Research Catalogue

Data Holds Your Truths. The Avatar Complex: I trust your gargoyle id more than I trust you. (2024) author(s): Megan Annette Irusta Cornet published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague

The Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023 BA Photography Within this piece of writing, different styles of writing have been approached as a performance strategy, a guise we humans willingly and unwillingly commit to every day, online and offline. The overarching themes this text seeks to tackle are alienation and escapism; what I think are the prominent can of worms which ooze from the Internet. Double-edged swords; beautiful and horrifyingly ugly. Alienation to oneself as well as alienating others through the digital sphere. With serious regard to the importance of avatar customisation as a form of expression, yet also acknowledging the destruction within it, it is also the very thing which is actively dislocating us from the IRL (in-real-life). The core to understanding who you are online, how you present yourself online, compared to who you are behind the screen. The text’s leading objective is to hypothesise a world where humans are given the option (highly recommended) to extract our online data to make more of a truthful analysis of who we really are. The prevalence of how capitalistic structures only feed alienation more. If the future consists of post-human and/or transhuman existence, by transmitting our data to gargoyle avatars, creatures which will take the form of one’s avatar, gargoyles are said to protect what they serve. A new gargoyle is designed by your data alone. Data anthropomorphism, the Avatar Complex.

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Cultivating Companionship A conversation about cornfields and communities. (2024) author(s): Lina Maria Hülsmann published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague

Our connection to the land is crucial, yet the Anthropocene mindset alienated us from being part of nature. This research paper is a thorough report of fieldwork, map studies, interviews, experiments and theories related to the domain of philosophy, biology, anthropology, sociology and ecology. By consulting a variety of literature resources of renowned thinkers like Donna Haraway, Arturo Escobar and Bruno Latour you share with them to envision the Anthropocene as a fundamental crisis of modernity with an emphasis on the human detachment from nature. Working with the corn plant as a symbol of Anthropocene agriculture, this thesis deals with the topics of community and the importance to embrace biodiversity. Based on a case study in Bersenbrück, a small town in North-West Germany, I raise the alarm about one of the most disputable topics in today’s agriculture industry: monoculture. Since the 1960s the landscape has been dominated by maize being the main cause for the transition from small-scale, self-sufficient farming towards the industrialized production of cornfields. The origins of the cultivation of the maize was regarded to bind together families and communities, today it has a devastating effect on bio-diversity. On a larger scale maize appears to enforce a capitalist structure of food production and is considered one of the largest contributors to the emission of climate change. Further, the research leads to opportunities that evolve out of the current agricultural situation. Material experiments with a waste product of monoculture-maize plantations, testify how a deep interest and curiosity can evolve into spatial design and encompass a ‘new level of esteem’. These spatial and material proposals allow the formation of new relationships between humans and nature, between communities and ecosystems. To ‘cultivating companionship’ expresses optimism and call-to-action in order to contribute to a resilient future where participation as a form of civic engagement and social solidarity is its main core. The concept of companionship became also a tool that results from empathy, sensitivity, care and compassion, building op on a critical lens, aiming to work together within the situation, the site and the inhabitants.

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Blue sky and Wonder, a Landscape without horizon (2024) author(s): Yasmin Kök published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023 BA Fine Arts Summary: Death, ritual, religion, my cultural heritage, I guess I am trying to make sense of it. We share some same questions. We are not sure about the answers we provide. Via condensed nodes, I try to unravel my ‘truth'. As I can predict, this piece of research will make me less sure about myself, and my beliefs. But that is okay. I know these issues will stay uncertain throughout my life. But the topics keep coming back to me daily. Being confronted with many possibilities, and freedom of choice, as far as I believe choices are free, I take a dive. To see death, the dead, from up close, to see someone disappear, fascinates me and at the same time frightens me. It is a bundle of stories. My own and an analysis of stories of others. I research many aspects of death, around death, that goes hand in hand with us. Our existence. My spirituality. My body and mind. I and other, mother, father sister, brother. A goalless search without hierarchy or linear approach.

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Binnen Dansen with a magnifying glass (2024) author(s): Louise Noordam published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023 BA Textile and Fashion Binnen Dansen with a magnifying glass. A journey from within to find my real true self through eczema struggles, stress and societal pressure. This thesis researches the influence of society, trauma and stress on someone’s personality and authenticity and the implications it can bring to your health and well-being. As well as giving a possible solution to overcome and heal. This is done by analysing my personality and behaviour and researching the Dutch societal structure I grew up in. And researching the impact it has had on causing autoimmune eczema that I have suffered with for ten years. Theories from Gabor Maté, Bessel van der Kolk and Sigmund Freud are there to explain and question the causes and influences, as well as teach their perspective. With this thesis, I would like you to know that you are not alone. This is to give hope and motivation to every single person that is struggling and suffering from an autoimmune disease, in particular autoimmune eczema. Or who feels like they are not living life as their most authentic self. This thesis can provide you with insights and knowledge on how to alleviate your pain and, like me, work towards a future free of disease, stress and trauma.

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BITCHES, Beauty standards investigation through the lens of cosmetic surgery, hyperfemininity & self-branding (2024) author(s): Royal Academy of Art, The Hague published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023 BA Photography In deze research paper verken ik het hedendaagse schoonheidsideaal. Ik start mijn onderzoek vanuit een nieuwsgierigheid naar hoe cosmetische chirurgie een plek heeft in de wereld om ons heen, en in mijn eigen leven. Als ondergrond voor mijn onderzoek reageer ik op een aflevering van de podcast DAMN, HONEY waarin sociologe Giselinde Kuipers in gesprek gaat over haar research met betrekking tot het heersende schoonheidsideaal. Daarnaast reflecteer ik op persoonlijke ervaringen uit mijn jeugd en huidige leven. In de loop van het onderzoek verschuift mijn aandacht gedeeltelijk van cosmetische chirurgie naar het schoonheidsideaal en de complexiteit rondom ‘zien en gezien’ worden voor vrouwen(lichamen) in het publiekelijk domein. Naast deze theoretische verkenning plaats ik mijn gedachten in een visueel raamwerk dat bestaat uit relevante fotografie en veelal kritische documentaires over cosmetische chirurgie.

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Archival Resonance (2024) author(s): Marco Dell' Abate published in: Royal Academy of Art, The Hague

The thesis deals with the theme of cultural loss in Salento (South-East of Italy) by investigating 4 different contexts where loss is happening, and how elements of cultural heritage translate and degrade into the contemporary age: • Language, with an investigation of the ancient Grìko language, a tongue of lower Salento, in state of disappearing • The Olive Tree, once a cornerstone of Salentinian agrarian tradition, now subjected to a rapid decay due to the Xylella bacteria, and the political/social inability to deal with the problem • Dry-stone walls, a practice in process of being forgotten. This theme is used as a gateway to talk about embodied cognition, and the impossibility to translate a whole culture in a digital context • Taranta, once a practice of emotional re/expression, now disappeared in its entire- ty as a ritual and only existing as a memory

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