“Another Taste, Another Year, Another Place, Another Tear”: Fashioning the anti-social icon from Orlok to Lestat

“Another Taste, Another Year, Another Place, Another Tear”: Fashioning the Anti-Social Icon from Orlok to Lestat Fashion is an ever-evolving academic field. Once ‘relegated to art, anthropology and dress studies’ (Hancock, Johnson Woods and Karaminas, 2013), fashion is now located within a wider cultural framework that includes film and television. It has been identified by scholars as a place for discourse historically, but since the new Millennium, this space has become more engaged in critical analysis (Petrov & Whitehead, 2019). From the interdisciplinary perspective of fashion studies and the literary queer Gothic, this chapter will explore how costume design specifically narrates and emphasises the queerness and exceptionality of the vampire. Analysing the economic metaphors extant in two examples of vampiric nobility which have seen several adaptations over the years and have resurged in popularity once more, we will analyse Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgård) in Robert Eggers’s Nosferatu (2024) as contextualising frame to our analysis of Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) in the recent AMC television adaptation of Annie Rice’s Interview with a Vampire (2022-present). Costume offers a way to explore complexities of narrative structure especially within an increasingly complex and non-linear approach to storytelling (Mulholland, 2020). This chapter will argue that these characters are brought to life in new ways which emphasise their existence as out-of-step with chronological aesthetic trends, fashioned visually, symbolically and materially to express their exceptionality. To do this we will engage with queer theory’s antisocial thesis (Sedgewick, 2002; Edelman, 2004) to unpack how realism and authenticity are articulated to circumnavigate human, heteropatriarchal and essentialist limitations of gender expression and sexual mores.This will develop into a discussion of how the stylised vampire can provide us with both an anticapitalist metaphor for overconsumption and an aspirational image of aesthetics detached from their contemporary zeitgeist

Conference: Archäologische Grundbegriffe - Maske Paper: Traurige Raserei, ängstliche Wut: Maskenfunktion, emotionale Gegensätze und Fotografierbarkeit im japanischen Nohtheater

Paper: Sad frenzy, fearful anger: Mask function, emotional contrasts and un/photographability of Japanese Noh theatre using the example of the visual layers of the Hannya mask; Potentially transferable concepts and questions for an expanded mask philosophy. Conference: The fourth workshop in the series ›Archäologische Grundbegriffe‹ is dedicated to the concept of mask. In analogy to the successful workshop on mosaic, the focus is on an idea that will serve as a key to the question of the aesthetic and ethical dimension of ancient images and objects. The archaeological concept ›mask‹ refers to specific object genres: theatre masks, ancestral masks, mask images, mask models. The mask opens up our view of concepts, rituals and processes associated with these objects. Secondly, the concept of the mask refers to a fundamental anthropological and technological phenomenon. It refers to that curious group of odd entities that interpose themselves between subject and object, between human and human, and between human and machine: images and screens, masks and surfaces, faces and interfaces, curtains and windows. We are particularly interested in the dual nature of such instances. Masks conceal, disguise, obscure — and at the same time they mediate, translate, explain. The workshop is part of the project ›Pre-Modern Elements of a Digital Image Theory‹, funded by the DFG Priority Programme 2172 ›The Digital Image‹. Organisation: Andreas Grüner, Julian Schreyer

Storytelling and material interferences: Practice-led research between puppetry and textiles

The thesis discusses how researching ‘weird materials’ to design puppetry performances may support textile designers in their creative journey and research process. On the one hand, textile designers are interested in emulating liveliness between the functional and the aesthetic qualities of their artefacts. Material-driven researchers investigate methods to translate the enactment of their materials’ fluid and ambiguous nature for a human audience. On the other, puppetry explores materials through their potential for ‘liveliness’ and their ability to translate the human and non-human nature of the puppet. During a performance, the puppet oscillates between being an object, a symbol, and a character. The audience resolves the uncertainty of the puppet’s ontological status by producing a narrative. The research examined the relationship between puppetry and textile design and their shared interest in the liveliness of materials. Through a series of action-research activities, the practice produced fertile ground for the development of puppet characters and engaged in a dialogue with textile designers and researchers about character design and storytelling in puppetry. The design of puppetry systems with thermochromic and bio-based materials through textile processes generated a series of stop-motion animations, short video recordings, still images, and textile artifacts that reflect the evolution of the practice. Ultimately, the research will provide textile designers with new tools for translating the ‘weird’ life of their materials into their creative practice and research

