Research Catalogue

Jenny Sunesson (b. 1973) is a Swedish artist predominantly working with sound. Her practice ranges from field recording and live collages to conceptual sound art and video. Sunesson uses her own life as a stage for her dark, tragic and sometimes comical re-contextualised work where real and invented characters and derogated stereotypes, collaborate in the alternate story of hierarchies and normative power structures in society.

“Something” still taking from a vignette, with a running time 05:04. A reading by a reader, accompanied by a moving image vignette, features a page-turner, recorded by the recorder. 2022. The introduction to Elle Reynolds' PhD 2024.

A moving image essay in three parts.

The Living Lexicon: Post-Interpretive Criticism – First Edition By Dorian Vale Museum of One | Written at the Threshold The Living Lexicon is the official glossary of Post-Interpretive Criticism — a literary movement that displaces interpretation in favor of presence, restraint, and custodial witnessing. It is not written to standardize, but to protect. These entries are not mere definitions; they are ethical and poetic coordinates. From Threshold to Witness, from Stillmark to Felt Proof, the lexicon outlines the sacred vocabulary of a genre committed to reverence over reading, and presence over performance. This document anchors the critic’s posture, language, and responsibility. It guides without fixing. It names without claiming. It orients those entering the terrain so they do not mistake silence for absence, or discipline for detachment. In a critical culture flooded with noise, The Living Lexicon restores the weight of words. Vale, Dorian. The Living Lexicon: Post-Interpretive Criticism – First Edition. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17111649 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. Post-Interpretive Criticism, Aesthetic Theory, Art Criticism, Philosophy of Art, Ethical Criticism, Literary Movements, Witnessing, Silence in Criticism, Contemporary Aesthetics, Poetic Philosophy, Witness, Threshold, Restraint, Stillmark, Hauntmark, Silence, Viewer-as-Evidence, Ethical Proximity, Custodianship 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)

Absential Aesthetics Theory On Ghosts, Absence, and the Afterlife of Art A Complete Theoretical Framework by Dorian Vale What happens to a work of art after it disappears — and why does it linger? In this seminal treatise, Dorian Vale unveils the full theoretical scaffolding of Absential Aesthetics, a core pillar of the Post-Interpretive Movement. This framework reconceives absence not as a void to be filled, but as a residue that haunts, instructs, and remains. Drawing from metaphysical inquiry, trauma studies, and post-structural aesthetics, Vale argues that absence is not the opposite of presence — it is a continuation of it. From lost artifacts and sealed objects to erased histories and unspeakable memories, this theory reframes absence as aesthetic substance. The missing becomes legible through its consequences, not its form. Across three theoretical movements — Erasure, Afterlife, and Hauntmark — Vale introduces critical constructs such as The Aesthetic Ghost, Negative Presence, and Lingering Witness. These ideas challenge visual primacy, proposing that what art does after it vanishes may be more ethically potent than what it does when it is seen. Absential Aesthetics Theory is not a speculative musing — it is a structured philosophy of art’s most elusive force: what remains after it is no longer there. A vital contribution to contemporary art theory, this treatise opens a door for curators, critics, and philosophers who seek to engage art not just through its objecthood, but through its departure. Vale, Dorian. Absential Aesthetics Theory: On Ghosts, Absence, and the Afterlife of Art A Complete Theoretical Framework. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17052070 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) Absential Aesthetics, Dorian Vale, Post-Interpretive Criticism, theory of absence in art, aesthetic ghosts, art afterlife, disappearance in art, witness and erasure, trauma and aesthetics, art and memory, aesthetic haunting, art as residue, invisibility in art theory, negative presence, art criticism and absence, disappearance as ontology, art of the unseen, sacred erasure, ethics of loss in art, non-object based aesthetics, hauntmark theory, afterlife of the artwork

Art as Truth: A Treatise By Dorian Vale — A Foundational Text of the Post-Interpretive Movement Art as Truth is the culminating philosophical treatise of the Post-Interpretive Movement. In this work, Dorian Vale reframes the aesthetic encounter not as a process of interpretation, but as an ontological event. Art is not understood, solved, or decoded — it is witnessed. And in that witnessing, it reveals not a meaning, but a truth. Drawing from existential philosophy, phenomenology, and metaphysical inquiry, Vale dismantles the idea that art must be representational, symbolic, or referential to matter. Instead, he proposes that presence is the irreducible form of truth in art. The truth of a work lies not in what it says — but in what it becomes in the presence of one who refuses to violate it with meaning. This treatise formalizes Stillmark Theory, where presence replaces permanence, and Absential Aesthetics, where absence, restraint, and unspeakability are themselves forms of knowledge. It is a rejection of both academic overreach and commercial interpretation. In its place, Vale offers a framework that returns ethics, metaphysics, and reverence to the heart of criticism. Art as Truth establishes a new intellectual discipline — one that regards the critic not as a decoder of meaning, but as a custodian of consequence. This work marks a departure from modern and postmodern criticism alike, offering in their place a rigorous, moral, and sacred approach to art. Vale, Dorian. Art as Truth: A Treatise. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17057672 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, Art as Truth, Post-Interpretive Criticism, aesthetic truth, Stillmark Theory, Absential Aesthetics, presence in art, ontology of aesthetics, metaphysical art theory, ethics of criticism, art and truth, post-critical aesthetics, philosophy of art, witness-based criticism, new aesthetic movements, moral proximity, non-interpretive art, sacred aesthetics, art as presence, art and being, reverent art writing, truth in contemporary art, phenomenology and art