Research Catalogue

The overall purpose of this thesis is to perform and propose diffractive methodology as a means for exploring, reading, learning, and understanding systematic theological discourses beyond binary and oppositional thinking. This methodology is based on performative strategies and feminist new materialist theory, with a specific focus on Karen Barad’s ethico-onto-epistemological agential realism theory; it can also be considered an alternative to a more traditional academic reflexive methodological approach, thus allowing for an infinite number of explorative methods to be developed within its umbrella definition of diffractive methodology. The diffractive analysis in this study is shaped as an intra-active entangled reading of Graham Ward’s Engaged Theology, through Erika Fischer-Lichte’s Performance Aesthetics, and the method I call Voicing-as-Performative-Theology. This thesis is divided into three parts. Part I unfolds relevant terminology. Part II performs the actual diffractive reading analysis. Part III consists of a concluding essay summarizing the outcome of this study’s diffractive reading, as well as opening up suggestions for how diffractive methodology can be applied for developing more performative and diffractive methods as part of future theological research. The thesis will be presented at University College Stockholm (EHS), in January 8 2024.

In this work, I want to show some excerpts from my grandmother's patriarchal resistance. The narrative and the photographs will be at the center. They will clarify Esters Lindberg's attempt to negotiate and renegotiate her position within the usual norm. The narratives and photographs will hopefully give an expanded understanding of what it could be like to live as a woman with a desire for freedom in Sweden during the early 20th century.

With Operative Fiction, we introduce a practice of spatial storytelling driven by the dynamics of prepositions rather than verb-centric narratives. Here, the textual body becomes embedded in the medial spatiality of a printed book, digital interface, or performance space. The physical or virtual site of the text thus becomes integral to the storytelling process. Spatial production methods merge into the texture of the text itself; simultaneously, the text reshapes the unfolding of space, place, and site. The material and procedural qualities of the text actively engage and activate the digital interface as a site of narrative unfolding, intertwining textual and spatial experiences. We begin our first exercise in Operative Fiction with Thomas Ballhausen’s What the Probes Report, transposing the text from the printed page (FLORA, 2020) into the digital interface of a Research Catalogue exposition. The non-human protagonist – emerging through and evolving within the text – disrupts subject-centred narration. It becomes entangled in the linguistic and scenic fabric of its own development, thus, through its procedural logic and function, becoming an active agent in its own staging. A line, speculatively re-enacting the machine's operations, simultaneously traces the topographic texture of the digital landscape. Using a drawing technique typically applied in performance design drafts, we explore the friction between staging and spacing by deploying minimally visible images and textual cues of direction. The operational plasticity of these technical images enables dramaturgical intensities to gather (staging), while also allowing the story to disperse through the digital architecture of the exposition into hyperlinked virtual spaces (spacing). Alongside a linear reading mode, which follows the story’s original chronology, we propose a contingent reading mode activated via time codes. These time codes function both as compositional elements within the drawing and as hypertextual links. They suggest the duration and shape of a staged terrain, occasionally layering multiple time zones within a single topographic entity. In this way, the timelines act as more-than-texts, generating a multiplicity of positions and proximities, and intertwining temporal aspects of space with the speculative grammar of the story.

Editorial of the inaugural edition of ARJAZZ Journal for Artistic Research in Jazz (May, 2025)

This exposition contains the complete artistic output and accompanying reflective documentation of the artistic research doctoral project I conducted at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna between 2021 and 2024. Free improvisation in music offers a unique field for exploring how artistic practices develop through embodied engagement, critical reflection, and collaborative experimentation. This research focuses particularly on the process of practicing within this context, tracing the evolution of specific exercises and preparatory methods. These were initially tested in collaborative projects with other musicians and later refined through a series of workshops. A central theme that emerged throughout this process is the role of reflection—both musical and verbal—as a vital component of artistic development. This realization culminated in the project Performing Reflection, which established a dialogical relationship between musical improvisation and reflective discourse. The work contributes to a deeper understanding of how structured exercises and reflective practices can support and expand the art of free improvisation, offering new perspectives on its preparation, pedagogy, and performance.

This research consists of the artistic and organizational process of creating a workshop called “Experimental music for children”. In this exposition you can read about how I and my fellow musicians created a workshop for children through eight workshop sessions that took place between February 2024 and January 2025. This resulted in an interactive workshop with children about co-creation, exploration and art making. In addition, this research explores how such a project affects my personal artistic development. In this exposition, you can read about the construction and development of the workshops, and how they evolved into a concrete artistic project. The data collected from the workshops was organised through the merging of critical reflection and analysis. The theoretical part of this research is based on literature and observations of experimental music, art for children and similar experimental music projects. These references serve as material for developing and concretising the artistic vision while shaping the project and ensuring its place in the artistic field as well as the realm of educational research.