Gestures: a body of work

Combining creative and critical methods, this cross-disciplinary collection contributes an original feminist investigation of embodied, affective, and political gesture in/as feminist art and writing. It considers and performs how gesture/s and feminism/s have animated one another in feminist and interdisciplinary artistic practices, contributing new theorizations of gesture, gender, sexuality, and embodiment, alongside revised histories of feminist art and literature. The book’s introductory essay “Writing Gesture” argues for a logic of in-betweenness that connects gesture, feminism, and interdisciplinarity. This new articulation of feminist practice is realized in the book’s innovative structure focused on ‘gestural’ stances, which contain transnational readings of artists and writers’ work from the 1960s onwards, as well dialogues between contemporary artists and writers

Designing wearables: a Practice-led framework for enhancement technologies

My research asks the question How can design re-think the approach to enhancement technologies? I approach this question through reflective practice-led inquiry, designing wearable systems aimed at questioning, extending and reframing the very notion of enhancement. Through three projects and the thesis, I offer a new approach to enhancement focused on expanding an agent’s senses within its environment to access hidden affordances. My research aims at establishing a pragmatic and practice-led approach to enhancement systems that translates philosophical debates into actionable artefacts. The research’s intended audience includes researchers and practitioners seeking a pragmatic approach to design enhancement technologies that extend the sensory information available to an agent. It also contributes to theories of enhancement by developing a design-led methodology for sensory enhancement that uses ideas from theories of embodiment, affordance, and design cybernetics. The thesis builds on the debate concerning human augmentation, which has often followed subjective and ambiguous assumptions. Modern approaches to the subject – bio-conservatism and bio-liberalism – contend that enhancement technologies affect humanity’s essence despite different defining perspectives. I argue for separating the notion of “enhancement” from “human”, focusing instead on any agent’s body and senses, or lack thereof. I redefine enhancement as the practice of enabling agents to perceive environmental information they traditionally would not have access to. This information is presented to the agent through feedback loops that use the agent’s pre-existing senses. I define this practice as sensory layering. I first establish a body-centric framework that addresses enhancement technology agnostically as the enhancement of both humans and human-made agents such as robots. This acknowledges but deliberately sets aside much of the debate about what is essentially human. Within this framework, I redefine enhancements as devices expanding an agent’s senses in its environment to access hidden affordances. Next, I elaborate on five guidelines that facilitate cutting through the cross-domain knowledge needed to develop pragmatic enhancements. Finally, I explore these five guidelines through three case studies to enhance the navigation abilities of human and human-made agents. The five design guidelines for practitioners approaching wearable enhancement form parts of an overall design strategy and are concerned with: (1) selecting the hidden affordance to target, (2) selecting a pre-existing sense to design on, (3) deciding on how the feedback loop integrates with the agent’s pre-existing senses, (4) locating the wearable on the agent’s body, and (5) making the final design accessible to and reproducible by a larger community. The three case studies of wearable enhancements are used to gauge the guidelines’ value, utility and transferability. Further, they present several advancements in the state-of-the-art in robotics, Human-Computer Interaction and wearables. The first case is a robot’s resilience to motor faults. The project aims to develop a motor assembly that predicts a fault and switches to a backup system. The system allows a robot to keep moving by anticipating and preventing hardware failures. I employed on-device deep learning algorithms and a custom 3D-printed motor assembly. This project illustrates how the design guidelines apply to human-made agents. It highlights the importance of Guideline 3 when designing robotic enhancements. The second case study investigates how a human’s sense of direction can be enhanced by layering the perception of magnetic North. This project aimed to exemplify a design pipeline for body-moulded wearable enhancements, resulting in a wearable device moulded on the wearer’s body. To this end, I employed photogrammetry and 3D printing. This prototype highlights Guidelines 2 and 4. The final case study looks into layering digital audio information on humans moving through a physical space. This project introduces a hybrid bone and soft tissue conduction headset and a mixed reality experience that provides contextual audio feedback. The hybrid headset was designed to address the limited ability of off-the-shelf bone conducting headphones to reproduce a wide range of sound frequencies without occluding the ear canal. Further, the system employs centimetre-level accurate ultra-wideband sensors to track wearers indoors, streaming their position data to a simulation in real-time. Based on their position, the wearers receive layered sound cues about the environment they are navigating. This final prototype highlights the role of Guidelines 3 and 4. My contribution to knowledge is threefold. First, each of the three case studies presents a distinct design innovation: a novel redundant actuator in robotics, a body-centric design pipeline for wearable systems, and a hybrid bone and soft-tissue conduction headset for immersive audio experiences. Second, the research introduces and rigorously explores five design guidelines, forming a new, pragmatic framework for developing enhancement technologies. These guidelines provide practitioners with a method for navigating complex domains like design and robotics through sensory layering. Finally, this framework also advances enhancement theory by challenging traditional, human-centric views of enhancement, proposing an agent-centric – whether human or human-made – epistemology. My research materialises theoretical concepts, via experiential prototypes, to explore and reflect on the theory of enhancement itself

