Research Catalogue

Art activism is powerful. Also known as activist art, protest art, visual activism, artivism and creative activism, it changes lives, situations and is and has been a powerful weapon across a whole spectrum of struggles for justice. Teresa Sanz & Beatriz Rodriguez-Labajos(2021) relay that art activism has the unique ability to bring cohesion and diverse peoples together and it can, as Zeynep Tufekci notes, change the participants (2017). As Steve Duncombe & Steve Lambert (2021) posit, traditional protesting such as marches or squats are no longer as important as they once were. As a result of my own lived experience in activist activities, I very much agree with Andrew Boyd & Dave Oswald Mitchell (2012) that the reason people use art activism is that it works, by enriching and improving protest. In the past, when I lived in a metropolis and was not a parent, I used to be an activist. Now I no longer have immediate access to international headquarters at which to protest and I have to be concerned with being arrested, I am hindered from protesting. This project is an attempt to increase inclusion and widen access to art activism. By devising methods which include at least one of the following: that do not require on-site participation, that can take place outside the public gaze, that reduce the risk of arrest, that open up protest sites that are not “big targets”, that include remote locations, that involve irregular timing, my thesis aims to increase inclusion and widen access to art activism to those who are underserved by more mainstream methods of conducting art activism. Textiles have unique properties that enable them to engage in subterfuge and speak loudly through care and thought(Bryan-Wilson, 2017). They have strong connotations of domesticity, the body and comfort that can be subverted within art activism to reference lack of this domestic warmth and protection(O’Neill, 2022). Being a slow form of art-making, they show care and thought, attention in the making, so that the messaging is reinforced through this intentionality in slow making.

Dérive (2017) for string quartet and live-electronics explores the aesthetic consequences of different ideas of the role of subjectivity in sonification processes, the concept of dérive (drift) and the notion of musical structure as a translation of a real physical space.

How do you imagine a new kind of theatre? Where terror is not a genre, but a collective and emotional ritual. At its core lies the relationship between character, costume, and monster. Starting from the concept of an art of the underground, the research explores how fear, trauma and memory shape creation. The character wears a costume to be seen, but it is the monster — emerging from the subconscious — that speaks the unspeakable. He work unfolds through drawing, material collection (feathers, petals), costume prototyping, 3D modeling, and the creation of a short videogame demo: this builds emotional attachment to the protagonist, who will later return in a theatrical performance, turning the stage into a ritual of recognition. Not a political theatre. Not a moral one. But a theatre of the deeply human — where the audience no longer watches, but witnesses.

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 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.

Cultivating a sense of ownership in beginner music students is important for fostering engagement and self-confidence in their educational journey. This study explores how integrating creative activities into a beginner clarinet curriculum promotes ownership among students aged 9–11. Focusing on three specific activities tested in multiple case studies, the research investigates students' relation with their musical development. Findings reveal that using creative activities as part of a personalized, student-centered teaching approach enhances students' motivation and engagement, ultimately fostering a stronger sense of ownership in their learning experiences. The study also offers practical insights for music educators seeking to creatively teach instrumental skills while creating a meaningful musical experience for young clarinetists.