Introduction & Themes - ISEA INTERNATIONAL

Main Theme

The City of Dubai will be hosting the 31st edition of The International Symposium on Electronic / Emerging Art (ISEA2026), under the theme of
ELYAH: Constellating Place, Data & Identity.

ELYAH: Constellating Place, Data and Identity.

As Dubai is a city defined by accelerated innovation and creative ambition, where desert meets data, and where the future is actively designed. ELYAH invites participants to explore how light and code, story and system, converge to form new ways of understanding. Just as ancient navigators turned to the stars, today’s artists and technologists interpret the signals of an algorithmic cosmos, charting the digital unknown with creativity as their compass.

Why ELYAH

At the heart of this exploration is art, giving form to abstraction, emotion to data, and human perspective to systems.

Through installation, performance, moving image, sound, code, and other emergent media, ISEA2026 will transform Dubai into a living constellation of experiences, where the poetic meets the programmable, and imagination proposes new modes of infrastructure.

Sub Themes

Charting Constellations – Digital geographies

This theme explores concepts of location and locality in the digital age, exploring how electronic art reflects, reshapes, and reimagines our understanding of place, identity, and community within an increasingly connected world.

We’ll discover:

Q1 How can digital art and science reshape our understanding of geography, identity, and community in a multifaceted and interconnected world?

Q2 How might Indigenous mapping systems, storytelling, and land-based knowledge—grounded in First Nations sovereignty and cultural continuity—offer relational approaches that inform and expand digital geographies and virtual cartographies?

Q3 What can ancient practices of celestial navigation and oral tradition teach us about constructing digital spaces that are rooted, relational, and resilient?

Q4 In a city like Dubai where innovation reshapes the landscape and diverse communities converge, how might emerging technologies help us map constellations of cultures, ideas and evolving digital worlds?

Geolocation Place Digital Identity Virtual Mapping AI-assisted Cartography Social Networks Personal Cartographies

Celestial Dialogues – Intercultural dialogue

This theme promotes intercultural exchange and collaboration through storytelling and technological mediation. It considers how creative practices, and digital tools foster shared experiences that span cultures and disciplines while illuminating connections between human and cosmic life.

We’ll discover:

Q1 How can technology facilitate shared experiences across cultural and disciplinary boundaries?

Q2 How might emerging technologies amplify or reinterpret traditional or cultural storytelling in digital contexts?

Q3 How can craft and material practices contribute to meaningful, intercultural dialogue and deepen the relational dynamics between technology, culture and form—foregrounding their generative interplay rather than treating them as oppositional modes?

Cultural Exchanges Digital Performances Digital Storytelling AI Translation Immersive Experiences Hybrid Reality VR/AR Projection Mapping

Eco-Tech Futures.
Ecologies of place

This theme addresses the intersection of electronic art and environmental responsibility, highlighting practices that advocate for ecological awareness, critical futures thinking, and sustainable technological engagement.

We’ll discover:

Q1 How can digital tools be used to engage with pressing ecological and environmental issues?

Q2 How might artists and designers examine the ecological impact of emerging technologies such as AI and open new imaginaries for sustainable futures?

Q3 What role can electronic and environmental art play in fostering collective responsibility and ecological care?

Q4 How can sensory experience—sound, light, movement—reconnect audiences with ecological realities and non-human perspectives?

Q5 How can art and technology together foster ecological empathy and more ethical interspecies futures, drawing connections between non-human worlds, environmental consciousness, and the systems that bind cosmic and earthly life?

Ecological Art Climate Change AI for Sustainability Environmental Storytelling Generative Data Art Data Aesthetics Sensorial and Accessibility Technology

Starlinked Worlds – Symbiotic imaginaries

This theme considers the evolving relationship between technology and human experience, inviting reflection on ethical, philosophical, and speculative dimensions of emerging futures—on Earth and beyond.

We’ll discover:

Q1 What role might AI and emerging technologies play in shaping future societies, systems, and imaginaries?

Q2 How can we navigate the virtual, and extraterrestrial spaces?

Q3 What ethical frameworks and aesthetic tools are needed in an era increasingly shaped by data, algorithms, and post-human engagements?

Q4 How can immersive technologies render cosmic scale perceptible, and what does this offer for learning, wonder, and collective orientation?

Posthumanism AI Ethics Generative Systems Digital Embodiment Technological Futures Immersive Worlds

Introduction and Theme

Main Theme

ELYAH: Constellating Place, Data and Identity.

At the heart of this exploration is art, giving form to abstraction, emotion to data, and human perspective to systems.

Sub Themes

Charting Constellations – Digital geographies

Celestial Dialogues – Intercultural dialogue

Eco-Tech Futures. Ecologies of place

Starlinked Worlds – Symbiotic imaginaries

Eco-Tech Futures.
Ecologies of place