Research Catalogue

'Empowering Collective Performing Arts: A Facilitator’s Collection of Voice and Dance Scores to Overcome Social Barriers' is a practice-led research project that explores the ways to encourage group connection through performing arts activities within diverse communities.

50 A3 drawings black and coloured markers, including: 3 A3 collages on paper with newspaper cutouts and printed photos. 12 A4 drawings on paper with coloured markers, glued on A3 paper + 1 A3 with black ballpoint pen and markers, glued on A3 paper. 13 A3 drawings on paper with black marker, and red, pale blue, gold, pink and orange markers +1 A3 two-sided. 17 A3 drawings on paper with coloured markers. 1 drawing on sketchbook cover with red nail polish. 1 text drawing on sketchbook cover inside. 1 drawing on sketchbook cover back inside with black, orange and gold markers. 22 A4 drawings with ballpoint pen. 62 pocket sketchbook black marker and ballpoint pen drawings. Some of the above is preparatory work for 4 large prints and 13 paintings. The 12 A4 glued on A3 are preparatory work for a collage on panel. I made the art between 2023-2024, from the perspective of the observer. Most of the research material came out of crime and fraud reports. I started writing the blog afterwards, since the summer of 2024. I adopted the visual vocabulary of the graphic novel, which I partly studied and read a lot about, looking at different graphic artists' work, when I was attending classes at the University of Malmo, Sweden, in 2012, to familiarise myself with elements of game design. Much of this work is, amongst other, about children: how they love, amongst other. I wanted to emphasise that element, by intentionally applying stylistic elements from children's drawings, in a naive and loose architectural composition, using heavily the black marker and stick figures. Adopting this visual approach, I also wanted to evoke a comically sharp, but intimate twist, as commentary, in the British tradition of political satire, to the otherwise dark subject matter. Finally, this artistic style refers to the populist character of actors. The text is written like trip-hop songs: two of the pseudonyms I gave are the artistic names of musicians of colour from the British band "Massive Attack", formed in Bristol. Otherwise, it is loosely structured in a manner inspired by television series. I used heavily popular culture signifiers, names of fictional characters from film, television, music and painting, as reference to actual individuals. Parts of the analysis is inspired by Saul Kripke's interpretation of Wittgenstein's example of mathematical calculation. I used plenty of popular and less popular literary and philosophical references, for the visual art and in the writing. Saul Aaron Kripke was the inventor of the possible worlds philosophical hypothesis, which was seminal for philosophers working in the area of contemporary analytic metaphysics, including the theory of counterparts and the theory of names. He died in 2022. Lauren Berlant was a cultural theorist and gender studies scholar. She died in 2021. The exposition displays loosely and in lay terms vocabulary as rhetorical devices from analytic metaphysics, as well as gender and romance studies; for instance, I use the word "unactualised" to refer to individuals, who are real and concrete, who exist independently of my mind, however they were not "actualised" in my so-called personal life and dating practices: for that, I would have to select them, in order for them to be "instantiated" in my dating. The exposition is underpinned by an underlying neo-Marxist interpretation that, in my view, is relevant not just to economists and political philosophers, but also to people working in different sectors of our modern economies of advanced capitalism, such as banking and cybersecurity. In the style of art, as painting, I was inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat's drawings and paintings, which are laden with input from popular media sources, like jazz music and television, recorded in an automatic and naive drawing manner, turned into abstracted paintings. For "M" ('Ramadan', 'Julien', "Mr X"), Filip ('Philip'), and Brandon ('Magna') (and Nick) - August, September, and October 2024 (March 1996). For "Daddy G" ('Isaac'), 'Eric' ("Her Man"), 'Prudence' ("'Rachel''s Beau", or "Her Man's alter-ego"), 'Moussa', 'Gaetan'; Black 'Humbert Humbert' and friend, 'Miloud'; Mohammed' ('Onzedouze'), 'Hermando', 'Nesseem' and 'Didi' - December 2024, January 2025, May, June, July, August, September, as well as November to December 2025. Seven men of colour and seven white men, who were also targeted, directly and indirectly. Who are not politicians, except for a current one and a former one, but are doing something political, so they must take good care of what they do. All my drawings were stolen in Paris and Brussels, in 2025. See also exposition "The Loot", under 'Art and Activism Exposed as Research Blog'.

The EcoSomatics Conversations Series invites sharing of engagement, practices and thinking around environmental awareness through embodiment activities, dance and art. It posits a definition of EcoSomatics as of the body-mind-ecology and takes the form of open public dialogues between two (or more) people: independent artists, practitioners, and academics. The project was conceived by Dr Polly Hudson, (Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University), and the conversations are co-convened with Dr Karen Wood, (Birmingham Dance Network and C-DaRE). The conversations took place virtually with a large international audience, and the podcasts are audio recordings of the live events. It is supported by funding from ADM Faculty Research Investment Scheme, Birmingham City University. Image by Ming de Nasty.

Amazing Patterns presents a practice-based investigation into pattern formation using ASCII and Unicode character systems as generative material. Developed within the broader research context of the ASCII Digital Design Museum (ADDM), founded in 2010, the project operates exclusively in live digital text environments under minimal computational constraints. Treating text not as language but as material, the exposition examines how repetition, variation, and rule-based operations generate complex visual structures from simple symbolic elements. Through sustained, character-by-character construction, the works demonstrate scalability and structural coherence across graphic, textile, and architectural references. Developed through human-authored, rule-based visual systems prior to contemporary AI image-generation tools, the project positions symbolic computing as a methodological precedent and sustainable exhibition model, emphasizing accessibility, durability, and long-term cultural preservation within web-native systems.

This exposition presents a practice-based research investigation into pattern formation using ASCII and Unicode character systems as primary visual material. Working exclusively within live text environments, the project explores how complex visual and architectural structures emerge from rule-based constraints, repetition, and minimal computational resources. Treating text not as language but as material, the work examines generative logic, duration, and modularity as foundations for sustainable, post-material visual research.

Topographies of the Obsolete is an artistic research project conceived in 2012 by
 University of Bergen Professors Neil Brownsword and Anne Helen Mydland,
in collaboration with six European HEI’s and the British Ceramics Biennial.
Emerging through two phases (2012-15; 2015-2020) it has to date engaged
ninety-seven interdisciplinary artists, scholars, cultural commentators and
students from thirteen countries. It has transformed participants’ practices, with
works originating out of the initial research being celebrated on an international
platform. Topographies of the Obsolete has received funding from a variety of
institutions, alongside its core support from the Norwegian Artistic Research
Programme (2013-15 & 2015-17), whose peer review system (2015) rated it
as ‘exemplary… strengthening artistic research and its scope beyond potential
communities of practitioners/researchers’. The project explores the landscape and associated histories of post-industry, with an initial emphasis on Stoke-on-Trent, a world-renowned ceramics capital that bears evidence of fluctuations in global fortunes.