Engaging design; Tools for design practices urging new forms of citizenships

Inspired by examples of work creating the conditions for community-led transition(s), this book offers easy-to-follow strategies. These strategic narratives of citizens’ empowerment constitute practical guidelines as a manual of methods that can be learnt or implemented: a catalyst for creative campaigners, design disruptors, social advocates, and citizens of anywhere. Whilst supporting decolonialised perspectives, these methods open and illustrate new realms for design –as a discipline and practice – that stimulate ownership and agency over our (collective) social and natural environment and urge behaviour to foster sustainable, planet–centred means. Engaging Design probes an engaged ‘metaphorical bridge’ between issues (natural and human challenges), public(s), and communities, an engaging design that can be cultivated, designed, interpreted as a (applied) process in its own right

Studio south: A model for co-production of architecture education and practice through residencies

The research initiative Crossing Cultures introduces an innovative pedagogical model, immersing London-based architecture students in a Calabrian village through residencies, in collaboration with a local non-profit organisation (NPO). Since 2016, the program has addressed societal issues of migration and depopulation, fostering a community of practice with locals, asylum seekers, and other newcomers. Since 2020, the residencies, Studio South, have worked with the London-based design studio. They have disrupted traditional pedagogy, emphasising students as research partners, fostering hybrid roles, and transcending research-practice boundaries. The findings reveal a convergence of students' and the NPOs concerns, endorsing residencies as a model bridging academia and practice for societal impact

Out of the scriptorium: De-writing the journeywoman, re-wilding the domestic and making space

