Hybridizations of the Moving Image
Thematic call for Graffiti and Street Art (GSA), an Open-Access, Peer-Reviewed Journal.
Co-editor: Mattia Ronconi, Institute for Research in Design, Media and Culture ID+; Faculty of Fine Art, University of Porto, 4049-021, Porto, Portugal; orcid.org/0000-0002-6073-6541
Abstract until the end of April 2026.
Full paper until the end of July 2026.
Publication of the Issue: November 2026.
Submissions should be made through the GSA journal publishing platform.
Please indicate the thematic call you are submitting to in the “Comments for the Editor” field.
The thematic call it's associated with
Urban Creativity, conference and activities, 13th edition
Lisbon, July 2, 3 and 4, 2026
Call for papers:
This thematic focus explores how Graffiti and Street Art (GSA) are reconfigured when they move beyond photography and enter expanded ecologies of the moving image. Documentary films, animation, video essays, AR/XR environments, games and social media feeds do not operate merely as records or entertainment: they rewrite territories and urban practices, redistributing meanings across physical, digital and algorithmic spaces. Despite this media turn, much of the reflection on GSA remains centred on photography, publishing and museum-based curatorship.
The issue proposes a focus on the ways in which GSA is represented, archived and re-signified through moving images and the visual ecosystems that support them. It seeks to explore tensions between representation and de-contextualisation, insider and outsider documentation, preservation and commodification. This framework includes moving-image works (documentary, animated documentary, experimental video, projections in public space, AR/XR, interactive media, games, computational tools and their intersections), as well as their visual development processes — illustration, concept art, storyboards, character and environment design — when articulated with GSA. In doing so, the issue aims to deepen an already emerging axis in GSA Journal – attention to modes of mediation and documentation – while shifting the focus towards the specificities of moving images and their visual ecosystems.
Indicative topics include, but are not limited to:
representations of GSA in cinema, television, series and video essays, in both documentary and fiction;
animated documentary and experimental animation dealing with GSA;
visual development processes (illustration, concept art, storyboards, character, environment and production design) for moving-image projects related to GSA;
hybrid practices across physical and digital spaces (projections, video mapping, AR/XR, games, interactive experiences);
the circulation of GSA through moving images in social media and algorithmic ecosystems;
audiovisual methodologies for archiving, mapping and documenting GSA;
ethical, legal and political issues in audiovisual mediation;
case studies on the re-signification of GSA.
Other related topics and new connections are welcome.
The focus also encompasses methodological, ethical, political and legal questions. How do technical-artistic choices — from illustration and design to filming, animation and editing — reconfigure the relationship between GSA, archives, memory and territory? When do these images preserve situated practices, and when do they contribute to their de-contextualisation? The issue further addresses questions of copyright, authorship and appropriation in moving-image works derived from artworks in public space, asking when documentation and artistic creation become extraction or cultural appropriation. How such operations reshape the cultural, territorial, social and political meanings of GSA?
Submissions are invited from fields such as design, film and media studies, animation, illustration, visual arts, visual anthropology, sociology, cultural criminology, urban studies, architecture, geography, communication studies and copyright law, as well as from artistic practices and practice-based research projects.
Submissions should be made through the GSA journal publishing platform.
Please indicate the thematic call you are submitting to in the “Comments for the Editor” field.
Credits: This thematic call follows Mattia published work on GSA; Image Mattia Ronconi, Porto 2025-2026.
