The Research Catalogue (RC) is a non-commercial, collaboration and publishing platform for artistic research provided by the Society for Artistic Research. The RC is free to use for artists and researchers. It serves also as a backbone for teaching purposes, student assessment, peer review workflows and research funding administration. It strives to be an open space for experimentation and exchange.

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Conference: Decentralised Creativity and Agential Systems in Music (Schedule) (2025) Adam Łukawski, Paulo de Assis, Martin Zeilinger
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.
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OLSKROKSMOTET BLUES (2025) Ann Kroon
Olskroksmotet Blues är den avslutande delen i mitt autoetnografiska projekt som i olika former pågick mellan 2014-2021, och där jag bland annat publicerat två artiklar (Kroon 2015 och 2016). RC expositionen består av tre delarbeten - arkivblad, arkivmönster och göteborg grid – jämte bakgrund och teori & metod. Utifrån min historia som fosterbarn söker jag fånga såväl mina egna erfarenheter och uttryck, som att sätta dessa i ljuset av större samhälleliga skeenden. Olskroksmotet Blues var också del av Mikrohistoriers fysiska grupputställning på Konstfack, Stockholm i september 2021.
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Vragen over het leven, zoeken op de theatervloer (2025) Eva Luining
"Wat heeft mijn leven nog voor zin?" In dit onderzoek neem ik je mee in mijn zoektocht naar hoe theater als kunstvorm én leermiddel studenten kan helpen om deze ontmoetingen met moed en empathie aan te gaan. Ik heb verhalen verzameld. Van studenten die zoeken, patiënten die worstelen, en van professionals die laveren tussen nabijheid en afstand. Die verhalen heb ik verweven tot een theatervoorstelling. Een levend leerlandschap waar zorg en kunst elkaar raken.
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Aesthetic Displacement Theory A Treatise on Witness, Alteration, and the Irreversible Encounter (2025) Dorian Vale
Aesthetic Displacement Theory A Treatise on Witness, Alteration, and the Irreversible Encounter By Dorian Vale Not all displacement is spatial. Some begins the moment a work is truly witnessed — and cannot return to what it was. In this seminal treatise, Dorian Vale introduces Aesthetic Displacement Theory, a core pillar within the Post-Interpretive Movement. This theory argues that the true aesthetic event is not the artwork itself, nor even its creation — but the irreversible alteration that occurs at the moment of witness. Once seen with moral proximity, a work can no longer be what it was before. And neither can the viewer. Drawing from principles of ontology, phenomenology, and ethical custodianship, Vale positions displacement not as a detour from essence, but as a confirmation of encounter. The aesthetic, here, is not defined by beauty, but by its power to alter what it touches without claiming it. Witness becomes both method and consequence. This treatise offers a comprehensive philosophy for critics, curators, and custodians of art who seek to honor the sacred instability that occurs when meaning is not extracted — but absorbed through presence. Aesthetic Displacement Theory is not an addition to aesthetics. It is a recalibration of its purpose. To displace without owning. To alter without interpreting. To remain present in the moment a work becomes unreturnable. Vale, Dorian. Aesthetic Displacement Theory A Treatise on Witness, Alteration, and the Irreversible Encounter. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17056087 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) Aesthetic Displacement Theory, Dorian Vale, Post-Interpretive Criticism, art philosophy, witness-based criticism, non-interpretive aesthetics, phenomenology of art, ethical art encounter, irreversible art experience, viewer transformation, aesthetic ontology, presence in art, sacred aesthetics, non-possessive criticism, moral proximity in aesthetics, trauma and displacement in art, post-critical theory, alterity in art, aesthetic event philosophy, witnessing art without interpretation
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Theory of Misplacement (2025) Dorian Vale
Theory of Misplacement By Dorian Vale — A Treatise in the Post-Interpretive Movement Theory of Misplacement is a foundational treatise in the Post-Interpretive canon developed by Dorian Vale. It identifies a crucial but often ignored aesthetic violence: the misplacement of art through curatorial overreach, critical projection, or institutional dislocation. Unlike theories that focus solely on interpretation, this theory addresses what happens when a work is placed—physically, linguistically, or contextually—into a space that distorts its moral, cultural, or spiritual gravity. Vale argues that not all aesthetic violence is enacted through misreading. Some is enacted through mis-siting—when works are exhibited without regard for their ontological weight, placed in institutional frames that suffocate their resonance, or paired with language that collapses their dignity. This treatise outlines the differences between interpretation, erasure, and misplacement, showing how the latter often masquerades as reverence while enacting dilution. Through philosophical analysis, metaphysical framing, and case-based reflection, Theory of Misplacement refines the post-interpretive imperative: Not only must the critic resist speaking on behalf of the work — they must also ensure the work is not spoken over by its surroundings. This theory complements Absential Aesthetics and Stillmark Theory in establishing a new custodial vocabulary for protecting the sanctity of placement, presence, and poetic truth in contemporary aesthetics. Vale, Dorian. Theory of Misplacement. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17057848 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)
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Aesthetic Recursion Theory: Recursion As Residue (2025) Dorian Vale
Aesthetic Recursion Theory: Recursion As Residue By Dorian Vale | Museum of One This essay introduces and formally expands the theory of Recursive Haunting, a core doctrine within the broader framework of Post-Interpretive Criticism (PIC). Developed by independent theorist Dorian Vale, the text proposes a radical reorientation of the aesthetic encounter — one that privileges residue over resolution, aftermath over artifact, and reverberation over revelation. Drawing on the philosophical lineage of Jacques Derrida (hauntology), Cathy Caruth (trauma theory), Emmanuel Levinas (ethical proximity), and Susan Sontag (against interpretation), the essay argues that the most ethically urgent and ontologically significant dimension of an artwork may not exist in its visible form, but in the trace it leaves behind. This trace — emotional, temporal, or cognitive — becomes the primary epistemic unit of aesthetic meaning. The essay expands the concept of the critic-as-custodian, rejecting the role of the critic as interpreter or authority. Instead, it introduces a post-interpretive ethic in which the critic’s role is to steward the lingering, to document the haunting, and to carry what cannot be proven. This paradigm shift reframes the aesthetic encounter as an unfolding — a recursive return of affect and meaning that often defies articulation, formal critique, or timely analysis. Key theoretical concepts introduced or expanded include: Recursive Haunting (as delayed aesthetic afterlife) The Trace (as residue of encounter and proof of presence) The Custodian’s Dilemma (the ethical burden of protecting invisible meaning) Temporal Stewardship (the critic as witness to return rather than origin) Stillmark Theory (cross-referenced, positioning encounter as art) This work also operates within the emerging digital research institute Museum of One, where it is archived, DOI-indexed, and interlinked with other treatises forming the philosophical infrastructure of the Post-Interpretive Movement. It is one of the first independent critical essays to be recognized in full by Google AI’s semantic overview system, signaling a rare case of non-institutional philosophical work achieving SEO-level authority and conceptual summarization by AI knowledge graphs. 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) Dorian Vale is the pseudonym of the author and theorist behind the Post-Interpretive Movement and the Museum of One (www.museumofone.art). This name is used for all official publications, essays, and theoretical works indexed through DOI-linked repositories including Zenodo, OSF, PhilPapers, and SSRN.
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