The Research Catalogue (RC) is a non-commercial, collaboration and publishing platform for artistic research provided by the
Society for Artistic Research. The RC is free to use for artists and
researchers. It
serves also as a backbone for teaching purposes, student assessment, peer review workflows and research funding administration. It strives to be
an open space for experimentation and exchange.
recent activities
PERFORMATIVE THEOLOGY
(2025)
Network for Performative Theology
The purpose of this exposition is to collect data of what Performative Theology can be and become primarily within an academic research but also beyond. The expo will be a timespace nurtured by members the Network for Performative Theology, established 6 October 2022 in Oslo.
Visualizing the Invisible: Artistic Explorations of the Electromagnetic Spectrum through Mixed Media
(2025)
Babak Abdullayev
This artistic research explores the creative transformation of the electromagnetic spectrum into visual language, particularly gamma rays. Continuing the previous part of my research developed during my Master's thesis at RUFA, Rome, Italy (2023), the present-day work expands the focus from gamma radiation to a broader engagement with the electromagnetic spectrum. When I started working on these pieces, I did not want to limit the work to a purely scientific explanation of the phenomenon. That approach felt too limited for what I was trying to express. I used colors, rhythm, and space for form in each work. Gamma rays serve as a starting point for considering transformation and inner strength. Works such as "New gamma-ray burst with a white hole," "Visible," and "Mariotti" merge scientific ideas with symbolic narratives.
I have based this work on scientific sources and my experience. I also followed my intuition while examining the relationship between radiation physics and neuroaesthetics. Ultimately, this evolving work demonstrates how artwork can reframe scientific principles. It presents an aesthetic strategy for perceiving the imperceptible.
Aim
This artistic research explores how the full range of the electromagnetic spectrum, which includes both seen and invisible frequencies such as gamma rays, microwaves, and radio waves, can be translated into visual form through modern-day blended media practices. Rather than illustrating scientific concepts in a didactic manner, the project seeks to evoke electromagnetic energy's perceptual, emotional, and symbolic dimensions. The study aspires to provide a new creative framework for engaging with unseen forces that structure each herbal phenomenon and internal human state by integrating material experimentation, digital techniques, and theoretical insights from neuroaesthetics, physics, and human psychology.
Vragen over het leven, zoeken op de theatervloer
(2025)
Eva Luining
"Wat heeft mijn leven nog voor zin?"
In dit onderzoek neem ik je mee in mijn zoektocht naar hoe theater als kunstvorm én leermiddel studenten kan helpen om deze ontmoetingen met moed en empathie aan te gaan.
Ik heb verhalen verzameld. Van studenten die zoeken, patiënten die worstelen, en van professionals die laveren tussen nabijheid en afstand. Die verhalen heb ik verweven tot een theatervoorstelling. Een levend leerlandschap waar zorg en kunst elkaar raken.
recent publications
Sound Matter and More-than-Human Sound Agency in the Acousphere of Fennoscandian Ritual Sites
(2025)
Marianela Calleja, Riitta Rainio, Julia Shpinitskaya
Sounds created through reflection played a key role in the belief and ritual traditions of Fennoscandia up until recent times. The Indigenous Sámi considered echoing rocks and mountains to be sacred places where spirits could be met and conversed with. This article examines the role of sound reflections in these historical, little-known traditions using source material gathered from archives and old ethnographic accounts. We analyze the source material using concepts developed by sound studies and the philosophy of sound. We also apply a new materialist approach, which allows echoes to be regarded from a perspective more suitable to the source material: as sound energies transforming reflective material bodies into vibrant and interactive more-than-human beings. Moreover, the new materialist approach enables us to outline a philosophical basis for a materialist understanding of sound reflections and reflective material bodies, as well as the acoustic spaces associated with them. The concept of acousphere is proposed to understand this kind of space of correlation, confluence, and interchange between the human and more-than-human worlds.
Images That Hang Together
(2025)
Noemi Purkrábková
This short essay opens ArteActa’s issue AI (and) Art: Poetics of Prompting by proposing to understand generative algorithms as fundamentally metabolic: a dynamic entanglement of data, energy, affect, attention, and ecology. It argues that, given their ubiquity, generative materials can no longer be understood primarily as representations or discrete outputs. Instead, they function as metabolic processes that devour cultural material, extract planetary resources, and reshape perception below the threshold of consciousness. Prompting itself is always an act of transformation rather than merely a symbolic command, and intentional artistic experiments represent only a fraction of a larger infrastructure. The essay thus advocates for a multiscalar understanding of generative media: every prompt is already an ecosystem; every image is already a node in a planetary metabolism.
The Wager of the Algorithm: Towards a Performatic Gesture
(2025)
Peter Freund
The fantasy of the algorithm and, by extension, artificial intelligence imagines that each performs by executing an operational task. Yet, based on its inherent computational structure, the digital performance fails to live up to its instrumental promise. This failure foregrounds an occasion for artistic intervention. “The Wager of the Algorithm: Towards a Performatic Gesture” presents a theoretical statement (illustrated via artwork by the author) in which the overall exposition underscores a dialectic within instrumental reason itself. The “prompt” names are a shorthand for the fulcrum of this problematic.