Digital Creativity
Axis Description
For this axis, digital creativity involves exploring the possibilities for developing and enriching the creative experience and facilitating the distribution of digital works. In this area, the Chair focuses on the animation and visual effects industries, video games and immersive experiences, to stimulate innovation, encourage artistic creation and foster the emergence of new forms of cultural expression.
The main objective of this axis is to identify crucial issues within the digital creative industries, particularly in the areas of effects (VFX), animation, video games and digital experience (Xn) sectors, in order to foster research, training and development in this sector.
Head
Laureline CHIAPELLO (Ph.d.)
4 Quebec Universities
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Caroline Bem, Université de Montréal
Caroline Bem holds a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from McGill University. Since 2024, she is Assistant professor of comparative literature at Université de Montréal. Her research focuses on the materiality, ethics, and aesthetics of narrative media, which she examines through close engagements with film and video games in particular. Her current SSHRC-funded Insight-Development grant (2023-2026) explores the use of video games in building awareness and contributing to the prevention of gender and sexual violence and has yielded several exhibits of small games as well as one game jam and the development of a research-based breastfeeding game (“Nipple Quest”, in progress).
Her recent publications can be found in Screen, the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Cinémas (Presses de l’Université de Montréal), as well as Communication & langages (Presses Universitaires de France) and she is the co-editor, with Susanna Paasonen, of a special issue on play in the journal Sexualities (Sage) as well as the editor of “Cartographier (l’intermédialité)/Mapping (Intermediality),” the 15-year anniversary special issue of Intermédialités (Université de Montréal). Together with Rosanna Maule, she is also the co-editor of a forthcoming issue of Intermédialités which will be titled “Genrer (la réutilisation)/Engendering (Repurposing)” (Spring 2027). Her long-term book project, “The Diptych: A Moveable Form”, will offer the first detailed account of the diptych in the arts, book culture, and time-based media, as well as within philosophical and political systems of thought. A shorter book on gendered and technologized spectatorial encounters with both classical and contemporary films is also in the works.
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Mélanie Boucher, UQO
Mélanie Boucher is a researcher specializing in museology and art history, currently a full professor in both disciplines at the Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO). She is co-founder of the CIÉCO Research and Inquiry Group. In this capacity, she directs the research work of Axis 3 (the expanded collection) of the New Uses of Collections in Art Museums Partnership (SSHRC 2021-2028). At the same time, Mélanie Boucher holds the position of principal researcher with the Équipe Art et musée (FRQSC 2022-2026), a group of researchers, visual artists and exhibition designers from three Quebec universities. Her current research focuses on performative practices and their musealization, as well as on modes of exhibition and presentation induced by contemporary art. In 2023, she co-edited with M. Fraser and J. Lamoureux the book “Réinventer la collection : l’art et le musée au temps de l’évènementiel” (PUQ).
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Patrick Cohendet, HEC Montréal
Patrick Cohendet is professor at HEC Montréal in the International Business Department. His research interests include Economics of Creativity and Knowledge Management, Economics of Innovation, Theory of the firm, Economics of Knowledge. He is member of the Royal Society of Canada.
He is the author of 20 books and over 120 articles in refereed journals, such as Research Policy, Organization Science, Industrial and corporate Change, Journal of Economic Geography, Long Range Planning, etc. He was the supervisor of more than 80 Ph.D. He conducted a series of economic studies on the economics of innovation for different international organisations such as the European Commission, the Council of Europe, the European Space Agency or the Canadian Space Agency. He is co-director of the hub Mosaic at HEC Montréal on the management of innovation and creativity.
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Yan Breuleux, NAD-UQAC
Yan Breuleux is a Full Professor at the School of Digital Arts, Animation, and Design (NAD), Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC). A practitioner-researcher and visual artist working in the field of A/V performance, his work is grounded in a research-creation approach dedicated to visual music and immersive dispositifs, exploring the relationships between sound, image, and space. For over a decade, he has collaborated with musicians and composers on the creation of audiovisual works for multi-screen, panoramic, architectural projection, and full-dome (fulldome) environments. As part of the duo PURFORM, in collaboration with composer Alain Thibault, he has contributed to numerous immersive projects exploring the sensory, spatial, and performative dimensions of sound and image.
Grants
FRQSC
Chaire de recherche en économie créative et mieux-être (CREAT)
Role: Head of Digital Creativity Axis.
Value: $4,000,000 ($1,000,000/axis).
Duration: 2022-2023 to 2027-2028 (5 years).
Mais qu’est-ce que le fruit du mûrier? Valoriser et transmettre l’expérience vécue des femmes dans le processus de design de jeu vidéo.
