Research Catalogue

The EcoSomatics Conversations Series invites sharing of engagement, practices and thinking around environmental awareness through embodiment activities, dance and art. It posits a definition of EcoSomatics as of the body-mind-ecology and takes the form of open public dialogues between two (or more) people: independent artists, practitioners, and academics. The project was conceived by Dr Polly Hudson, (Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University), and the conversations are co-convened with Dr Karen Wood, (Birmingham Dance Network and C-DaRE). The conversations took place virtually with a large international audience, and the podcasts are audio recordings of the live events. It is supported by funding from ADM Faculty Research Investment Scheme, Birmingham City University. Image by Ming de Nasty.

Islington studio flat 4, at 14 Barnsbury Road, London, 2022, privately rented. Interior design and styling, as art installation. Looted, 2024. Investigatory research with artworks, 2023-24. Interactive research blog. The exposition aims to highlight the role of women within an interwoven narrative about a complex and international criminal case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_(magazine) My personal belongings were still at the property for two months, after I left on 27 March 2024 and was asked to collect them by 3 or 4 April from Woolwich. After I left, the landlords moved in two or three under aged, who I have never met, so that they pretend to be my daughters. Subsequently, they must have been 'removing' them one by one over the last few months and until October 2024. The company behind 14 Barnsbury Road was deemed illegal through the courts, on 22 April, 2024, shortly after I was forced to leave at the end of March. The maintenance employed many Polish citizens, all dressed in black with black caps, adopting the XRW supporters' fashion code. The household of tenants was mixed and multicultural, but mainly British natives, with the exception of a couple from Hong-Kong, an American citizen, and myself, a naturalised British citizen, originally from Greece. Twenty-two (22) and twenty-three (23) photographs, including two (2) plus one (1) of myself: NOT a missing person, from the 2022-2023 period in the eventually looted, in spring 2024, Islington studio. Twenty-four (24) missing persons for twenty-four (24) non-EU and EU fake passports with my family's Greek surname; plus one (1) that might also be connected with a missing Greek teenager, therefore twenty-five (25). Two (2) more missing persons for two (2) more fake passports without my family's surname: an Italian and a Romanian name. Two (2), plus one (1) targeted cultural producers: the anti-fascist Greek musician, Pavlos Fyssas, aka Killah P. (domestic); the Belgian filmmaker of Jewish origins, Chantal Akerman (global), who lived and worked in France, as well as the US, and whose personal details, specifically her life insurance policy and her medical file, got stolen in connection with the case, can be added to the toll of two (2) deceased. My personal details, name known as and artistic name, as well as numbers connected to my personal details, were stolen, too, while I (post-global) was targeted as a cultural producer, an artist and former academic. Was I going to be the third victim? Golden Dawn were originally pagans, drawing from the ancient Greek mythology and ritualistic practices, including human sacrifice. The visual imagery and the art included in the photographs is influenced by the marketing and advertising industry; I brushed shoulders briefly with students in the creative industries teaching at the Winchester School of Art. I used this an ironic commentary on Golden Dawn trying unsuccessfully to create a brand through propaganda, not political marketing. The art world has been traditionally male-dominated. This has not changed dramatically in contemporary art. Female artists have sometimes adopted male attitudes, or personas, to break into the art scene; see Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin from the YBA movement. I hold the view that art is not gendered, that there is no art for women or so-called women's art. Good art transcends such categories, tapping into more universal experiences. Saying this, I would like to quote Nancy Spero, who doesn't crudely distinguish between male and female art, as follows:"What if the default gender for 'artist' were female? What if, when we looked at a work by a woman, we said to ourselves, "That is art," and when we looked at a work by a man, we automatically identified it in our minds as 'men's art'?" In 1999, I wrote a long essay about the architectural uncanny, which I submitted as my graduation thesis for my first MA in architectural theory. I called it "Space as a 'Bad' Object: A criminal investigation on the notion of space". I got inspiration from detective novels and real-life crime stories. The long essay was about the role of architectural space in crime. It was unsupervised until submission: I received a distinction by a Bartlett staff member. I took the digital photographs in conceptual adherence with that essay. I was a postgraduate philosophy student 9/2017-11/2019 at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. In this exposition, I include new photographs from a series of digital photography called "Forensics", taken with my mobile phone, after I was forced to leave the Islington property I was renting, on 27 March 2024. I gave the photography series that name, because it has served the purpose of investigating, recording and tracking a crime, for which architectural space, such as private rentals, has been used. For Chris, my former neighbour, who was suddenly transferred by his employer, from London, where his daughter lives, to somewhere outside of London; and for Lawrence, a second generation immigrant from Nigeria, whose temporary post was prematurely terminated, though he was planning to return to his legal studies. And for Ali. And for Oliver, also my former neighbour. In memory of Howard, also a tenant at Bellview, and former neighbour. To all those who don't just "play" the cultural and racial diversity clause; they don't just rely on identitarian politics, because the class problem has not been resolved for them, either; but also because generalising on identity (for instance religion, race, gender) is an unsophisticated way of preventing strategic and/or tactical alliances, necessary for protecting the rights of minorities or other underprivileged groups and populations. Saying this, the UK must stand up against racism, especially against people of African descent. Special thanks to two white British men, who worked in France ("Fiennes") and Spain ("Clooney"). A Nigerian was among the Golden Dawn victims of assassination in Greece. I was listening frequently to Massive Attack, a British trip-hop band, when I was living in Islington. Sophie Calle is a French writer and photographer, working on themes of identity, intimacy and everyday existence. Her work is partly inspired by the detective fiction genre. She wrote an art book, to accompany some of her photography, called "Double Game", inspired by her written correspondence with the fiction writer Paul Auster.

