Research Catalogue

Illustration as research from within the field is of relatively new practice. The illustrators discourse on representation (Yannicopoulou & Alaca 2018 ), theory (Doyle, Grove and Sherman 2018, Male 2019, Gannon and Fauchon 2021), and critical writing on illustration practice was hardly found before The Journal of Illustration was first issued in 2014, followed by artistic research through illustration (Black, 2014; Rysjedal, 2019; Spicer, 2019). This research project developed as response to a rise in hate crime towards refugees and the targeting of European Jews in recent decade. A pilot project (This Is a Human Being 2016-2019) treated how narratives of the Holocaust may avoid contributing to overwriting of history or cultural appropriation. Asking how illustration in an expanded approach may communicate profound human issues typically considered unrepresentable, this new project hopes to explore representation and the narratives of “us” and “the others” in the contemporary world through illustration as starting-point for cross-disciplinary projects. The participants from different disciplines, have interacted democratically on common humanist themes to explore the transformative role of illustration in contemporary communication. our projects should afford contemplation of illustration as an enhanced, decelerated way of looking; and drawing as a process for understanding - a way of engaging in understanding the other, as much as expressing one’s own needs (McCartney, 2016). This AR project consisted of three symposia and three work packages, and the artistic research unfolded in the symbiosis of these elements. Our investigation of illustration across media and materials continues as dissemination and exhibitions even after the conclusion of the work packages in 2024.

A visual, emotional & conceptual archive of Performative Reharsals and Performative installations that anticipated the LGP Method's integrative logic by Transdisciplinary artist. This archive links 2019-2025 anti autobiographic artistic process trough creative collaborations. This article presents a series of digital collages created through the daily reworking of personal archives—photos, performance records, and installations. These images are not final works but a catalogue of affective documents in motion. They explore the blurred boundaries between memory, artwork, and archive. This visual practice is part of the ongoing evolution of the LGP Method, showing how transformation and process are central to its structure. After the method's formalization, a new identity—New Art—emerged, emphasizing mobility, reinvention, and the spiritual-emotional dimension of creative work. This archive also acknowledges the valuable collaborations with artists, performers, and institutions who engaged with different stages of the process, activating the method from multiple perspectives.

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.

The Living Lexicon: Post-Interpretive Criticism – First Edition By Dorian Vale Museum of One | Written at the Threshold The Living Lexicon is the official glossary of Post-Interpretive Criticism — a literary movement that displaces interpretation in favor of presence, restraint, and custodial witnessing. It is not written to standardize, but to protect. These entries are not mere definitions; they are ethical and poetic coordinates. From Threshold to Witness, from Stillmark to Felt Proof, the lexicon outlines the sacred vocabulary of a genre committed to reverence over reading, and presence over performance. This document anchors the critic’s posture, language, and responsibility. It guides without fixing. It names without claiming. It orients those entering the terrain so they do not mistake silence for absence, or discipline for detachment. In a critical culture flooded with noise, The Living Lexicon restores the weight of words. Vale, Dorian. The Living Lexicon: Post-Interpretive Criticism – First Edition. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17111649 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. Post-Interpretive Criticism, Aesthetic Theory, Art Criticism, Philosophy of Art, Ethical Criticism, Literary Movements, Witnessing, Silence in Criticism, Contemporary Aesthetics, Poetic Philosophy, Witness, Threshold, Restraint, Stillmark, Hauntmark, Silence, Viewer-as-Evidence, Ethical Proximity, Custodianship 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)

Absential Aesthetics Theory On Ghosts, Absence, and the Afterlife of Art A Complete Theoretical Framework by Dorian Vale What happens to a work of art after it disappears — and why does it linger? In this seminal treatise, Dorian Vale unveils the full theoretical scaffolding of Absential Aesthetics, a core pillar of the Post-Interpretive Movement. This framework reconceives absence not as a void to be filled, but as a residue that haunts, instructs, and remains. Drawing from metaphysical inquiry, trauma studies, and post-structural aesthetics, Vale argues that absence is not the opposite of presence — it is a continuation of it. From lost artifacts and sealed objects to erased histories and unspeakable memories, this theory reframes absence as aesthetic substance. The missing becomes legible through its consequences, not its form. Across three theoretical movements — Erasure, Afterlife, and Hauntmark — Vale introduces critical constructs such as The Aesthetic Ghost, Negative Presence, and Lingering Witness. These ideas challenge visual primacy, proposing that what art does after it vanishes may be more ethically potent than what it does when it is seen. Absential Aesthetics Theory is not a speculative musing — it is a structured philosophy of art’s most elusive force: what remains after it is no longer there. A vital contribution to contemporary art theory, this treatise opens a door for curators, critics, and philosophers who seek to engage art not just through its objecthood, but through its departure. Vale, Dorian. Absential Aesthetics Theory: On Ghosts, Absence, and the Afterlife of Art A Complete Theoretical Framework. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17052070 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. 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) Absential Aesthetics, Dorian Vale, Post-Interpretive Criticism, theory of absence in art, aesthetic ghosts, art afterlife, disappearance in art, witness and erasure, trauma and aesthetics, art and memory, aesthetic haunting, art as residue, invisibility in art theory, negative presence, art criticism and absence, disappearance as ontology, art of the unseen, sacred erasure, ethics of loss in art, non-object based aesthetics, hauntmark theory, afterlife of the artwork

Art as Truth: A Treatise By Dorian Vale — A Foundational Text of the Post-Interpretive Movement Art as Truth is the culminating philosophical treatise of the Post-Interpretive Movement. In this work, Dorian Vale reframes the aesthetic encounter not as a process of interpretation, but as an ontological event. Art is not understood, solved, or decoded — it is witnessed. And in that witnessing, it reveals not a meaning, but a truth. Drawing from existential philosophy, phenomenology, and metaphysical inquiry, Vale dismantles the idea that art must be representational, symbolic, or referential to matter. Instead, he proposes that presence is the irreducible form of truth in art. The truth of a work lies not in what it says — but in what it becomes in the presence of one who refuses to violate it with meaning. This treatise formalizes Stillmark Theory, where presence replaces permanence, and Absential Aesthetics, where absence, restraint, and unspeakability are themselves forms of knowledge. It is a rejection of both academic overreach and commercial interpretation. In its place, Vale offers a framework that returns ethics, metaphysics, and reverence to the heart of criticism. Art as Truth establishes a new intellectual discipline — one that regards the critic not as a decoder of meaning, but as a custodian of consequence. This work marks a departure from modern and postmodern criticism alike, offering in their place a rigorous, moral, and sacred approach to art. Vale, Dorian. Art as Truth: A Treatise. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17057672 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. 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) Dorian Vale, Art as Truth, Post-Interpretive Criticism, aesthetic truth, Stillmark Theory, Absential Aesthetics, presence in art, ontology of aesthetics, metaphysical art theory, ethics of criticism, art and truth, post-critical aesthetics, philosophy of art, witness-based criticism, new aesthetic movements, moral proximity, non-interpretive art, sacred aesthetics, art as presence, art and being, reverent art writing, truth in contemporary art, phenomenology and art