From the Painted Gaze to the Filtered Self: Visuality, Sensoriality, and the Engineered Body
Galati
Organization: Dunarea de Jos University of Galati, Romania
Opening Reflection
We no longer ask how we are seen – we ask how we should appear.
There was a time when the image held still. It gathered itself slowly, in pigment and shadow, allowing the face to emerge as something singular – anchored, contained, almost complete. To be seen was an encounter, not a condition. The gaze moved towards the image, and the image received it, without anticipation, without adjustment.
But the image no longer holds still. It fragments. It circulates. It reappears elsewhere – slightly altered, slightly improved, slightly displaced. What once belonged to a single surface now unfolds across multiple frames: the painted, the edited, the filtered, the performed. It carries with it whole visual histories – from portraiture and fairy tale to platform aesthetics, biometric capture, and speculative futures.
The face is no longer alone. It is surrounded by its versions. A memory of itself. An improvement of itself. A projection of what it might become. And in this multiplication, something shifts. The image no longer reflects the self – it begins to precede it, to measure it, to correct it, to anticipate the conditions under which it will be accepted.
Between these layers, the body becomes unstable. It is stretched between narratives: the promise of transformation, the pressure of perfection, the risk of disappearance. It moves from fairy tale to interface, from mirror to screen, from surface to system. It learns, slowly, how to appear – not once, but continuously.
And yet, not all images stabilise. Some fracture. Some fail. Some resist the smooth logic of visibility. There are images that expose too much – of effort, of intervention, of damage. Images that refuse coherence. Images that interrupt the flow. They remain. Not outside the system, but within it, as its limit.
This conference begins in that space – not at the origin of the image, nor at its perfected form, but in the tension between them. In the unstable interval where the self is no longer singular, but not yet entirely absorbed into its own projections.
We do not ask what the image is.
We ask what it has begun to do.
To the body that carries it.
To the self that negotiates it.
To the fragile distance between appearing and being.
Call for Papers
Across the history of visual culture, the face has been one of the primary sites through which identity, presence, and recognition become visible. Yet the conditions under which the face appears have never been stable. From painted portraiture to photographic reproduction, from cinematic close-ups to algorithmically generated avatars, the image of the face has moved through successive technological and cultural transformations that continually reorganise how visibility operates – how bodies are interpreted, evaluated, and socially positioned.
If, as Michel Foucault suggests, visibility is entangled with regimes of power, and if, following John Berger, seeing is never neutral, then contemporary visual culture demands renewed attention to the mechanisms through which the face becomes legible. Scholars of visuality such as W. J. T. Mitchell and Nicholas Mirzoeff have similarly shown that images do not simply represent the world; they participate in shaping the cultural and political conditions through which visibility itself is organised. Today the image of the self is rarely singular: it is edited, filtered, replicated, circulated, and algorithmically adjusted across digital environments. The face appears not only as representation, but increasingly as interface – continuously negotiated within networks of platforms, aesthetics, and technological mediation.
At the same time, the visual does not exhaust perception. As sensory studies scholars such as David Howes have shown, perception unfolds within culturally configured sensoriums where sight intersects with touch, sound, atmosphere, and affect. Attention to the historical organisation of perception, as explored for instance in the work of Jonathan Crary, further reminds us that ways of seeing are inseparable from the technological and cultural environments in which they emerge. The filtered self is therefore not only seen, but sensed – experienced through the embodied conditions that surround its production and reception.
Within these overlapping regimes of visibility and sensoriality, the body emerges as both constructed and vulnerable: shaped by aesthetic expectations, technological infrastructures, and cultural narratives of transformation.
This conference invites scholars, artists, and researchers to explore these tensions – between image and body, visibility and perception, surface and system – across literature, film, visual culture, media studies, philosophy, and the arts.
Thematic Panels and Directions
Becoming Visible: Fairy Tales, Doubles, and the First Engineered Selves
Long before digital filters and algorithmic aesthetics, cultural narratives already imagined the body as transformable.
Fairy tales such as Cinderella (Charles Perrault, 1697) and The Little Mermaid (Hans Christian Andersen, 1837) articulate beauty and transformation as conditions of recognition, belonging, and social mobility. In these narratives, bodily change is not superficial; it is decisive. Appearance becomes the threshold through which the subject enters the field of visibility.
