bullet">Synthetic Images and the New Realism: Generative imagery, photorealism vs artifice, altered notions of representation, style, and the boundaries of “the photographic.”

Authorship, Aesthetics, and Computational Creativity: Creative agency, remix cultures, prompt/interface aesthetics, attribution, and how tools shape visual form.

Networked Circulation and Visual Publics: Platform-native images, memetic spread, attention and affect, image economies, community meaning-making, and political mobilization.

Evidence, Ethics, and Visual Harm: Authenticity and provenance, deepfakes and verification, bias and stereotyping, surveillance/visibility, consent, and visual literacy.

Knowledge Experience and Format

The conference is organised as a hybrid knowledge experience, integrating in-person and online participation within a unified scholarly environment. All accepted proposals become Presentation Pages where presenters share abstracts and supporting media, and where delegates engage in discussion before, during, and after the event.

In-person sessions at Toronto Metropolitan University are interwoven with live online sessions and asynchronous contributions within a single integrated program. Regardless of participation mode, all delegates have access to the full schedule, session media, and a growing digital archive. Across formats, the emphasis is on reciprocal, human-scale exchange - conversation, reflection, and collaborative inquiry rather than one-way presentation.

Publication Pathways

Presenters are invited to further develop their conference work for possible publication in The International Journal of the Image, the peer-reviewed journal of the Network. Participants may also propose extended works for The Image Book Imprint, which publishes monographs and edited collections advancing research on visual culture, image practices, and the changing roles of images in contemporary life.

Key dates

Early proposal period: Now - 12 March 2027
Early registration period: Now -12 April 2027

For full details and submission guidelines, visit the conference website.

Sincerely,

Stephen Sheps, Conference Committee, RTA School of Media (Sport Media), The Creative School, TMU, Canada

Joe Recupero, Conference Committee, RTA School of Media (Sport Media), The Creative School, TMU, Canada

AJ Cordeiro, Conference Committee, RTA School of Media (Media Production), The Creative School, TMU, Canada

Cátia Rijo, Research Network Chair, Lisbon Polytechnic, Portugal

Ana Maria Sedeño Valdellós, Research Network Chair (ES), Universidad de Málaga, España

Phillip Kalantzis-Cope, Chief Social Scientist, Common Ground Research Networks, United States of America

📣 CfP: 18th International Conference on The Image