Research Catalogue

Performance philosophy is still something of a ‘wild frontier’ where fundamental questions can be re-posed concerning the nature of wisdom and love, life and truth. For if love and wisdom are not co-extensive with verbal communication, then philosophy may be legitimately pursued by performative means. In this session the participants aim is to enact and unfold a set of trajectories rather than describe or 'define' their work in words alone. Passion and grief are disruptive currencies. Passion and grief not only seem un-necessary for biological life, they frequently threaten it. Yet a life lived without them would seem impoverished. Whether one views these turbulent affects as parasites, invaders, or as the engines of higher culture, they inhabit philosophy as an ineradicable black-market haunts all states and empires. We aim to consider this under-zone on its own terms, weaving theory with demonstrations of transferable techniques for cross-disciplinary research.

This exposition forms part of the research project exploring the often-overlooked sensory and material facets of photographic production, challenging the traditional focus solely on the visual aspect of photographs. The research questions the prevailing view that understanding photography is limited to analysing the final image, suggesting instead that the process of making a photograph—its production in real-world environments such as laboratories, factories, and manufacturing spaces—holds equal aesthetic significance. The aim is twofold: to redirect attention to processes of photographic making, exploring the aesthetic dimension beyond the photograph itself, and to examine how this shift influences the overall understanding of photographic practice. Employing practice-based research across diverse photographic settings, this study uncovers the aesthetic nuances of C-type printing processes, including the tensioning, fogging, and tearing of photosensitive paper. It adopts an event-centric viewpoint, moving beyond the visual to explore multisensory handlings—listening, touching, and feeling—that are integral to photographic production, and acknowledges the contributions of more-than-human agency in photographic making. This approach allows for a multi-modal presentation of findings, combining traditional written analysis with experiential expositions to highlight the importance of non-visual outputs in photographic making. The contributions of this research are manifold. Firstly, it critically reviews the dominant focus on the visual analysis of photographs, advocating for a broader understanding that includes the tactile and auditory dimensions of photographic making. Secondly, by immersing in the physical environments of photographic production, it provides empirical insights into the everyday practices that remain hidden from view. Thirdly, the study pioneers an artistic research methodology that emphasises showing over telling, utilising a variety of exhibition formats to convey the embodied nature of photographic making. Lastly, through in-depth case examples, it uncovers the complex interplay of materials, technology, and both human and non-human agency, suggesting a more nuanced concept of photographic practice that surpasses the conventional visual-centric, human-centric and photograph-centric paradigm. By advocating for a comprehensive view that embraces the sensory and material complexities of photography, this thesis enriches the medium's aesthetic understanding beyond the photograph as centre.

Arts-based-philosophy is an emerging research concept at the cutting edge of the arts, philosophy and the Sciences in which cross-disciplinary research collectives align their research practices to finally stage their investigations in field-performances, shared with the public. Our research explores the significance of the HEART in artistic research and performance philosophy from a cross-cultural perspective, partially based on the concepts of the HEART in the works of two artist-philosophers, in which philosophy already became arts-based-philosophy: Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Aurobindo’s poetic opus magnum Savitri. We generally assume that the works of artist-philosophers are not only engaged in “creating concepts” (Deleuze), but their concepts are also meant to be staged artistically to let them bodily matter in fact. The role of the HEART in respect to this process of “bodily mattering” is the core objective under investigation: Firstly, because we hold that atmospheres trigger the HEART of a lived-body to taste the flavor of things it is environmentally engaged with basically in an aesthetic manner (Nietzsche). In this respect the analysis of the classical notion for the aesthete in Indian philosophy and aesthetics, sahṛdaya––which literally means, “somebody, with a HEART”––becomes crucial. Secondly, because the HEART is said to be not just reducible to one’s manifest Nature, but has access to one’s virtual Nature as well. The creation hymn in the oldest of all Vedas (Rgveda) for instance informs us that a HEART is capable of crossing being (sat) & non-being (asat), which makes it fluctuate among these two realms and even allows its aspirations to let virtual possibilities matter. Such concepts show striking similarities with contemporary concepts in philosophy-physics, e.g. the concepts of “virtual particles” and “quantum vacuum fluctuations” (Barad).

