In May of 2025, I (Dr. Camille Intson) successfully defended the first research-creation-based dissertation in the Faculty of Information entitled Gay Dreams and Feeling Machines: Queering Mediating Technologies in Performance, supervised by Dr. Patrick Keilty. This undertaking was not without a myriad of tensions, both methodological and institutional, requiring a reworking of departmental guidelines and a tightening of infrastructure around research-creational pursuits to follow. This was at times a lonely project, requiring me to find and build community outside of the faculty (and-or university) to complete the practice-based components of the work. Since my defense, the faculty has welcomed a myriad of students wishing to undertake research-creation projects in its wake, many of whom are now working with the Creative Labour and Critical Futures research cluster. In light of that, when I was offered my current position as an Assistant Professor (Teaching Stream, CLTA) at the iSchool, I approached CLCF Co-Directors ME Luka and Rafael Grohmann with a pitch for a Research-Creation Salon. In light of the growing legitimization of practice-based research methods (artistic research, research-creation, performance research, auto-ethnography, etcetera), this two-day symposium event would give participants the opportunity to be in conversation and in community with fellow research-creation practitioners, and to collectively reflect on the diverse ways that research-creation is being enacted across disciplinary contexts.

Immediately, they connected me with CLCF Postdoctoral Fellow Islandia (Dr. Carina Emilia Guzmán), an artivist, archivist and researcher who also received their PhD from the Faculty of Information in 2023 with the dissertation Stor(y)ing Mi Desmadre: Trans- Feminist and Queer Community Archival and Digital Custodial Praxes in Latin America, supervised by Drs. TL Cowan and Jas Rault. Together, we dreamed up GLITCH / STITCH / RESIST: A Research-Creation Salon, an interdisciplinary culture and technology-focused symposium event sponsored by the Centre for Culture and Technology, Creative Labour and Critical Futures Cluster, and Faculty of Information.

Last week, on February 26th and 27th, we brought together a band of artists, scholars, researchers, thinkers, and creative producers across disciplines, faculties, and campuses at the University of Toronto. Hosted on St. George campus, the Salon events included a community dreaming workshop, networking opportunities, a keynote presentation, and panels for graduate students to share works in progress.

In selecting the name “GLITCH / STITCH / RESIST,” we chose “Glitch” to signify a disruption or deconstruction of normative methods of research scholarship; “Stitch” to signify creativity and repair; and “Resist” to signify a resistance to capitalist-colonial neoliberal university cultures. Altogether, the Salon proposed creative, vibrant, politically attuned ways of inhabiting academic research environments, anchored in culture and technology-based praxis. In this blog post, we’ve included a run down of the two days of programming below, including a list of all participants, affiliations, and presentation titles.

Our Salon began on the morning of Thursday, February 26th, with a community workshop entitled “Where We’re At, Where We’re Going.”  We designed this workshop to inspire and cultivate dialogue amongst students, researchers, and faculty undertaking research-creation work at the intersections of culture and technology at the University of Toronto. Together, we brainstormed challenges, opportunities, and resources for knowledge production and community building.

We then condensed our thoughts into a GLITCH / STITCH / RESIST Manifesta, a series of declarative statements that reflect our collective aims. We posted our Manifesta on the Centre for Culture and Technology walls for all attendees across two days of Salon activities to engage with. Because our workshop participants vocalized a desire to continue the conversation, we began an e-mail list as a first step towards building an ongoing community around this work.

Our afternoon programming included two panels of graduate student research-creation from the culture and technology Master of Information concentration, and from the Centre for Culture and Technology’s Research-Creation Working Group. These were: Making as Method: Research-Creation in the MI Culture & Technology Concentration, facilitated by Dr. Gustavo Ferreira, Assistant Professor in Information and Technology Studies, Culture & Technology Program Coordinator; and Making Knowledge Otherwise: Research-Creation Across Practices at the Centre for Culture and Technology, facilitated by Nikole McGregor, PhD Candidate in Cinema Studies. These panels featured presentations from Master’s and PhD students in Information, Cinema Studies, and Education, addressing the challenges and opportunities of working with research-creation methods in their respective contexts within the university. Panelists emphasized the values of research-creation when measured against conventional humanistic research methods; their presentations included experiments with mixed and virtual realities, 3D scanning and rendering technologies, audio sampling and remixing, computational games as pedagogy, performance-based installations, and more

Our second day of the Salon began with a MAKER MIXER: Networking & Lighting Talks event, hosted at the Faculty of Information’s Student Commons. This event treated attendees to a series of lightning talks from tri-campus faculty members—from Information, Cinema Studies, Digital Media Studies, English, and Black Studies—undertaking disparate research-creation projects, bringing everyone together for a fun morning of food, conversation, and community. Master’s and PhD students widely attended this talk and enjoyed hearing their professors discuss the creative aspects of their research in an informal context.

We ended our final afternoon back at the Centre for Culture and Technology, beginning with a panel by researchers at the Creative Labour and Critical Futures research cluster housed in the Department of Arts, Media, and Culture at the University of Toronto Scarborough. This panel, Serious Enough: Creative Practice as Critical Intervention, facilitated by Islandia, examined the potential for creative workers to generate transformative technological and social futures. From sonic recordings to podcasting to collaborative workshops, these presentations discussed the potential for research-creation to critically intervene into academic research environments and broader narratives about what constitutes rigorous scholarly output.

Finally, we ended with a fabulous keynote presentation from Dr. Kai Recollet, Associate Professor at the Women & Gender Studies Institute. Dr. Recollet’s talk examined movements and choreographies in relation to more-than-human kinship with “kinstilliths” (sacred rocks) to understand their cultural and historical contexts. The Q&A that followed prompted a generative discussion about research ethics pertaining to research-creation methods and the opportunities, limitations, and frictions that may emerge.

Overall, this Salon was a generative starting point for future discussions, collaborations, and community engagements with research-creation practitioners (including students, faculty, local artists, and independent researchers) in and beyond the University of Toronto. Our attendees spanned multiple faculties across campuses, including participants from other Toronto-based universities such as York University and Toronto Metropolitan University. We look forward to sustaining this burgeoning community of creative researchers with future programming and opportunities for connection and collaboration. Moving forward, we’re already dreaming up a GLITCH / STITCH / RESIST 2.0 at an elevated scale—and we thank all sponsors, presenters,  attendees for making this first iteration such a fruitful and brilliant experience.