Comics and Machines explores the profound transformations reshaping the field of comics through automation, computation, and new media systems. The conference examines how emerging technologies—from machine learning and synthetic image generation to data-driven visualization—are redefining the medium’s ontology, practice, and potential. By situating these developments within broader histories of engineering, automation, and artistic research, the event aims to rethink comics not as passive narrative forms but as active computational configurations that generate new modes of knowledge, aesthetics, and cultural production.
Comics and Machines is part of the Futures of Comics programme, a research initiative exploring how emerging technologies, computational methods, and new production practices are reshaping comics as a medium. www.futuresofcomics.org
Date and Time: 22-23 April 2026
Questions? Please contact Manouach Ilan, Ilan.Manouach@uliege.be
Agenda
- 22 April 2026 – KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm: Keynote lectures, research paper sessions, and practice-based presentations.
- 23 April 2026 – Uppsala University: Panel discussions, workshops, and interactive demonstrations. (A full program will be available after abstract selection in early 2026.)
Submission Details
- Abstract length: 250 words
- Short bio: 150 words
- Deadline for abstracts: 1 December 2025
- Notification of acceptance: 30 December 2025
- Email: conference@echochamber.be
Organisers
Ilan Manouach, Anna Foka, and Andre Holzapfel
Organising Institutions
- Uppsala University
- KTH Royal Institute of Technology
- FNRS, University of Liege
- Paris 8 Laboratoire Paragraphe
- Echo Chamber
- Src Material
Scientific Board Committee
Gaëtan Le Coarer, Jaqueline Berndt, Jan Baetens, Pedro Moura, Keith Tillford, Gareth Brookes, Everardo Reyes, Anna Foka, Isabelle Gribomont, Benoît Crucifix, Ray Whitcher, Jan von Bonsdorff, Per Israelson, Björn-Olav Dozo, and Andre Holzapfel.
Funders
The conference is supported by the Project Synthetic Pasts (Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation): the Wallenberg Autonomous Systems in Humanity and Society (WASP-HS) Cluster AI Futures of Culture and Memory and the Swedish Research Cluster Environment Culture Code and the project The Knowledge Codex (Swedish Research Council).
The conference is co-sponsored by Digital Futures