50 A3 drawings black and coloured markers, including: 3 A3 collages on paper with newspaper cutouts and printed photos. 12 A4 drawings on paper with coloured markers, glued on A3 paper + 1 A3 with black ballpoint pen and markers, glued on A3 paper. 13 A3 drawings on paper with black marker, and red, pale blue, gold, pink and orange markers +1 A3 two-sided. 17 A3 drawings on paper with coloured markers. 1 drawing on sketchbook cover with red nail polish. 1 text drawing on sketchbook cover inside. 1 drawing on sketchbook cover back inside with black, orange and gold markers. 22 A4 drawings with ballpoint pen. 62 pocket sketchbook black marker and ballpoint pen drawings. Some of the above is preparatory work for 4 large prints and 13 paintings. The 12 A4 glued on A3 are preparatory work for a collage on panel. I made the art between 2023-2024, from the perspective of the observer. Most of the research material came out of crime and fraud reports. I started writing the blog afterwards, since the summer of 2024. I adopted the visual vocabulary of the graphic novel, which I partly studied and read a lot about, looking at different graphic artists' work, when I was attending classes at the University of Malmo, Sweden, in 2012, to familiarise myself with elements of game design. Much of this work is, amongst other, about children: how they love, amongst other. I wanted to emphasise that element, by intentionally applying stylistic elements from children's drawings, in a naive and loose architectural composition, using heavily the black marker and stick figures. Adopting this visual approach, I also wanted to evoke a comically sharp, but intimate twist, as commentary, in the British tradition of political satire, to the otherwise dark subject matter. Finally, this artistic style refers to the populist character of actors. The text is written like trip-hop songs: two of the pseudonyms I gave are the artistic names of musicians of colour from the British band "Massive Attack", formed in Bristol. Otherwise, it is loosely structured in a manner inspired by television series. I used heavily popular culture signifiers, names of fictional characters from film, television, music and painting, as reference to actual individuals. Parts of the analysis is inspired by Saul Kripke's interpretation of Wittgenstein's example of mathematical calculation. I used plenty of popular and less popular literary and philosophical references, for the visual art and in the writing. Saul Aaron Kripke was the inventor of the possible worlds philosophical hypothesis, which was seminal for philosophers working in the area of contemporary analytic metaphysics, including the theory of counterparts and the theory of names. He died in 2022. Lauren Berlant was a cultural theorist and gender studies scholar. She died in 2021. The exposition displays loosely and in lay terms vocabulary as rhetorical devices from analytic metaphysics, as well as gender and romance studies; for instance, I use the word "unactualised" to refer to individuals, who are real and concrete, who exist independently of my mind, however they were not "actualised" in my so-called personal life and dating practices: for that, I would have to select them, in order for them to be "instantiated" in my dating. The exposition is underpinned by an underlying neo-Marxist interpretation that, in my view, is relevant not just to economists and political philosophers, but also to people working in different sectors of our modern economies of advanced capitalism, such as banking and cybersecurity. In the style of art, as painting, I was inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat's drawings and paintings, which are laden with input from popular media sources, like jazz music and television, recorded in an automatic and naive drawing manner, turned into abstracted paintings. For "M" ('Ramadan', 'Julien', "Mr X"), Filip ('Philip'), and Brandon ('Magna') - August, September, and October 2024. For "Daddy G" ('Isaac'), 'Eric' ("Her Man"), 'Prudence' ("'Rachel''s Beau", or "Her Man's alter-ego"), 'Moussa', 'Gaetan', 'Mohammed' ('Onzedouze'), 'Hermando', and 'Nesseem' - December 2024, January 2025, May, June, August and September 2025. Four men of colour and seven white men - or, more accurately, four and six, or six and four. Who were also targeted, directly and indirectly. Who are not politicians, except for a current one and a former one, but are doing something political, so they must take good care of what they do. See also exposition "The Loot", under 'Art and Activism Exposed as Research Blog'.

