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Synthetic Imaginaries: The Cultural Politics of Generative AI
University of Siegen | 8–12 September 2025 | extended deadline for submision: 30 June 2025
Synthetic Imaginaries: The Cultural Politics of Generative AI is an international event that will explore the cultural, political, and methodological dimensions of generative AI and synthetic media through a combination of conference talks, hands-on workshops, and collaborative projects. Topics include deepfakes, avatars, cultural biases in training data, feminist and postcolonial critiques, and the aesthetics of AI-generated content.
About | Program Highlights | Proposal Submission | Venue | Program | Contact
About the Autumn School
The rise of artificial intelligence (AI), big data processing, and synthetic media has profoundly reshaped how culture is produced, made sense of, and experienced today. To ‘synthesize’ is to assemble, collate, and compile, blending heterogeneous components into something new. Where there is synthesis, there is power at play. Synthetic media—as exemplified by the oddly prophetic early speech synthesizer demos—carry the logic of analog automation into digital cultures where human and algorithmic interventions converge. Much of the research in this area—spanning subjects as diverse as augmented reality, avatars, and deepfakes—has revolved around ideas of simulation, focusing on the manipulation of data and content people produce and consume. Meanwhile, generative AI and deep learning models, while central to debates on artificiality, raise political questions as part of a wider social ecosystem where technology is perpetually reimagined, negotiated, and contested: What images and stories feed the datasets that contemporary AI models are trained on? Which imaginaries are reproduced through AI-driven media technologies and which remain latent? How do synthetic media transform relations of power and visibility, and what methods—perhaps equally synthetic—can we develop to analyze these transformations?
The five-day event at the University of Siegen—organized by the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Centers Media of Cooperation and Transformations of the Popular together with the Center of Digital Narratives in Bergen, the Digital Culture and Communication Section of ECREA and the German National Research Data Infrastructure Consortium NFDI4Culture—explores the relationship between synthetic media and today’s imaginaries of culture and technology, which incorporate AI as an active participant. By “synthetic,” we refer not simply to the artificial but to how specific practices and ways of knowing take shape through human-machine co-creation. Imaginaries, in turn, reflect shared visions, values, and expectations—shaping not only what technologies do but how they are perceived and made actionable in everyday life.
The event opens with a one-day conference and moves into hands-on workshops and collaborative projects. With multiple opportunities for exchange across disciplines, we encourage especially early-career researchers and PhD students to present their ideas during the conference and join a project led by international facilitators and data designers. We invite submissions of short abstracts (max. 500 words) for presentations engaging with questions and provocations related—but not limited—to topics such as:
Critical data studies perspectives on AI: how data infrastructures, labeling, and curation shape the outputs we call “synthetic”; Cultural afterlives of training data: how racialized, gendered, or colonial imaginaries persist in synthetic media outputs; Methodological uses of GenAI: the politics that we buy in when repurposing AI as a method, from inherited bias to epistemic tensions; Synthetic personhood and likeness: exploring deepfakes, AI-generated avatars, and the power of (in)authenticity; Online cultures and platforms: how AI-generated content circulates across platforms—from memes and art to fan fiction, music, and poetry; Postcolonial and feminist critiques of AI: challenging universalist assumptions in generative models and interrogating whose knowledge is made (in)visible; Clichés, formulas, and repetition in GenAI outputs: how AI-generated stories and images rely on familiar tropes, visual styles, and narrative conventions; The aesthetics of noise in AI-generated content: repetition, glitch, randomness, and their role in producing or disrupting meaning; GPTs as infrastructural components: how generative pretrained transformers operate as configurable, customizable, and task-oriented agents embedded in platform infrastructures; Prompting and/as probing: prompting as a form of critical intervention, shaping co-authorship, sense-making, and research design; The ethics of training AI: from historical records and religious texts to indigenous cosmologies and oral traditions—what are the implications of using culturally sensitive knowledge to train generative models? Generative AI and Memory: synthetic media as a means of reimagining the past—through deepfake testimonies, interactive historical simulations, and other forms of computational memory-making; Generative AI in activist contexts: can AI be used for resistance or reimagining community—in the face of its environmental footprint and complicity in extractive systems?
Program highlights
The event blends three complementary formats:
Mix questions!
