Research
Attention
How images compete for perception, interrupt thought, and organize collective attention.
A research initiative
ICONEMIA
Understanding the ecology of images in the age of generative AI.
A research initiative exploring how images shape attention, knowledge, memory, and culture.
01 / Manifesto
We do not merely live surrounded by images.
ICONEMIA argues that human beings do not merely live surrounded by images. They are continuously constituted, transformed, and extended through them.
Images are not only objects of representation. They are active components of the environments through which individuals perceive, remember, learn, imagine, and construct reality.
Research
Memory
How synthetic and networked images reshape personal, cultural, and institutional memory.
Research
Knowledge
What happens when images become epistemic tools, evidence, simulations, and hallucinated artifacts.
Research
Culture
How generative image abundance transforms visual culture, authorship, pedagogy, and public imagination.
02 / Speaking & Keynotes
Lectures for academic, cultural, professional, and young audiences.
ICONEMIA conferences are grounded in academic research while remaining adaptable to different audiences: universities, museums, schools, libraries, public institutions, cultural organizations, educators, and professional events.
Particular attention is given to younger audiences, who are among the first to grow up inside an environment saturated by algorithmically generated and distributed images. Understanding how images influence attention, emotion, memory, and identity has become a central component of contemporary visual and AI literacy.
Understanding ICONEMIA
A new ecology of images in the age of AI.
An introduction to Iconemia and to the emergence of a visual paradigm in which images become environments rather than simple representations.
Invite François Giard →GAFAM Saturation
How attention platforms engineer perception.
An examination of how platform economies maximize engagement through image production, recommendation systems, and attention capture.
Invite François Giard →Generative AI and the End of Representation
How synthetic image generation challenges assumptions about authorship, truth, imagination, and visual culture.
Invite François Giard →Image Ecology
Learning to live inside the image ecosystem.
A framework for understanding images as environments that influence cognition, affect, and collective behaviour.
Invite François Giard →Mediated Empathy
How synthetic images transform emotional experience.
An exploration of the ways AI-generated images reshape empathy, memory, identification, and emotional engagement.
Invite François Giard →AI Literacy Beyond Prompt Engineering
Understanding images rather than merely producing them.
Why AI literacy requires more than learning prompts: it requires understanding the cognitive, cultural, and ethical implications of generative imagery.
Invite François Giard →Duration: 45–90 minutes. Audience: adapted to context. Languages: French / English. Format: in person or online.
03 / Publications
Selected publications and preprints.
04 / Support the Research
Wear the concept. Support the research.
Purchasing an ICONEMIA T-shirt helps support the development of the project, future publications, public lectures, and open educational resources.
Hello
ICONEMIA is currently under development.
For speaking engagements, collaborations, publications, or T-shirt inquiries, write to: