Research Catalogue

Modo de trabalhar no projeto coletivo na plataforma RC: Owner do projeto de grupo é o Rodrigo, todos os outros são co-autores.

Sculpted and painted wood, combined with treated rusty objects. Duct tape with boat paint models for metal sheet sculptures, 2020. Digital drawings, 2021, 2023. Dutch steel sailing boat part-restoration and renovation, Amsterdam (with Sean A. Hladkyj), 2019-20. Relief and improvised sculptures made with industrial paints, as well as found objects, were exposed to weather conditions, including heavy rain and wind, over a few months on a floating timber raft. Working with the changes the weather was causing to the ad hoc studio, I made changes until the painting was finished, photographed, then dumped. The relief was collected. I applied the colours from those available in a symbolic manner, abstracting the view of a ghetto in a large city. The objects stand for the landmarks. The pieces would comprise of the scenography for a theatre performance, informed by my conversations with a theatre lighting technician. The event would also include a donation event of the art objects. See external link for the theatre play, based on the tradition of the philosophical dialogue and employing the idea of performing philosophy to make it accessible to a wider audience. Political asylum has been traditionally offered to people who flee from their countries of origin and citizenship, because of violations of their dignity, which is a human right, for their political beliefs and related activities. Currently, seven human rights of mine, five basic, have been infringed in the United Kingdom, where I have been a citizen since 2011; the origin is my native Greece. Political asylum is only offered to people, who are non-citizens of the country where asylum is sought from. At the same time, political asylum has become harder to offer, due to the global nature of persecution of whoever is perceived as a dissident. Since 2020, Forza Nuova, the Italian affiliate of the Greek Golden Dawn, has participated in the organised international criminal case, of which I have been the target, originating from my native Greece, "accelerating" in the Netherlands and the UK in 2020, Covid-19. Notably, Roberto Fiore, Forza Nuova's leader, inherited briefly Alessandra Mussolini's post in the EU parliament. Drawing on the philosophical notion of impossible objects, the works attempted an indirect postcolonial critique; a suggestion for alternative, autonomous lifestyles; and a performative metaphor for global refugees.

The exposition is an artistic PhD thesis and contains research outputs in three categories, Performance Archive, Research Publications and Method Development tied together by an essay. I.Essay: Testimony of a Pilgrim. II.Performance Archive: No Show - exposition. Island - exposition. Strings - exposition. Pleased to Meet You - exposition. III.Research Publications: Porous and Embracing Dramaturgy for Transformative Encounters - video article. A Quest for Existential Sustainability - video article. Transformative Encounters - podcast series. IV.Method Development: ME-THOD. How-little-is-enough-approach. Abstract At the core of this artistic doctoral thesis are four performance projects designed to counter the consumer-driven nature of contemporary performance-making while also addressing the need to develop sustainable methods of performance. Guided by the question: how to construct sustainable methods of performance for transformative encounters? the inquiry transcends the different layers of performance-making to explore the potential of performance as a catalyst for societal change. As a part of the Agenda 2030 Graduate School, an interdisciplinary research initiative at Lund University, the project focuses on existential sustainability and investigates how performance can enhance participants' sense of meaning and motivation for adopting sustainable lifestyles and increasing sustainable awareness. The thesis output is presented in three categories; a performance archive documenting, detailing and analysing the performances and their impact; research publications, disseminating findings and key concepts through different public formats; and method development accounting for the methodological approaches that have emerged through the process. The four performance works of this artistic research are: No Show (2020), Island (2020), Strings (2022), and Pleased to Meet You (2022/2023). The three publications of the project are: How Little is Enough? Embracing and Porous Dramaturgies for Transformative Encounters, a video article; How Little is Enough? A Quest for Existential Sustainability, a video article; and the podcast series Transformative Encounters. Utilizing Me-thod, a pluralistic situated methodology grounded in the artist´s personal background and skillset, together with the how-little-is-enough approach, which minimizes production and focuses on essential needs, the project has collected insights into how performative encounters can initiate transformation in participants and foster connections to the world around them, thereby enhancing existential sustainability and nurturing care for the environment. Through repeated cycles of action-based artistic research, employing qualitative materials and autoethnographical approaches, rich data was generated. The findings emphasize the importance of personal engagement, embodiment, and authentic exchange as catalysts for transformation within performative encounters. Through this investigation, the thesis aims to contribute to the development of sustainable approaches to performance-making that facilitate profound and meaningful human experiences in an era marked by unprecedented societal and environmental challenges. ISBN:978-91-8104-107-1

Pamela Breda’s (Digital Arts) contribution "Notes On Artificial Intelligence And The Rise Of New Images" explores how hyper-realistic computer-generated images (CGI) reshape our perception of reality and its implications for human creativity. Her considerations stem from an ongoing interdisciplinary artistic research project that combines positions from visual cultural studies, cognitive psychology, and perceptual theory with historical perspectives. Breda’s contribution reflects on the historical background of CGI, its influence on various domains of individual and collective life, and its philosophical implications, her contribution provides current viewpoints on the position of AI and its past implications.

Thomas Ballhausen's (author and philosopher) and Elena Peytchinska's (Institute of Fine Arts & Media Art – Stage and Film Design) contribution "Herbarium of Words: Literary Style at the Scale of a Street" artistically explores the interrelations of space, language, and literature and takes us on a walk through Vienna’s streets. The herbarium serves as a point of departure for historical observations, which is seen as a form of subjective and personal archiving of urban experiences by means of linguization. Their performative approach combines film stills, poetry, and theoretical backgrounds to transform the boundaries of text and bibliographic formats.

Research Document of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023. BA Photography. The research paper serves as a base for understanding the memories on a case of a person with dementia and their connections to the medium of photography. Photography is used as an attempt to retrieve my grandmother’s autobiographical memories which are often hard to retrieve. It is based on the assumption that every memory, no matter how vague, is still accessible by restoring to a proper process, similar to the latent image on the photographic film that becomes visible only after appropriate processing. Based on existing experimental memory research I constructed a method of finding a cue that can trigger specific memories in a conversation. Photographic images from the past were used as a base of the conversation. In most cases, they didn’t directly trigger involuntary memory, but they served as a starting point for a conversation, allowing my grandmother to start actively thinking about a period of her life. Due to dementia, the responses within one conversation were often repeated, yet after some time, the chain reaction of retrieving memories allowed her to remember some specific details. Her understanding of the fragility of memories was constantly present. On multiple occasions, she expressed that an artificial device, such as photography or writing, should be used to preserve them. The research doesn’t give a complete understanding of how memories and their retrieval work in general, but it gives a better understanding of how it can efficiently be done with my grandmother. The process I developed can be applied to other people if properly adjusted to them. I believe that essentially what counts is not what kind of cue we choose, but that we patiently take time to listen and guide conversations with some previous knowledge about their past.