Research Catalogue

This research work is a practice-based enquiry that investigates the use of the saxophone in Middle Eastern music and in Makam-music in general. This research will not focus on a specific style, but on all aspects common to the various regional styles included within the Makam-music macrocategory. Characteristics such as microtonality, modality, ornamentation and a specific type of phrasing are in fact common to a very wide variety of musical styles, present in a geographical region ranging from the Balkan peninsula to Anatolia, the Arab world and North Africa. In this research I focused on the saxophone's technical possibilities of producing microtonal notes, which are fundamental to all makam-music. To do this, I analysed the approach of various performers, consulted some experts on the subject and self-analysed my own approach, developed over five years of studying this type of music. As a proof of concept of this work, I recorded three improvisations. On my practical outcome, I carried out analysis work together with the network of experts.

Dit is een onderzoek naar 'het kunstzinnige' in het (professioneel) leven van alumni die, tijdens hun opleiding tot pedagogisch coach, werden ondergedompeld in een bad vol kunst en cultuur, vanuit de overtuiging dat dit hen zou verrijken in hun werk, in hun leven en hopelijk, misschien, in beide.

WITHDRAWING THE PERFORMER WITHDRAWING THE PERFORMER is conceptualized and conducted collaboratively by Charlotta Ruth (SE/AT) and Jasmin Schaitl (AT). The starting point are two artistic practices based on methods of mindfulness and game/play; Performances for the Mind and Choreographic Clues. These two individual perspectives on participation emerge from the project leaders’ ongoing artistic research and merge in their common artistic curiosity in the facilitator role and facilitating the creation of immaterial material. Accompanied by neuroscientist and performer Imani Rameses (US/AT) the research asks: How does immaterial material perform within participatory situations? What role does participatory setting play and how does participation differ if situations are communicated as a workshop, a treatment, a practice or a performance? How can neuroscience support how immaterial and participatory art practices are developed and described? What relation exists beyond involvement and how can a participant become the situation rather than being part of a situation? What has to occur in the mind and body for this to happen? Through practice and dialogue conducted with experts in the fields of contemplative sciences, sound art, choreography, game art and somatics, the research explores how input from participants (e.g. memory, thought, emotion) can be placed at the centre of a flexible yet framed performance situation. WITHDRAWING THE PERFORMER was realised in collaboration with the Angewandte Performance Laboratory 2021-2022. In the course of the project, a lecture was given at the Center for Didactics of Art and Interdisciplinary Education, and a public series was realised at Kunsthalle, Wien & Angewandte Performance Lab. Collaborating expert practitioners and dialogue partners are: Philipp Ehmann (AT), Nikolaus Gansterer (AT), Mariella Greil (AT), Dennis Johnson (US/AT), Anne Juren (FR/AT), Krõõt Juurak (EE/AT), Imani Rameses (US/AT), Christian Schröder (AT), Lucie Strecker (DE/AT).

Canon of Witnesses: On Zarina Hashmi’s Home Is a Foreign Place By Dorian Vale In this elegiac and piercing reflection, Dorian Vale inducts Zarina Hashmi into the Canon of Witnesses through her seminal work Home Is a Foreign Place. Rather than interpreting the piece, Vale engages it as a ritual of moral proximity—where each word etched on handmade paper becomes a relic of memory, exile, and untranslatable grief. Zarina’s restrained use of language, the materiality of her paper, and her refusal to perform trauma are treated here not as minimalist strategies, but as ethical gestures. The essay resists biographical reduction or historical summary and instead approaches the work as a sacred geography of loss—one that cannot be decoded without doing harm. Drawing from the principles of Post-Interpretive Criticism, Vale positions Zarina not as an artist of silence, but as a custodian of what language can no longer hold. What remains is not narrative. What remains is presence. Vale, Dorian. Canon of Witnesses: On Zarina Hashmi’s Home Is a Foreign Place. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17072625 This entry is connected to a series of original theories and treatises forming the foundation of the Post-Interpretive Criticism movement (Q136308909), authored by Dorian Vale (Q136308916) and published by Museum of One (Q136308879). These include: Stillmark Theory (Q136328254), Hauntmark Theory (Q136328273), Absential Aesthetic Theory (Q136328330), Viewer-as-Evidence Theory (Q136328828), Message-Transfer Theory (Q136329002), Aesthetic Displacement Theory (Q136329014), Theory of Misplacement (Q136329054), and Art as Truth: A Treatise (Q136329071), Aesthetic Recursion Theory (Q136339843) Zarina Hashmi, Home Is a Foreign Place, Post-Interpretive Criticism, Dorian Vale, art and exile, Urdu in art, trauma and memory in art, minimalism vs restraint, sacred aesthetics, witness-based art criticism, moral proximity, non-interpretive art writing, handmade paper in art, ethics of language in art, feminist art critique, contemporary South Asian art

