recent activities
Image as Site
(2025)
Ellen J Røed
Devices that produce images, such as cameras and microphones, invite their users to engage with the world by enabling a network of relationships. By appropriating the concept of field from certain discourses of sound art and applying it to the moving image, visual artist Ellen Røed explores, in a series of collaborations, how camera based field recordings might operate across experience, mediation and representation. By considering the moving image as a form of site in itself, the activities of the project consider how moving images can manifest as a form of place on its own terms rather than as a mode of representing reality. The project builds on the capacity of video based art for enabling movement, transience, and body, in other words elements of performance characteristic to site.
Image as Site is an artistic research project at Stockholm University of the Arts (SKH), funded by The Swedish Research Council and SKH.
ESPAÇO E O CORPO: ressignificações a partir do corpo sensível no Farol da Educação da cidade de São Bernardo - MA.
(2025)
DIRLENE DA CUNHA PEREIRA; JANAINA VIANA CORASSA; MAYCON DOUGLAS SILVA DOS SANTOS; ORLANILDO ROCHA CAVALCANTE e ROSANA RODRIGUES DOS SANTOS
Este trabalho, ainda em processo de construção, resulta de uma atividade da disciplina Epistemologia da Cultura, no âmbito do Mestrado Interdisciplinar do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Dinâmicas Sociais, Conexões Artísticas e Saberes Locais da Universidade Federal do Maranhão – UFMA. Emerge da experiência de vivenciar o Farol da Educação de São Bernardo - MA como patrimônio cultural e, simultaneamente, como espaço de criação, memória e reflexão. A investigação se inscreve no campo da pesquisa artística, entendendo que a arte não apenas representa o mundo, mas o interroga e o ressignifica. A proposta metodológica parte da experiência in loco, cujo primeiro momento consistiu na visita ao Farol, ocasião em que se delineou o patrimônio a ser submetido ao processo de ressignificação. Em seguida, elaborou-se um mapa mental que estruturou práticas a serem desenvolvidas no espaço, compreendendo as cartografias afetivas, a escuta performática, a equidade do olhar e a concepção do patrimônio como organismo vivo. Sob a perspectiva da pesquisa artística, entende-se que a produção de conhecimento emerge da experiência situada e da vivência estética, em que corpo, espaço e memória se entrelaçam em processos de criação e reflexão. Nesse horizonte, o estudo dialoga com Pierre Nora, ao tratar o patrimônio como “lugar de memória”; com Clifford Geertz, ao propor a descrição densa das práticas culturais; com Stuart Hall, ao compreender a identidade como processo em permanente reconstrução; e com Julieta Haidar, ao conceber a cultura como campo de significações em disputa. No âmbito da pesquisa artística, a reflexão ancora-se ainda em Henk Borgdorff, e Kathleen Coessens, ao reconhecer a criação como prática situada, ecológica e reflexiva. Dessa forma, a exposição apresenta os percursos de criação metodológica vividos no Farol da Educação, evidenciando como a prática artística possibilita a ressignificação do patrimônio, transformando-o em lugar de memória viva, criação coletiva e produção de conhecimento.
EXPERIÊNCIA SENSORIAL DIRECIONADA: Sons do Buriti, Escutar, Sentir e Criar
(2025)
Eunice Maria de Oliveira
Esta pesquisa propõe uma instalação com foco em aprofundar uma experiência sensorial, para despertar a sensibilidade das pessoas, em São Bernardo/MA, no Balneário Rio Buriti. São abordados elementos da escuta sensível e consciente, como forma de valorização dos sons naturais e culturais do local. Para a execução da prática, realizamos algumas etapas, como: determinar local, dia e o horário da atividade; elaboração de um mapa mental contendo todas as ideias; retomada da leitura do mapa mental com novas impressões individuais, pessoais, subjetivas, objetivas; decidir sobre a ação em si. Nos desdobramentos desta ação, que envolve escutar, sentir e criar, observamos que a paisagem sonora, termo criado por Schafer (2009), possui todos os componentes para a criação e sensibilização das pessoas em relação aos seus próprios territórios. O autor demonstra sua preocupação com a qualidade da escuta, que está cada vez mais ameaçada pelo problema da poluição sonora, por isso a necessidade de que a população tenha consciência dos sons que nos rodeiam.
recent publications
Absential Aesthetics Theory: On Ghosts, Absence, and the Afterlife of Art A Complete Theoretical Framework
(2025)
Dorian Vale
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
(2025)
Dorian Vale
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
Aesthetic Displacement Theory A Treatise on Witness, Alteration, and the Irreversible Encounter
(2025)
Dorian Vale
Aesthetic Displacement Theory
A Treatise on Witness, Alteration, and the Irreversible Encounter
By Dorian Vale
Not all displacement is spatial. Some begins the moment a work is truly witnessed — and cannot return to what it was.
In this seminal treatise, Dorian Vale introduces Aesthetic Displacement Theory, a core pillar within the Post-Interpretive Movement. This theory argues that the true aesthetic event is not the artwork itself, nor even its creation — but the irreversible alteration that occurs at the moment of witness. Once seen with moral proximity, a work can no longer be what it was before. And neither can the viewer.
Drawing from principles of ontology, phenomenology, and ethical custodianship, Vale positions displacement not as a detour from essence, but as a confirmation of encounter. The aesthetic, here, is not defined by beauty, but by its power to alter what it touches without claiming it. Witness becomes both method and consequence.
This treatise offers a comprehensive philosophy for critics, curators, and custodians of art who seek to honor the sacred instability that occurs when meaning is not extracted — but absorbed through presence.
Aesthetic Displacement Theory is not an addition to aesthetics.
It is a recalibration of its purpose.
To displace without owning.
To alter without interpreting.
To remain present in the moment a work becomes unreturnable.
Vale, Dorian. Aesthetic Displacement Theory A Treatise on Witness, Alteration, and the Irreversible Encounter. Museum of One, 2025. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.17056087
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)
Aesthetic Displacement Theory, Dorian Vale, Post-Interpretive Criticism, art philosophy, witness-based criticism, non-interpretive aesthetics, phenomenology of art, ethical art encounter, irreversible art experience, viewer transformation, aesthetic ontology, presence in art, sacred aesthetics, non-possessive criticism, moral proximity in aesthetics, trauma and displacement in art, post-critical theory, alterity in art, aesthetic event philosophy, witnessing art without interpretation