Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Julien Porquet/Posture

@julienposture.bsky.social

270 followers 320 following 44 posts

https://julienposture.com/ https://julienposture.substack.com/ Illustrator & PhD candidate in anthropology, University of Cambridge I study how people and machines look together and against each other. (he/him) Visual culture|semiotics|STS

julienposture.com

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Apr 26

After sharing the preprint, here is our officially published #CHI2025 paper:

𝐂𝐨𝐩𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐭𝐲𝐥𝐞, 𝐄𝐱𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞: 𝐈𝐥𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬' 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐈 𝐒𝐭𝐲𝐥𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐜𝐭 𝐨𝐧 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫

with @sitong-wang.bsky.social and Lydia Chilton

dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

Copying style, Extracting value: Illustrators' Perception of AI Style Transfer and its Impact on Creative Labor | Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

dl.acm.org

1 4

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · 28d

Great! Im looking forward to it.

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Sep 7

"Creativity" here stands for value-through-scarcity, its human uniqueness is its market value, and vice versa.

But creativity means many other things, and most of those are not related to market incentives, profit and capitalization.

Amber Sparks @ambersparks.bsky.social · Sep 7

This is so bizarre because no one who loves film will see this, and anyone who would see an AI generated film would never watch The Magnificent Ambersons - but like I guess so much of AI art, the audience is somehow not the point

AI Is “Possibly The End Of Human Creativity,” Predicts CEO Of Amazon-Backed Firm Helping Rescue Lost ‘Magnificent Ambersons’ Footage

Edward Saatchi, CEO of Amazon-backed startup Fable, sees AI as "possibly the end of human creativity" -- at least as an exclusive phenomenon.

deadline.com

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Sep 6

"Useful social science theories predict behavior across settings."

No.

Ethan Mollick @emollick.bsky.social · Sep 4

This is a cool paper that suggests that AI agents can indeed be used for social science experiments, but that just using a chatbot isn't good enough, instead prompts developed based on social & game theory makes AI agent actions predictive of real human outcomes. benjaminmanning.io/files/optimi...

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Sep 5

This historical survey offers interesting keys to understand the current debates around images, style, intellectual property and automation, for example as they took shape in the #ghiblification of everything by ChatGPT a few months ago.

intellectdiscover.com/content/jour...

How to do things with style: A pragmatic history of style as a site for debates about authorship, commodification and technological reproducibility | Intellect

While students desperately ask how to find it, educators deem it superficial; at times, a sign of artistic personality, it simultaneously indexes market niches; individual property of the artist, it a...

intellectdiscover.com

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Sep 5

On the other hand, the paper addresses a theoretical blind spot of Art History which has long focused on style as a normative category to be defined and refined and left under theorized the pragmatics of style, i.e. what people do with the concept to control and regulate the social life of artworks.

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Sep 5

I argue that this pragmatic history of style sheds light on two blind spots. On the one hand, an ethnographic blind spot was created by the illustrators themselves in their ‘theoretical turn’, leaving style to mere commercialism and framing it as the antithesis of artistry.

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Sep 5

It analyzes the role of #style at three moments in history, the emergence of copyright laws, the Great Depression, and the rise of generative AI to show how the visible relation between an artist and their work has constantly been debated, reformed and morphed in various contexts.

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Sep 5

📣 I forgot to share this peer review article on the concept of #style through time, from the first copyright laws in eighteenth-century England to today's AI disputes!
It's published in the Journal of #illustration.

intellectdiscover.com/content/jour...

How to do things with style: A pragmatic history of style as a site for debates about authorship, commodification and technological reproducibility | Intellect

intellectdiscover.com

1 2

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Sep 4

While I'm wary of the "AI is killing –" framing (because it fails to account for the preexisting systemic conditions in which machine learning technologies are presented as optimizing, streamlining, etc.), it would be nice to have some illustrators represented.

Do reach out and share your stories!

Brian Merchant @bcmerchant.bsky.social · Sep 3

I'm looking for stories about how AI is killing creative work, and I'd love to hear from you—artists, writers, illustrators, actors, designers, editors, voice actors and narrators—if your job or practice has been hit. This is going to be a big one.

[email protected]

1 2

Reposted by Julien Porquet/Posture

Michele Rosenthal @michelerosenthal.com · Sep 2

It was so wonderful to talk to Julien about @armadillostock.bsky.social, illustration licensing, artist organizing, and more! There's even audio if you prefer listening to reading. Thank you for the opportunity to talk about the things I love!

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Sep 2

I’m so excited to share this interview with @michelerosenthal.com about her alternative licensing platform @armadillostock.bsky.social!

We discuss:

🖼️ The economy and ecology of stock image platforms
🤖 Their relationship with AI
✊The role of organizing for freelance artists

Licensing platforms: is there no alternative? (Yes, there is.)

