Ashraellen

Research core

Ashraellen is not quite a name; it is, rather, a way of seeing.

It is a lifelong artistic-philosophical inquiry into meaning, perception, self-deception, inner freedom and the human loss of contact with reality. The work is grounded in the author’s ability to see meanings within meanings, structures within structures, and intersections where a chance phrase, an everyday scene, a personal reaction or a cultural form can reveal a deeper mechanism of human experience.

Ashraellen does not begin with the production of content. Books, essays, novels, videos, sound works, satire, symbolic readings, public formulations and the multilingual archive are different ways of giving form to and preserving one sustained inquiry.

At the centre of the project is the observation of how a person replaces direct perception with interpretation; how pain becomes a worldview; how fear turns into conviction; how language, ideology, religion, digital pressure or personal trauma begin to think in place of the person.

Ashraellen does not offer a finished system of truth and does not claim the role of an all-powerful guru, messiah or teacher.

The author’s position is closer to that of an observer and a recorder of intersections — an attempt to recognise and give form to something through which a person may recognise mechanisms that are already at work within them.

In this sense, Ashraellen is an independent artistic research practice, a literary-philosophical archive and a multilingual public platform for the exploration of meaning, perception, attention, exhaustion, inner freedom and the contemporary loss of contact with reality.

About the author

Ashraellen is the authorial and working name of Nikolai Kostyshev, a writer, philosopher and independent artistic researcher working from Poland.

Russian is Nikolai Kostyshev’s (Ashraellen’s) primary language of thought and writing: the language in which the original meanings, rhythm and inner pressure of the work arise. Other language versions are created not through mechanical word-for-word substitution, but through careful literary transcreation — an attempt to carry a work, an idea or a statement into another linguistic environment while preserving, as fully as possible, its meaning, intonation and authorial presence.

The practical need to preserve the author’s voice across languages has, over time, become one of the independent parallel directions of research.

Method of observation

The method is based on observation and the recording of nodes of meaning. It does not begin with a thesis to be proved or a system to be built. It begins where a node of meaning emerges in an experience, a phrase, a reaction, a scene, a fear, a pain or an unexpected coincidence.

Artistic form is not decoration here. It becomes a way of knowing. A novel functions as a long-form research instrument; essays and formulations record observations at moments of clarity; video and public response test thought through living reaction; visual images address layers of perception in which meaning has not yet become a concept.

The universality of an observation is tested not only through statistics, but through recognition: the moment when a reader encounters a description of their own experience where they did not expect to find it.

Professional frames

Selected literary and artistic works

The works below show several different sides of Ashraellen’s literary and artistic-research practice. The complete body of literary work is gathered separately.

All books and literary projects →

Public forms of the project

Ashraellen develops not as a single media channel, but as a system of public forms. Each form reveals the shared research field in its own register.

Other research and public projects →

Parallel directions

Some directions within Ashraellen did not begin as deliberately conceived standalone projects, but as continuations of practical questions that emerged from literary, research and multilingual work.

Today they develop alongside the core literary and philosophical practice. Their boundaries, forms and possible future applications are still being defined.

The parallel directions are at different stages — from observation and research to working prototypes. They are not artificially combined into a single product, nor do they replace Ashraellen’s literary and philosophical practice. They arise alongside it wherever the work itself reveals a new problem worth investigating.

The parallel directions do not form a second, separate sphere of activity. They develop within the wider Ashraellen practice — alongside literature, philosophical observation, artistic research and public forms.

How the work is developing today

Literary and philosophical practice remains the foundation of Ashraellen’s work. At the same time, multilingual publication and archiving continue, along with public artistic forms and several parallel research directions that have emerged from practical needs within the work itself.

These directions are at different stages — from published works and active public forms to research and working prototypes. Their development is not driven by a need to turn every observation into a separate product or project.

Infrastructure

Production infrastructure is necessary because the research already exists in different forms and languages and needs a stable structure that allows the work to be brought to completion, preserved, transcreated and shared with an audience.

Development aim

The aim is not to produce as many separate publications as possible or to turn every emerging direction into a standalone product. What matters is preserving the possibility of continuing the work as a unified practice — writing, researching, recording observations, carrying them across forms and languages, and preserving the accumulated context over time.

Infrastructure development matters insofar as it helps this work remain continuous, recognisable and true to its authorial identity.

Collaboration and support

Ashraellen is open to publishing collaboration, cultural programmes, residencies, grant support, research and institutional partnerships, private patronage and other substantive forms of collaboration that genuinely intersect with the existing practice.

Support makes it possible to secure sustained working time, complete major texts, prepare publications, develop the multilingual archive, research directions and the necessary infrastructure, while preserving quality without the constant rupture between creative work and outside employment.

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