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Dubai Culture and Arts Authority has unveiled the academic programme for the 31st International Symposium on Electronic/Emerging Art (ISEA2026), taking place in Dubai from 6 to 15 November 2026 under the theme ‘ELYAH: Constellating Place, Data, and Identity’. The symposium will explore the intersections of art, science and technology and examine the future of electronic arts.
The symposium, organised by Dubai Culture in partnership with Zayed University, is set to be the largest edition in its history. It will feature opening remarks by Her Highness Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Chairperson of Dubai Culture, and Her Excellency Hala Badri, Director General of Dubai Culture, alongside keynote presentations by Katherine Hayles, Distinguished Research Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, and James B. Duke Professor Emerita at Duke University; and Shuddhabrata Sengupta, artist, writer and co-founder of India’s Raqs Media Collective.
Bringing together leading artists, researchers and specialists worldwide, the Online Academic Programme will begin on 6 November with workshops across its Special Tracks, followed by the core academic sessions from 10 to 14 November. The programme will feature 145 academic papers, 50+ artist talks and panel discussions, 10+ workshops, 45+ workshops, panel discussions and presentations across the Special Tracks, seven Eco Lab workshops and 20+ institutional presentations, structured around four core themes.
Under ‘Celestial Dialogues’, discussions will examine the relationship between digital media, cultural memory and creative storytelling, featuring Suheil Dahdal’s research on speculative archiving, Maya Sarfaty’s exploration of translating movement into visual expression, and Ina Conradi Chavez and Mark Chavez’s work on digital skin and immersive media. ‘Charting Constellations’ will explore how technology is shaping cities and public spaces, including Lixin Bao’s research on spatial experiences in algorithmic contexts.
‘Eco-Tech Futures’ will focus on the relationship between art and the environment, featuring Yitao Yuan’s exploration of fungi and performance, and Tomoya Ishibashi’s experiment in transforming river waste into microscopes used to study the river itself. ‘Starlinked Worlds’ will examine the impact of technology on human experience through Yu-Chuan Tseng’s research on artificial intelligence and identity, Martina Mrongovius’s exploration of communication through responsive light, and Hannes Rall and Alice Yang’s examination of ways to preserve human artistic expression in AI-assisted animation. Those interested in attending ISEA2026 can register at isea2026.eventshub.ai. Source: AETOSWire