Research Catalogue

"New ideas might be conceived and developed more rapidly in disciplines that are more abstract. The inductive methods of experimental innovators in painting makes their enterprise resemble the more empirical disciplines considered by psychologists, while the deductive approach of the conceptual innovators makes theirs resemble the more abstract disciplines." David W. Galenson, "The Life Cycles of Modern Artists", NBER Working Paper Series, 2003. Artists and architects have been at times captivated by visionary ideological viewpoints, which they used as inspiration and to make suggestions for applications with their artworks and designs. My use of the diagram and the image aims to convey the simple message that art strives for evolution; meaning to strengthen the mind, to research capabilities, to communicate a disinterested, though not necessarily apolitical, view of social changes, to overcome banality and offer an alternative way of looking at the world. For many artists, this motivation has traditionally often gone hand in hand with political goals and motivations. The decline of the commercial art market in the 1980s gave rise to artists working mainly, but not solely, with ephemeral installations, including the ubiquitous video art, performance, and the broader range of conceptual art. Painting remained as an established fine art practice, with a renewed interest to conceptualism. YBA (Young British Artists) was a seminal artistic group in Britain of the 1990s, who challenged conventional modes of that period of making and exhibiting art. They had their first group exhibition in 1988. The portrait is of the artist, myself, at a young age, dated 1993, when I was a student at the NTUA. Betty Nigianni is my name known as (aka), which I also used as my artistic pseudonym.

Work-in-progress for the development of a sensorial piece, first explored during the workshop Augmented Attention Lab.

An analitical overview over some key works from Stravinsky with the goal of selecting few elements that can help my compositional journey.

This research project gathers a series of interviews with some of the closest collaborators of Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (1969–2018). Conducted between 2022 and 2025, the conversations preserve first-hand testimonies of his creative process, collaborative methods, and unique sonic universe. Through the voices of Echo Collective (Neil Leiter & Margaret Hermant), Francesco Donadello, Viktor Orri Árnason, and Yair Elazar Glotman, the project explores themes such as orchestration, sound experimentation, electroacoustic practices, and the integration of music with film. The interviews have been edited and adapted from their original form in order to ensure clarity and contextual coherence, while remaining faithful to the collaborators’ perspectives. Taken together, these accounts shed light on Jóhannsson’s aesthetics and working philosophy, offering a multifaceted portrait of a composer whose legacy continues to influence contemporary music.

After a long-term effort with “the body as an instrument” with the spotlight and focus on acting I was interested in exploring how my experience and practical knowledge of the actors physical skills could be “borrowed” and “translated” in encounters with several artistic disciplines both within and outside the stage area. The body is present in all artistic activity that in some way relates to the story of man. But the thought of the body isn't necessarily the same as a bodily and embodied thought. This nuanced and problematized approach has resulted in the research project Bodily Observations - on the lookout for new physical skills that I conducted in 2013-2015.

This exposition contains documentation of the artistic result of Magnhild Øen Nordahls artistic research PhD project Unmaking Abstractions. The exposition also contains the artistic reflection for the same project. On the exposition's landing page the reader can access its different components by clicking different sides of the unfolded cube. The rotating cube in the upper right corner will bring the reader back to the landing page.