An interview with grassroots licensing platform Armadillo's founder, Michele Rosenthal

open.substack.com

3 8

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Sep 2

Check out @armadillostock.bsky.social 's kickstarter campaign:

Armadillo: Licensing for Human Illustrators

We're building a free-to-use platform for artists to share their licensable work. We don't allow AI, and we don't take a cut.

www.kickstarter.com

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Sep 2

Licensing platforms: is there no alternative? (Yes, there is.)

An interview with grassroots licensing platform Armadillo's founder, Michele Rosenthal

open.substack.com

1 1 6

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Aug 28

This is a very exciting project by and for illustrators and an excellent example of bottom-up organizing among freelance workers!

Go check it out, share and support if you can!

Armadillo Stock @armadillostock.bsky.social · Aug 28

The Armadillo Kickstarter is LIVE!

Help us launch a community-built, free-to-use platform for licensing human-made art directly from illustrators!

Find out more: kickstarter.com/projects/dialmformichele/armadillo-stock

1 3

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Aug 26

Oh this is exciting, thanks for sharing!

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Aug 26

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Aug 19

My brilliant Montreal colleague Maïa Faddoul is also featured in the series!

thephilanthropist.ca/2025/08/illu...

Illustrator and designer Maïa Faddoul’s invitation to community - The Philanthropist Journal

Maïa Faddoul’s bright colours, cheerful patterns, and uplifting depictions of human courage and connection are often in the service of community and rights organizations.

thephilanthropist.ca

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Aug 19

I had the pleasure of being profiled in @thephilanthropist.ca about my work as an illustrator and anthropologist.

These two layers of my practice rarely get to shine under the same roof, so many thanks to @gordonbowness.bsky.social for the generous portrait!

thephilanthropist.ca/2025/07/illu...

Illustrating work - The Philanthropist Journal

Illustrator and anthropologist Julien Posture discusses how human misunderstanding and machine learning devalue creative labour.

thephilanthropist.ca

1 2 2

Reposted by Julien Porquet/Posture

Christos Lynteris @visualplague.bsky.social · May 24

Interesting application of Berkeley anthropologist Alexei Yurchak's theory of "hypernormalization" (developed for 1980s USSR) to the USA over the past few months www.theguardian.com/wellness/ng-...

Systems are crumbling – but daily life continues. The dissonance is real

If everything feels broken but strangely normal, the Soviet-era concept of hypernormalization can help

www.theguardian.com

7 26

Reposted by Julien Porquet/Posture

Ranjodh Singh Dhaliwal @ranjodhdhaliwal.com · May 21

www.technologyreview.com/2025/05/20/1...

We did the math on AI’s energy footprint. Here’s the story you haven’t heard.

The emissions from individual AI text, image, and video queries seem small—until you add up what the industry isn’t tracking and consider where it’s heading next.

www.technologyreview.com

3 5

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · May 8

Starting my conference marathon this Saturday at the University of Pennsylvania Semiotic Anthropology Conference (online).

"From artists’ hands to clients’ words: Styles, Text-to-Image algorithms and the division of creative labor."

Next stop, Vienna and Paris!

www.upennsemioticslab.com

Home | Semiotic Anthropology

www.upennsemioticslab.com

Reposted by Julien Porquet/Posture

Tamara Kneese @tamigraph.bsky.social · May 7

This data center organizing guide from @kairosfellows.bsky.social and @mediajustice.bsky.social is so f’ing good: concise, informative, and beautifully designed. Print it out, make a zine, etc www.kairosfellows.org/fightdatacen...

Organizer guide to fighting data centers — Kairos Fellowship

www.kairosfellows.org

3 18 34

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · May 5

I'll be talking about experimental ethnography and HCI over there next week!

EASA @easainfo.bsky.social · May 2

EASA Media Anthropology Network event
#AI in Media Anthropology: Trajectories, Challenges, Opportunities
📌 University of Vienna, Austria
📅 15-16 May 2025

Find out more >>
easaonline.org/networks/med...

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Apr 28

Thank you Florian!

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Apr 27

Little academic milestone: this week I got my first ever citation in another paper!

And I couldn't be happier that it's about artists, creative labor and machine learning.

🎉📚

Julien Porquet/Posture @julienposture.bsky.social · Apr 26

“The A.I. is huge. A tsunami. But it’s not me. It can’t touch my me-ness. It doesn’t know what it is to be human, to be me.”

Oh good, I'm glad to know students and profs in ivy league universities don't feel that their individual "me-ness" is threatened by "AI".

🙃

Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · Apr 26

“Historians have long extolled the ‘power of the archive.’ Little did we know that the engineers would come along and plug it in. And it turns out that a huge amount of what we seek from a human person can be simulated through this Frankensteinian reanimation of our collective dead letters.”

Will the Humanities Survive Artificial Intelligence?

Maybe not as we’ve known them. But, in the ruins of the old curriculum, something vital is stirring.