In occasione del workshop tenuto dal prof Ripa di Meana e dal post-doc Andrea Guidi, sono stato invitato a leggere la scena quarta e quinta dell'Amleto di Shakespeare. Dopo una iniziale lettura personale, il prof ha tenuto una lettura collettiva in cui ciascuno studente esponeva le prime impressioni sul testo. In questa fase il prof ci ha aiutato a focalizzare meglio i temi principali delle scene lette, agevolando noi studenti l'osservazione di alcune delle dinamiche principali della tragedia. Dopo la lettura collettiva, è iniziato il mio personale processo sul testo di Shakespeare che si è composto di tre fasi principali: - reinterpretazione, - ricerca, - rielaborazione. 1 FASE DI REINTERPRETAZIONE Sono partito rileggendo il testo dell'Amleto e, contemporaneamente, su un foglio scrivevo quelli che ritenevo essere i "punti principali" delle scene analizzate. Successivamente ho iniziato una fase di "brainstorming personale" in cui andavo a scrivere tutte le parole-chiave che mi venivano in mente, cercando connessioni, approfondimenti e punti di vista diversi tra le varie parole che venivano fuori. 2 FASE DI RICERCA Una volta completata questa prima fase di reinterpretazione del testo, mi sono concentrato sulla ricerca delle principali tematiche che sono venute a galla nei punti chiave e nel brainstorming. Nel farlo ho utilizzato due strumenti: il primo è KOBI e il secondo è Perplexity. In questa analisi, non mi soffermerò sul secondo ma esporrò le ricerche effettuate sulla prima piattaforma menzionata. In generale, la fase di ricerca è consistita in un'alternarsi e un'influenzarsi di entrambi i motori di ricerca. Su KOBI ho cercato parole-chiave come: "delirio", "sogno", "complesso di edipo", "piattaforma", "memoria", "ricordo" ecc... Per alcune ricerche non usciva nulla, per altre invece venivano suggeriti media e materiali estremamente interessanti che hanno indirizzato il mio percorso di rielaborazione del testo. 3 FASE DI RIELABORAZIONE Una volta soddisfatto la mia necessità di ricerca di materiale, in maniera molto naturale, ho avuto l'idea di come rielaborare uno dei temi principali emersi nel testo shakespeariano. In sintesi, ritengo KOBI uno strumento efficace per aumentare la creatività, tuttavia in questa fase embrionale della piattaforma, risulta ancora difficile ottenere sempre risultati, per via del ristretto database di cui la piattaforma fa uso. Tuttavia, se sviluppata al meglio, ritengo che questo possa essere un medium fantastico per chiunque faccia ricerca, artistica e non, ampliando le proprie possibilità creative e il proprio bagaglio di conoscenza.

Mollusc gleaning in the Sine-Saloum Delta, Senegal, hinges on the situated navigation of a deltaic world in flux. It unfolds both above and below water as well as in the mud and is crucially guided by haptic engagement, which in turn generates sound. Audio/visual inquiry into gleaning explores the sensuality of this haptic engagement and its more-than-human dimensions. Haptic sound, as this article traces, has thereby been key. Indexing to touch and how it creates contact with the self and with the other, haptic sound affords proximity. At the same time, it points beyond the all-knowing and all-sensing self by probing intensities and making us aware of resistance and impenetrability. As such, haptic sound evolves at a limit and harbors excess. In the recordings from the delta, haptic sound is also conveyed by the “indeterminate” and the ways tones and sounds mix and interchange and are difficult to localize and categorize; by the “disproportionate” and the ways the sound of touch is amplified and appears as “too loud”; or by the “imperfect” and the ways sound is grainy, overdriven, distorted, dull, piercing, full of static hiss or windy, and so forth. Thereby, the materiality of recording devices and the constructiveness of mediation with all its affordances and limitations become palpable as well. Haptic sound, this article concludes, is thus touching and, in this touching, evokes both more-than-human sensitivity and alterity. In mobilizing both experience and reflection, it ruptures anthropocentrism and ultimately opens up pathways to reconsider both anthropology and cinema as well as audio/visual practice in general with an ear to an embodied multispecies conviviality.

I frattali, nella loro auto-similarità su diverse scale, suggeriscono un'interconnessione profonda tra microcosmo e macrocosmo, tra il piccolo e il grande, invitandoci a riflettere sulla natura ciclica dell’esistenza e sul nostro rapporto con noi stessi e l’universo. Tutti conoscono la storia di Amleto, protagonista della tragedia omonima scritta da William Shakespeare intorno al 1600, che anela e conquista la vendetta per l'omicidio del padre, il re, da parte del fratello Claudius. La pièce esplora temi complessi come la vendetta, la follia, il destino e la moralità, offrendo una profonda riflessione sull'essere umano e sulla condizione umana. Analizzando degli estratti dalla scena 4 e scena 5 dell’Amleto di Shakespeare, ho elaborato un percorso visivo all’intero dei temi da me estrapolati, rappresentando le dinamiche del dialogo tra padre e figlio intrise di devozione, delirio, oblio dimensionale e illusioni proprio in un frattale. Le varie pagine diventano quindi un viaggio all’interno dell’eterno evolversi del frattale, simile a se stesso ma allo stesso tempo completamente diverso. Come poi specificato nell’ultima pagina dell’exposition, l’ispirazione a questo lavoro è nata grazie alla navigazione nella piattaforma Kobi Explorer, tramite la ricerca delle parole chiavi estrapolate dal testo.