[Commlist] CCEL Conference 2026 - The Invisible Image: Photography and the Unseen

_Call For Papers _


The Invisible Image: Photography and the Unseen


A single-stream 2 day International Conference hosted by the Centre for 
Culture and Everyday Life, School of the Arts, University of Liverpool.

18-19 June 2026


Instagram: @ccel_uliverpool

Bsky: cceluliverpool.bsky.social

Hashtag: #invisibleimageLiv

Website: www.ccel.uk


Keynote speakers:

Prof. Jordan Bear (University of Toronto)

Prof. Estelle Blaschke (University of Basel)


This conference investigates theories, histories and methodologies 
relating to photographic images that are, for different reasons, unseen 
or unseeable. In the past twenty years, theorists and scholars across 
disciplines have raised the idea of the invisible image in various ways: 
discussing “operational” images intended for machine-reading rather than 
human viewing, and “invisual’ images that appear in aggregation and in 
which the visual qualities of the image are less significant than the 
metadata they carry; the legal and political processes that have 
restricted the viewing and distribution of certain types of images; the 
images that provide the ‘training’ for AI image production; latent 
photographic images that have been exposed and may never be developed, 
and the traces of erased, damaged and faded images. Writers concerned 
with archival photographs of racialized subjects appeal to senses other 
than the visual: to the rhythms and tactility of pictures. And for a 
long time now, photographers and artists have found creative ways to 
visualise absence, and especially, to make present subjects 
“disappeared” by dictatorships and through war.


The conference will address, both theoretically and methodologically, 
how we might study and account for images that are inaccessible, whether 
through censorship, destruction or other interventions. What methods can 
be used to account for images in their absence? Historically, lecturers 
used ekphrasis to discuss images that they could not show. What 
techniques and approaches now might help us to analyse invisible, 
inaccessible or undiscovered images? Conversely, how might photographic 
techniques be used to represent or express the invisible? How have 
photographers attempted to use the medium to visualise the unseen? What 
can this teach us about the nature of the photographic media or about 
ocularcentric cultures? What are the institutions and their internal 
processes that restrict certain types of images? How might we respond 
when archival research yields nothing but absence? When should 
researchers refuse to show images and why? How and why might we bring 
unseen images to light and what are the ethical and theoretical dilemmas 
surrounding this? How are unseen images produced and stored, for what 
purposes and by whom?


Other possible topics include:


  *

    Photographic latency

  *

    What photography can ‘sense’ which is invisible to human eyes

  *

    Operational and “invisual” images

  *

    The “invisible” labour behind digital images

  *

    The judicial status of images

  *

    The ethics and aesthetics of unseen images

  *

    Censorship and political interference in image production,
    consumption, and circulation

  *

    The use of visual technologies by law enforcement, military, and the
    surveillance industrial complex

  *

    Photographs of absence/invisibility/missing referents/spectres

  *

    Institutions and image oversight

  *

    Accessing and assessing absent images

  *

    The affective power of inaccessible images

  *

    Methodological inventions into unseen images

  *

    The manipulation, redaction and destruction of images


We welcome abstracts for 20 minute presentations that address any of the 
issues above, or that relate to questions of invisibility and 
photography in ways we have not anticipated. Please send abstracts of 
250 words (maximum) with an indicative bibliography of up to 5 texts and 
a short bio of up to 100 words, to:


(CCEL /at/ liverpool.ac.uk) <mailto:(CCELconference2024 /at/ liverpool.ac.uk)> by 30 
January 2026.


Additional Information:

Conference fee: £90

Unwaged/ PhD students: £45

(fee includes lunches and refreshments across both days and a drinks 
reception,  a conference dinner will also be organised which will be 
charged separately for those who wish to participate)

We are unable to offer fee waivers.


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