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Debris (Enlightenment Panel no 2) (2026) Zoe Panagiota (aka Betty) Nigianni
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 2020, Forza Nuova, the Italian affiliate of the Greek Golden Dawn, with contacts in the Middle East, specifically Hezbollah, 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 four 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 four fake Italian passports for fictitious female Albanian citizens, succeeding two fake Albanian and a fake Kosovo passports for three of the four Greek teenage users, with different details than the fake Italian ones, which three of the four teenagers had: the youngest one, also had another fake Albanian, preceding the fake Kosovo, again with different details than the other fakes she had. A deceased Belgian filmmaker's, Chantal Akerman's, life and health insurance was falsified by the use of the two fake Albanian passports in 2018 and extended with the fake Kosovo, for the youngest, in 2019. Forza Nuova is suspected of being connected to two abductions: one domestic of an Italian citizen circa 2020 and one in Holland of a Spanish citizen circa 2022. Notably, Roberto Fiore, Forza Nuova's neo-fascist 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. Italian Jews, including Greco-Italian Jews, were persecuted by the Catholics and almost exterminated in the late nineteenth century. My great grandfather, from my father's side, with the first name Gianni, went to my native Greece, from the North of Italy, around that time, He became Hellenicised and adopted the Greek Orthodox religion. We don't know his surname. The Jews is the archetypical diasporic population historically speaking. The Holocaust and the Slavery past are the black marks of modern historical times. 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. Dutch travel insurance, under the reference number E111, was opened by unknowns on my behalf in the summer of 2020, to cover the expenses of routine women's healthcare and family planning tests, but was closed as fraudulent after I reported to the Dutch fraud authority that I didn't open it myself; neither I had any knowledge about who might have done that. The exposition also showcases and juxtaposes a performative video, drawings and other visual art, by "Mohammed", aka 'Onzedouze', an investigator, who turned his hand to art, in order to record and communicate, in an improvised, codified , but still artistic manner, what was of interest to him with regards to a relevant investigation. The title "Enlightenment Panel" comes from Peter Sloterdijk's 'Critique of Cynical Reason', published in 1983, which critically discusses philosophical and popular cynicism. See exposition, also in connection with expositions under 'Art and Activism Exposed as Research Blog'.
open exposition
The Loot (2026) Zoe Panagiota (aka Betty) Nigianni
Islington studio flat 4, at 14 Barnsbury Road, London, 2022, privately rented. Interior design and styling, as art installation. Looted, 2024. Investigatory research with artworks, 2023-24. Interactive research blog. The exposition aims to highlight the role of women within an interwoven narrative about a complex and international criminal case. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loot_(magazine) My personal belongings were still at the property for two months, after I left on 27 March 2024 and was asked to collect them by 3 or 4 April from Woolwich. After I left, the landlords moved in two or three under aged, who I have never met, so that they pretend to be my daughters. Subsequently, they must have been 'removing' them one by one over the last few months and until October 2024. The company behind 14 Barnsbury Road was deemed illegal through the courts, on 22 April, 2024, shortly after I was forced to leave at the end of March. The maintenance employed many Polish citizens, all dressed in black with black caps, adopting the XRW supporters' fashion code. The household of tenants was mixed and multicultural, but mainly British natives, with the exception of a couple from Hong-Kong, an American citizen, and myself, a naturalised British citizen, originally from Greece. Twenty-two (22) and twenty-three (23) photographs, including two (2) plus one (1) of myself: NOT a missing person, from the 2022-2023 period in the eventually looted, in spring 2024, Islington studio. Twenty-five (25) missing persons for twenty-five (25) non-EU and EU fake passports with my family's Greek surname; plus one (1) that might also be connected with a missing Greek teenager, therefore twenty-six (26). Two (2) more missing persons for two (2) more