The First Break Since Postmodernism: The Rise of Post-Interpretive Criticism introduces a groundbreaking movement in contemporary art criticism that formally departs from postmodernism and post-criticism. Post-Interpretive Criticism (PIC), developed by writer and founder Dorian Vale, redefines the role of the critic through five foundational frameworks: Absential Aesthetics, HauntMark Theory, Stillmark Theory, Viewer-as-Evidence, and Message Transfer Theory. These concepts prioritize ethical presence, moral restraint, and reverent witnessing over traditional interpretation or theoretical dominance. Structured as a philosophical reorientation, PIC positions criticism as an act of custodial attention, not conquest. It emphasizes proximity without possession, silence without erasure, and writing as transformation rather than performance. Unlike movements born from academic consensus, PIC was authored and launched independently through the Museum of One, with formal infrastructure including DOI-linked publications, public archives, and a living lexicon. This work argues that Post-Interpretive Criticism is the first fully articulated philosophical school of aesthetic thought to emerge since postmodernism—complete in theory, practice, and authorship. It reclaims criticism not as explanation, but as responsibility. 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)

Duchamp’s Second Cut: This One Bleeds Differently By Dorian Vale A Post-Interpretive Reassessment of the Readymade Duchamp made the first cut. This is the second — and it bleeds differently. In this radical essay, Dorian Vale returns to the surgical table of modernity, where Marcel Duchamp first incised the body of art with the invention of the readymade. But where Duchamp’s cut was conceptual — clean, ironic, institutional — Vale’s is existential, ethical, and slow to clot. This second cut is not a gesture. It is a wound. And in its bleeding, it reveals what the first incision left behind: the soul of the object. “Duchamp’s Second Cut” is not a rejection of the readymade — it is its haunting. It asks what happens when irony dries up and presence remains. It dares to reanimate the art object as sacred remnant rather than institutional provocation. In this essay, Vale does not interpret Duchamp — he answers him. Through the lens of Post-Interpretive Criticism, Vale reframes the legacy of the readymade, arguing that the true violence was never in the urinal, but in the severance of proximity, touch, and moral presence. This second cut restores what Duchamp rendered sterile: the possibility of witnessing an object without dissecting it. 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. Vale, Dorian. Duchamp's Second Cut: Duchamp made the first cut. This is the second, and it bleeds differently.. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17056223 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, Duchamp Second Cut, Post-Interpretive Criticism, readymade reinterpreted, Duchamp critique, art and ethics, sacred object theory, witness in art, Marcel Duchamp reanalysis, post-critical art theory, anti-irony in art, phenomenology of the object, ethics of viewing, non-interpretive criticism, presence in art, ontology of the readymade, conceptual art criticism, reanimating art objects, museum ethics, slow aesthetics, art and reverence

Language as a Blade The Ethics of Precision in Post-Interpretive Criticism A Treatise by Dorian Vale Language reveals. But it also wounds.** In this incisive treatise, Dorian Vale turns his attention to the sharpest tool in the critic’s arsenal — language — and the quiet violence it enacts when left unchecked. Language as a Blade explores the ethics of writing in the context of Post-Interpretive Criticism (PIC), exposing how words can either guard a work’s sanctity or slit its meaning wide open. Vale develops the central premise that all criticism leaves a mark — but not all marks are made in reverence. The essay introduces critical concepts such as The Interpretive Incision, Lacerated Presence, and Forensic Reading, arguing that even well-meaning interpretations can displace, distort, or dominate the very thing they claim to witness. Through this lens, the work becomes not a subject to be carved open, but a body to be held — with care, clarity, and ethical precision. Language as a Blade is not a rejection of criticism, but a reframing of it as custodial labor. Vale calls for a new art-critical vocabulary that replaces spectacle with stewardship, analysis with attention, and cleverness with moral proximity. This treatise is a foundational text within the Post-Interpretive Movement, sharpening the very language we use to approach art, and reminding critics: every word is a blade. Use it as if the wound remains. Vale, Dorian. Language as a Blade: The Ethics of Precision in Post-Interpretive Criticism. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17052152 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) Language as a Blade, Dorian Vale, Post-Interpretive Criticism, ethics of art writing, language and trauma in art, art and violence, descriptive precision, critical restraint, moral aesthetics, semiotics in art criticism, ethics of naming, language as wound, poetic accuracy, reverent writing, critical interpretation ethics, witness-based criticism, presence in criticism, aesthetic linguistics, post-linguistic art theory, interpretive violence, art writing and harm