled Art in Practice. I have further developed a deep interest and passion for Creole history and culture, with a focus on the free people of color in Haiti and Louisiana.