Awards

A major highlight of ICCC’26 was celebrating the outstanding work presented
throughout the conference. For those who could not attend, and to recognise
these contributions once again, we are delighted to share the 2026 award
winners announced during the conference.

Best Paper

Theory as Architecture: Why Aesthetic Frameworks Should Constitute,
Not Merely Evaluate, AI Art Systems
Atticus Sims

Best Student Paper

What Makes Literary Quotes Stand Out? A Multidimensional Analysis of
Literary Creativity
Berke Yazan, Almila Akdag, and Davide Dell’Anna

Best Short Paper

Before the Prompt: Heteromorphic Imagination and the Cognitive Cost
of Premature Crystallization in Human-AI Co-Creativity
Emil Polyak and Rghad Balkhyoor

Best Poster Awards

Back to Back with a Copy: A Computational Analysis of AI-Generated
Visual Contemporary Art Pastiches
Anca Dinu, Andreiana Mihail, Andra-Maria Florescu, Claudiu Creangă, and
Liviu P. Dinu

World-State Transformations to Foster Player Creativity in
Neuro-symbolic Interactive Storytelling
Santiago Góngora, Luis Chiruzzo, Gonzalo Mendez, and Pablo Gervás

Congratulations to all the authors for their excellent contributions to
ICCC’26!