Professor Scarlett's primary research interests lie at the intersection of art, technology and theory. Grounded within theoretically oriented analyses of contemporary media art and its histories, her work maps how digital processes have been mediated, made available to the senses, conceptualized and critiqued through practices of aesthecization. Recent publications in Digital Culture & Society, Parallax, and The Routledge Companion of Photography Theory have articulated how the practice-based realization and conceptualization of 'catachrestic synesthesia,' 'abandonment,' and 'habit' factor into this line of inquiry. An article currently in-progress examines transductive negotiations of ‘digital materiality’ across the works of Petra Cortright, Jan Robert Leegte and Aram Bartholl.

Complimenting this work, Professor Scarlett is also working on a project that explores the intersection between art, technology and the concept of ‘affordance’. This project is comprised of three components: (1) research into the histories of artist residency programming associated with technological industry and innovation; (2) an exploration of the historical and contemporary role that artists have played in shaping the perceived uses, limits, and potential associated with emerging digital technologies; and (3) a digitally grounded re-examination and renewed theorization of existing philosophies of ‘affordance’. Although in the beginning phases, these trajectories of thought will be explored further through a forthcoming series of events (a symposium, exhibition and web residency program) and edited journal volume organized in collaboration with Dr. Martin Zeilinger, Akademie Schloss Solitude and the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM).