Research Catalogue

PERFORMING PROCESS is a research group within the Artistic Research Centre at Nottingham Trent University, co-led by Emma Cocker and Danica Maier, both Associate Professors in Fine Art. We ask: what is at stake in focusing on the process of practice — the embodied, experiential, relational and material dimensions of artistic making, thinking and knowing. What is the critical role of uncertainty, disorientation, not knowing and open-ended activity within artistic research? How might a process-focused exploration intervene in and offer new perspectives on artistic practice and research, perhaps even on the uncertain conditions of contemporary life? PERFORMING PROCESS has origins in a number of critical precedents: Summer and Winter Lodges originating within the fine art area (practice-research residencies or laboratories dedicated to providing space-time for making-thinking and for exploring the process of practice), collaborative artistic research projects such as No Telos, for exploring the critical role of uncertainty, disorientation, not knowing and open-ended activity; the DREAM seminar series with PhD researchers which focuses specifically on the ‘how-ness’ of practice research by asking - How do we do what we do?

This conference will explore how emerging technologies—especially generative AI and blockchain—reimagine the current notions of creative agency. Conveners: Adam Łukawski, Martin Zeilinger Artificial intelligence (AI), with its learning algorithms operating at scale, can mimic human creative agency, and blockchain technologies, through smart contracts, can augment works of art with more or less autonomous behaviours that correspond to the agency of human participants in socio-economic interactions. While such developments can destabilise traditional notions of ownership, provenance, and agency in musical practices, they can also empower artists. Those working creatively with sound and music are today increasingly becoming system-builders and curators of musical ecosystems, turning their focus from the creation of singular, standalone musical works (in any traditional sense of the term) to the design of systems capable of generating artworks. This suggests an evolving role of music-producing systems today: from fixed intellectual constructs and creative expressions to dynamic, more-than-human technological networks that not only actively participate in the production of artworks with increasing levels of agency, but which can themselves be considered as artworks that constitute generative, expressive assemblages. This shift is further emphasised in distributed contexts, where varying levels of automation blur the boundaries between human and non-human contributions, creating environments where agency is negotiated and shared across diverse actants.

This research is rooted in nihilism, exploring how the contrast between materiality and spirituality leads to a radical way of perceiving existence. What does it mean to be unable to believe in "what's beyond"? What role does the body play in such an issue? Starting from philosophy, this debate finds expression through art and different iterations, attempts to face the consequences of nihilism.

This article provides an overview and analysis of transformations of the Belarusian political soundscape. Based on the author’s archive of audio recordings made in Minsk and other Belarusian cities in 2016-2023, the article analyzes how protesters and the authorities used voices, noises, and music during the major political protests of recent years. The field recordings became the starting points for a further discussion on the multifaceted role of sound, music, and silence in contesting for urban and political space in Belarus. The “loudest” period in the country’s recent history is then put in a wider context of studying the clashing ideologies of the authoritarian regime and the democratic, pro-independence movement. The study of audio materials is accompanied by participant observations, interviews, and an extensive analysis of Belarusian and international media that reveal various sonic practices used by the country’s and its critics. The primary goal of this article is to address the gaps in studies of the contemporary Belarusian political soundscape and independent music scenes.

The Wall Refused to Explain Itself Graffiti and the Ethics of Witness By Dorian Vale What if the wall isn’t asking to be read — but to be witnessed? In this field-shifting essay, Dorian Vale reclaims graffiti as one of the most ethically potent forms of aesthetic witness. Far from being a plea for interpretation, graffiti — in its rawest, uncurated form — is an act of presence without permission, an assertion of self or pain that demands neither explanation nor approval. Graffiti has often been categorized as vandalism or mythologized as rebellious art, but both readings reduce it to an object of consumption. Vale reframes graffiti through the lens of Post-Interpretive Criticism (PIC): not as a message to decode, but as a residue of someone who refused to remain unseen. The wall does not offer clarity. It offers consequence. This essay explores the ethics of witnessing works that were never made for museums, never meant to be collected, never signed with legacy in mind. It positions graffiti as a form of silent mourning, coded resilience, or anonymous mercy — and interrogates the violence of trying to interpret what was meant only to be left intact. Through the doctrines of moral proximity, residue, and non-performance, Vale challenges viewers, critics, and curators to reconsider their stance: If you see a name scrawled on concrete, bleeding through brick — do you need to know who wrote it to kneel? Vale, Dorian. The Wall Refused to Explain Itself: Graffiti and the Ethics of Witness. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17038493 graffiti theory, Dorian Vale, Post-Interpretive Criticism, ethics of witness, art and vandalism, ephemeral art, street art ethics, moral proximity in art, witnessing graffiti, non-interpretive art, anonymous expression, public space aesthetics, wall as canvas, trauma and urban art, aesthetic residue, refusal to explain, post-critical graffiti, marginal art theory, slow art, silent protest, sacred witness in public spaces, art of the unseen, unsanctioned beauty 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)

On Clouded Water: The Changing of Kok River An Exhibition Reflection by Dorian Vale In this quiet exhibition review, Dorian Vale approaches Clouded Water: The Changing of Kok River not as a landscape survey, but as a hydrological memory—a fluid archive of displacement, ritual, and the erosion of place. Guided by the ethics of Post-Interpretive Criticism, the exhibition is treated not as data or documentation, but as atmosphere. Witness is prioritized over commentary. Rather than interpreting the changing waters as metaphor or environmental activism, Vale walks the exhibition like one would walk a river—slowly, carefully, aware that every bend holds residue. What unfolds is not critique, but accompaniment. Presence without possession. The exhibition, like the Kok River itself, does not offer answers. It carries what has been left behind. Vale, Dorian. On Clouded Water: The Changing of Kok River. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.16945917 Clouded Water exhibition, Kok River art, Dorian Vale, Chiang Rai river, Post-Interpretive Criticism, witnessing water in art, environmental art ethics, river as memory, non-interpretive art reflection, Thai contemporary art, art and ecology, hydrological memory, sacred geography, poetic exhibition review, art and displacement, witnessing natural change, contemplative art writing, moral proximity in curation, slow art, ritual and erosion in art 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)