Research Catalogue

We live in an age of Symbolic Misery (Stiegler, 2014). In this era, we listen to the same music, scroll through the same Instagram feeds, and we immerse ourselves in daily lives that are the same as others, gradually losing the 'singularity (Stiegler, 2014)' of individual difference. This homogenized structure of perception continuously reshapes our subjectivity (Simondon, 1958; Hui, 2016), making individual desires no longer emerge from unique experiences or internal generative processes, but are increasingly induced and regulated by external technological and symbolic systems (Stiegler, 2015). In this context, the question is no longer 'What do we produce?' but rather, 'Do our desires still belong to ourselves?'. As Stiegler (2014) pointed out, in order to enter the market more effectively, marketing technologies have developed an industrial aesthetic system centered on audiovisual media. This industrial aesthetic re-functionalizes individual sensory experiences following industrial interests, aiming to produce a replicable and controllable unified taste through the standardized pleasure. This huge 'desire project (libidinal management)' manipulates human drives for externalization through a diversity of apparatus (Agamben, 2009; Foucault, 1977), generating a sense of 'participation' via formalized interaction, restricting the level of perception and expression (Stiegler, 2015). Through daily repetition, this process gradually weakens the individual’s ability for subjectivation, trapping them within a passive structure of desire (Stiegler, 2014). This exposition is based on an artistic research project titled 'I Don’t Know Who I Am', an installation game. It invites players to watch a five-minute monologue, the story of a cow (inspired by, for example, Lacan et al., 2001), to explore the secrets hidden within this cow’s desire. After watching the video, the player will face a plate of real grass with soya sauce, and be invited to make a choice: whether or not to eat the grass. This installation game encourages players to reflect on a critical question: At a time when industrial aesthetics and subjective experience standardize individual desire, is increasingly hollowed out, where do our desires truly come from? Do they still emerge from internal generative processes, or have they long been preconditioned and disciplined by technological objects and symbolic systems?

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).

How can I, as a workshop facilitator, create inclusive, inviting and transformative spaces for sparking moments of joy around diversity? How does my training as an artist, researcher and teacher inform and enable my role as a workshop facilitator, such that I can support radical expressions of self-acceptance? What are the limitations to my role, and what possibilities may lie ahead through continued reflection and practice? I have worked through these questions by exploring the concept of vulnerability through a/r/tographic theories and practices, with the culmination of my research and reflections shared in this exposition. Though I have long hosted workshops in marginalised communities as a means for building resilience and kinship, only in the past year have I begun to analyse, from theoretical and methodological perspectives, how and why certain approaches work. Again and again, my reflective meanderings take me back to a single core concept, namely vulnerability. By being vulnerable, one becomes open and raw, which — in certain conditions — can lead to curiosity, risk-taking and remarkable creativity. With such an open and desiring mind, creative practices like crafting can evoke radical feelings of joy and appreciation around a topic that otherwise may tend to conjure conflicting or undesirable feelings. Vulnerability is particularly important in my work because the primary focus of my workshops has been bodily joy. Largely, I have hosted workshops wherein we have explored positive feelings of one’s gender diverse experiences, expressions or identity through paper crafting. Recently, I have also begun hosting crafting workshops, in which we forest bathe (friluftsliv) then craft on the joy one has felt in communion with nature. Crafting becomes an extension of the self, a temporary reincarnation of our own materiality in which we bring to life an alternative understanding of our own potential. In this exposition, I address the questions above by drawing on two example workshops, Crafting Gender Diverse Joy, and Crafting Joy in Nature -- hosted in April and May 2025, respectively. The organisation of this exposition is inspired by L. Balzi’s ice cracks metaphor (2023), Irwin's rhizomatic walking method (2013), and LeBlanc's The Wake (2019). The workshop process as a whole is a reverberation of impulses rippling outwards without end. I navigate these reverberations through a visual mapping of a rhizomatic system of roots sprawling from a tree in Bymarka. The roots are vast web of connections, largely hidden beneath the ground as points of potential. With our imaginations, we can appreciate the complexity of this web, just as we can trace the multiple invisible processes that lead us to our eventual a/r/tographic choices. I invite you to wander across these knots and walls, encountering the various descriptive concepts, or 'centres of vibration', to borrow from Deleuze and Guattari (1994; in Irwin & Springgay, 2008). The layout is roughly guided by the three stages of the workshop process (planning, workshop, aftercare), sprinkled with key concepts, theories, and practices. I also include documentation from the workshops, such as photos and crafts (with permission granted). Enjoy your own wandering. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2022 BA Photography My thesis discusses our privacy in the post-digital age where we are surrounded by surveillance cameras that operate by advanced Artificial Intelligence technology and get command from that. The paper begins with an introduction to the concept of "Digital identity" as a contemporary phenomenon used by authorities for the authentication process of people in the virtual world. The thesis clarifies how AI serves and empowers surveillance cameras and how this encounter puts our privacy at stake. Nowadays, most rulers (if not all) misuse this advanced technology in lack of a transparent law in order to monitor individuals in and out of their borders. The discussion ends by demonstrating the role of art and photography in raising awareness, which was one of my main goals for studying this subject in the last year. It also addresses some celebrated contemporary artworks and photo series related to this issue.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023 MA Artistic research, Volatile Life is a thesis exploring the yearning for emancipation in an uncertain world, examined through puppet theatre. The thesis consists of four prologues that establish the context and motivations for the exploration. The prologues set clear objectives for the thesis, including storytelling as a means of disruption, theatre as a rehearsal for revolution, and reevaluating power dynamics in puppet theatre. Uncertainty serves as the driving force behind the investigation, with the play's structure embracing this uncertainty as a means of exploration. Within the play, a powerful voice gradually emerges, engaging in a dialogue with a girl and transforming into moving shadows that morph between various objects. At the play's conclusion, the voice manifests as a physical head, engaging in a discourse about puppetry. This narrative concept draws inspiration from the Jinn mythology found in Islamic cultures. The Jinn initially manipulates humans through a voice in their heads, gradually gaining power and eventually revealing itself in physical forms when the humans surrender to its influence.

Thesis of the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 2023 - BA Photography 'Vessels of Home' is a 'Search for Belonging.' As more and more people feel disconnected from the world around them, finding belonging is no longer only a question of physical place, but of creating moments in an imaginative space. These moments of belonging are short-lived, they are hard to grasp and contain in our ever individualizing world. Yet, I believe they can be found and nurtured through conscious acts and rituals. Rowan Moonlion proposes various ways to cultivate moments of belonging, through stories contained in the vessels of Fire, Earth, Water and Air (Le Guin 2020). Firstly, in Fire, regarding human interactions: rejecting patriarchal and capitalist notions of group thinking, by letting go of identity definitions based on difference. Secondly, in Earth, considering nature: returning to our connection to the land, to understand the unifying power of interbeing. Thirdly, in Water, looking within our bodies: searching for sensorial experiences of belonging by making our bodies our homes. Finally, in Air, gazing in our minds and memories, imagining new worlds, holding stories together with our ancestors. Witchcraft and Earth honoring rituals are used as a framework to explain and exemplify the four proposed layers. 'Vessels of Home' combines academic research grounded in queer and feminist theory, conversations with witches and other lived experience stories, poetic reflections taken from Moonlion’s artistic practice, and practical tools like rituals, recipes and affirmations. Together the four layers of belonging and the four types of writing form a unifying whole. Moonlion urges you to connect to your own personal form of belonging, and hopes you will learn to understand the value of trying to live in harmony with all else on this Earth. The elements return again and again in a cyclical manner. The circle of life is ever present.