Research Bio

Jacob Gaboury is a scholar of film and media whose research focuses on the history and theory of digital media, asking how computation has transformed our contemporary visual culture. His first book, Image Objects: An Archaeology of Computer Graphics (MIT Press, 2021) traces how computer graphics transformed the computer from a calculating device into a technical medium, and was the winner of both the 2022 Computer History Museum Prize from the Society for the History of Technology and the 2023 Ben Shneiderman HCI History Award from the Charles Babbage Institute. His next book examines the history and contemporary ubiquity of the computer screenshot as a technique mediating computational output. Most recently, he co-edited a special issue of Critical Inquiry (with Weihong Bao and Daniel Morgan) on "Medium/Environment," examining the environmental turn in media theory that reimagines our natural, elemental, and ambient environment as a medium.

Research Expertise and Interest

media studies, computer graphics, history of technology, Science and Technology studies, queer theory, new media, art and technology