Research Catalogue

Research project at Stockholm University of the Arts.

Unarchiving Nono (2017 – 2022) by Ellen Røed and Bjørnar Habbestad operates as a form of comment or intervention on archiving musical material hidden away from an acoustic everyday life. The project has developed through a method where human memory is examined and activated as a carrier of the musical material, and where musical material is moved out of the archive and unfolded into a local reality. Through an iterative process of listening, remembering and performing each performance is influenced by a new layer of spatial acoustics and everyday sounds, stored with the musical performance, gradually building up to trandform the musical material by spatial layering.

Språktap er en vanlig konsekvens av okkupasjon, fordriving og flukt. I Halo of Shame utforsker Shwan Dler Qaradaki hvordan den politiske undertrykkelsen av kurdisk – hans morsmål - har formet hans kunstneriske praksis. Med inspirasjon fra både vestlig klassisk kunst og islamsk miniatyrkunst skaper han et visuelt uttrykk som balanserer mellom øst og vest, fortid og nåtid, objekt og subjekt. Gjennom dette arbeidet utvikler han et dekolonialt bildespråk som kan romme de komplekse lagene av identitet, erfaring og motstand. Veiledere: Tiril Schrøder: 2021-2025 Merete Røstad: 2021-2023 Ane Hjort Guttu: 2023-2025 Web disegner: Ellen Palmeira Bilder, video, tekst og tegninger: Shwan Dler Qaradaki

The Afterlife of the Work: Viewer as Evidence in Post-Interpretive Criticism By Dorian Vale This essay presents one of the central epistemological pillars of Post-Interpretive Criticism (PIC): the concept of the viewer as evidence. Dorian Vale challenges the traditional hierarchy where the critic’s interpretation takes precedence over the encounter itself, proposing instead that the afterlife of the artwork—the residue it leaves in the viewer—is its most truthful legacy. Rather than dissect the work, Vale observes what lingers after it is gone: silence, tremor, unease, reverence. These affective traces are not emotional accidents, but ethical data. The viewer’s internal shift becomes testimony, and the absence of interpretation becomes its own kind of presence. Rooted in restraint and moral proximity, this essay reframes the act of viewing as sacred evidence collection. The artwork does not exist to be understood; it exists to be endured. And in that endurance, the viewer becomes witness, custodian, and echo. Vale, Dorian. The Afterlife of the Work: Viewer as Evidence in Post-Interpretive Criticism. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17076535 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)

Hauntmark Theory The Lingering Weight of Words A Treatise by Dorian Vale What if language didn’t just describe art — but scarred it? In this piercing treatise, Dorian Vale introduces Hauntmark Theory, a philosophical framework that confronts the violence embedded in language when used to name, contain, or explain a work of art. The theory proposes that every word leaves a residue, a trace that either preserves presence or disfigures it — and that careless interpretation is not neutral, but haunting. Drawing on post-linguistic philosophy, trauma theory, and Post-Interpretive Criticism (PIC), this work reframes criticism as a moral event, where each act of description leaves behind a mark: some delicate, some damaging, all irreversible. It introduces key concepts such as Hauntmarks, Linguistic Overreach, Descriptive Violence, and the Silent Custodian, arguing that the deepest form of reverence lies not in what we say about art — but in what we choose not to say. Where previous treatises in the Post-Interpretive Movement reimagined the role of the viewer and the critic, Hauntmark Theory addresses the unspoken aftermath of critique: how words linger in the air around the work, often louder than the work itself. This is not a call for silence. It is a call for sacred restraint — for a new vocabulary of witness, where words do not eclipse the art, but kneel beside it. Vale, Dorian. Hauntmark Theory: The Lingering Weight of Words. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17052531 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. Hauntmark Theory, Dorian Vale, Post-Interpretive Criticism, art criticism ethics, language and art, trauma in art writing, aesthetic linguistics, descriptive violence, semiotics of witnessing, residue in criticism, moral restraint in language, art and silence, linguistic harm in interpretation, reverent art criticism, critical writing and ethics, sacred language, philosophical aesthetics, phenomenology of critique, ethics of naming, poetic restraint, custodial criticism 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)

Stillmark Theory A Treatise on Presence, Vanishing, and the Discipline of the Fleeting By Dorian Vale Can something fleeting leave a mark deeper than permanence?** In this paradigm-shifting treatise, Dorian Vale presents Stillmark Theory, a foundational pillar in the Post-Interpretive Movement and a radical aesthetic philosophy that places presence above permanence, and vanishing above possession. Stillmark is the name given to a mark that does not remain physically, but remains ethically — a residue of presence that lives on not through its duration, but through the way it demanded your attention. Like a footprint in water, or a pause in ritual, it is a mark felt rather than seen. And it asks not: what did you see? but were you there when it passed? This treatise explores how the fleeting — the ephemeral artwork, the disappearing gesture, the unsaved voice — disciplines the viewer into reverent attention. Through philosophical engagement with ritual, silence, and the aesthetics of loss, Vale outlines how fleeting experiences, if witnessed properly, can alter perception more profoundly than enduring monuments. Stillmark Theory is not about minimalism or aesthetic reduction. It is about ethical witnessing: the ability to stay present before something that will not wait for you to interpret it. It urges a return to encounter, to stillness, to restraint — and proposes a new mode of value: not what lasts, but what requires moral presence while it lives. This is a crucial contribution to Post-Interpretive Criticism, and a necessary framework for curators, critics, artists, and institutions seeking to engage works of art that resist documentation, defy collection, and demand presence without possession. Vale, Dorian. Stillmark Theory: A Treatise on Presence, Vanishing, and the Discipline of the Fleeting. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17051528 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. Stillmark Theory, Dorian Vale, Post-Interpretive Criticism, presence in art, vanishing aesthetics, ephemeral art theory, discipline of the fleeting, witnessing the temporary, aesthetic philosophy of presence, art and impermanence, sacred vanishing, fleeting art criticism, minimal art ethics, ritual in art, memory and disappearance, absence in aesthetics, presence-based value, art of witnessing, non-permanent art theory, anti-collectible aesthetics, slow attention, temporality 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)