Research Catalogue

This exposition or archive is a work in progress, under construction, for gathering material of encounters with junipers.

Arts-based-philosophy is an emerging research concept at the cutting edge of the arts, philosophy and the Sciences in which cross-disciplinary research collectives align their research practices to finally stage their investigations in field-performances, shared with the public. Our research explores the significance of the HEART in artistic research and performance philosophy from a cross-cultural perspective, partially based on the concepts of the HEART in the works of two artist-philosophers, in which philosophy already became arts-based-philosophy: Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Aurobindo’s poetic opus magnum Savitri. We generally assume that the works of artist-philosophers are not only engaged in “creating concepts” (Deleuze), but their concepts are also meant to be staged artistically to let them bodily matter in fact. The role of the HEART in respect to this process of “bodily mattering” is the core objective under investigation: Firstly, because we hold that atmospheres trigger the HEART of a lived-body to taste the flavor of things it is environmentally engaged with basically in an aesthetic manner (Nietzsche). In this respect the analysis of the classical notion for the aesthete in Indian philosophy and aesthetics, sahṛdaya––which literally means, “somebody, with a HEART”––becomes crucial. Secondly, because the HEART is said to be not just reducible to one’s manifest Nature, but has access to one’s virtual Nature as well. The creation hymn in the oldest of all Vedas (Rgveda) for instance informs us that a HEART is capable of crossing being (sat) & non-being (asat), which makes it fluctuate among these two realms and even allows its aspirations to let virtual possibilities matter. Such concepts show striking similarities with contemporary concepts in philosophy-physics, e.g. the concepts of “virtual particles” and “quantum vacuum fluctuations” (Barad).

This research introduces Psychoformism, an innovative artistic style synthesizing form, emotion, and subconscious energy into a unified aesthetic expression. Positioned within the broader discourse of art history, Psychoformism proposes a fluid, dynamic visual language that transcends traditional bodily representation. The style aims to shift the viewer's role from passive observer to active participant by visually embodying internal emotional states as forms that emerge from subconscious energies. Psychoformism thus provides a conceptual and practical framework for exploring deeper psychological engagement and subjective perception within aesthetic experiences. As proposed by the author, “Form is emotion itself; emotion emerges from within the body and transforms directly into visual form.” (A. Babak, 2025)

This exposition comprises textual fragments (both written and voiced) produced through the act of returning to (in turn re-activating, re-configuring, even re-imagining) conversational transcripts generated within the artistic research project Dorsal Practices, a collaboration between choreographer Katrina Brown and writer-artist Emma Cocker. Initiated in January 2021, Dorsal Practices is an artistic collaboration for exploring how the cultivation of a back-oriented awareness and attitude might shape and inform our embodied, affective and relational experience of being-in-the-world. Conceived at the threshold between choreographic-movement practices and language-based artistic research, Dorsal Practices explores how the experiences of listening, languaging, even thinking, might be shaped differently through this embodied tilt of awareness and attention towards the back, moreover, through a practice of coming back, the act of (re)turning. The original transcript material that forms the basis of this exposition was produced through a practice of conversation undertaken within six interrelated blocks of exploration, taking place over 18 months between October 2022 and February 2024. Within this period of enquiry, we — Brown and Cocker — focused our attention on the act of returning within our shared practice, re-imagined as a "dorsal turn". Through the intermingling of two registers of language-based practice, that is, through the performativity of both the written and spoken texts themselves, within this exposition we attempt to make tangible how the dorsal gesture of the turn and the circling principle of re- become operative as a spinal thread within our shared enquiry. Deviating from the straightforwardness of a strictly linear text, we invite a form of dorsal listening-reading that might engage through loops and returns. We conceive the research artefacts generated through the practice itself as the central focus within this exposition, alongside a supporting text where we introduce the wider enquiry of Dorsal Practices, reflecting on how we conceive the act of turning and of re-turning therein.

The term ‘Occupational Folklore’ refers to the social expressions of people, linked to the work that they do. This exposition explores the possibility of there being a common language of clay, a vernacular that can be used to story-tell, and how stories arise from the studio, from the intersection of making, thinking/talking and clay. Comprising three discrete projects, we move from a study of the materiality of voice to establishing a vocabulary of clay to a narrative collection of embodied experiences. Their combined knowledge leads to a fourth project, in the form of conversations held whilst making around a studio table. Passages from the exchange are filmed and analysed from the perspective of ‘small stories’, an oral history methodology that gives focus to the speculative, iterative and nuanced decisions often overlooked in a conventional account of a conversation. When applied to the making process, it begins to uncover a deeper understanding of the processual and implicit decisions that take place through the interaction of making, thinking and material properties. The passages allow us to witness the very emergence of storytelling taking place, the moment at which life experiences intersect with formations in clay. The aim of collecting all four projects together is not simply to document examples but, as with all modes of folklore, to use story to identify and share more resilient and connected ways of being in the world. Within these intersections lie the porous and mutable properties of clay practice, that are rapidly redefining the wider field of ceramics in terms of its social contribution. Contained within these social expressions of clay lies its ability to connect with and contribute to wider community and environmental issues. The term occupational folklore is used in recognition of the historic continuity of behaviours, actions and beliefs that arise from these interactions, if only we shift our focus from individual attainments to the collective knowledge and transferable learning these small stories contain.

Troubling the Ideal Landscape – A Visual Narrative critically examines possible intersections between imagination and physical landscape. Through a practice-based approach, this exposition explores the composition and decomposition of ideal landscapes, with a focus on Cannero Riviera, a small Italian village. Grounded in my doctoral research at PhDArts, a collaboration between ACPA, Leiden University, and the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, the project employs spatial montage as both a methodological tool and an artistic outcome. By fragmenting the landscape into moving images, I seek to disrupt conventional visual regimes and reflect on the ideological forces shaping the village and its environment. This approach is informed by Aby Warburg's Mnemosyne Atlas, where fragmented images form unstable constellations that navigate multiple meanings, temporalities, and spaces. Engaging with Warburg’s method, I question crystallised, linear visualisations of the ideal, focusing on dynamic processes of spatial composition. The exposition aims to reframe landscape imagery not as a passive backdrop, but as an active force. It proposes a model of the ideal landscape that resists linearity, embracing a complex, shifting narrative that questions the visual regimes through which contemporary imaginaries of place are constructed.