[Air-L] CFP: Comics and Machines (2026) - Uppsala and Stockholm - 1 Dec 2025: Abstracts Due

[Marianne Goldin]

**Call for Papers and Conference Talks**


“Comics and Machines”

April 22-23, 2026

Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm & Uppsala University, Sweden


Deadline for abstracts: 1st December 2025

Notifications of acceptance: 30th December 2025


Read more:

https://www.echochamber.be/en/opencalls/comics_and_machines/


Contact:

conference at echochamber.be


Today, the field of comics is undergoing a profound transformation marked
by a growing heterogeneity of forms, formats, and production processes.
>From synthetic comics, operational images, data-driven visualization to
embodied, non-visual comics, comics are expanding beyond the conceptual and
historical frameworks that have traditionally defined it. Existing models
in research— grounded in the artisanal craft traditions, narratology,
text-image correlation, and human-centered authorship— are struggling to
account for this rapidly diversifying landscape. Craft-based approaches
might appear resistant or inadequate in the face of new technological
practices that recombine production, circulation, and reception through
computational logics.The current moment compels a broader redefinition of
comics as fundamentally technical objects. The boundaries that once
separated comics from technical and operational systems are dissolving. To
grasp the full scope of these developments, we must account for comics as
sites where technological processes are not external influences but
internal engines — where creation is entangled with computation,
standardization, and new modes of mediation. As computational processes—
from machine learning to synthetic image generation and communication
systems powered by computer vision— increasingly shape the creation,
distribution, and experience of comics, it is no longer sufficient to
understand the medium solely through the lenses of narrative, visual
storytelling, or artisanal craft. Recognizing comics as engineered
configurations of information, relational diagrams, and experimental
knowledge structures is not a speculative gesture; it is a necessary step
for understanding the profound transformation underway in the medium’s
ontology, practice, and future potential.

Within this expanded computational landscape, comics increasingly function
as sites of artistic research— experimental configurations that generate
knowledge through making rather than merely representing it. As comics
engage with computational systems, they become laboratories for
investigating the material conditions of contemporary media production.
These research-oriented practices extend beyond traditional academic
boundaries. Rather than simply illustrating research findings,
comics-as-research deploys their unique capacity for relational thinking—
the medium’s inherent ability to orchestrate temporal, spatial, and
conceptual relationships — to investigate how technical systems reshape
creative labor, audience relations, and the very possibility of narrative
meaning. This artistic research dimension positions comics not as objects
of study but as active investigative tools, capable of generating insights
about computational culture that emerge specifically through the medium’s
hybrid technical-aesthetic operations.

We are pleased to announce a two-day international conference on April
22-23, 2026 at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and at
Uppsala University dedicated to examining the rapidly evolving landscape of
comics. Rather than framing this transformation solely as a rupture, the
conference seeks to situate it within a longer history of computational
rationality— a lineage in which the medium has continuously negotiated the
demands of efficiency, scalability, and technical constraint. Our aim is to
critically rethink comics not as passive recipients of technological
change, but as active computational configurations: media fundamentally
entangled with systems of automation, standardization, and information
processing.

We welcome submissions addressing the following areas (among others):

* Histories of automation and engineering in comics production and
distribution

* Transformations in formats and workflows driven by technological change

* Comics as data: informatization, discretization, and database design

* Human-machine collaborations in past, present, and speculative comics
practice

* Audience and user labor in automated platforms and circulation systems

* Data-mining and recirculation techniques in digital comics ecologies

* Machine subjectivities: authorship, intention, and expression in machinic
agents

* Computational archiving practices: scraping, clustering, and vectorization

* Speculative and critical practices addressing automation and machinic
mediation

* Industrial logics in comics: international and comparative perspectives

* Resistance to automation: sabotage, slow media, and disobedient design

* Operational aesthetics: the visual and affective languages of automation

* Speculative histories and alternative futures of comics as technical media

* Comics as simulations: diagrams, blueprints, and procedural environments

* Comics as artistic research methodologies: practice-based inquiry and
knowledge production where comics are used to interrogate emerging
technologies and social systems

We invite submissions for the following presentation formats:



* Research Papers (20 minutes + 10 minutes discussion): Traditional
academic presentations suitable for theoretical, historical, or analytical
work

* Practice-Based Presentations (15 minutes + 15 minutes discussion):
Presentations by creators, artists, and practitioners demonstrating work
and reflecting on process

* Interactive Demonstrations (30 minutes): Hands-on sessions showcasing new
tools, platforms, or methodologies

* Panel Discussions (90 minutes): Collaborative sessions bringing together
multiple perspectives on specific themes

* Lightning Talks (5 minutes): Brief presentations ideal for
work-in-progress, provocations, or preliminary findings

* Workshop Sessions (3 hours): Extended collaborative sessions for
skill-sharing and collective exploration of tools and methods

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Steering committee: Jan Baetens, Jaqueline Berndt, Jan von Bonsdorff,
Gareth Brookes, Benoît Crucifix, Björn-Olav Dozo, Anna Foka, Isabelle
Gribomont, Andre Holzapfel, Per Israelson, Gaëtan Le Coarer, Ilan Manouach,
Pedro Moura, Everardo Reyes, Keith Tillford, Ray Whitcher

with the production support of Src Material (Seattle) and Echo Chamber
(Brussels)

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Submission instructions:

Abstract length : 250 words

Short bio: 150 words

Deadline for abstracts: 1st December 2025

Notifications of acceptance: 30th December 2025

Send to conference at echochamber.be

More info:

https://www.uu.se/en/centre/digital-humanities-and-social-sciences/events/archive/2026-04-22-comics-and-machines-conference

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With production support by Src Material <http://srcmaterial.org/>, a
non-profit organization supporting artists and researchers at the vanguard
of new media.