Research Catalogue

In this exposition, I discuss the multimedia installation "Esparto, approached", to which I opened doors last May 10th, 2025, in Organo Hall, Helsinki Music Center. "Esparto, approached" is the first of a series of three installations representing the artistic component of my doctoral degree at the Sibelius Academy, Uniarts Helsinki. The research project in which this installation is contextualized is currently titled "Listening through remembrance: An autoethnography of presence in the age of disposability". In this artistic research, the notions of listening, remembering, and presence-making are interwoven in an attempt to understand how we confer meaning and value on things despite our embeddedness in a world of disposable nature, where things are susceptible to being quickly discarded, replaced, and, therefore, forgotten. This exposition opens up a space of reflection in the aftermath of "Esparto, approached". The installation represented a collective recall of the field practice that led me to search for signs of durability in abandoned contexts of my homeland in rural Southeastern Spain. This exposition poses the following questions about it: What happened? (Description); What does "what happened" mean? (Analysis); And, how does "what happened" keep happening now? (Further becomings). The objective of creating an online exposition right after the event is to open a window to the reflective process of this investigation before its completion, thus making visible its traces. The process itself is therefore turned into an accessible outcome that manifests the continual nature of the project as a whole.

a lesson in the shadows of death entangled moment of frozen fragments embodying sacred movements through air, body, mind, mattering, voicing as if NOTHING

The Agenda Group is a research group based at KMD, connecting artistic practices "with an agenda". The group enables crossover methods rather than media specificity, allowing space for different participants. "An agenda" is here understood as an aspect of socially engaged art practices. This relates to people, narratives and history alike and is about our shared values and contribution to society as artists. The engagement relates to issues outside of the artistic context and investigates how these issues might be mediated and moderated with artistic means. The Agenda Group is open for all kinds of artistic practices, but the focus of the discussions will be on artistic practice "as crucial to both individual and societal change and development" (KMD Strategic Plan). The relationality between art and society is never as simple as it seems and these reflections involves the thinking of intensity in addition to formats, translation and displacement. In this sense the agenda of an artistic project is crucial to the understanding of its implications. The Agenda Group is a pragmatic platform to connect various members of staff at KMD (artistic-researchers, post-docs, PhD’s and maybe even MA-students). The main purpose is to meet regularly, presenting and discussing the artistic research of each of the group members. An internal critical agenda. Research group initiator: Professor Frans Jacobi

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

Aesthetic Displacement Theory A Treatise on Witness, Alteration, and the Irreversible Encounter By Dorian Vale Not all displacement is spatial. Some begins the moment a work is truly witnessed — and cannot return to what it was. In this seminal treatise, Dorian Vale introduces Aesthetic Displacement Theory, a core pillar within the Post-Interpretive Movement. This theory argues that the true aesthetic event is not the artwork itself, nor even its creation — but the irreversible alteration that occurs at the moment of witness. Once seen with moral proximity, a work can no longer be what it was before. And neither can the viewer. Drawing from principles of ontology, phenomenology, and ethical custodianship, Vale positions displacement not as a detour from essence, but as a confirmation of encounter. The aesthetic, here, is not defined by beauty, but by its power to alter what it touches without claiming it. Witness becomes both method and consequence. This treatise offers a comprehensive philosophy for critics, curators, and custodians of art who seek to honor the sacred instability that occurs when meaning is not extracted — but absorbed through presence. Aesthetic Displacement Theory is not an addition to aesthetics. It is a recalibration of its purpose. To displace without owning. To alter without interpreting. To remain present in the moment a work becomes unreturnable. Vale, Dorian. Aesthetic Displacement Theory A Treatise on Witness, Alteration, and the Irreversible Encounter. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17056087 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) Aesthetic Displacement Theory, Dorian Vale, Post-Interpretive Criticism, art philosophy, witness-based criticism, non-interpretive aesthetics, phenomenology of art, ethical art encounter, irreversible art experience, viewer transformation, aesthetic ontology, presence in art, sacred aesthetics, non-possessive criticism, moral proximity in aesthetics, trauma and displacement in art, post-critical theory, alterity in art, aesthetic event philosophy, witnessing art without interpretation