Research Catalogue

Sculpted and painted wood, combined with treated rusty objects. Duct tape with boat paint models for metal sheet sculptures, 2020. Digital drawings, 2021, 2023. Dutch steel sailing boat part-restoration and renovation, Amsterdam (with Sean A. Hladkyj), 2019-20. Relief and improvised sculptures made with industrial paints, as well as found objects, were exposed to weather conditions, including heavy rain and wind, over a few months on a floating timber raft. Working with the changes the weather was causing to the ad hoc studio, I made changes until the painting was finished, photographed, then dumped. The relief was collected. I applied the colours from those available in a symbolic manner, abstracting the view of a ghetto in a large city. The objects stand for the landmarks. The pieces would comprise of the scenography for a theatre performance, informed by my conversations with a theatre lighting technician. The event would also include a donation event of the art objects. See external link for the theatre play, based on the tradition of the philosophical dialogue and employing the idea of performing philosophy to make it accessible to a wider audience. Political asylum has been traditionally offered to people who flee from their countries of origin and citizenship, because of violations of their dignity, which is a human right, for their political beliefs and related activities. Currently, seven human rights of mine, five basic, have been infringed in the United Kingdom, where I have been a citizen since 2011; the origin is my native Greece. Political asylum is only offered to people, who are non-citizens of the country where asylum is sought from. At the same time, political asylum has become harder to offer, due to the global nature of persecution of whoever is perceived as a dissident. Since 2013, Forza Nuova, the Italian affiliate of the Greek Golden Dawn, has participated in the organised international criminal case, of which I have been the target, originating from my native Greece, "accelerating" in the Netherlands and the UK in 2020, Covid-19. This happened with the theft of my personal details, specifically my Greek driver's license number, by Italians, in Amsterdam in the winter of 2020. My number was used for three fake Italian driver's licenses for criminal activity in the UK. Notably, Roberto Fiore, Forza Nuova's leader, inherited briefly Alessandra Mussolini's post in the EU parliament. Nevertheless, the Italian government settled in the summer of 2024 one remaining fake Italian passport for a fictitious Albanian citizen, probably in connection with Forza Nuova, after mediation with the Albanian government. Drawing on the philosophical notion of impossible objects, the works attempted an indirect postcolonial critique; a suggestion for alternative, autonomous and communitarian lifestyles; and a performative metaphor for global refugees. At the time, in autumn 2019, I had attended an environmental protest in Amsterdam that was generally peaceful. Investigatory research with artworks, some of it carried out in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where I was a philosophy student, from 2017 until late 2019, and remained until autumn 2020. I did not have student insurance, as it was obligatory, because I was covered by the NHS through EHIC (European Community coverage, when the UK was still in the EU), since the UK was still in the EU. I didn't have travel insurance either. Presentation of work in progress. See exposition in connection with "The (Origins of) The Game".

Joining the Forces - Methodologies of Sustainable Transcultural Artistic Research Johannes Kretz (University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna) Today, many traditional musical practices are threatened with imminent extinction for various reasons, such as the loss of (indigenous) languages, or the pressure coming from an imbalance of power vis-à-vis a more or less globalized music industry. Even contemporary academic composition can be counted among the endangered traditions, even if it is still somehow "artificially kept alive" to varying degrees in different countries. Therefore, the idea of joining the forces of creativity could be meaningful, to support the solidarity between (artistic) minorities in the widest sense, to gain importance in a world of strongly commercialized cultural life, and to redefine aesthetic and social categories. Since 2007 through various projects and initiatives new formats of transcultural artistic research have been developed at mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna by Johannes Kretz, Wei-Ya Lin and Hande Sağlam. The collaboration between members of the indigenous community of the Tao on Lanyu island, Taiwan and composers, musicians and ethnomusicologists from Austria within the project “creative (mis)understandings” developed new transcultural approaches of inspiration (seen as mutually appreciated intentional and reciprocal artistic influence based on solidarity). “Confusing Inspiration” is a teaching format, confronting students of composition and improvising instrumentalists with places, communities and music practices outside of their comfort zone to widen the perspective of their artistic and intellectual concepts and to establish forms of understanding and collaboration. The underlying concepts of both projects aim to encourage communities to engage in unexpected alliances. Beyond that – with regard to sustainability – one has to ask, whether some impulses of this collaborations will continue and propagate in the respective communities. And: can these concepts of transcultural artistic research be extended to a making-with and becoming- with (in the sense of Donna Haraway), which can include – in a similarly mindful and respectful reciprocal way – not only humans from – very – different communities, but also non-humans? In times where climate change and environmental destruction are obvious threats to everybody on this planet, can (local) knowledge holders of indigenous and non-indigenous communities together with artists and researchers contribute sustainable approaches by questioning the demarcation between culture and nature?