fake passports without my family's surname: an Italian and a Romanian name. Two (2), plus one (1) targeted cultural producers: the anti-fascist Greek musician, Pavlos Fyssas, aka Killah P. (domestic); the Belgian filmmaker of Jewish origins, Chantal Akerman (global), who lived and worked in France, as well as the US, and whose personal details, specifically her life insurance policy and her medical file, got stolen in connection with the case, can be added to the toll of two (2) deceased. My personal details, name known as and artistic name, as well as numbers connected to my personal details, were stolen, too, while I (post-global) was targeted as a cultural producer, an artist and former academic. Was I going to be the third victim? Golden Dawn were originally pagans, drawing from the ancient Greek mythology and ritualistic practices, including human sacrifice. The visual imagery and the art included in the photographs is influenced by the marketing and advertising industry; I brushed shoulders briefly with students in the creative industries teaching at the Winchester School of Art. I used this an ironic commentary on Golden Dawn trying unsuccessfully to create a brand through propaganda, not political marketing. The art world has been traditionally male-dominated. This has not changed dramatically in contemporary art. Female artists have sometimes adopted male attitudes, or personas, to break into the art scene; see Sarah Lucas and Tracey Emin from the YBA movement. I hold the view that art is not gendered, that there is no art for women or so-called women's art. Good art transcends such categories, tapping into more universal experiences. Saying this, I would like to quote Nancy Spero, who doesn't crudely distinguish between male and female art, as follows:"What if the default gender for 'artist' were female? What if, when we looked at a work by a woman, we said to ourselves, "That is art," and when we looked at a work by a man, we automatically identified it in our minds as 'men's art'?" In 1999, I wrote a long essay about the architectural uncanny, which I submitted as my graduation thesis for my first MA in architectural theory. I called it "Space as a 'Bad' Object: A criminal investigation on the notion of space". I got inspiration from detective novels and real-life crime stories. The long essay was about the role of architectural space in crime. It was unsupervised until submission: I received a distinction by a Bartlett staff member. I took the digital photographs in conceptual adherence with that essay. I was a postgraduate philosophy student 9/2017-11/2019 at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. In this exposition, I include new photographs from a series of digital photography called "Forensics", taken with my mobile phone, after I was forced to leave the Islington property I was renting, on 27 March 2024. I gave the photography series that name, because it has served the purpose of investigating, recording and tracking a crime, for which architectural space, such as private rentals, has been used. For Chris, my former neighbour, who was suddenly transferred by his employer, from London, where his daughter lives, to somewhere outside of London; and for Lawrence, a second generation immigrant from Nigeria, whose temporary post was prematurely terminated, though he was planning to return to his legal studies. And for Ali. And for Oliver, also my former neighbour. In memory of Howard, also a tenant at Bellview, and former neighbour. To all those who don't just "play" the cultural and racial diversity clause; they don't just rely on identitarian politics, because the class problem has not been resolved for them, either; but also because generalising on identity (for instance religion, race, gender) is an unsophisticated way of preventing strategic and/or tactical alliances, necessary for protecting the rights of minorities or other underprivileged groups and populations. Saying this, the UK must stand up against racism, especially against people of African descent. Special thanks to two white British men, who worked in France ("Fiennes") and Spain ("Clooney"). A Nigerian was among the Golden Dawn victims of assassination in Greece. I was listening frequently to Massive Attack, a British trip-hop band, when I was living in Islington. Sophie Calle is a French writer and photographer, working on themes of identity, intimacy and everyday existence. Her work is partly inspired by the detective fiction genre. She wrote an art book, to accompany some of her photography, called "Double Game", inspired by her written correspondence with the fiction writer Paul Auster.
