Research Catalogue

With Operative Fiction, we introduce a practice of spatial storytelling driven by the dynamics of prepositions rather than verb-centric narratives. Here, the textual body becomes embedded in the medial spatiality of a printed book, digital interface, or performance space. The physical or virtual site of the text thus becomes integral to the storytelling process. Spatial production methods merge into the texture of the text itself; simultaneously, the text reshapes the unfolding of space, place, and site. The material and procedural qualities of the text actively engage and activate the digital interface as a site of narrative unfolding, intertwining textual and spatial experiences. We begin our first exercise in Operative Fiction with Thomas Ballhausen’s What the Probes Report, transposing the text from the printed page (FLORA, 2020) into the digital interface of a Research Catalogue exposition. The non-human protagonist – emerging through and evolving within the text – disrupts subject-centred narration. It becomes entangled in the linguistic and scenic fabric of its own development, thus, through its procedural logic and function, becoming an active agent in its own staging. A line, speculatively re-enacting the machine's operations, simultaneously traces the topographic texture of the digital landscape. Using a drawing technique typically applied in performance design drafts, we explore the friction between staging and spacing by deploying minimally visible images and textual cues of direction. The operational plasticity of these technical images enables dramaturgical intensities to gather (staging), while also allowing the story to disperse through the digital architecture of the exposition into hyperlinked virtual spaces (spacing). Alongside a linear reading mode, which follows the story’s original chronology, we propose a contingent reading mode activated via time codes. These time codes function both as compositional elements within the drawing and as hypertextual links. They suggest the duration and shape of a staged terrain, occasionally layering multiple time zones within a single topographic entity. In this way, the timelines act as more-than-texts, generating a multiplicity of positions and proximities, and intertwining temporal aspects of space with the speculative grammar of the story.

Excerpt from my forthcoming research project How to be a medium? including the script of How (not) to be a puppet and its first act as audio play.

Jenny Sunesson (b. 1973) is a Swedish artist predominantly working with sound. Her practice ranges from field recording and live collages to conceptual sound art and video. Sunesson uses her own life as a stage for her dark, tragic and sometimes comical re-contextualised work where real and invented characters and derogated stereotypes, collaborate in the alternate story of hierarchies and normative power structures in society.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023 MA Interior Architecture From the moment we wake up in the morning, we are triggered by the loud alarm, travel to work on crowded trains, and make thousands of decisions every day. Inconveniences can arise in every situation, and while most people accept them, very few try to fix them. The COVID-19 pandemic is undoubtedly the biggest inconvenience experienced by everyone on the globe simultaneously. People's way of life has been affected by it, and the world has been shut down for more than two years since December 2019. Despite the destructive effects of the virus, it has given everyone a chance to pause and reflect on their lives. The topic of my thesis is based on the idea that I benefit from the inconveniences of daily life. After moving to the Netherlands, I realized that it takes me more time to complete daily tasks than it used to, and my life has become less hectic. So, I started reading articles on the benefits of inconvenience. Kawakami writes that “the benefit of inconvenience cannot be derived from mere nostalgia for 'the good old days or by thinking positively about the inconvenience.” He also thinks that convenience does not necessarily satisfy people and enrich human life. Yet, we have become so dependent on convenience that we no longer pay attention to its consequences. While the purpose of this paper is mainly to identify the benefits of intentionally experiencing inconvenience in our built environment, a discussion of convenience will also be included to compare the different levels of inconvenience. Are there any inconveniences associated with 'too much convenience'? What are the ways in which inconvenience is purposefully incorporated into the everyday environment? This paper will investigate these questions and provide suggestions for implementing beneficial inconveniences in the built environment.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022 BA Interactive Media Design

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022 BA Fine Arts In this thesis insight from the discourse on metafiction, a mode of writing which breaks and exposes the conventional frames of literary fiction, is used to analyse works of visual art that show a similar criticism towards the conventions of their medium.