PLATIAL’26: International Symposium on Platial Information Science
16–18 September 2026 / Salzburg, Austria
Platial information practices between idealization, cliché, and stigmatization
Places can be experienced and conceptualized in very different ways. Personal preferences and behavioural patterns, recurring misunderstandings, and varying influences from institutionalized interests are only some of the reasons for this variation. Not only exist significant differences between places but also in how they are represented. Places are commonly idealized to attract tourists, films frequently reimagine places, faraway places are subject to becoming clichés, and social hotspots are often stigmatized. Salzburg – where PLATIAL’26 will take place – is a prime example of such a place. Loved by tourists, experienced as a place of everyday living and working, and having been subject to an eventful history, Salzburg is often portrayed as a cliché in North American films and idealized in tourist guides due to its Alpine location. Such distortions are not exceptions but the rule when it comes to the communication of place.
PLATIAL’26 invites researchers from a wide range of disciplines to explore the various facets inherent to place and platial information. Among other aspects (see below), our chosen theme particularly invites submissions on differences in place perception, forms of place representation in media and art, and ways in which such representations can be unintentionally or deliberately distorted. Submitted research may concern both fundamental, theoretical considerations as well as methodological advances and practical examples.
Additional to the symposium’s theme, we welcome submissions on the following topics:
- Which approaches of place representation exist in different fields, and how can these be integrated?
- What are suitable strategies for addressing subjectivity in platial information?
- In what ways can platial information theories accommodate the complexity of places?
- How can we account for dynamics, change, and fluidity in platial information?
- What is the role of scale in platial information?
- In which ways can places be visualized, or conveyed in other forms?
- In what ways could platial information inform future applications and technologies, such as question answering systems, scenario-based planning, and virtual/augmented reality?
- Which novel perspectives could a platial lens enable in geographical information science, geography, the (non)digital humanities, philosophy, planning, and cognate fields?
- (Further topics that fit the overall scope of the symposium are welcome.)
For all enquiries email mail@platialscience.net
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