ARTIST · ACTIVIST · RESEARCHER · PHILOSOPHY TEACHER · CULTURAL PRODUCER

Artistic practices
as forms of action

Daniel Valle works across contemporary artistic practices, activism, self-management, direct action, poetry, animation, philosophy, aesthetic research and education. In certain editorial and artistic contexts he uses the name Aki and, at different stages and in different registers of his work, he has also used the heteronyms Volgy, Nanin and Mr. Punch.

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ART · CONTEMPORARY ARTISTIC PRACTICES · DIRECT ACTION · ACTIVISM · SELF-MANAGEMENT · PHILOSOPHY · POETRY · ANIMATION · MOVING IMAGE · MODAL AESTHETICS · ART THEORY · VISUAL CULTURE · EDUCATION · INSTITUTING PRACTICE · ARCHIVE · MEMORY · CARTOGRAPHY · MEDIATION · RESEARCH · CURATING · INSTALLATION · TERRITORY · BODY · SUBJECTIVATION · RESISTANCE · REPARATION · BCAX · BASE · TERMITA ·
01

Activated contemporary artistic practices

Two open processes shape the present: BASE, in connection with BCAX, and the Truth Commission. They are not a separate section of the archive, but its active zones: places where artistic practice, philosophy, education, memory, territory and action are brought back into play.

2025–2026 · INSTALLATION · SITUATED EDUCATION

BASE

Cartographies of discipline. Classroom, institution, neighbourhood, sound, mediation and living archive. A pedagogical, artistic and philosophical line connected with BCAX.

Enter BASE ↓IN PROGRESS · ARTISTIC RESEARCH

Truth Commission

An artistic, ethical and civil tribunal on the 1936 coup, genocide and the Franco dictatorship.

Enter the Commission ↓
02

BASE: Cartographies of Discipline

In June 2026, a 4th-year secondary Philosophy classroom at IES Padre Feijoo was transformed into a collective artistic-philosophical installation. The space ceased to function as an ordinary classroom and became an immersive, uncomfortable and process-based device for investigating how an institution organises bodies, conduct, gazes, routes and forms of subjectivity.

A large double-sided canvas forced visitors to move around. One side contained a Foucauldian cartography of La Calzada, developed through routes, threads, photographs, concepts and reflections. The other connected discipline, surveillance, institution, normalisation, subject and resistance.

Darkness, two yellow spotlights, displaced furniture, written walls, participation tables, materials from the Reina Sofía Museum and sound recorded in the neighbourhood composed an expanded work. Students acted as creators, philosophical producers and cultural mediators.

BASE relates to BCAX as a future horizon: a possible connection between state education, territory, cultural self-management and contemporary artistic practices.

Discover the future BCAX project ↗

03

Truth Commission

An artistic, ethical and civil tribunal on the 1936 coup, genocide and the Franco dictatorship.

It is not a court of law, but an aesthetic, ethical and civic device created to reconstruct a public truth through testimony, archives, citizen participation, philosophical research and artistic practices. Its legitimacy comes from the ethical force of testimony, the symbolic authority of art, methodological transparency, and historical and documentary rigour.

The project proposes a hybrid body formed by an ethics committee, an artistic committee, a civil assembly and a documentary secretariat. Its methodology combines oral, performative and documentary testimonies, public artistic hearings, memory and aesthetics laboratories, and an open Civil Archive.

The hearings are conceived not as trials but as artistic and civic events. The witness occupies the centre, accompanied by sensitive forms capable of activating the account without turning it into spectacle. The public acts as witness to the witnesses and each session becomes part of the living archive.

The process culminates in an Ethical and Aesthetic Judgment combining historical and philosophical analysis, produced artworks, edited testimonies and public recommendations. The result takes the form of a book, exhibition and digital archive.

04

Art archive

The archive brings together works, images, films, processes, essays, exhibitions, poetry, curating and cultural production. It is approached as a constellation of relationships, not as a closed classification.

2026 · INSTALACIÓN

BASE

Documentation, video and archive of Cartographies of Discipline.

