Diego Jarak is a researcher at the PoLICéMIES laboratory of La Rochelle University, where he also serves as the director. He is an associate researcher at the ERIMIT laboratory of Rennes 2 University. His work focuses on media and their connections with representations (in both their technical and technological dimensions), and on how their use contributes to the construction of new forms of narration in political, artistic, and cultural dimensions.
At the beginning of his research career (PhD), he explored orality as a medium in the 19th century and the transition from orality to writing, a technico-technological change whose consequences have not yet been sufficiently analyzed. These studies later served as a foundation for examining the transition from analog to digital. Previously, and in the same line of analysis, he studied the advent of photography in Latin America and its development in the second half of the 19th century during his HdR.
For the past six years, he has been interested in new electronic media (from video to virtual reality). A significant part of his work involves a research-creation and research-action approach, reflected in his extensive experience in exhibition curation and mediation. Since 2018, his recent work seeks to analyze the relationship between art, science, and technology. He currently leads a research project on the conception, development, production, and mediation of a NANOmuseum in Art- Science-Technology.
On the educational front, he is the director of the Master’s program in Audiovisual, Interactive Digital Media, and Games, where he conducts a research-creation program in partnership with the Centre Pompidou with his students. He directs the ZERO1 Festival of Hybrid Arts and Digital Cultures. Finally, he is currently the Vice President for Culture, Science, and Society at La Rochelle University, and is responsible for managing the SAPS label.