This logic continues in literary works such as The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde, 1890) and The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (Fay Weldon, 1983), where the face becomes a surface of projection, concealment, or strategic reinvention. Across these texts, identity does not simply inhabit the body – it negotiates it.
Taken together, these narratives suggest that the engineered self does not begin with digital technology. It begins with story.
The Face That Learns to Appear: Algorithmic Beauty and the Optimised Self
In contemporary digital culture, the face increasingly emerges within environments structured by algorithms, filters, and platform aesthetics.
Images circulate through platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and streaming media where the body becomes adjustable, repeatable, and endlessly improvable. The self is not merely represented but optimised – calibrated according to aesthetic norms shaped as much by technological systems as by cultural desire.
Cultural texts such as The Substance (Coralie Fargeat, 2024) and Uglies (McG, 2024), alongside speculative media narratives such as Black Mirror (created by Charlie Brooker, 2011– ), explore the body as a site of duplication, enhancement, and redesign. In these works, identity becomes increasingly entangled with processes of correction, replacement, and technological mediation.
Yet the promise of optimisation also reveals its limits. As interventions accumulate, the face may begin to lose coherence, producing estrangement rather than recognition. Enhancement does not always stabilise identity – it may instead expose its fragility.
Perfect Surfaces, Fragile Selves: Fashion, Gloss, and the Pressure of Visibility
Within fashion and media cultures, visibility often becomes a form of currency. The body must not simply appear – it must appear flawlessly.
The glossy image emerges here as a key aesthetic form. Skin is smoothed, contours refined, and imperfections removed until the body approaches an ideal that exists only within the image itself. What is presented as natural beauty is in fact the result of layered intervention.
This produces a paradox: the more the image approaches perfection, the more it distances itself from lived embodiment. The body becomes increasingly difficult to inhabit.
Films such as The Neon Demon (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2016) and Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010) expose the psychological and bodily tensions embedded within this pursuit of perfection, revealing how beauty can function simultaneously as aspiration and constraint.
This tension is also visible in forms of public resistance to the glossy image. Public refusals of digital retouching by actors and other public figures have increasingly foregrounded the politics of image modification as a cultural and ethical issue rather than a merely aesthetic one. Such gestures expose the quiet violence of subtle correction: the demand that the body appear natural only after it has been carefully modified.
When the Face Breaks: Disfigurement, Trauma, and the Limits of the Visible
If beauty structures recognition, disfigurement exposes the fragility of that structure. Facial difference challenges cultural assumptions about identity, empathy, and belonging, revealing how strongly social recognition remains tied to visible form.
Cultural works such as The Elephant Man (David Lynch, 1980) and Wonder (Stephen Chbosky, 2017) invite reflection on the ethical dimensions of visibility – asking what happens when the face no longer conforms to normative expectations.
Such cases reveal the limits of visual culture itself: the moment when the image ceases to reassure and begins instead to confront the viewer with the instability of recognition.
The Image After the Image: Meme Culture, Reproduction, and the Play of the Iconic
In digital culture, images rarely remain stable. They circulate, mutate, and reappear across platforms in endlessly renewed contexts.
Classical artworks – from the Mona Lisa (Leonardo da Vinci, c.1503–1506) to Girl with a Pearl Earring (Johannes Vermeer, c.1665) – have entered the circuits of meme culture, fashion imagery, and digital remix practices. Through repetition and reinterpretation, the artwork becomes simultaneously familiar and unstable.
Detached from its original context, the image acquires new meanings within economies of humour, irony, and cultural commentary. The aura of the masterpiece dissolves into circulation.
Yet something often remains – an echo of the original image that continues to resist complete transformation.
Beyond the Image: Sensing the Self
While contemporary culture privileges the visual, the self cannot be reduced to what is seen. Perception unfolds through a complex sensory field where atmosphere, texture, memory, and affect shape how bodies are experienced. The image may dominate cultural representation, but embodied perception extends far beyond the visual.
Literary works such as Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Patrick Süskind, 1985) and Les Yeux de Mona (Thomas Schlesser, 2024) invite reconsideration of perception through other sensory registers – smell, proximity, atmosphere, and touch.
These perspectives remind us that identity is not only constructed through images, but also through the sensory environments in which bodies move and encounter one another.
French-language panel
The conference also welcomes proposals for a French-language panel addressing the themes of visuality, embodiment, and contemporary image cultures from francophone perspectives. Proposals may engage with literature, film, visual arts, media studies, philosophy, or cultural theory.
