Research Catalogue

“Objects under investigation” is a collection of separately conceived works that address the problem of textual-related medium and, in a sense, mediality in art from an experimental perspective. The word object[s] is meant as a neuter reference to both the text as a phenomenon and the text as a product in itself. It suggests the idea of something to be physically handled, while not necessarily a physical object.

50 A3 drawings black and coloured markers, including: 3 A3 collages on paper with newspaper cutouts and printed photos. 12 A4 drawings on paper with coloured markers, glued on A3 paper + 1 A3 with black ballpoint pen and markers, glued on A3 paper. 13 A3 drawings on paper with black marker, and red, pale blue, gold, pink and orange markers +1 A3 two-sided. 17 A3 drawings on paper with coloured markers. 1 drawing on sketchbook cover with red nail polish. 1 text drawing on sketchbook cover inside. 1 drawing on sketchbook cover back inside with black, orange and gold markers. 22 A4 drawings with ballpoint pen. 62 pocket sketchbook black marker and ballpoint pen drawings. Some of the above is preparatory work for 4 large prints and 13 paintings. The 12 A4 glued on A3 are preparatory work for a collage on panel. I made the art between 2023-2024, from the perspective of the observer. Most of the research material came out of crime and fraud reports. I started writing the blog afterwards, since the summer of 2024. I adopted the visual vocabulary of the graphic novel, which I partly studied and read a lot about, looking at different graphic artists' work, when I was attending classes at the University of Malmo, Sweden, in 2012, to familiarise myself with elements of game design. Much of this work is, amongst other, about children: how they love, amongst other. I wanted to emphasise that element, by intentionally applying stylistic elements from children's drawings, in a naive and loose architectural composition, using heavily the black marker and stick figures. Adopting this visual approach, I also wanted to evoke a comically sharp, but intimate twist, as commentary, in the British tradition of political satire, to the otherwise dark subject matter. Finally, this artistic style refers to the populist character of actors. The text is written like trip-hop songs: two of the pseudonyms I gave are the artistic names of musicians of colour from the British band "Massive Attack", formed in Bristol. Otherwise, it is loosely structured in a manner inspired by television series. I used heavily popular culture signifiers, names of fictional characters from film, television, music and painting, as reference to actual individuals. Parts of the analysis is inspired by Saul Kripke's interpretation of Wittgenstein's example of mathematical calculation. I used plenty of popular and less popular literary and philosophical references, for the visual art and in the writing. Saul Aaron Kripke was the inventor of the possible worlds philosophical hypothesis, which was seminal for philosophers working in the area of contemporary analytic metaphysics, including the theory of counterparts and the theory of names. He died in 2022. Lauren Berlant was a cultural theorist and gender studies scholar. She died in 2021. The exposition displays loosely and in lay terms vocabulary as rhetorical devices from analytic metaphysics, as well as gender and romance studies; for instance, I use the word "unactualised" to refer to individuals, who are real and concrete, who exist independently of my mind, however they were not "actualised" in my so-called personal life and dating practices: for that, I would have to select them, in order for them to be "instantiated" in my dating. The exposition is underpinned by an underlying neo-Marxist interpretation that, in my view, is relevant not just to economists and political philosophers, but also to people working in different sectors of our modern economies of advanced capitalism, such as banking and cybersecurity. In the style of art, as painting, I was inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat's drawings and paintings, which are laden with input from popular media sources, like jazz music and television, recorded in an automatic and naive drawing manner, turned into abstracted paintings. For "M" ('Ramadan', 'Julien', "Mr X"), Filip ('Philip'), and Brandon ('Magna') (and Nick) - August, September, and October 2024 (March 1996). For "Daddy G" ('Isaac'), 'Eric' ("Her Man"), 'Prudence' ("'Sharon''s Beau", or "Her Man's alter-ego"), 'Moussa', 'Gaetan'; Black 'Humbert Humbert' meme (and friend), 'Miloud'; Mohammed' ('Onzedouze'), 'Hermando', 'Nesseem' and 'Didi' - December 2024, January 2025, May, June, July, August, September, as well as November to December 2025; again January 2026, with 'Prudence' in Paris. Seven men of colour and seven white men, who were also targeted, directly and indirectly. Who are not politicians, except for a current one and a former one, but are doing something political, so they must take good care of what they do. All my drawings were stolen in Paris and Brussels, in 2025. See also exposition "The Loot", under 'Art and Activism Exposed as Research Blog'.

