Call for Papers:

A Dance of Perception: The Symbiosis of Image and Sound
International Visual Sociology Association Conference 2027
Cardiff, Wales
June 30 – July 3, 2027
https://visualsociology.org/2027-ivsa-conference-cardiff-wales-uk/

Deadline for submission of abstracts: November 30, 2026

The IVSA Conference 2027 invites us to reflect on the intricate ways in which image and sound intertwine in shaping our understanding of society. Visual sociology not only employs images and image-making in practice, research and analysis, but also studies how visual culture itself constructs and reflects social life. Yet images rarely exist in silence. Whether in film, performance, digital media, ritual, or daily encounters, intentional or ambient sounds accompany and transform the visual, affecting perception and meaning. Indeed, the concept of ostranenie, or defamiliarisation, as articulated by Viktor Shklovsky, plays with perception by making the familiar strange.

It challenges us to see and hear the everyday anew, revealing unnoticed rhythms of social life. In this conference, we explore this dance of perception through a multicultural lens, recognising that ways of seeing and hearing are deeply rooted in cultural contexts. From indigenous visual storytelling to global social media aesthetics, we consider how image and sound co-produce meaning, emotion, identity, and memory. By bringing together practitioners, artists and scholars from across the world, we aim to illuminate how this symbiosis between image and sound reveals new dimensions of social reality and how, through their interplay, we all share in this dance of perception.

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We invite practitioners, artists and scholars from around the world to contribute to the 2027 IVSA Conference, A Dance of Perception: The Symbiosis of Image and Sound. Submissions should explore how image and sound intertwine to shape meaning, emotion, identity, memory and our understanding of social life, drawing on diverse disciplinary, methodological and cultural perspectives. Proposals are welcomed for papers, workshops, posters, exhibition installations and films, with participation from practice-led and early career researchers particularly encouraged. Read the full Call for Submissions for details of the conference themes, submission formats, requirements and key dates.

THEMATIC STRANDS AND POSSIBLE APPROACHES:

We invite submissions that engage with the conference theme from diverse disciplinary, methodological, and cultural perspectives. We especially encourage the participation of practice-led and early career researchers. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

The Sensorium of Everyday Life

• Soundscapes and visual environments of domestic, urban, and rural spaces
• Silence as presence: what does the absence of sound reveal in images?

Media, Film and Digital Cultures

• The politics of soundtrack: how music and sound design shape visual narratives
• Ethnographic film: ethical and aesthetic choices in audiovisual representation

Performance, Ritual and the Body

• Sound and image in religious, ceremonial, and community practices
• Dance, movement, and the embodied interplay of auditory and visual experience

Memory, Identity and Emotion

• Nostalgia, trauma, and the affective power of image-sound pairings
• Oral histories and photographic archives: voicing the visual record

Indigenous and Multicultural Perspectives

• Indigenous visual storytelling and the politics of sound
• Cross-cultural encounters: how different communities see and hear differently

Technology, AI and the Future of Perception

• Synthetic media: deepfakes, AI-generated soundscapes, and authenticity
• Virtual and augmented reality as multisensory social environments

Methodological Innovations

• Techniques for analysing audiovisual data
• Participatory and arts-based approaches to image-sound research
• The challenges of representing multisensory research findings

IMPORTANT DATES

Abstract Submission deadline: 30th November 2026
Notification of acceptance: From 1st December 2026
Registration opens: 1st December 2026
Registration closes: 31st March 2027
Conference: 30th June – 3rd July 2027

MORE INFORMATION

Please visit the conference website: https://visualsociology.org/2027-ivsa-conference-cardiff-wales-uk/