This practice-research redraws literary and natural landscapes via an original entanglement of geopoetics, feminist and literary theory, walking, and geometry.The project is translated through a process-orientated, materially-driven methodology. Using fresco, assemblage, domestic arts, biomaterials, sound and printmaking, the research dissolves literary texts in a process neologised here as ‘dewriting’. By testing the archetypal properties of paper, ink, and milk, the project creates imaginary libraries, books conceptualised as ‘desemic’ texts,‘pages’ made of laser-etched milk, and frescoed objects Using these methods and materials, I extract fictional and nonfictional women from their original stories, both from my past and from works by George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, and Virginia Woolf. I focalise these women as art objects, reconfiguring them in new, communal narratives.The catalyst for all four women is my invented character known as May who has walked the natural landscape for hundreds of years. May is a composite woman; she embodies both the Medieval life-writer Margery Kempe, myself as a literary scholar, and the spirit of women who have walked the earth for centuries. May, who moves conceptually across wild terrain with her distinctive travelling library, creates a space that is enabling and unbounded for the women characters who come after her. She is both repository and synthesis.The central research question is whether May and her library can configure limitless, newly-readable possibilities for entrapped female characters travelling unfamiliar territory. Taking the form of a legend, this research dewrites restless, oppressed and neglected Maggie from The Mill on the Floss, Rhoda from The Waves, Lucy from Villette, and Susie, my impoverished great aunt born in 1899. In dissolving the literary and familial texts that hold these characters up, the project asks whether women can be re-embodied in new and mutually sustaining ways; what role might excavation (of both self and landscape) play in decoding and rewriting women as they walk without their texts? What might emerge from their newly materialised and reconfigured life stories? How can these re-visualised narratives draw attention to women’s ongoing struggle for intellectual enrichment? This inquiry uses a ‘seeing’ frame of the strange loop, a geometric form with a logic- defying ability to continually rise in height whilst returning to where it started. It is a democratic and equalising construct and, as such, is a leveller. A strange loop is infinitely expandable and, like a library, can be filled with new women and new texts, ad infinitum.The research assesses whether the self-referential construct of a strange loop can produce a new visual language for women in the landscape and address a series of political questions about their entitlement to walk unhindered and unjudged. Life-writing, with its infinitely flexible scope, extracts the project from the confines of the more rigid terms of ‘autography’, ‘autobiography’, or ‘abridgement’. In an original contribution to the interdisciplinary fields of life-writing and visual storytelling, characters are liberated from their fictions, dewritten, and entangled via visual-art.The work looks through and beyond the surfaces of past and future landscapes, giving space to fictional bodies and new narratives. It dewrites and rewrites a visual legend of potential inclusivity

Regenerative future(s); A new educational framework for design education on the twenty-first century

Amidst the environmental collapse, it is imperative that academia reflects on how future designers need to unlearn and shift the industrial design mindset to proactively and responsibly design to remediate the present creating a more ecological and just future(s). The next generation of designers must catalyse a shift in design reflecting ecological and social values into their professional outputs. This paper sets up the contested issues for design futures against a background of industrialisation, climate change, and de-anthropocentrisation and moves towards asking how design futures can develop restorative futures. Here we aim to address the RCA educational challenge of moving away from traditional future design approaches (design fictions, futures visions, and speculative design) to transition towards Re-futuring. In the paper, we describe a selection of PhD research projects at the RCA that take different trajectories in exploring new practices and approaches to design futures. From this point, we will triangulate literatures between contemporary ecological critiques, systems, and contemporary future critiques to underpin the problems and opportunities emerging for design to propose a new academic model for replacing Industrial design

Beyond the paper trail: Challenging traditional outputs in design research

We live in a world bloated with data yet starved for wisdom (Kapu'uwailani Lindsey, 2012). As sustainability challenges grow increasingly complex, the limitations of traditional, data-centric research approaches become apparent. This paper argues that the transition towards sustainability necessitates not just technological innovations, but a fundamental ontological shift in how we structure knowledge claims. Modernist systems of values in research, characterised by control, reductionism, and quantification (Latour, 1993), often marginalized tacit knowledge, indigenous ways of knowing, and intuition. Specifically, this paper advocates for the adoption of Research through Design (RtD) (Frayling, 1994; Zimmerman et al., 2007) as a methodological paradigm that bridges the gap between quantifiable data and the lived, context-sensitive realities that are vital for sustainable futures. Finally, we discuss the types of research outputs needed to support this shift, moving beyond traditional peer-reviewed papers and bibliometric quantification towards a more holistic and impactful approach to knowledge production