open exposition
ELISABETH LAASONEN BELGRANO - PORTFOLIO (2026) Elisabeth Laasonen Belgrano
An overview of Elisabeth Belgrano's artistic / performance / research and teaching in higher arts education 2004-ongoing
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recent publications >

Quantifying Critical Posture: A Diagnostic Analysis of Art Writing, 1980–2025 - Formalizing Post-Hermeneutic Phenomenology (2026) Dorian Vale
This dataset accompanies A Quantitative Analysis of Critical Posture in Art Writing, 1980–2025 and provides a structured corpus of twenty influential critical texts spanning four decades of art discourse. The dataset operationalizes Post-Interpretive Criticism (PIC) by applying a system of diagnostic indices designed to measure linguistic posture rather than interpretive content. Rather than evaluating what artworks mean, the dataset examines how critical language behaves in proximity to aesthetic encounter. Each text is coded according to a set of phenomenologically grounded indices—including Rhetorical Density (RD), Interpretive Load Index (ILI), Viewer Displacement Ratio (VDR), Ethical Proximity Score (EPS), Institutional Alignment Indicator (IAI), and newly introduced supplemental indices—capturing patterns of extraction, restraint, viewer positioning, closure, and institutional mediation. The dataset spans critical writing from 1980 to 2025, covering academic art history, museum wall texts, catalog essays, journal criticism, and experimental critical prose. All texts are analyzed using transparent, repeatable coding protocols, enabling comparative analysis across historical periods, institutional contexts, and stylistic regimes. The resulting quantitative profiles reveal structural shifts in art criticism, including the rise of interpretation-heavy language, increasing institutional alignment, and the erosion or preservation of phenomenological restraint. This dataset is intended for researchers in aesthetics, art history, museology, discourse analysis, and digital humanities. It supports replication, extension, and methodological critique of Post-Interpretive Criticism, while also serving as a proof-of-concept for formalized phenomenological analysis—demonstrating how phenomenological insights can be rendered measurable without reducing artworks or encounters to data objects. By treating criticism itself as the object of analysis, the dataset contributes a novel methodological resource for studying the ethics, structure, and historical evolution of art discourse. Post-Interpretive Criticism, Stillmark Theory, Message-Transfer Theory, MTT, Misplacement, Displacement, Aesthetic Displacement Theory, Theory of Misplacement, Absential Aesthetics, Witness Aesthetics, Hauntmark Theory, Spiritual Criticism, Presence-Based Criticism, Custodianship of Art, Art as Ontology, Aesthetic Recursion Theory, Aesthetic Recursion, Viewer as Evidence Theory, Restraint in front of art, Moral proximity, Interpretive silence, Erasure as ethics, Temporal scarcity, Silence as method, Ontology of beauty, Aesthetic mercy, Language as violence, Art encounter ethics, Epistemology of witness, Philosophy of Art, Aesthetics, Art Theory, Contemporary Aesthetics, Comparative Aesthetics, Phenomenology and Art, Ethics in Art Criticism, Interpretation and Meaning, Criticism and Reception Theory, Epistemology of Art, Visual Culture Studies, Dorian Vale, Founder of Post-Interpretive Criticism, Post-Aesthetic Critic, Independent Philosopher of Art, Museum of One, Art Writer and Theorist, Aesthetic Philosopher, Custodian of Witness Aesthetics, Spiritual Aesthetics Movement, The Doctrine of Post-Interpretive Criticism, The Custodian’s Oath, The Canon of Witnesses, Art as Truth, Art as Presence, The Viewer as Evidence, Interpretation vs. Witnessing, Language as Custody, Erasure as Afterlife, Museum of One Manifesto, Alternative art criticism, New art criticism movement, Ethical art theory, Criticism beyond interpretation, Slow looking philosophy, Quiet philosophy of art, Radical art restraint, Witness over interpretation, Interpretive Restraint, The Journal of Post-Interpretive criticism, The Journal of Post-Interpretive criticism ISSN 2819-7232), The Journal of Post-Interpretive Criticism (Q136530009), Epoché Fidelity Index (EFI) (Q138018710), Phenomenological Phase Alignment Score (PPAS) (Q138018807), Residue Engagement Restraint Ratio (RERR) (Q138018901), Quasi-Subject Agency Recognition Index (QSARI) (Q138018929), Dialectical Circulation Index (DCI) (Q138018950)
open exposition