Soutien à la recherche-création pour la relève professorale
Role: Principal researcher
Value: $44 723
Duration: 2022-2025
Attirer et retenir les talents en région pour favoriser l’entrepreneuriat innovant au Québec
PERSÉIS
Role: Collaborator (Principal researcher : Julie Bérubé, UQO)
Value: $380 627
Duration: 2023-2024 to 2025-2026
“En jeu pour la musique” – Jouer et cocréer pour apprendre la musique : retombées et innovations
Soutien aux équipes de recherche
Role: Co-researcher (Principal researcher : Francis Dubé, Université Laval)
Value: $269 612
CRSH
Recherche-création, créativité numérique et transformations sociales
CONNECTION, in partnership with Hexagram, Behaviour Chair and Milieux Institute
Role: Principal Researcher
Value: $48 164
Duration: 2026 (1 year)
Analyse comparée des transformations des activités de création par les technologies d’intelligence artificielle – adoption, usages et stratégies d’innovation
INSIGHT
Role: Collaborator (Principal researcher : Laurent Simon, HEC)
Value: $91 000
Duration: 2024-2026
La collaboration interdisciplinaire dans les équipes de développement de jeux vidéo
INSIGHT
Role: Principal researcher
Value: $69 454
Duration: 2022-2024
HEXAGRAM
Hexagram réseau de recherche-création en arts, cultures et technologies
FRQSC – Regroupement stratégique
Co-researcher since 2023. Hexagram has received an additional $1,827,000 to cover seven years, from 2020 to 2027.
Publications
CAC (Proceedings)
Digital CreativityChiapello, L. (2025, mai). « Things happen » : Rethinking our relationship with game authoring tools through NonTeleological Action. ISEA 2025 : 30e Symposium international sur l’art électronique, Séoul, Corée du Sud. https://isea2025.isea-international.org/program/full-program/
Digital CreativityChiapello, L. (2023, 4 au 7 juillet). Bridging video games and ecology through systemic game design, [Conférence]. ISAGA International Simulation and Gaming Conference, La Rochelle, France.
Digital CreativityChiapello, L. (2022, 3 au 16 octobre). Systemic Design and Game Design: The equilibrium gameplay loop, [Conférence]. Relating Systems Thinking and Design (RSD11) Symposium Brighton, UK.
Digital CreativityChiapello, L., et Bousbaci, R. (2022, 25 juin au 3 juillet). It’s complicated: Dewey, Schön and reflection-in-action, [Conférence]. Design Research Society Conference 2022, Bilbao, Espagne.
Digital CreativityChiapello, L., & Dumitrache, I. (2022, 20 au 24 avril). From Analysis to Systemic Modelisation of Games: The Equilibrium Gameplay Loop, [Conférence]. Game Analysis Perspectives Conference, Copenhague, Danemark.
Projects Digital Creativity
Digital Creativity
14 October 2025
Interdisciplinary Collaboration in Video Game Development Teams
Collaborative Project with Dave Haway, Jocelyn Benoit, Maxime Deslongchamps-Gagnon, Edouard Raffis, and Alice Calixte.
Digital Creativity
6 March 2024
Digital Creativity and Cultural Citizenship in Circus Arts
A research project conducted in partnership with the École de cirque de Verdun examining the contribution of digital creativity to the development of cultural citizenship and artists’ engagement.
Digital Creativity
3 November 2023
“CLTRS”: Valuing and sharing the lived experience of women in the video game design process
"CLTRS" is an immersive video game experience that highlights female pleasure within an intimate and sensual universe. Through open-ended and contemplative exploration, the game transforms curiosity into an act of affirmation and offers a work emerging from a research-creation approach.
News
11 February 2026
SSHRC funds structuring initiative in digital creativity at the CREAT Chair
Culture in the regions
Arts and Health
Digital Creativity
Discoverability
14 February 2025
Laureline Chiapello publishes an article in ACFAS Magazine
Digital Creativity
16 December 2024
Laureline CHIAPELLO co-directs a new collection at PUQ360
Digital CreativityEVENTS
14 August 2025 – 28 August 2025
[ Entrée libre ]
Montréal
Digital CreativityCLTRS in the Hexagram selection at the Village Numérique of the MUTEK Festival
21 May 2026 – 22 May 2026
[ Sur inscription ]
Montréal
Culture in the regions
Arts and Health
Digital Creativity
DiscoverabilityCREAT Conference, May 21-22, 2026
24 March 2025 – 31 March 2025
Montréal
Digital CreativityGame design to raise awareness and prevent gender-based and sexual violence
Latest Podcasts & Videos
“L’écho des Plantes” : An Ecological and Poetic Opera
21 November 2025
Is it possible to create an opera with plants?
This episode takes you inside a groundbreaking artistic initiative.
Imagined in collaboration with teenagers, L’Écho des Plantss is a transdisciplinary opera that brings together living systems, the arts, and science in a dynamic dialogue.
Charlotte Gagnon (Manager of Social Action and Education at Opéra de Montréal / Co-founder and Co-Artistic & Executive Director of Productions Rigoletta) and Antoine Bellemare (multidisciplinary artist and postdoctoral researcher) take us behind the scenes of this collective creation, where emotions, plant signals, and words intertwine to shape a new way of listening to the world.
Understanding Regional Dynamics
23 February 2026
Cultural communities in the regions of Quebec face unique challenges, but also promising opportunities. Two members of CREAT, Valérie Yobé, Associate Professor at the School of Arts and Cultures (ÉdAC) at the Université du Québec en Outaouais (UQO), and Hamed Motaghi, Associate Professor in the Department of Administrative Sciences at the same institution, share their research on regional cultural dynamics and their impact on territorial development.