Research Catalogue

This thesis investigates how narrative agency can emerge collaboratively between human, technological, and more-than-human agents within artistic re- search. In response to the limitations of anthropocentric storytelling, it poses the central question: How does narrative agency emerge in co-creative processes involving human, technological, and more-than-human forces? The research adopts an experimental, site-specific methodology grounded in transduction-the translation of one form of data or energy into another-to enga- ge with the expressive capacities of more-than-human entities. Three iterations form the core of the investigation: a photogrammetric and sonic exploration of De Nieuwe Passage (The Hague), a real-time collaboration with storm Conall in a city forest, and a durational transduction of Tokyo's soundscape into photo- graphic form. In each case, technologies such as cameras, code, and sensors are treated not as neutral tools, but as hybrid agents participating in narrative formation. The results demonstrate that narrative meaning can emerge through intra-active, multisensory processes rather than through fixed representation. Each experi- ment reveals how environmental and technological agents shape the unfolding of story, whether through the rhythm of human flows, the shifting forces of weather, or the temporal layers of urban sound. This thesis concludes that artistic research can facilitate non-anthropocentric storytelling by creating conditions for narrative to arise through entangled rela- tions. It recommends a methodological shift toward collaborative, sensory-ba- sed practices that decenter the human artist and embrace the co-authorship of technological and environmental systems.

PERFORMING PROCESS is a research group within the Artistic Research Centre at Nottingham Trent University, co-led by Emma Cocker and Danica Maier, both Associate Professors in Fine Art. We ask: what is at stake in focusing on the process of practice — the embodied, experiential, relational and material dimensions of artistic making, thinking and knowing. What is the critical role of uncertainty, disorientation, not knowing and open-ended activity within artistic research? How might a process-focused exploration intervene in and offer new perspectives on artistic practice and research, perhaps even on the uncertain conditions of contemporary life? PERFORMING PROCESS has origins in a number of critical precedents: Summer and Winter Lodges originating within the fine art area (practice-research residencies or laboratories dedicated to providing space-time for making-thinking and for exploring the process of practice), collaborative artistic research projects such as No Telos, for exploring the critical role of uncertainty, disorientation, not knowing and open-ended activity; the DREAM seminar series with PhD researchers which focuses specifically on the ‘how-ness’ of practice research by asking - How do we do what we do?

Understanding the complexities of current European society is impossible, especially for the younger generations, without knowing and understanding the complex historical developments and narratives. In most EU member states teaching history in the system of formal education is predominantly focused on national, if not patriotic history narratives. The consequence of this approach is that young people have a lack of knowledge about a wider, transnational and shared European history.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023; BA Photography Research is the ground for exploring the world. My research paper serves as a guide in the sensorial and caring experience of the world around us as. Written in stages in which patients enter and experience the sensory room, the transition from history to the future opens space for discussion and implementation of observed practices in individual realities. The beginning chapters introduce radical movements in psychiatry while outlining the historical formation of disability as a social issue. Discussion around illness and disability is observed trough political and philosophical frame. Historical examples provide insight into how the space of the institution itself can re-shape into a progressing form, how the discussion about institutionalised people is de-stigmatised once the closed system of a hospital or an asylum opens to its surrounding environment, and how this can affect the position of healthcare, psychiatry specifically, on the level of a state. The chapters bring forward current knowledge around body memory and studies around sensory treatments in institutionalized settings. In this chapters, the body is not solely observed in the setting of a hospital or asylum, but brought in the context of perceiving the body as a social and cultural object. Short poetic digressions are moments of personal reflection, automatic writing that reminds me of moments when I saw the necessity to provide alternative models of care. The paper contains interviews and transcriptions of conversations I had with my commissioners. Through conversations with medical workers and artists, I reflected upon the current state of care provisions, ranging from institutional care to self-care. The dialogues show sensibility and understanding that a shift in healthcare towards the re-humanization of the ill is needed. Written in-between moments of working with materials in the workshop settings, research has acted as

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022 BA Interactive Media Design After four years of studying art and technology in The Netherlands and having my own experience in search of an internship within the gaming industry, I came to realize problems that I saw in my earlier years with my mother were not limited to Turkey, and that it is a much bigger problem which spans worldwide. In this light of realizations, I decided to put together this thesis which will explore women’s role in the gaming industry with a focus on my own passion in story driven games.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023 Photography In this research paper I aim to verbalize methods of working when portraying other people in order to find out how I want to tell the stories of people living in different social contexts than my own, through the realm of documentary making, in an honest and ethically justifiable way. My research consists of analyzing relevant aspects of the history of documentary photography over the last century. Through the work of artists like Dorothea Lange, Robert Capa, Nan Goldin & Susan Meiselas, a timeline is mapped out in which I recognize the role of the Western perspective and the changing dynamics within the domain of visual representation. Secondly, I make comparisons with the use of two case studies from the Netherlands. I describe elements of and reflect on the work of photographers Jan Hoek and Jan Dirk van der Burg, with both of whom I share an arguably similar background. By doing so, I counter their practices while verbalizing a way of working for myself. Lastly, the research done for the paper contains the tracing of my past, and the path that I have walked to come to this point. With the recognition of the privileges in my background, I have been able to better position myself as a photographer.