Monday, 8 September
Day one begins with a keynote by Jill Walker Rettberg and opens space for emerging questions—think of it as an idea hub. Accepted abstracts will be grouped into thematic sessions curated by the organising team. Presenters will be connected via email ahead of time to coordinate their contributions. Each presentation will be set to 10 minutes to allow ample time for discussion, collective thinking, and exchange. The emphasis is on dialogue, not polished conclusions.
Mix methods!
Tuesday, 9 September-Thursday, 11 September
The next three days—featuring a workshop by Gabriele De Seta and an artistic intervention by Ángeles Briones and DensityDesign Lab—are about exploring new methods—hands-on! We invite you to join a team of interdisciplinary scholars and data designers in probing new methodological combinations. Each of our project teams will present a research question alongside a specific method to be collaboratively explored. Participants will not only learn how to design prompts and work with AI-generated text and images but also how to critically account for genAI models as platform models. All projects draw on intersectional approaches, combining qualitative and quantitative data to explore the synthetic dimensions of AI agency—whether as content creator, noise generator, hallucinator, research collaborator, data annotator, or style imitator. Please bring your laptops. The project titles will be announced soon.
Synthesize!
Friday, 12 September
The final day is dedicated to sharing, reflecting, and synthesizing the questions, methods, and insights developed throughout the week. Project teams will present their collaborative processes, highlight key takeaways, and discuss how their ideas and approaches shifted through hands-on experimentation with methods.
Proposal Submission
Please submit your proposal (max. 500 words) outlining how your work aligns with the event’s theme by 30.06.2025, using this form. Please note that the number of participants will be limited to maintain focused and engaging discussions. All submissions will be peer-reviewed.
The event is free of charge, though attendees are responsible for arranging and covering their travel and accommodation in Siegen. Limited travel support is available (two to three stipends ranging from €500 to €700). Early-career researchers and PhD students are invited to apply; stipends will be awarded by the NFDI4Culture consortium based on the strength of the justification, particularly concerning critical ethical engagement with AI research data, as well as the distance and cost of travel. Short summaries of the presented work will be published on the NFDI4Culture website.
A certificate of participation will be issued for both the conference presentation and the hands-on workshop sessions.
Updated Timeline with extended deadline:
Submit your proposal by 30 June 2025.
Notification of acceptance by July 15 2025.
Registration by August 1 2025.
Venue
Universität Siegen
Campus Herrengarten
AH-A 217/18
Herrengarten 3
57072 Siegen
Contact
Dr. Elena Pilipets
elena.pilipets[at]uni-siegen.de
ecreadigitalculture[æt]gmail.com
The Autumn School is organized by the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Centers 1187 Media of Cooperation and 1472 Transformations of the Popular together with the Center of Digital Narratives in Bergen, the Digital Culture and Communication Section of ECREA and the German National Research Data Infrastructure Consortium NFDI4Culture.
How “smart” is your home?
A research study by Stephan Habscheid, Dagmar Hoffmann, Tim Hector, Niklas Strüver, (all University of Siegen, SFB 1187)
The project team of B06 “Un/desired observation in interaction” is looking for participants for a research study on “smart homes”. Do you have smart home devices, or want to buy new smart home devices soon? Then consider participating in this study.
→ To the website of project B06
About the study
We want to investigate ‘smartness’ in your everyday life. To gain insights into everyday life with smart devices in general, we would like to accompany and record you as you set up or use your smart home devices. We use the results and data exclusively for research purposes. The data collected will be processed confidentially following the highest data protection standards. In publications, strict anonymization or obfuscation of the participants is ensured.
For the study, we are looking for
- households with smart speakers, smart kitchen appliances (e.g. a Thermomix), networked electronics (e.g. light bulbs, thermostats, door locks or sockets), digital energy controls for a solar panel or similar devices/applications
- households that do not use such devices yet but are planning to purchase them and would let us accompany them in setting up and using them.
In case you want to participate, we will offer you an expense allowance of between 30 and 180 euros, depending on the extent of your participation.
Participation involves:
- The video recording of the use of smart home devices in certain situations, e.g. when cooking and playing games, during everyday conversations or when friends and acquaintances visit.
- If possible, video recording of the initial setup of smart home devices (unpacking, installation, connecting to the smartphone and placement in the home).
- The recording of all smart home applications in your home as well as various interviews with you and other household members.
- Screen recording will also be carried out in certain situations to determine the connection between the smart home device and your smartphone.
