Projects per year
Personal profile
Profile
I am an intellectual and art historian, theorist and cultural producer. My research focuses on the historical avant-gardes, the neo-avant-gardes, contemporary art, and aesthetic theory from 1800 to the present. I am particularly interested in the "politics of knowlege" in art and theory that can be attributed to the revolutionary and emancipatory tradition, including Soviet and German Constructivism, Marxism, Critical Theory, the Situationist International, anti-colonial art and thought as well as recent socially engaged art and climate activism.
Alongside my employment at the university, I also teach at Det Jyske Kunstakademi and am a member of the extradisciplinary collective Organ for the Autonomous Sciences, whose activities are manifested in texts, performances and exhibitions. We are currently working on an exhibition in 8. Salon in Hamburg.
Current research
I have just completed the research project A Nameless Science: Art, Expertise, and Infrastructure, funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation. Here I investigated how a number of artists in recent decades have renegotiated their critical competencies and literacy in the encounter with knowledge institutions such as the laboratory, the courtroom, the university and the hospital, and how such renegotiations reflect a more general institutional, social and epistemological crisis in the illiberal society of late capitalism. In addition to a number of articles (already published or forthcoming), I am currently writing a book that summarizes this work. A part of the project also led to the curatorial program series Experts of the Undercommons in Kunsthal Aarhus during 2023.
I am also working on finalizing a book manuscript (based on my PhD thesis) on the historical roots of the contemporary phenomenon of 'artistic research' in the historical avant-garde movements. I hope to finish this by early 2025.
I have also written a longer afterword to the new Danish translation of Theodor W. Adorno's Aesthetic Theory, published in November 2024.
Together with Maja Bak Herrie, I have edited a questionnaire for the Nordic Journal of Aesthetics entitled “Aesthetics in the Age of Unreason”, published in August 2024. Together with Dominique Routhier and Louis Hartnoll, I am preparing a new special issue of NJA to be published in the fall 2025.
The work on an anti-capitalist handbook I have edited together with Kristoffer Balslev Willert is nearing completion. It will be published by Antipyrine in early 2025.
Last but not least, on November 1, I have started a new research project in collaboration with Museum Jorn supported by the New Carlsberg Foundation. It is titled “Who does art belong to? On the collective, the common and the popular in Jorn and his context”.
Education/Academic qualification
PhD, School of Culture and Society - History of Ideas, subject
1 Feb 2017 → 21 Dec 2021
Award Date: 21 Dec 2021
Keywords
- Philosophical aesthetics
- History of aesthetics after 1735
- Critical theory
- History of historical understanding
- Avant-garde
- Modern philosophy of history
- Film aesthetics
- Art as an institution
- Media theory and criticism
- Aesthetics and art
- Film history
- history of art
- The idea and intellectual history of the university
- The knowledge society
Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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Hvem tilhører kunsten? Om det kollektive, det fælles og det folkelige hos Jorn og hans kontekst
Dias, T. (PI)
01/11/2024 → 30/11/2027
Project: Research
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A Nameless Science: Art, Expertise, and Infrastructure
Dias, T. (PI)
02/05/2022 → 18/10/2024
Project: Research
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Morphology of the Revolution: Elementarism, Artistic Research, and the International Constructivists, 1918-1939
Dias, T. (PI)
01/02/2017 → 26/11/2021
Project: Research
Research output
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En anden økologi: Antikapitalistisk håndbog
Dias, T. & Willert, K. B., 2025, Antipyrine.Research output: Book/anthology/dissertation/report › Anthology › Research › peer-review
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Court Report
Dias, T., Feb 2024, Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes: Comrades Past, Present and Future versus the State of the Netherlands, Unilever, ING and Airbus. D'Souza, R. & Staal, J. (eds.). Amsterdam: Framer Framed, p. 345-351 6 p.Research output: Contribution to book/anthology/report/proceeding › Book chapter › Research
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Det er sjældent, en kunsthistorisk bog er skrevet på indestængt had. Men den her er – og den er fremragende
Dias, T., Aug 2024, In: Information. Moderne tider, p. 30 1 p.Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Literature review › Communication
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Efterskrift
Dias, T., 2024, Theodor W. Adorno : Æstetisk teori. Aarhus: Klim, p. 515-576 61 p.Research output: Contribution to book/anthology/report/proceeding › Preface/postscript › Research › peer-review
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Introduction
Bak Herrie, M. & Dias, T., 19 Dec 2024, In: Nordic Journal of Aesthetics. 33, 68, p. 4-8 5 p.Research output: Contribution to journal/Conference contribution in journal/Contribution to newspaper › Editorial
Open Access
Activities
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THE ACTUALITY OF THE 20s
Dias, T. (Participant)
25 Sept 2024 → 26 Sept 2024Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in or organisation af a conference
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The University as a Work of Art
Dias, T. (Lecturer)
2 May 2024Activity: Presentations, memberships, ownership and other activities › Lecture and oral contribution
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Book panel: With and Against - The Situationist International in the Age of Automation,
Dias, T. (Lecturer)
13 Nov 2023Activity: Presentations, memberships, ownership and other activities › Lecture and oral contribution
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The University as a Work of Art
Dias, T. (Lecturer)
26 Oct 2023Activity: Presentations, memberships, ownership and other activities › Lecture and oral contribution
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Book Panel: Dialog med de døde
Dias, T. (Lecturer)
6 Oct 2023Activity: Presentations, memberships, ownership and other activities › Lecture and oral contribution
Courses
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University as Infrastructure, Researcher as Worker
Ørskov, M. & Dias, T. 01/08/2023 → 01/09/2023
Course: Teaching