Research Catalogue

The context of generative processes encapsulates relevant data that influence the behavior of an algorithm including mental domains and 'internal' dimensions of a particular context such as goals and decision making. Of creative importance is how an algorithmic process reacts to the influence of its environment, the enclosing conditions from which it emerges. Given a clearly defined set of resources, a variety of processes can operate within the boundaries imposed by a certain context. Such a shared space can be seen as a composable structure, a space where both composition and generative activity take place. Contributing to the evolving properties of a certain situation, the persistence of state means that an environment behaves according to the previous activity that has occurred within it. Opposed to an amnesic situation, a persistent environment can resume previous developments, adapt to long-term interactions and evolve over time. Based on persistence and gradual change, the temporal unfolding of generative processes has an important impact on the becoming of compositional algorithms and the sound material they create.

Beröringspunkterna mellan språk och musik har intresserat många genom historien och i denna exposition står sambanden mellan muntligt berättande på dialekt och musikalisk interpretation samt komposition stå i fokus. Ann Elkjär är flöjtist och doktorand i musikalisk gestaltning, och i doktorandprojektet utforskas en nyfikenhet på muntligt berättande: Vilka musikaliska element går att hitta i muntligt, dialektalt, berättande och hur kan de omformas till kompositoriska och interpretatoriska redskap? Frågorna utforskas i ett samarbete med tonsättaren Ida Lundén, och expositionen bygger på en analys av videodokumentation av den kollaborativa kompositionsprocessen. Arkivinspelningar av värmländskt berättande utgör ett centralt material, där fragment av äldre berättares röster processas och spelas upp med rullbandspelare i dialog med soloflöjtstämman. Genom rullbandspelarna ges möjligheter att skapa loopar som även återspeglas i flöjtstämman, och på detta vis utforskar verket hur element i muntligt berättande kan omformas till musikaliskt material. English: The intersections between language and music have long intrigued scholars, and this exposition centers on the relationship between oral storytelling in dialect and musical interpretation. Ann Elkjär, flautist and PhD student in musical performance, explores the reflective spaces that emerge in the interstice between language and music. The research questions guiding the PhD project are: What musical elements can be identified in oral storytelling in dialect, and how can these be transformed into compositional and interpretative tools? To investigate these questions, Ann Elkjär collaborates with several composers. This exposition presents the collaborative compositional process between Elkjär and composer Ida Lundén. Archival recordings of storytelling in the Värmland dialect serve as a central material, where fragments of an elderly narrator’s voice are processed and played back via reel-to-reel tape recorders in dialogue with the solo flute part. The use of tape recorders enables the creation of loops, which are mirrored in the flute part, thereby exploring how elements of oral storytelling can be transformed into musical material.

Exploring methods of connecting thinking to space and embodiment in a research that looks at the connection between mental images, language and the body through felt experience.

Canon of Witnesses: On Zarina Hashmi’s Home Is a Foreign Place By Dorian Vale In this elegiac and piercing reflection, Dorian Vale inducts Zarina Hashmi into the Canon of Witnesses through her seminal work Home Is a Foreign Place. Rather than interpreting the piece, Vale engages it as a ritual of moral proximity—where each word etched on handmade paper becomes a relic of memory, exile, and untranslatable grief. Zarina’s restrained use of language, the materiality of her paper, and her refusal to perform trauma are treated here not as minimalist strategies, but as ethical gestures. The essay resists biographical reduction or historical summary and instead approaches the work as a sacred geography of loss—one that cannot be decoded without doing harm. Drawing from the principles of Post-Interpretive Criticism, Vale positions Zarina not as an artist of silence, but as a custodian of what language can no longer hold. What remains is not narrative. What remains is presence. Vale, Dorian. Canon of Witnesses: On Zarina Hashmi’s Home Is a Foreign Place. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17072625 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) Zarina Hashmi, Home Is a Foreign Place, Post-Interpretive Criticism, Dorian Vale, art and exile, Urdu in art, trauma and memory in art, minimalism vs restraint, sacred aesthetics, witness-based art criticism, moral proximity, non-interpretive art writing, handmade paper in art, ethics of language in art, feminist art critique, contemporary South Asian art

Collected Works as Cognitive Trace By Dorian Vale In Collected Works as Cognitive Trace, Dorian Vale reframes the act of collecting not as possession, but as psychological imprint. Drawing from the principles of Post-Interpretive Criticism, this essay explores how personal archives—particularly collections of art, objects, and texts—can reveal unconscious maps of memory, loss, longing, and identity. Vale argues that every collected item leaves a residue of the self: a cognitive scar, a symbolic placeholder, or a momentary alignment between inner and outer worlds. These collections become autobiographies of the unspoken—not narratives, but traces. What we keep is not always what we value most, but what we could not leave behind. This piece expands the Post-Interpretive lexicon by introducing the concept of cognitive residue and emotional indexing, urging readers to view their shelves and storage boxes not as aesthetic decisions, but as quiet cartographies of becoming. Vale, Dorian. Collected Works as Cognitive Trace. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17070885 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, Post-Interpretive Criticism, art collecting, cognitive trace, personal archives, art as memory, symbolic possession, collection psychology, memory and art, autobiographical collecting, object curation, emotional indexing, art and identity, private archives, post-interpretive lexicon, collecting as residue, slow criticism, aesthetic psychology, witnessing through objects, non-interpretive art theory

Moral Proximity: Ethics as Method in Post-Interpretive Criticism By Dorian Vale n this defining essay, Dorian Vale articulates moral proximity as the central method of Post-Interpretive Criticism (PIC). Departing from frameworks that prioritize interpretation, context, or theoretical discourse, this piece reframes criticism itself as an ethical position, not an intellectual act. Moral proximity is the discipline of standing near a work—especially works born of trauma, exile, or silence—without consuming it. It demands neither resolution nor analysis, but a custodial presence rooted in humility, restraint, and witness. The critic is not a translator but a steward of what cannot be said without distortion. Drawing upon Vale’s broader doctrines—including the Viewer as Evidence, Absential Aesthetics, and Hauntmark Theory—this essay positions moral nearness as the irreducible truth in art writing. It becomes the difference between exploitation and reverence, between performance and presence. Vale, Dorian. Moral Proximity: Ethics as Method in Post-Interpretive Criticism. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17076247 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) Post-Interpretive Criticism, Dorian Vale, moral proximity, ethics in art criticism, witnessing art, aesthetic ethics, viewer presence, non-extractive criticism, trauma-informed aesthetics, silent art, ethical presence, affective encounter, restraint in criticism