Cameras and audio recording devices will be provided by us.
Participation requirements: All members of your household must be at least 16 years old.
Contact
If you have any questions, please send an e-mail to the project team: ipa-studie[æt]uni-siegen.de.
Co-Design Workshop on “Social Interaction in Semi-Automated Traffic”
by Shadan Sadeghian (University of Siegen) and Md Akib Shahriar Khan (University of Siegen)
Are you interested in sharing your experiences, ideas, and perspectives on communication and collaboration in evolving traffic systems? We seek participants for our user study on “Co-Design Workshop on Social Interaction in Semi-Automated Traffic”, led .
Central Information
Da️te: Wednesday, March 5, 2025
Time: 1.00 pm – 4.30 pm
Location: University of Siegen, Kohlbettstraße 15, 57072 Siegen
About the workshop
This Co-Design Workshop will explore how road users – pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, and others – interact in semi-automated traffic environments. Through creative and interactive activities, participants can share their experiences, ideas, and perspectives on communication and collaboration in evolving traffic systems.
Who can participate?
We welcome participants from all backgrounds – no prior knowledge or expertise is required, just a willingness to contribute your thoughts!
How to apply?
To appreciate your time and contributions, participants will receive a compensation of €40. Spots are limited, so please register as soon as possible using the following link: ➞ register here.
Selected participants will be contacted with further details.
About project P05
Project P05 – “Social Interaction in Semi-Automated Road Traffic” explores how increasing automation transforms social interactions in road traffic. By integrating multimodal sensing technologies, it examines prosocial behaviors, new communication methods, and human-machine cooperation in mixed traffic. Through field studies and simulations, the project aims to develop guidelines for safer and more inclusive automated mobility.
The project is led by Shadan Sadeghian. She is an assistant professor on Interactive Autonomous Systems at the University of Siegen.
Md Akib Shahriar Khan is a doctoral researcher in project P05 and in the Interactive Autonomous Systems group at the Universität Siegen.
“Media Climate Justice: Research, Skillsharing, Hacking”
organized by Julia Bee (Ruhr-Universität Bochumg & SFB 1187) and the Research at Risk working group
How does media shape our understanding of the climate crisis? What role do they play in activism and political mobilization? The Spring School “Media Climate Justice: Research, Skillsharing, Hacking” (April 11-13, 2025, Ruhr University Bochum) invites you to discuss these questions in a practical way. Organized by the Research at Risk working group, the Spring School offers workshops, inputs and networking opportunities for all interested parties from science, journalism, activism and art.
Central Info
April 11 – 13, 2025
AK Research at Risk
Department of Media Studies
Ruhr University Bochum
Universitätsstr. 150
44780 Bochum
Registration: until March 31, 2025 via email to mail[æt]mediaclimatejustice.org
How we perceive the climate catastrophe and the associated ecological crises depends largely on how they are negotiated in the media. It is therefore also a question of the media whether and how people can be politicised or mobilised for climate justice. We highlighted this at our first Spring School in spring 2024 on climate, media and anti-fascism.
Now we want to continue our efforts to connect activism, journalism, art and science – and go beyond analyses: This time, the focus is particularly on digital research practices, climate journalism and climate activism on Tiktok: we’re learning some skills for sharing! For our programme, we have invited Correctiv’s climate editorial team and the research collective Tactical Tech, among others. We will be looking at climate narratives, migration and the far-right appropriation of the climate discourse. There will also be a workshop on climate justice issues in teaching at the university. In addition to inputs and workshops, there will be a performance on Saturday evening. Afterwards, we hope to raise a glass with you.
All interested parties from university, activism, journalism, art and civil society are cordially invited! Journalists, people interested in research, committed people – spread the word & come along.
About Research at Risk
Research at Risk is a working group in media and performance studies that understands research as a practice of knowledge production, exchange and criticism, which is not only facilitated by academics, but also by activists, journalists, artists and others. We work in the field between climate justice and antifascist coalition building with a strong emphasis on intersectional approaches. In 2022 and 2023 Research at Risk invited a variety of speakers to present and discuss different ways in which individual researchers as well as critical research as such are put at risk. For this purpose, we organized two lecture series on flight and scholarship as well as petro fascism. Departing from these conversations we are continuing our work in this practice-oriented spring school to tackle the above-mentioned interceptions between right wing politics and anti-climate sentiment.
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