Paul Ricoeur, in his lecture “Achitecture et narrativité”, establishes the following analogy: architecture would be to space what narrative is to time, that is, a configuring operation. This operation is capable of transfiguring geometric space and chronological time into an inhabited space-time , lived, in which the past appears in the present and in which past and present are projected into the future.

Architecture shares with contemporary narrative and image in being a “cultural device” capable of projecting an image of the world, perhaps the worldview of an era, and also, at times, being a precursor of significant social changes. These cultural devices not only represent how we live, but also how we are; they are reflections of our collective identity and how we interact with the world and with each other.

A line can be drawn from the “mimesis of action” inherent in stories to the “mimesis of the world” in which those stories take place. Often, a crucial portion of the worlds told belongs to architecture: buildings and cities; roads, paths, squares. In the opposite direction, one can trace the story by which a new building is inscribed in a natural or urban space: from its ideation or only dreamed projection to the moment when it becomes a document/monument of a long history, passing through its “inscription” or the historical moment of its construction. We want, in this congress, to explore both routes, the one born from the stories and images that include architecture; and the one born in the constructions that carry their own history.

Both architecture and audiovisual narrative, as poetic possible worlds, testify our technical and aesthetic capacities; and also our system of ideas and beliefs, of values and pretensions. We can “read and reread” the architecture that surrounds us, enter into a dialogue with it in which we recognize our communities, tradition, aspirations. This dialogic encounter maintains an interdependence between concordance and dissonance, tradition and innovation. This tension makes architectural spaces places of memory and shared identity, promoting a sense of belonging and cultural continuity, but also of innovation and openness to new ways of inhabiting.

The progressive changes that are introduced into the architectural device-whether by technological innovations, new materials or design approaches-as well as the event of inscribing or constructing a new building in the world, produce obvious transformations in the way we inhabit our spaces. These transformations can lead to profound changes in our behavior and daily interactions, influencing our daily routines and community relationships.

In this constantly evolving context, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative tool that is redefining the architectural landscape. AI makes it possible to optimize design processes, foresee future needs, and customize spaces in ways that respond to specific user demands. Through advanced algorithms and machine learning, AI can analyze vast amounts of data to generate more efficient and sustainable designs, anticipating problems and proposing innovative solutions. This opens up a range of possibilities for the creation of spaces that are not only functional, but also improve people’s quality of life.

Architectural proposals in the form of virtual projects, which often come to us through other cultural devices such as movies or series, suggest scenarios that, although born in the realm of fiction, can inspire and anticipate real possibilities. These fictional representations, whether utopian, dystopian or simply dreamed, are part of the melting pot of possibilities that opens up before architectural design. They invite us to imagine and reflect on possible futures, on how we could live and how we would like our environments to be.

The VII International Congress SIMUFV: Image and Recognition, under the motto “Architecture and Narrative”, invites professionals and researchers to discuss the capacity of architecture and its representation to provoke reflections and proposals on living spaces, from any cultural device. We suggest that papers be inspired by Paul Ricoeur’s 1989 lecture “Architecture et narrativité”, which relates architecture to memory and the possibility of understanding this discipline as an experience that is inevitably immersed in a narrative.

More generally, the congress seeks to offer a humanistic and transdisciplinary look at contemporary architecture and its representation (photography, graphics, audiovisual, transmedia, literature, comics, video games, AI, etc.), of any genre and format, exploring the expressive power of architecture as a way of recognizing the human.

Thematic areas and methodologies

Area 1: Architecture, memory and cosmovision

Area 2: Architecture and the future: prediction and artificial intelligence

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Area 3: Architecture and fiction

Area 4: Miscellaneous Image and Recognition

Priority will be given to research that seeks an interdisciplinary dialogue between thematic areas and humanities, especially insofar as the objects studied are presented to us as meaningful images in which to recognize our world and our way of inhabiting it.

Suggested methodologies:

– Theoretical or conceptualization studies that facilitate the analysis of cultural devices.
– Hermeneutic, textual, aesthetic or close reading analysis of cultural devices.
– Case analysis.

This congress accepts proposals for oral communications and academic video-essay proposals. Only proposals that meet the deadlines and formal requirements indicated in this call will be accepted. Authors are encouraged to review in detail the registration section and calendar in this call and to confirm it in the SIMUFV web page in case there are any updates.

The scientific committee, with a view to the subsequent publication of the results of the congress, will pay special attention to the following criteria:

– The relevance of the contribution in relation to the theme of the congress, with special emphasis on one of the four thematic areas.
– The scientific quality of the proposals and their possible impact on the training of communication professionals or on the professional flows of audiovisual production.
– The originality and novelty of the proposal.

At the end of the congress, the presenters will be eligible for the publication of their communication and the review of their video-essay in a monographic volume of the collection “Jano Comunicación y Humanidades” of Editorial Sindéresis, recognized with the SPI quality seal for specialized publications in Humanities and Social Sciences.

A book of abstracts will also be published in digital format by Editorial UFV with the corresponding digital ISBN.

Modalities of presentation:

A. Oral communication

Authors are requested to send their oral communication proposals by means of a form on the congress website with the following data:

– Name and SURNAME.
– Spanish ID number.
– E-mail.
– ORCID No. (if available).
– Affiliation (if any).
– A postal address, in case it is necessary to send certificates or publications.
– An abstract in Spanish, Portuguese, Italian or English of between 400-500 words, including: problem statement, purpose, methodology, results and expected conclusions. Careful editing is requested for publication in the book of abstracts.
– A list (three to five) of the sources you intend to use in Chicago format.
– A brief CV of 100-150 words.

B. Video-essay communication

Authors are requested to send their video-essay proposals by means of a form on the conference website with the following data:

– Name and SURNAME.
– Spanish ID number.
– E-mail.
– ORCID No. (if available).
– Affiliation (if any).
– A mailing address, in case it is necessary to send certificates or publications.
– A presentation of the video with a length between 400-500 words, in Spanish, Portuguese or English.
– A brief list of the sources used.
– A brief CV of 100-150 words.

The video-essays replace the physical attendance and should be thematically adjusted to the areas proposed in the call for papers. They can be in any language, always with English subtitles. Their duration should be around 10 minutes and never exceed 15 minutes. The video-essay must be hosted on the Google platform, with private access. It must include, in the first images, the author’s name, the title of the video-essay, as well as the name, the date, the title of the congress and its logo.

The reception of paper and video-essay proposals ends on January 20, 2025; the registration to the congress can be done once the paper or video-essay is accepted by the scientific committee and always before February 3, 2025. The deadline for sending the link with the final video-essay and the password to access it is February 17, 2025.