Browse archive ↓
ARCHIVO

BCAX and Volgy Studio

05

Research

Modal Aesthetics

MuseocinemaCurator and member of the curatorial team · Reina Sofía Museum ↗Poetics of animation: forged not only in modal aestheticsThesis and full text, UNED ↗Deleuze’s viewpoint as a trigger for rethinking the art of animationEikón / Imago ↗An aesthetics of animation? The path of modal aestheticsÉNDOXA 56 ↗Aesthetics of Peace, Tactics of DesertionReina Sofía Museum ↗
06

Autonomy, form of life and education as an instituting practice

Education is not merely a mechanism of transmission, but a process of self-institution of meaning and subjectivation. There is no neutral education: every educational practice intervenes in a form of life and distributes speech, time, bodies and possibilities for action.

Autonomy and social sculpture

Greek paideia, the Socratic method, Jordi Claramonte’s Modal Aesthetics and Joseph Beuys’s social sculpture make it possible to think of education as an instituting practice. Beuys’s claim that every human animal is an artist does not designate banal creativity, but the capacity and responsibility to shape forms of life, self-organise, speak and produce shared meaning.

From Modal Aesthetics, autonomy is not abstract independence, but the capacity to modulate the relationships in which we participate: knowing when to couple with, resist or overflow given forms. Education thus becomes an institutionalised space of trial and error, enabling self-organisation and active participation in an ecology of practices.

Socrates, paideia and responsibility

Maieutics returns responsibility for thought to each interlocutor: knowledge is not delivered, it is produced in common and only becomes valid when it transforms the subject who states it. Paideia links education, ethics and politics because learning also means inhabiting the public sphere, deliberating and answering for a shared form of life.

Body, power and difference

Foucault shows that schooling, assessment, the distribution of time and the normalisation of bodies are technologies of subjectivation. Butler places the body and performativity at the centre; Deleuze allows learning to be thought as connection, becoming and line of flight; Beauvoir reminds us that education actively participates in becoming.

Sontag warns that critical education cannot be reduced to discursive interpretation: it must also relearn how to feel and allow itself to be affected. Freire and bell hooks understand education as a practice of freedom, dialogue, situated experience, care and involvement. Dorlin compels us to recognise asymmetries of vulnerability, fear and capacity for defence.

A philosophy of education

This constellation offers neither a closed methodology nor a technical manual. It formulates a philosophy of education: a cartography of tensions between autonomy and norm, body and discourse, institution and flight, care and conflict. To educate is to intervene in an ongoing social sculpture.

This conception also takes concrete form in the Modal Method, an original proposal for philosophical organisation, comprehension, reconstruction, retrieval and writing that understands learning as an autonomous, relational process aware of its conditions.

Visit Philosophy and Baccalaureate ↗ Visit Modal Method ↗

07

Biography

Daniel Valle (Ponferrada, 1988), who uses the name Aki in certain editorial and artistic contexts, holds a PhD in Philosophy, specialising in aesthetics and art theory. He is a secondary-school philosophy teacher in Spain and a multidisciplinary artist. His work lies at the intersection of philosophical aesthetics, contemporary art theory, image studies and historical memory studies, with particular attention to artistic practices, political violence, justice and the symbolic elaboration of conflict. He completed master’s degrees in Theoretical and Practical Philosophy and Teacher Training. His education also includes Animation Film Direction and Production and artistic training in sculpture, drawing and painting.

His academic research has developed mainly in contemporary aesthetics, art theory and philosophy of the image. He has published academic articles in these fields and participates in research projects linked to the critical analysis of contemporary artistic practices. His work focuses on aesthetic experience, modes of artistic production, cultural and historical contexts, contemporary visual culture, memory and the politics of images.

Theoretically, his research engages with contemporary philosophy, critical theory and film theory. It draws especially on the modal aesthetics developed by Jordi Claramonte and on the philosophy of the image and contemporary film theory, particularly the contributions of Gilles Deleuze. From this framework, he analyses artistic practices as aesthetic configurations linking subjects, images and world.