Das Projekt befasst sich mit der Entwicklung und Raumplanung einer Lerninfrastruktur, welche zum Ziel hat, durch künstlerische Forschungsansätze Identifikation, Beziehung und Verantwortung zum gefährdeten Ökosystem Streuobstwiese zu fördern. Dazu untersucht es das Fallbeispiel der Katzenwedelwiese, welche seit einigen Jahren als künstlerisches Forschungsfeld des ZKM Karlsruhe dient. Indem es die Mittel der künstlerischen Forschung und das theoretische Rahmenwerk des neuen Materialismus nutzt, erweitert das Projekt die Methoden architektonischer Bestandsanalyse und Raumplanung. Es kartografiert die Wechselbeziehungen auf der Streuobstwiese und erstellt so eine Topografie der Erkenntnisformen, die im Zusammenspiel mit der Landschaft hervorgehen. Auf dieser Grundlage wird eine Lerninfrastruktur gestaltet, welche zum Ziel hat, das auf der Wiese entstehende Wissen sowohl auf der Streuobstwiese als auch über den Ort hinaus zu vermitteln. Ausgehend von der Kritik an der dualistischen Spaltung von Subjekt und Objekt, Natur und Kultur, Theorie und Praxis, wählt das Vorhaben den theoretischen Rahmen des neuen Materialismus und den Handlungsansatz der künstlerischen Forschung, um sich der Kulturlandschaft Streuobstwiese als natur:kulturellem Zwischenraum zu nähern. Das Projekt interessiert sich für die materiellen Bedingungen von Körper und Landschaft, die Wirkungsmacht der Streuobstwiese als Akteur- Netzwerk bzw. Assemblage und deren Wechselbeziehung mit den künstlerischen Forscher:innen vor Ort. Es untersucht die Erkenntnisformen, welche aus Ortsbeziehung und körperlicher Interaktion hervorgehen und fragt, wie sich diese vermitteln und im öffentlichen Diskurs erfahrbar machen lassen. Indem es die seitens der Naturwissenschaft und Landwirtschaft formulierten Beschreibungen der Streuobstwiese durch die Lesart des Ökosystems als epistemischer Akteur:in mit materieller Wirkungsmacht rekontextualisiert, schließt das Projekt eine Forschungslücke und bietet eine Perspektive für die Wiederherstellung der im Zuge der Modernisierung verloren gegangenen Beziehungen an. Das Projekt schlägt eine Herangehensweise vor, die einem hybriden Paradigma künstlerischer Forschung folgt, indem es persönliche Vorprägungen sichtbar macht und erfahrungsbasierte Ansätze mit institutionell-kontextuellen Forschungsansätzen verbindet. Theoretische Recherche wird dabei mit künstlerischen Forschungsformaten verwoben (so z.B. Autoethnografie, Psychogeografie, Materialexperimente u.ä.). Subjektive Situiertheit wird nicht als Einschränkung, sondern als Erkenntnispotential versteht – anstatt Trennung zur Voraussetzung der Wissensproduktion zu machen, setzt das Projekt auf ein relationales Erkenntnismodell, welches wechselseitige Beziehung ins epistemologische Zentrum rückt. Der Forschungsansatz agiert durch zwei ineinandergreifende Vorgehensweisen: 1. Die Auseinandersetzung mit den theoretischen Hintergründen, dem Netzwerk beteiligter Künstler:innen, den vom ZKM bereits auf der Wiese durchgeführten Formaten, sowie die Begleitung und Dokumentation des laufenden Programms als beobachtender Teilnehmer, durch die Linse des zuvor definierten theoretischen Rahmens. 2. Die Durchführung von eigenen Forschungs- und Vermittlungsformaten im Rahmen eines regelmäßig stattfindenden Feldlabors in welcher die in (1) gesammelten Eindrücke verarbeitet und durch Auseinandersetzungen mit der materiellen Wirkungsmacht der Wiese und dem Handlungsrahmen künstlerischer Forschung ergänzt werden. Das Feldlabor ist weniger als manifester Ort und mehr als ein diskursives Format zu verstehen, welches im Modus zwischen Reallabor, Werkstatt, Kolloquium und öffentlichem Observatorium operiert. Die im Rahmen dieser Feldforschung gesammelten Erkenntnisse sollen abschließend zu einer Topographie der Wechselbeziehungen schematisiert werden, die auf der Streuobstwiese herrschen und welche den Handlungsrahmen des künstlerischen Forschungsfeldes definieren. Die Karte soll als Erweiterung des Forschungsprojekts des ZKM dienen und zur Außenkommunikation, sowie für den Wissenstransfer und Dialog mit nahestehenden Initiativen herangezogen werden können. Als mögliches Anwendungsbeispiel soll auf Grundlage dieser Kartografie abschließend eine Lerninfrastruktur, in Form eines Raumentwurfs oder Lehrpfades konzipiert werden, welcher zum Ziel hat, die gesammelten Zugänge des Forschungsprojekts auf erlebbare Art zu vermitteln und dadurch die Beziehungen zur Streuobstwiese, sowie deren öffentliche Wahrnehmung zu fördern.

