Sexy Data is a project led by TRU member Patrick Keilty and generously supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Through visual analysis, analysis of technical literatures, and interviews with software programmers, interface designers, data scientists, and sex workers, this study examines the strategic choices made by technical staff within the online pornography industry to design systems that softly persuade viewers into continuing to search for an “imagined perfect image.” In addition, he is Archives Director at the Sexual Representation Collection (SRC) at the Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, which preserves vulnerable media related to sex education, sex work, and pornography, with an emphasis on feminist, queer, and kink media. The SRC is supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the University of Toronto Libraries, Archive/ Counter-Archive, and the Knowledge Media Design Institute.
Technoscience Research Unit 