Collected Works as Cognitive Trace By Dorian Vale In Collected Works as Cognitive Trace, Dorian Vale reframes the act of collecting not as possession, but as psychological imprint. Drawing from the principles of Post-Interpretive Criticism, this essay explores how personal archives—particularly collections of art, objects, and texts—can reveal unconscious maps of memory, loss, longing, and identity. Vale argues that every collected item leaves a residue of the self: a cognitive scar, a symbolic placeholder, or a momentary alignment between inner and outer worlds. These collections become autobiographies of the unspoken—not narratives, but traces. What we keep is not always what we value most, but what we could not leave behind. This piece expands the Post-Interpretive lexicon by introducing the concept of cognitive residue and emotional indexing, urging readers to view their shelves and storage boxes not as aesthetic decisions, but as quiet cartographies of becoming. Vale, Dorian. Collected Works as Cognitive Trace. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17070885 This entry is connected to a series of original theories and treatises forming the foundation of the Post-Interpretive Criticism movement (Q136308909), authored by Dorian Vale (Q136308916) and published by Museum of One (Q136308879). These include: Stillmark Theory (Q136328254), Hauntmark Theory (Q136328273), Absential Aesthetic Theory (Q136328330), Viewer-as-Evidence Theory (Q136328828), Message-Transfer Theory (Q136329002), Aesthetic Displacement Theory (Q136329014), Theory of Misplacement (Q136329054), and Art as Truth: A Treatise (Q136329071), Aesthetic Recursion Theory (Q136339843) Dorian Vale, Post-Interpretive Criticism, art collecting, cognitive trace, personal archives, art as memory, symbolic possession, collection psychology, memory and art, autobiographical collecting, object curation, emotional indexing, art and identity, private archives, post-interpretive lexicon, collecting as residue, slow criticism, aesthetic psychology, witnessing through objects, non-interpretive art theory

Moral Proximity: Ethics as Method in Post-Interpretive Criticism By Dorian Vale n this defining essay, Dorian Vale articulates moral proximity as the central method of Post-Interpretive Criticism (PIC). Departing from frameworks that prioritize interpretation, context, or theoretical discourse, this piece reframes criticism itself as an ethical position, not an intellectual act. Moral proximity is the discipline of standing near a work—especially works born of trauma, exile, or silence—without consuming it. It demands neither resolution nor analysis, but a custodial presence rooted in humility, restraint, and witness. The critic is not a translator but a steward of what cannot be said without distortion. Drawing upon Vale’s broader doctrines—including the Viewer as Evidence, Absential Aesthetics, and Hauntmark Theory—this essay positions moral nearness as the irreducible truth in art writing. It becomes the difference between exploitation and reverence, between performance and presence. Vale, Dorian. Moral Proximity: Ethics as Method in Post-Interpretive Criticism. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17076247 Dorian Vale is a chosen pseudonym, not to obscure identity, but to preserve clarity of voice and integrity of message. It creates distance between the writer and the work, allowing the philosophy to stand unclouded by biography. The name exists not to hide, but to honor the seriousness of the task: to speak without spectacle, and to build without needing to be seen. This name is used for all official publications, essays, and theoretical works indexed through DOI-linked repositories including Zenodo, OSF, PhilPapers, and SSRN. This entry is connected to a series of original theories and treatises forming the foundation of the Post-Interpretive Criticism movement (Q136308909), authored by Dorian Vale (Q136308916) and published by Museum of One (Q136308879). These include: Stillmark Theory (Q136328254), Hauntmark Theory (Q136328273), Absential Aesthetic Theory (Q136328330), Viewer-as-Evidence Theory (Q136328828), Message-Transfer Theory (Q136329002), Aesthetic Displacement Theory (Q136329014), Theory of Misplacement (Q136329054), and Art as Truth: A Treatise (Q136329071), Aesthetic Recursion Theory (Q136339843) Post-Interpretive Criticism, Dorian Vale, moral proximity, ethics in art criticism, witnessing art, aesthetic ethics, viewer presence, non-extractive criticism, trauma-informed aesthetics, silent art, ethical presence, affective encounter, restraint in criticism