I am a composer, musician and radio producer, and in this exposition I explore how I brought my artistic practice into dialogue with a cartographic approach called deep mapping to create a sound installation called ECOTONE: A Sonic Journey Through Kildimo-Pallaskenry. Deep mapping encompasses the discursive and ideological dimensions of a place, such as memories, imaginations and the multiple realities that exist in our surroundings (Bodenhamer et al. 2015; Roberts 2016; Biggs and Modeen 2020). The approach has spatial considerations and adheres to locations and boundaries, but what is added is a reflexive narrativity that includes the complexity of human stories and identities that exist in a place. Deep mapping has the capacity to bring together histories, mythologies, facts and fictions, and weave them together in expressing a place. In this work, which formed part of my practice-as-research PhD, I developed a sonic deep mapping approach that involves recording the music, sounds and stories of place, and re-imaging them through my composition practice. This research explores a new approach to understanding and representing place, and adds a new perspective to the field of deep mapping. I propose that my sonic deep mapping approach forges connections between creative process, people and place. It invites us to listen deeply to our surroundings and to create representations of place that bring us into the realm of imagination and connection. Download Accessible PDF

This exposition invites you to reflect on the various things you do in your doctoral artistic research and to consider how these activities might form an interconnected system — a methodology. In a guided tour of words, images, and visits to my garden, I reconsider several research models I encountered as a PhD student investigating transdisciplinary performing practices. However, my primary aim is to carve out a pathway — from model to metaphor — one that offers a viable means of seeing your doctoral project existing within a terrain of complexity rather than utter chaos. Throughout the exposition I employ metaphors inspired not only by my artistic work, but also by my garden in Abruzzo, where I lived throughout my PhD studies. To fully discover Abruzzo, it is necessary to slow down — even allow yourself to get bored — before inevitably being revitalized and inspired by its natural beauty and ever-welcoming ambiance. I hope you will embrace this exposition’s journey. Permit yourself to be a rural-Italian wanderer, enjoy the breaks, and take extra ones so you can also enjoy an espresso or glass of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. Download Accessible PDF

The research project BODIES IN TRANSITION (2023-2024) searches for sensitive and collaborative bodies of the future by interlacing voices and materials from the Wadden Sea into a cosmology of plants, animals, bacteria, humans and planets. In the context of global crises, which appear as symptoms of a patriarchal and hierarchical self-understanding of human existence, three performers travel to the island of Sylt (Germany) to relearn ‘being’ in this more-than-human-world. Performative research is undertaken in the protection zone 1, the Morsum cliff and the mudflats near Munkmarsch. These dynamic ecosystems, with their tidal rhythms dictated by the moon and sun and their diverse life forms, ranging from Japanese berry seaweed to Pacific oysters, make the world’s processualism perceptible and remind us that our lives are intertwined with dynamic ecosystems. The performers immerse themselves in a fluid space of video, sound, natural materials, and performance, rethinking and questioning the diverse relationships between the organisms of the Wadden Sea and their own state as living beings. The leading question of this research is what we can learn from this dynamic interplay, to transform our existence with planet Gaia and all its organisms into a sensitive and resilient future. Download Accessible PDF