Research Catalogue

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 until summer 2020. I exposed relief and improvised sculptures made with industrial paints, as well as found objects, 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. Someone collected the relief. 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 performance 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, and other basic human rights, such as safety and liberty, due to their political beliefs and related activities, if any. 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 by authoritarians. Since 2013, 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. This happened with the theft of my personal details, specifically my Greek driver's license number, by Italians, in Amsterdam, in the winter of 2020. My number was used on three fake Italian driver's licenses,in my name known as (aka), for criminal activity in the UK. My name known as (aka) was also used on three fake Italian passports for fictitious female Albanian citizens. Notably, Roberto Fiore, Forza Nuova's leader, inherited briefly Alessandra Mussolini's post in the EU parliament. All the more so, after mediation with the Albanian government, the Italian government settled in the autumn of 2024 one remaining fake Italian passport for a fictitious Albanian citizen, probably in connection with Golden Dawn, who had their own three MPs in the EU parliament. Rumours have it that Fiore was once upon a time an MI6 agent. It is confirmed that he has ties with the British National Party (BNP), the British XRW component. Drawing on the philosophical notion of impossible objects, the works attempted an indirect postcolonial critique: a suggestion for alternative, autonomous and communitarian lifestyles; and a performative metaphor for global refugees of all kinds. At the time, in autumn 2019, I had attended an environmental protest in Amsterdam that was generally peaceful. Investigatory research with artworks, some of it carried out in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, where I was a philosophy student, from 2017 until late 2019, and remained until the beginning of autumn 2020. I did not have student insurance, as it was obligatory, because I was covered by the NHS through EHIC (European Community coverage), while the UK was still in the EU. I didn't have travel insurance either. A Dutch travel insurance, under the reference number E111, was opened by unknowns on my behalf in the summer of 2020, but was closed as fraudulent after I reported to the Dutch fraud authority. Presentation of work in progress. I have one-sixteenth Italian ancestry from a great grandfather on my father's family's side. His first name was Gianni. Locals in Greece, where he moved in the nineteenth century, used his Italian first name to create a Greek surname in order to Hellenicise him. The reasons for leaving his native Italy to go to Greece then are unknown; so is his Italian surname. See exposition in connection with "The Origins of the Game", "The Loot" and "XRW (Implicature)".

The research subgroup SPACES OF ARTIST EDUCATION focuses on exploring the relationships between artists’ pedagogies, educational spaces, and learning environments in artist education. The key interest of the subgroup is to investigate how different spaces influence, facilitate and regulate interaction, communication and ways of teaching and learning both at art universities and in non-institutional settings. The subgroup aims to gather colleagues from diverse artistic disciplines and research backgrounds to discuss the spatial, material, bodily, performative and institutional aspects of teaching art practice, as well as their connections with educational policies, relations of power, traditions of artist education, and the very ideas about pedagogy and didactics, mastery, knowing, art, creativity, resources, accessibility, space and place.

This thesis emerges as an exploration of the multifaceted nature of music, identity, and the enduring spirit of a people living through profound challenges. Anchored in autoethnographic reflection, it offers a contemplative journey into how sound becomes a vessel for presence, a mirror for resilience, and a space for transformation. Through music, this inquiry seeks not merely to articulate personal narratives but to connect them with the shared pulse of a collective memory—a memory shaped by the ongoing realities of displacement and the longing for freedom, as experienced by Palestinians wherever they are in the world. At the heart of this research lie three case studies that illuminate the potential of music: Sonic Exile, where traditional Arabic modalities and experimental soundscapes dissolve into a single, resonating voice; Echos from Bethlehem, an improvisational encounter with Palestinian Nay master Faris Ishaq that brings forth a meditative state of being wholly present in sound and spirit; and the work of the Amwaj Choir, where human voice rises above cultural and physical confines, embodying a living, enduring presence. The findings suggest that music is not a static act but a living practice—an unfolding dialogue between tradition and innovation, self and other, silence and sound. Improvisation, as a way of being, becomes a method of both reflection and resistance, enabling a deeper connection to the present moment while engaging with the complexity of the past. The research reveals music’s profound capacity to heal, to resist, and to imagine new pathways for freedom and belonging. Rather than offering definitive conclusions, this thesis extends invitations: to listen, to witness, and to remain open to the spaces where sound and silence meet, where identity and memory evolve, and where the human spirit, despite all, continues to create and endure.