Extending Post-Interpretive Criticism: Additional Diagnostic Indices for Enhanced Phenomenological Fidelity in Art Criticism (2026) Dorian Vale
This paper extends Post-Interpretive Criticism (PIC) by introducing a second layer of diagnostic indices designed to evaluate the phenomenological fidelity of art criticism. While the original PIC framework measured ethical posture and linguistic force through indices such as Rhetorical Density, Interpretive Load, Viewer Displacement, Ethical Proximity, and Institutional Alignment, the present extension formalizes how phenomenological operations themselves are preserved or violated in critical language. Five additional indices are proposed: Epoché Fidelity Index, Phenomenological Phase Alignment Score, Residue Engagement Restraint Ratio, Quasi-Subject Agency Recognition Index, and Dialectical Circulation Index. Together, these metrics assess whether criticism maintains bracketing, respects the distinction between work and aesthetic object, preserves the viewer’s constitutive role, sustains the open dialectic of aesthetic experience, and avoids unrestrained claims over experiential residue. The framework does not evaluate artworks or interpretive correctness, but measures linguistic behavior in relation to phenomenological structure. By stratifying ethical posture and phenomenological fidelity into distinct diagnostic layers, the paper advances a formal, repeatable methodology for analyzing art criticism while remaining non-prescriptive and non-extractive. The result is a mathematically constrained phenomenological toolset capable of diagnosing when critical language honors or violates the conditions of aesthetic encounter. 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), The Journal of Post-Interpretive Criticism (Q136530009), Canon of Witnesses (Q136565881),Interpretive Load Index (ILI) (Q137709526), Viewer Displacement Ratio (VDR) (Q137709583) , Ethical Proximity Score (EPS) (Q137709600) , Institutional Alignment Indicator (IAI) (Q137709608), Post-Hermeneutic Phenomenology (Q137711946)
open exposition
A Quantitative Analysis of Critical Posture in Art Writing, 1980-2025 (Dataset - 20 Critical Texts 1980–2025) v.2 (2026) Dorian Vale
This dataset presents a quantitative diagnostic analysis of critical posture in contemporary art writing across a forty-five-year span (1980–2025). Using the Post-Interpretive Criticism (PIC) diagnostic framework, twenty influential texts drawn from journals, newspapers, magazines, institutional press releases, and exhibition discourse were coded sentence-by-sentence to examine how critical language positions itself in relation to artworks, viewers, and institutional authority. Five indices were applied: Rhetorical Density (RD), Interpretive Load Index (ILI), Viewer Displacement Ratio (VDR), Ethical Proximity Score (EPS), and Institutional Alignment Indicator (IAI). Rather than evaluating interpretive correctness or aesthetic value, the framework isolates how critical claims are produced—measuring the balance between descriptive encounter and explanatory force, the degree of viewer displacement, the presence or absence of linguistic restraint, and the extent of institutional mediation. The dataset demonstrates that high rhetorical intensity does not necessarily correlate with high interpretive extraction, and that ostensibly “plain” theoretical language frequently produces maximal displacement. Across historical periods, the results reveal recurring postures—verdict-driven criticism, theory-dominated explanation, affective populism, and market-aligned promotion—each identifiable through distinct metric profiles. The findings provide quantitative support for a central claim of Post-Interpretive Criticism: that the ethical stakes of art writing reside not in what criticism concludes, but in how closely it remains to the conditions of encounter. This dataset is offered as a reflective and exploratory diagnostic resource, not a prescriptive model, contributing a formal complement to phenomenological and post-hermeneutic approaches in contemporary aesthetics. 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), The Journal of Post-Interpretive Criticism (Q136530009), Canon of Witnesses (Q136565881),Interpretive Load Index (ILI) (Q137709526), Viewer Displacement Ratio (VDR) (Q137709583) , Ethical Proximity Score (EPS) (Q137709600) , Institutional Alignment Indicator (IAI) (Q137709608), Post-Hermeneutic Phenomenology (Q137711946) ISSN 2819-7232 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. ORCID: 0009-0004-7737-5094
open exposition

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