Research Catalogue

Exhibition essay & reproductions of posters to accompany the exhibition "Orange Work" at Nullið Gallery during DesignMarch 2024, Iceland's design week.

This is the schedule for the master research symposium.

Design, 1995-96, 2023. Design, 1996-97. Photography, 2010, 2011. Essay, 2015. Collage Text, 2022. The exposition serves as commentary and guide on the place of art, in a gradually environmentally and technologically challenged world. I designed this exposition as a 'teaser' on how architects, who work mainly conceptually, might conduct research from different art and media sources, as well as their own broader artistic work. In this art and design context, I further make a commentary on outgrown conceptions of the foreign, in terms of the so-called "exotic', and the non-foreign,within the political context of contemporary globalisation. Thus, I raise open questions on the impact of architecture and design on global politics. The re-design proposal, inspired by De Stijl, illustrates the modernist historical view that art appears to be regressive, rather than progressive: as soon as a movement or a school becomes established, reaching its culmination, it starts declining. Finally, I have included a graduate school architectural design project in the archaeological site of Eleusis accompanied by new commentary. With essay about experimental film making in the British avant-garde, published in "Architecture and Culture" journal, 2015, which is about the environmental challenges of the urban environment. The reference to the TV show "Alone", a competitive prize show of sole or two-person players, is a reminder that humans can live in the natural environment developing survival tactics already applied by their ancestors. I included those references to make hints at the relationships between film, television and contemporary architecture as an artistic medium, in the old-fashioned tradition of architecture belonging to the fine arts. About how to navigate this exposition: Scroll from top to bottom, then from bottom to top, then scroll to the top right, then scroll to the bottom right. For Luke, who I haven't met; with respect and care.

Whereas the sonic experimentations at the dawn of the October Revolution have been extensively documented, little research has been conducted on practices at the intersection of sound and art during the USSR dissolution. This article explores the political significance of sonic practices –alongside their cultural, artistic, and sensory dimensions– in late Soviet Russia's unofficial art scene, examining the case study of the New Artists group in Leningrad and their shift from mocking avant-garde legacies to a more organically interdisciplinary approach, presumably initiating rave culture in the region. This shift, along with the re-appropriation of cosmism, is framed as a sonic fiction made of music, dance, art, queer inclusivity that aimed at transcending the Iron Curtain and extending conceptually to the Universe. In particular, the paper aims to highlight the decisive influence, often overshadowed by the figure of Novikov, of musicians Valeriy Alakhov and Igor’ Verichev (New Composers) in such evolution by informing the group's poetic strategies and compositions in accordance with their sonic thinking and imagery. The understanding of “togetherness” as constitutive element of late Soviet underground culture and of the hypernormalized official ideology’s de-territorialization (Yurchak 2006) also demonstrates, through J.-L. Nancy’s theory of communal bodies, the role of participatory and corporeal sonic experiences in creating sonic fictions from “interplanetary sounds” able to penetrate socio-cultural dynamics. The artists’ “ubiquitous” (vsyochestvo) principle of absolute synthesis of the arts is thus extended to the realm of sonic materiality, multisensoriality and sonic agency, articulating afresh its appellation of “new avantgarde” of the empire’s dissolution. This article delves into the New Artists' initial evolution before their transition into the more reactionary "New Academy" formation, as some artistic strategies, successfully subversive under Gorbachev, faltered in the post-Soviet landscape and strengthened reactionary forces now intertwined with the ruling power. A forthcoming publication in the Journal of Sonic Studies (Dalla Bontà: 2024) will delve into this subsequent phase during the 1990s, offering insights into the intricate dynamics driving this seemingly contradictory development in the group and in certain figures in the Russian underground scene.

L’idée du passage par les étapes de foi-incrédulité est que la croyance en Dieu est une culture de doute athée.

“Vulgarization” initially appears as a word of interest in the 19th century. There arises a new adoption mode of holy books, literature and comprehension of vulgarity at this point: an unfinished project even for the philosopher or the scientist who has to coexist partially with fellow humans in the “world”, the vulgus. It is the scientist’s reduction of scientific findings and calculations to address public conscience, which does not necessarily intend to “enlighten societies”.