Scope of Contributions
The thematic directions outlined above are intended as points of departure rather than limitations. We warmly welcome proposals that engage with the broader concerns of the conference from diverse disciplinary, methodological, or artistic perspectives.
Contributions may approach the topic through literature, film, visual arts, media studies, psychology, sociology, philosophy, cultural theory, performance studies, or interdisciplinary practice. We are particularly interested in work that explores the shifting relations between image, embodiment, perception, and technology across both historical and contemporary contexts.
We also encourage contributions that combine theoretical reflection with artistic practice, visual experimentation, or critical engagement with digital media.
Conference Contributions
The conference welcomes a variety of formats, including:
l Individual papers
l Thematic panels
l Visual essays
l Artistic or practice-based contributions
Standard paper presentations will be 20 minutes, followed by discussion.
Scholars, artists, researchers, and doctoral students working in related fields are warmly encouraged to participate.
Focus Areas
Submissions are welcome from a wide range of disciplines, including but not limited to:
Literature and Comparative Literature
• Film and Media Studies
• Visual Culture
• Visual Arts and Art History
• Cultural Studies and Cultural Theory
• Philosophy and Aesthetics
• Psychology and Psychoanalytic Studies
• Sociology of the Body and Identity
• Gender and Feminist Studies
• Digital Culture and Platform Studies
• Digital Humanities
• Performance and Performance Studies
• Interdisciplinary Artistic Practice
Abstract Submission
Participants are invited to submit an abstract of 250–300 words, accompanied by a brief biographical note (100–150 words) including institutional affiliation and contact details.
All proposals must be submitted through the online submission form:
https://forms.gle/YE1JKsCR9ULzdchG6
Abstracts should clearly outline the proposed topic, theoretical or methodological framework, and its relevance to the conference theme.
Submission deadline: 1 June 2026
Notification of acceptance: 20 June 2026
For further information, participants are welcome to contact the organising team via the email address from which this call was distributed.
Conference Details
The International Conference
From the Painted Gaze to the Filtered Self: Visuality, Sensoriality, and the Engineered Body
will take place 15–17 October 2026 in Gala?i, Romania, and will be held in a hybrid format, allowing both on-site and online participation.
The conference is hosted by the Faculty of Letters.
Both on-site and online presenters will receive full participation status and access to all conference sessions and conference materials.
Optional Cultural Excursion
To conclude the conference, participants will be invited to join an optional one-day excursion to Jurilovca, a village located at the threshold of the Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, where water, sky, and horizon seem to rearrange the very geometry of the landscape.
The excursion offers a moment to step outside the conference space and experience one of Romania’s most distinctive environments, a landscape shaped by fishing traditions, Lipovan heritage, and the quiet rhythm of the Delta. The visit will include a short exploration of the village and harbour area, followed by a traditional fish lunch at a local restaurant.
The final cost of the excursion will depend on the number of participants who register, while lunch will be à la carte, with each participant paying for what they choose to consume.
Further details regarding the itinerary, schedule, and estimated cost will be shared with participants who express interest in joining the excursion.
Places for the excursion may be limited and will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
Participation Contribution
To support the organisation of the conference and to ensure a welcoming academic environment, participants are kindly asked to pay a participation fee.
Regular participants: 70 €
PhD students: 40 €
Online participation: 25 €
The participation contribution includes:
• access to all conference panels
• coffee breaks (for on-site participants)
• early access to electronic conference materials
• conference recordings after the event
• hard-copy conference materials sent after the conference
The conference dinner and the excursion are optional and will be paid individually by participants.
Payments can be made via bank transfer or Revolut. Further payment details will be provided upon acceptance.
Closing Reflection
We no longer ask only how we are seen; we ask how we must appear – and how that appearance is shaped not only by what becomes visible, but by the sensory, cultural, and technological frameworks through which the self is perceived.
This conference invites participants to think within that space: between image and embodiment, between visibility and perception, between what the face reveals and what it continues – quietly, persistently – to withhold. Bringing together scholars, artists, and practitioners from diverse fields, the conference aims to create a space for interdisciplinary dialogue on the evolving relationships between image, body, and identity in contemporary culture.
From painted portraits and literary doubles to algorithmic faces and digital avatars, the image continues to shape how the self becomes visible – and how it is recognised, judged, or transformed. We warmly invite contributions that explore how visual culture, technology, and embodiment intersect in shaping the identities of the present.
Lidia Mihaela Necula