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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XRW (Implicature) (2024) Zoe Panagiota (aka Betty) Nigianni
Sketchbook of 53 A3 drawings with coloured markers, including 4 A3 collages with newspaper cutouts and printed photos. Sketchbook cover with red nail polish. 22 A4 drawings with ballpoint pen. Preparatory work, 2023-2024. 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. I mixed this with stylistic elements of the architectural sketch, using heavily the black marker and stick figures. This visual approach gives a slightly comical note to the otherwise dark subject matter. "Pop and Politics" (Pop Og Politikk) Where does the boundary run between art and popular culture? Pop art embraces the iconography of mass culture. Themes are taken from advertising comics, cinema and TV. The slick, impersonal style is a deliberate provocation. In Norway, pop art is part of a broader left-wing protest movement. Everything from capitalism and imperialism to environmental and gender politics is subjected to critical scrutiny. The exclusive, unique artwork is replaced by mass-produced prints and posters, well suited to spreading a political message." From the National Museum, Oslo, Norway.
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The (origins of the) game (2024) Zoe Panagiota (aka Betty) Nigianni
Happening, 2016. Participant's empirical research, including improvised full recorded interview with first generation Albanian immigrants to Greece, images, and thematic text. The research was conducted for the workshop, "Logics of Worlds", inspired by Alain Badiou's work and organised by architect Filippos Oraiopoulos, at Athens School of Fine Art (ASFA), Master of Visual Arts (Marios Spiliopoulos, Giorgios Xiropaides), December 2016. Adopting the political approach of Badiou's "L' Organisation Politique" to apply direct intervention for societal problems, including immigration and labour, I used play as a method to facilitate improvised discussions. People share and respond more freely when participating in structured, but playful interactions, such as those a game involves. Albanians speak three languages, Albanian, Italian and, a few of them, Greek, so I wasn't able to translate parts of the conversation. Avlona is an English now obsolete name for Vlore, an Albanian seaport and former ancient Greek colony Aulon. Albanians came as non-EU refugees in Greece initially in the 1990s, after the fall of communism in their home country. Religion was banned in communist countries. The democratisation of Albania began in 1994, when Albanians protested for political pluralism in their country. At the beginnig ofbthe transition period after communism, Vlore became a port through which smuggling, mainly from Italy, was carried out. Notably, the men I spoke to didn't want to be visualised. Hence, the exposition aims to juxtapose the experimental and the conceptual in the fine arts; and to make the 'invisible' visible. Badiou is also known for his philosophy of metaphysics of the four "truth procedures": Politics, Science, Love and Art. The workshop was slightly interrupted by a performance art student, who brought a live hen to slaughter in the studio. This can be taken as a metaphor for scapegoating (by symbolically re-assigning the gender of male) Albanian non-EU refugees. For this exposition, I include an essay by Pantelis Boukalas, in Kyriakos Katzourakis, O "Dromos Pros Ti Dysi" (The Way to the West), 2001, as well as Kyriakos Katzourakis' introduction in English. I don't have any personal or other connections with Albania - or North Macedonia or Kosovo: I had never visited before 2024. This was a project to research and document in an artistic manner the refugee and immigration crisis, as I experienced it in my native Greece and to voice my opinions on this topic from my perspective as a native Greek. I spoke to non-EU economic refugees. Non-EU economic refugees must not be confused with political asylum seekers, who encounter persecution for political reasons from the countries of origin or citizenship. Albania (North Macedonia and Kosovo) is a non-EU country; Greece, my native (and my parents' and grandparents' native), has been in the EU since 1981. I have also been a UK national, by naturalisation, since 2011. Paradoxically - or not so paradoxically, since I have been also investigating this case - the political outcome, and since 2020, of this project was that fictitious "daughter" of mine had been on the Met police's databases, as 22 Italian/Albanian female. Supposedly, I must had been given birth to a daughter in Albania in 2002! (!! the "prostitute"; that's believable!! Or two "schizophrenic" sons, Panagiotis Nigiannis, both, Albanians!; born in 2003 and 2004! Golden Dawn's, the BNP's (the XRW component in the UK), and others' cultural "imagination" with regards to Albanians): factually speaking, in 2002, I was living in Athens, Greece, engaged to be married to my former husband, a Greek national, working at MOB (Mauve) Architects, as an architect designer, with an international cohort of colleagues. I got married in 2003. I lived in Athens until 2004, working also at RCTech architects. The records with the fake IDs have been corrected in September 2024. Including records of falsely alleged children of mine born 2002-2004, when I lived and worked in my native Greece. From 1998 until 2002, I was living in the UK, working as an architect; there are no children. I gained my first practical experience working as an architect in the UK, working in private architectural practice from 1999 until 2002. In 2007, I was living in London, since 2005, working as an EU/Greek university lecturer. In 2009, when the G20 summit demonstrations took place in London, with the known case of the death of Ian Tomlison by a police officer, I had been living in the UK since 2005, working as an EU lecturer at the University of East London; I was also known as Betty Nigianni by my students and colleagues. I never participated in any public demonstrations in the UK, but I have