Emerging immersive and digital imaging technologies, including as generative AI, virtual, mixed and augmented reality, are developing at pace and propose a dynamic creative and critical context. In combination with more established discourses on the digitisation and visualisation of environments through photogrammetry, LiDAR, 3d modelling and games design, a rich, diverse and distinct complexity of nascent concerns can be distilled and subjected to creative enquiry. Collectively, these technologies simulate and stimulate new regimes of in/visibilities and spatial conditions with the capacity to propose rich and distinct imaginaries of space and experience.  

The Spatial Imaging & Digital Imaginaries (SIDI) symposium will provide a critical academic and public platform to discuss and showcase a variety of modes of research and creative enquiry at this evolving technological interstice. The symposium aims to draw together a diversity of doctoral researchers and projects exploring these technologies to reflect on their role in spatial, visual, and cultural practices, and investigate how immersive and computational tools reshape modes of seeing, constructing, and narrating space. We encourage the exploration across a plurality of spatial contexts, including architecture, urban planning, virtual worlds, hertzian space and more. 

Submission Guidelines

We invite contributions of traditional paper presentations, as well as non-traditional and creative forms of research dissemination to reflect the speculative and experimental nature of the technologies involved. These can include lightening talks, performance-lectures, AI-generated lectures, workshops or ‘labs’ to test immersive content, live VR walkthroughs, or generative environments responsive to real-time data or participant input. 

To submit a proposal for the symposium, please provide; 

• Proposal title
• Description of mode of contribution (20-minute presentation, VR walkthrough, etc)
• 300-word abstract
• 50-word biography
• Description of any technical and spatial requirements for the proposal. We aim to accommodate a broad range of media and approaches as possible, so please provide full detail to understand your requirements. 

Contributions will be subject to a blind peer-review. To be eligible to submit a proposal, you must be currently enrolled on a doctoral programme or have been awarded a doctorate within the last two years. We welcome submissions from a diversity of fields, specialisms and nationalities.  

Committees

Organising Committee

• Dave Loder
• Yuqi Wang
• Jincheng Meng
• Cc Jiang
• Youfeng Liu

Scientific committee

• To be confirmed

Venue

The conference will be held in InSpace Gallery, University of Edinburgh

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to sidi-symposium@ed.ac.uk