The thesis Architecture of democracy focouses on the relationship between architecture and democracy and describes the word combination - a neologism in (Slovak and Czech) language - Architecture of Democracy. My assumption is that on the one hand, it is architecture that has the ability to influence social events and co-create the democracy that takes place in it. On the other hand, it is democracy that determines the conditions for architecture, architects articulate the ethos of the political era. Architecture here becomes not only an aesthetic medium, but its ethical function is synergistically applied. Can we notice this relationship between architecture and democracy? Is it really the fact that architecture can support the functioning of democracy? And does democracy have the ability to be transcribed into architecture? What tools does it use for this? As the main method, I create the method of the Barometer of Democracy Architecture, which is inspired by german-swiss politological instrument Democracy barometer. There the freedom and the equality are functional only in balance with the control. This equation allows us to look at architectural buildings through 9 properties, in which I perceive areas where architecture and democracy interact: 1. individual freedoms, 2. public freedoms, 3. mutual ties 4. transparency 5. participation 6. representation, 7. restrictions, 8. security, 9. competition. In the next step, I apply the Barometer of Democracy architecture to two buildings, the current seat of the Chamber of Deputies and the former seat of the Federal Assembly. For this application it is necessary to bring closer their short but competitive period, when both buildings were possible candidates for the democratic parliament of the new state of the Czech Republic in 1993. By following the views of differenet participants, decision-making committees, political discussions and the views of the professional and non-professional public, but also in comparison with the parliaments of the world and alternative student projects, several specificities of the current seat of the Chamber of Deputies in the palace complex in the Malá Strana will be clarified. In the final discussion, I will try to use Barometer of Democracy architecture as a heuristic tool that will try to articulate a possible future development scenarios. In the last step, I present student alternative projects and also my project, a winner in a public architectural competition for the reconstruction of the vestibule and entrance areas of the Ministry of Industry and Trade in Prague, in which I work with tree values freedom, equality and control in architectural way. Dizertačná práca sa snaží vysledovať vzťah medzi architektúrou a demokraciou a popísať tak slovné spojenie - novotvar v našom jazyku - Architektúra demokracie. Mojím predpokladom je, že na jednej strane je to architektúra, ktorá má schopnosť ovplyvňovať spoločenské deje a spoluutvárať demokraciu, ktorá sa v nej odohráva. Na strane druhej je to demokracia, ktorá určuje podmienky architektúre, nastavuje (nie len legislatívny rámec), v ktorom architekti artikulujú étos doby. Architektúra sa tu stáva nielen estetickým médiom ale synergicky je uplatňovaná jej etická funkcia. Dokážeme tento vzťah architektúry a demokracie vysledovať? Je to skutočne tak, že architektúra dokáže podporiť fungovanie demokracie? A má demokracia schopnosť prepísať sa do architektúry? Aké nástroje k tomu používa? Ako hlavnú metódu vytváram optiku Barometer architektúry demokracie, ktorý je inšpirovaný politologickým nemecko-švajčiarskym Barometrom demokracie. Tu je na miskách váh sloboda a rovnosť funkčná jedine v rovnováhe s kontrolou. Touto rovnicou je možné nahliadať na architektonické stavby skrze 9 vlastností, v ktorých vnímam oblasti, kde architektúra a demokracia navzájom interagujú : 1. individuálne slobody, 2. verejné slobody, 3. vzájomné väzby 4. transparencia 5. participácia 6. reprezentácia, 7. obmedzenia, 8. bezpečnosť, 9. súťaže. V ďalšom kroku aplikujem Barometer architektúry demokracie (BAD) na dve stavby, súčasné sídlo Poslaneckej snemovne a bývalé sídlo Federálneho zhromaždenia. Aby táto aplikácia bola možná, je dobré ozrejmiť proces a dôvody ich výberu. Obe budovy boli možnými adeptami na demokratický parlament nového štátu Českej republiky. V sledovaní pohľadov dobových aktérov, rozhodovacích komisií, politických diskusií a náhľadu odbornej a laickej verejnosti, ale i v porovnaní s parlametmi sveta a alternatívnymi projektmi študentov, sa objasnia viaceré špecifiká súčasneho sídla Poslaneckej snemovne v komplexe palácov na Malej Strane. V záverečnej diskusii sa pokúsim BAD použiť ako nástroj heuristický, ktorý sa pokúsi nasvetliť možné budúce scenáre rozvoja týchto stavieb. V ďalších krokoch prichádzam s aplikáciou na alternatívne študentské projekty a taktiež so svojím autorským návrhom vo verejnej architektonickej súťaži na rekonštrukciu vestibulu a vstupných priestorov Ministerstva priemyslu a obchodu v Prahe, v ktorých zadanie predznamenávalo architektonickú prácu so slobodou, rovnosťou a kontrolou. Contributor (graphical support): Matěj Hanauer, Petra Roubalová, Studio DIP The doctoral thesis supervisor: prof. Mgr. akad. arch. Roman Brychta The doctoral thesis consultant: doc. Mgr. Cyril Říha Ph.D.

Turów is an active open-pit brown coal mine located in the ‘Black Triangle’—a once sensationally polluted industrial region in Central Europe roughly contiguous with the brown-coal belt of Southern Poland, former East Germany and the Czech Republic. The mine, which fell into Polish jurisdiction after the fall of the Soviet Union, epitomises a transnational environmental conflict. Despite the encroaching effects of the Turów mine on its neighbouring European states and its inhabitants, the Polish government refuses to stop coal extraction. The dispute has generated a lot of media and activist attention in past years, but also raises eminent questions about how to make sense of the complexities and contradictions entangled with various regimes of energy. As the human faculties are poorly trained to register and to think meaningfully about the timescales of extraction and its distributed effects, this contribution comes as an invitation to experience energy entanglements otherwise. Challenging the flatness of the common dispute as portrayed in the media, we focus attention on the undercurrents flowing beneath the logics of public discourses about ‘clean’ and ‘green’ transitions and open pathways to sense metabolic flows of energy that permeate and shapeshift in environmental media—over time and space—and ultimately become us. To help us on the way, we ferment vegetables and drink nettle tea sourced from the mining region as a collective, metabolic practice. We add salt to slow down the passing of time. We conserve, observe and finally ingest to highlight the porosity and intimacy of geo-social relations and viscerally process their toxic commonalities.

This paper examines emerging theories of perception and their relation to metabolic processes and presents the interactive installation Guilty Pleasures, informed by these theoretical principles. The metabolic nature of perception is particularly apparent in the experiences relating to the oral cavity, and this work explores this through an intra-oral electronic interface, combined with other modalities for enacting illusory sensations of eating, together with the exploration of the phenomenology of craving and the pica condition.