This project combines artistic and anthropological research on spontaneous gardening in open public space, predominantly in Brno, CZ. The team, mostly comprising recent graduates and graduate students of the Faculty of Fine Arts of Brno University of Technology, chose gardens and plantings which were, in most cases, rather exceptional. Unlike most typical front gardens, the ones in this study are somehow peculiar, due to their location, their composition and planting schemes, their scale, or methods of those who garden there. The anthropologists on the team analyzed a Facebook group dedicated to street gardening and conducted several interviews, while the artistic team responded to particular places with which they interacted. Some results of this research have been presented to the public in the form of an application comprising an audioguide and an interactive map; this exposition in the Journal of Artistic Research documents some of these findings. The team Barbora Lungová is a visual artist and has taught at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Brno University of Technology since 2007. Her field of practice is painting and art projects focusing on plants, gardening, and queerness. She is the coordinator of the Partisans with a Hoe project. Lucia Bergamaschi is a visual artist working across the media of photography, sound, and installation. She earned an MA in Fine Art at Università Iuav di Venezia and an MA in Law at Università di Bologna. She is currently finishing her MA studies at the FFA BUT. Nela Maruškevičová combines painting, installations, and glass in her artistic practice. She is a 2023 graduate of the FFA BUT. Kateřina Konvalinová is a visual artist interested in the overlapping spaces of art, communal life, farming, and ritual. She earned her MA in Fine Arts from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, and is currently a doctoral student at the FFA BUT. Iva Balcaříková is a graphic designer and a member of the team behind the curated audio walks created by Galerie Art in Brno. She is currently finishing her MA studies at the FFA BUT. Hana Drštičková is a visual artist and a social anthropologist interested in environmental and queer topics. She graduated with an MA in Fine Arts from the FFA BUT in 2022 and with a BA in social anthropology from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Masaryk University and is currently a doctoral student at the Gender Studies Department of Charles University in Prague. Anastasia Blokhina is a social anthropologist who graduated with an MA tfrom the Faculty of Social Sciences of Masaryk University in 2022. Polyna Davydenko is a photographer and a video artist who documents social and environmental issues in her work, most recently those connected with the war in Ukraine. Filip Dušek is a media artist who studied at the Department of Photography at the FFA BUT. The project was conducted under the Specific Research FaVU-S-23-8441 Program.

Towards a (per)sonal topography of grand piano and electronics How can I develop a grand piano with live electronics through iterated development loops in the cognitive technological environment of instrument, music, performance and my poetics? The instrument I am developing, a grand piano with electronic augmentations, is adapted to cater my poetics. This adaptation of the instrument will change the way I compose. The change of composition will change the music. The change of music will change my performances. The change in performative needs will change the instrument, because it needs to do different things. This change in the instrument will show me other poetics and change my ideas. The change of ideas demands another music and another instrument, because the instrument should cater to my poetics. And so it goes… These are the development loops I am talking about. I have made an augmented grand piano using various music technologies. I call the instrument the HyPer(sonal) Piano, a name derived from the suspected interagency between the extended instrument (HyPer), the personal (my poetics) and the sonal result (music and sound). I use old analogue guitar pedals and my own computer programming side by side, processing the original piano sound. I also take out control signals from the piano keys to drive different sound processes. The sound output of the instrument is deciding colors, patterns and density on a 1x3 meter LED light carpet attached to the grand piano. I sing, yet the sound of my voice is heavily processed, a processing decided by what I am playing on the keys. All sound sources and control signal sources are interconnected, allowing for complex and sometimes incomprehensible situations in the instrument´s mechanisms. Credits: First supervisor: Henrik Hellstenius Second Supervisors: Øyvind Brandtsegg and Eivind Buene Cover photo by Jørn Stenersen, www.anamorphiclofi.com All other photo, audio and video recording/editing by Morten Qvenild, unless stated.

This thesis is an autoethnographic, practice research investigation, offering further knowledge to the field of somatic practice, pain, and discomfort. As this thesis is a practice research inquiry, I offer practice to the field that is further supported by my autoethnographic positions. Embodied research and the lived experience are therefore central, exploring how somatic practice can support the sensations of pain and discomfort. Whilst practice is at the forefront of this investigation, theoretical frameworks from the somatic field, practical offerings from other practitioners, therapists, and researchers, and already established somatic ideologies have informed the research process and have offered an integrated approach to supporting the understanding of how practice can support pain and discomfort. Both the practical and theoretical elements of this research emphasise the importance of improvisatory movement and relationships with the self to engage with a sense of freedom and self-expression. By adopting different somatic principles within practice, together with a theoretical understanding of the applications of somatic practice to the body, this research explores movement and wellbeing from a practical perspective, whilst drawing upon key ideas from the somatic field of research. The refined set of principles that this thesis contributes to the field are: The Breath, Movement Economy, The Skeleton, Rotation and Flow, Embodied Rhythm, Stretch, Extension and Elongation, Dynamic and Light Self-touch, Noticing and Addressing Habits, and Rest and Active Stillness. Each somatic principle was explored practically throughout this investigation, resulting in an in depth, subjective approach to analysing data through the lived experience and the narratives of others involved in the research process. A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Birmingham City University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Supervisors: Dr Polly Hudson, Dr Carrie Churnside

The practice-based PhD research project comprises the development and application of composition strategies and techniques generated through interdisciplinary collaboration to integrate elements and ideas from non-sonic disciplines into the musical discourse of new music-theatre works, specifically opera. I explore mechanisms of mapping and association that engage with both the specific subject matter of each piece and the creative collaborative environment in which they are created, thus generating different compositional resources that I use to inform the creative process. By using mapping techniques, I can deeply engage and communicate a subject matter on different levels in the musical composition. The framework for this research is the intertwining of art and science on a variety of levels from a music compositional perspective. Within this framework, I explored the integration of knowledge and data from the natural and social sciences to inform the composition of four science-based music-theatre works: In response to Naum Gabo: Linear Construction in Space No. 1 (2020), Autohoodening: The Rise of Captain Swing (2021), The Flowering Desert (2022), and TRAPPIST-1 (2023). With this approach, I aim to closely link these works with their particular subject matter instead of being composed based just on my personal musical taste. By consistently and cohesively applying the strategies and techniques explored in this research, the outcome is not creating music about science or music inspired by science, but, instead, music embedded with science in which the scientific data and knowledge inform the composition decisions. The subject matter is therefore intertwined within the musical discourse, its performativity and theatricality, and its relationship with the other disciplines and collaborators involved in the creation of these music-theatre works.