attended demonstrations in my native Greece and in 2019 in the Netherlands. There are no children in my medical records, during the whole time I have lived in the UK, which is a total of seventeen years, plus, twelve of those being a British citizen. Greek children take their father's surname and Greeks don't have many children; they're suffering from a shrinking population, although they are in the EU since 1981. My concerns about serious international organised criminal activity (not even honouring children's basic rights) were reported and confirmed by the Greek, Scandinavian and Albanian authorities. The British authorities have been lagging behind for a long time, intentionally, with their impossible unverified "stories", bashing the left and the liberals - or whatever is left of them - and whoever is decent - whatever has been left of that, too. The Greek police confirmed in 2024 all claims about children, also between 2002 and 2004, have been dismissed. The Greek Golden Dawn - with their "Big Idea" (Megali Idea) of conquering foreign countries, like North Macedonia, and their chronic attacks on immigrants and refugees in Greece - was convicted as a criminal organisation in October 2020. They invented the 'concept' of the 'Real Greek', dependent on any Greek's political orientation. Now they're losing their sixty seven (67) appeals - and early releases. The conversation took place during the period Golden Dawn was prosecuted in the Greek High Courts of Justice (Areios Pagos), 2015-2020. Many non-EU immigrants to Greece provided testimonies in the courts, despite the fact they were frightened. Manolis Glezos was the only Greek politician, who went to visit Magda Fyssa, Pavlos' mother, in the Greek courts. For Pavlos Fyssas, aka Killah P; assassinated at age 34. For Alain Badiou, a communist-Maoist political philosopher, and the OP. For the missing Albanian and of Albanian ethnicity immigrants. For Michalis Katsouris; assassinated at age 29. For the "Other Greek Left". Thanks to the Albanian embassy in London, the Tirane and Durres police, as well as the Durres prosecutor. Thanks to Edi Rama. Thanks to the Norwegian government. Thanks also to Skopje police and Prishtine police. Thanks to the Italian police at Bari. Finally, thanks to the Greek police chief and the Greek police organised crime division. Thanks to the very few Met police officers, who eventually figured it out. Ongoing investigatory research with artworks, 2016-2024. References: Fred C. Abrahams, "Modern Albania: From Dictatorship to Democracy in Europe", New York: New York University Press, 2015. Counterextremism Project, "Violent, Right-wing Extremism and Terrorism - Transnational Connectivity, Definitions, Incidents, Structures and Countermeasures", November 2020, available online.
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Inside the Narrative (2024) Gustav Kvaal, Torkell Bernsen
The aim of this artistic research project is to create an illustrated VR documentary experience that narrates the story of a time witness from the second world war in Bodø, Norway. The project explores questions concerning visual storytelling and ethics in the encounter between the VR-audience, interviewed subjects and the audiovisual spatial design. Artistic and qualitative research methods have been employed to explore how different visual modes and contexts alter the experience of narrator(Time witness) and narrative in a media format characterized by its ability to place the viewer in a state of immersion, intimacy, and a sense of presence. Theoretically, this study is situated in an artistic landscape connected to media theory, journalism, ethics and visual communication. Concepts such as media witness ethics, with the so-called risk of improper distance and considerations around the term distant others, are relevant for the reflection associated with the project.
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Ars Memoriae (2024) Maarten Vanden Eynde
Ars Memoriae, The Art to Remember analyzes the role of art within the larger history and evolution of external memory devices. It looks at material traces of remembering and the invention of an ever-changing body of language expressions, like signs and symbols, to enhance communication capabilities. I followed the process of externalizing emotions, knowledge, and information, starting in the Palaeolithic Stone Age about 3 million years ago, until, in a speculative future, it will be internalized again using artificial wetware, neuro-computers, and DNA coding. > Click on the image to download the PDF.
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Why I Paint Thousands of Circles (2024) Leanna Moran
Why I paint Thousands of Circles explores psychological barriers and multilayered themes that stem from a single horrific event that involved Moran’s father and his brother. The artist collates information, photos and constructs an ar(t)chaeological archive where family photos, product imagery, together with newspaper clips to form units of a historical and psychological mind map. The exposition becomes an auto-ethnographical exploration of mid 90's working class North West London. The repetitive painting process, exposed and documented in the exposition, functions as transformative method, where ambiguous feelings of a violent upbringing are directed towards the creation of a visual system with an inherent logic – “creating some kind of beauty out of ugliness.”
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The Ever Changing Instrument (2024) APJ
The project explores the artistic potential of unpredictability, specifically within the context of electronic music. By referring to an original instrument design—including programming a number of randomized systems—a series of compositions for keyboard instruments were developed. The central theme is the relationship between dialogue and loss of control during the creative process. This project was documented intermediately with new music, as well as technological and procedural reflections.
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