Research Catalogue

Cylinders and discs recorded

This artistic research exposition serves as a virtual presentation of the sound art installation, 'Welcome Children (Stay Small)', on view at 'The WaveCave: An Experimental Sound Space' at California Institute of the Arts within the Herb Alpert School of Music from September 14 - 20, 2025. Works: Welcome Children Color video with sound 14 minutes 19 seconds (loop) 2025 Stay Small Color video with sound 3 minutes (loop) 2025 Artist Statement: Welcome Children (Stay Small) is a multimedia installation exploring a series of manipulated Google Search images of diverse children, which are juxtaposed with moving images of a children’s night lamp. The images are concurrent with drones and reverberated audio samples, which sonically collide. Through the symbolism that sound and image provide, this installation highlights the inevitable reality of children losing their innocence in an imperfect world and the longing of so many of us to protect them from the harm of life and adulthood. Welcome Children (Stay Small) was inspired by the song “Stay Small” by former North American post-rock band, The Receiving End of Sirens, and the New Testament theological essay, “Jesus Loves the Little Children: A Theological Reading of Mark 9:14-29 for Children with Serious Illnesses or Disabilities and Their Caregivers”, written by Dr. Melanie Howard. It is important to note that from 2004 - 2018, I worked with children as a music teacher and Christian educator. I dedicate Welcome Children (Stay Small) to those who also work with children and seek to help them become resilient in the face of life’s pain and ambiguities.

Raschx is a series of mutational performances based upon two fundamental materials: Robert Schumann’s Kreisleriana op. 16 (1838), and Roland Barthes essays on the music of Schumann, particularly focusing on ‘Rasch’ (1979), a text exclusively dedicated to Schumann’s Kreisleriana. To these materials other components may be added for every single particular version: visual elements (pictures, videos), other texts, or further aural elements (recordings or live-electronics). The main goal is to generate an intricate network of aesthetic-epistemic cross-references, through which the listener has the freedom to focus on different layers of perception: be it on the music, on the texts being projected or read, on the images, or on the voices. Situated beyond ‘interpretation’, ‘hermeneutics’, and ‘aesthetics’ the series Raschx is part of a wider research on what might be labelled as experimental performance practices—practices that productively deviate from conventional (repetitive) performative strategies and that lend the audience to think during the performative moment, transforming familiar artistic objects into objects for thought.

Fractured Curation: On the Cost of Discontinuity Author: Dorian Vale In Fractured Curation, Dorian Vale exposes the silent violence of discontinuity in institutional exhibition-making. Drawing from the principles of Post-Interpretive Criticism, this essay critiques not the art on display, but the fragmented and careless curatorial strategies that sever meaning, rupture context, and erode ethical witness. Focusing on spatial logic, visual sequencing, and the absence of coherent narrative threading, Vale reveals how curation can either dignify or disfigure the viewing experience. When works that bear trauma, memory, or moral weight are mishandled—isolated from their context or stitched into spectacle—the institution itself becomes a site of erasure. This essay stands as a manifesto for curatorial reverence. It reclaims the role of the exhibition not as entertainment or aesthetic collage, but as a moral architecture—one that must be approached with continuity, restraint, and care. The cost of ignoring this? A public who walks through beauty without bearing its consequence. Vale, Dorian. Fractured Curation: On the Cost of Discontinuity. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.16996506 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, fractured curation, curatorial ethics, art exhibition critique, museum responsibility, trauma in curatorial practice, continuity in curation, moral proximity in exhibition design, witnessing through curation, ethical curation, spatial narrative in museums, careless curation, art and erasure, institutional critique, aesthetic sequencing, exhibition as architecture, custodial art criticism, reverent exhibition design, post-critical museum theory, viewer disorientation, discontinuity in art spaces

Thesis / Research Document of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2025 BA Interior Architecture and Furniture Design Summary (8968)

This concise study guide introduces the foundational framework of Post-Interpretive Criticism (PIC)—a new aesthetic philosophy that centers presence, moral proximity, and restraint in the practice of art criticism. Developed by Dorian Vale, the guide breaks down PIC into five core principles: Restraint over Interpretation Witness over Commentary Moral Proximity over Objectivity Viewer as Evidence Rejection of Performance Each principle is accompanied by a brief case study, reflection exercise, and ethical commentary, making this guide suitable for students, educators, curators, and critics seeking to apply PIC in the field. Instead of decoding the artwork, this framework encourages a posture of reverent presence, allowing the artwork to retain its autonomy and moral gravity. This resource is designed to be taught, discussed, and practiced. It supports classrooms, curatorial programs, writing workshops, and museum education—inviting a new generation of viewers to approach art with humility, silence, and philosophical depth. Vale, Dorian. Five Principles of Post-Interpretive Criticism: A Study Guide. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17077734 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, study guide, art education, critical theory, Dorian Vale, aesthetic philosophy, viewer as evidence, slow looking, ethical criticism, trauma in art, art pedagogy, witness-based art criticism, art classroom resource, art and ethics, moral proximity, presence over interpretation, contemporary criticism, museum education, poetic criticism, art curriculum