He is currently part of the Aesthetics of Peace and Tactics of Desertion research project and team at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, participating in research on how contemporary artistic practices visually elaborate historical conflicts and imagine horizons of memory, reparation and coexistence. Between 2011 and 2012 he was part of the Museocinema curatorial team and has collaborated in museum and cultural contexts such as Open This End.

Alongside this, he develops a multidisciplinary artistic practice with a strong theoretical and reflective dimension. His projects integrate conceptual research, visual experimentation and philosophical reflection through moving image, visual research, archives, audiovisual essays and installation. His career has developed mainly in independent contexts outside conventional art-market circuits. He has worked under names including Volgy, Nanin and Mr. Punch. His current Truth Commission project addresses the coup, genocide and Franco dictatorship.

In the audiovisual field he directed the animated short Dreamless (2013), selected and awarded at more than forty international festivals, and Pispin (2018). He also worked as an animator on Yaku (2010), a Goya Awards candidate. He has participated in group exhibitions in Spain, France, Sweden, Italy and the United States, with work shown at institutions including LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial and loaned to the Antonio Pereira Foundation.

In poetry, during the 2010s he published texts in the Chilean magazine La Marcha and participated in the contemporary Spanish poetry anthology Del Uno al Otro Confín. Vol. I, published by Chiado Editorial. This writing coexisted with countercultural publications linked to underground and alternative scenes.

He has developed independent cultural initiatives, including the artistic direction of the first Termita International Film Festival, the cultural management of Termita Lab and the editing of the cultural fanzine Termita. For several years he led Volgy Studio. He currently coordinates BCAX in Gijón, a self-managed community platform connecting research, artistic practice and critical thought.

In connection with BCAX, BASE is a line of pedagogical, artistic and philosophical research developed in state education. During the 2025–2026 school year he led BASE, episode I: Cartographies of Discipline, a collective artistic-philosophical installation made with students from the work of Michel Foucault and in dialogue with mediation materials from the Reina Sofía Museum.

In education he teaches Philosophy at a state secondary school in Gijón and develops pedagogical projects oriented towards critical thinking, inclusive education and dialogue between philosophy, art and contemporary visual culture. He conceives teaching as a space for cultural intervention and production of thought.

In recent years his research has progressively turned towards the relationships between cinema, memory and political violence. From this hybrid position between theory and creation, he explores the role images play in shaping historical experience and constructing the collective imaginaries of our time.

Exhibitions

  • 2010. Group exhibition en el barrio de Montmartre, Pop-up Gallery, Paris.
  • 2011. Group exhibition Artista para Termita, Pop-up Gallery, Madrid.
  • 2011. Group exhibition de dibujo, sala By Vázquez, Madrid.
  • 2012. Group exhibition, Pop-up Gallery CBAM.
  • 2014. Three Kings exhibition en Eka & Moor Art Gallery.
  • 2014. Creative Realism exhibition en Eka & Moor Art Gallery.
  • 2014. Exhibition at Artes Art Gallery, Paris, curated by Gorgonio Sanjuan.
  • 2014. Lecture, screening and exhibition en LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación.
  • 2014. Exhibition at Galleri Bellman, Stockholm.
  • 2014. Florence Biennale of Contemporary Art.
  • 2015. Exhibition at TVAA Gallery, Dallas.
  • 2015. Launch of the living project Termita Lab.
  • 2015. Artist selected for la Bienal de Florence.
  • 2016. Project and intervention in public space Termita.

