SCM, School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong
Level 6, M6058
18 Tat Hong Avenue, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong
Please find detailed information in the programme and register here
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2026
10:00-10:30am Welcome remarks
10:30am-12:45pm Session 1: FROM PHOTOGRAPHY TO SYNTHOGRAPHY
1:30-3:45pm Session 2: IMAGE AND ARCHIVE
4:15-6:15pm Session 3: THE FAITHFUL IMAGE
For two centuries, photography has shaped how we see, record, remember, and understand the world. What began as a light-sensitive chemical process has evolved into a diverse field of image-making that now includes digital manipulation, computer-generated imagery, virtual environments, simulation, and AI-generated images.
Accompanying the workshop programme and exhibition 200 Years of Photography: Images, Representation and AI, this symposium invites artists, scholars, curators, photojournalists, and researchers to reflect on the changing role of images in contemporary culture.
The symposium unfolds across three thematic sessions. From Photography to Synthography traces the evolution of image-making from analogue photographic processes and experimental camera systems to synthography: the creation of images through synthetic means, including computer-generated imagery, 3D modelling, virtual environments, simulation, and artificial intelligence. Image and Archive explores how images shape memory, construct histories, and enable speculative engagements with the past in an age of ecological and technological transformation. The Faithful Image examines photography’s enduring role as witness, addressing questions of authenticity, credibility, and trust in contemporary documentary and journalistic practice.
Through contributions from international keynote speakers and Hong Kong-based artists, researchers, and practitioners, Imagining Photography reflects on the transformations of the image across two centuries. Spanning analogue photography, synthography, archives, and documentary practice, the symposium explores how evolving image technologies continue to shape the ways we document, remember, and imagine the world.
The symposium is a collaboration by SCM School of Creative Media City University of Hong Kong, Goethe-Institut Hongkong and the French Consulate, and is financially supported by the Franco-German Cultural Fund.