Dreamless awards, competitions and selections

  • Second prize at Curt Gambals, 2013.
  • Semifinalist at Avilés Acción, 2013.
  • Finalist at Spanisches Filmfest Berlin, 2013.
  • Finalist at Miradas Cercanas, XI Ponferrada International Film Festival, 2013.
  • Finalist at Profire International Short Film Festival, 2013.
  • Main competition at Cinemadamare, 2013.
  • Main competition at VI Banjaluka, 2013.
  • Official selection at IBAFF, 2014.
  • Official selection at PTFF International Film Festival, 2014.
  • Official selection at XIV PTFF, 2014.
  • Official selection at XVI CPM Filmfest, 2013.
  • Official selection at Libélula Fest, 2013.
  • Official selection at VII Expotoons, International Animation Festival, 2013.
  • Official selection at Golden Orchid International Animation Festival, 2013.
  • Official selection at la Sección Informativa 55 Zinebi, 2013.
  • Official selection at 3D Wire, 2013.
  • Official selection at III Anima-São, 2013.
  • Official selection at FIBABC, 2013.
  • Official selection at XXX Festival de Cine de Bogotá, 2013.
  • Official selection at CineSeptiembre, 2013.
  • Official selection at Srebrena Traka International Film Festival, 2013.
  • Official selection at X Festival y Muestra Internacional Corto Creativo, 2013.
  • Official selection at Baixada Animada, 2013.
  • Official selection at Ars Independent, 2013.
  • Official selection at Anifest Rozafa, 2013.
  • Official selection at Molisecinema International Film Festival, 2013.
  • Official selection at CARTÓN, 3.º Festival Internacional de Cortos de Animación La Tribu, 2013.
  • Official selection at XIV Trani International Film Festival, 2013.
  • Official selection at Festival Internacional TOMACINE – CORTOMATE'13, 2013.
  • Official selection at 36 FICIE, Semana Internacional de Cine Independiente de Elche, 2013.
  • Official selection at IV Muestra K-Maleón, 2013.
  • Official selection at IndieGo Alley Festival International Creative Commons Film and Music Festival, 2013.
  • Official selection at Naoussa International Film Festival, 2013.
  • Official selection at VIII International Festival of Contemporary Animation and Media-Art LINOLEUM, 2013.
  • Official selection at Cartoon Club, Festival Internazionale del Cinema d'Animazione e del Fumetto, 2013.
  • Official selection at OFF Animation Competition, Kinofest, 2013.
  • Out of competition at Scratch!, 2013.
  • Out of competition at Oberá en Corto, 2013.
  • Out of competition at Portobello Film Festival, Video Cafe Selection, 2013.

Selected artistic projects

  • 2025–2026. BASE, episodio I: Cartographies of Discipline — Project director and artist · IES Padre Feijoo, Xixón. Collective artistic-philosophical installation with 4th-year secondary Philosophy students. Critical cartography, sound, spatial intervention, mediation and living archive, developed from the thought of Michel Foucault and in dialogue with mediation resources from the Reina Sofía Museum.
  • Ongoing. Truth Commission — Artistic research project on the 1936 coup, Francoist violence and dictatorship, focused on memory, testimony, images and symbolic reparation.
  • 2020. Pispin — Director. Animated short film.
  • 2013. Dreamless — Director. Animated short film selected and awarded at more than forty international festivals.

Selected exhibitions and presentations

  • Group exhibitions at Pop-Up Gallery, Paris and Madrid; By Vázquez y Eka & Moor Art Gallery, Madrid; Artes Art Gallery, Paris; Galleri Bellman, Stockholm; Florence Biennale of Contemporary Art; y TVAA Gallery, Dallas.
  • Group presentation at LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, Xixón.
  • Work included in the collection of la Fundación Antonio Pereira.
  • Lectures on the art of animation at Taumatropia 1.0 y LABoral Centro de Arte y Creación Industrial, within the Independent Artists programme.

Curatorial and cultural work

  • 2015–2022. Researcher and audiovisual arts curator — Open This End, Madrid.
  • 2011–2016. Artistic director / cultural manager / editor-in-chief — Termita International Film Festival · Termita Lab · Termita Fanzine, ISSN 2254-1519.
  • 2011–2012. Member of the curatorial team of Museocinema — Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía.
  • 2013–2020. Visual arts teacher — Volgy Studio · Madrid, Ponferrada and Xixón.

Contact, research, projects and collaborations

vgdaniel.phi@gmail.com
contact@dvolgy.com

ORCID ↗BCAX ↗Teaching ↗Modal Method ↗