Cheryl Akner Koler | Artist and researcher

ART/RESEACH

My research profile reflects questions and concerns generated by my artistic work and teaching. See teaching to find methods and models developed to support teachers, professionals, and researchers that are interested in leading workshops, labs, and courses in aesthetics reasoning.

On this page, I present my Ph.D. thesis Form & Formlessness from Chalmers followed by three major co-creative research projects within the field of aesthetics where I have been the main applicate and project leader.

They were all funded by the: Swedish Research Council

Each project received 3-4 years of funding from the Swedish Research Council through the Committee for Artistic Research that involved co-creative activities engaging both cross- and intra- disciplinary partners. These projects are transpositional in that they refer to cross-referencing between disciplines and discourses. Our partners came from diverse fields such as astroparticle physics, industrial design, and professionals from the culinary arts. A common thread in all of these projects is the use of aesthetic labs (A-labs) where haptic sensory images are evoked and shared.

The other research projects are also mostly co-creative ones that reflect the immediate evocative qualities that 3-D physical artifacts and phenomena have in attracting our analytical drive and desire to make and play. Through funding from Vinnova, Knowledge Foundation, Swedish Ministry of Higher Education, Konstfack's Artistic Development (KU), and Estrid Ericsons Foundation I have managed to bring together researchers, designers, and user/players to explore institutional problems in hospitals, philosophical insight in the risks and relations invested in the artistic and design process, the role aesthetic abstractions of form and space have in design education, etc. These are cross- and intra-disciplinary projects as well as educationally framed aesthetic research for the industrial design program and professional development at Konstfack.

My own art projects & products

At the bottom of this page are examples of my own sculptural work shown in exhibitions.

A small collection of my products created in the context of Sven Markelius collective house on Kungsholmen, Stockholm are found under the side menu:

products.

THESIS

PRODUCTS

Co-creative research projects

Form & Formlessness PhD. Thesis

Questioning Aesthetic Abstractions through Art Projects,
Cross-disciplinary Studies and Product Design Education.

This research is based on empirical, embodied studies aimed to generate and regenerate aesthetic reasoning through three approaches:
1.) an educational approach concerned with developing an aesthetic discipline, supporting a formgiving process aimed to create tangible artifacts.
2.) an art-based approach supporting an open exploration of distortion and formlessness
3.) a multi-disciplinary exploratory approach concerned with aesthetic experiences shared in laborations demonstrating complexity and transformation.

Cross-disciplinary study of Complexity & Transformation

This three year project involves hands-on co-creative labs that demonstrated transforming and complex phenomena. The labortion evoke aesthetic reactions and reasoning that set the scene to support cross-discplinary dialogue in a playful context. The project was funded by the committee for Artisitc research, Swedish Research council.

NanoFormgiving through haptic, aesthetic laborations

This is an explorative project that generated over 40 activities which osolate between the intangible world of nano and the highly tangible world of haptics and the sense of touch.

HAPTICA - expanding the sensorium

HAPTICA has develope and transpose methods and models between three aesthetic disciplines: fine arts, culinary arts and performative arts. This four year co-creative project developed models for haptic attributes for the hand, nose, mouth and body. The project was funded by the committee for artistic research at Swedish reserch council (2016-2020)

Crafting sense though fly-tying in project WHISPER

The new aesthetic lab 'Crafting sense through fly tying' helped elderly women weave together learning processes from practical hand crafting procedures with focused questions about patience experience in a hospital context. The project combined aesthetic and senstizing labs with a genus-dichotomy-method that demonstrated, for our partners, that gender norms affect how we prioritize in service design & health care. The general results indicate that aesthetics, as a lived experience, does not have high status in service design or health care. However aesthetics & emotional response are important for both patient & staff. Funded by VINNOVA

Martin Buber Sinnevärldens Betydelse för

Det gäller att betrakta konsten som något av människan frambringat, det säregna uttrycket för hennes säregenhet.
Det särskilda hos människan, som skiljer henne på ett avgörande sätt från alla andra levande varelser är föreningen av hennes kroppslighet och själslighet. Det är denna totalitet som satsas i mötet med världen.

Evolution of Form model (FoE)

The EoF model presents 7 stages of form evolution from geometric law bound structure to organic structures across a horizonttal axis. A bipolar spectrum runs vertical to the stages:
Join
Intersect
Divide (accordance/discordance),
Adapt (assimulate/dissimulate),
Merge (converge/divercge),
Distort (conform/deform),
Organic (concave/convex).

Degrees of Translucency

Translucency moves sight beyond line and surface boundaries and uncovers a "deeper" visual experience linking us closer to the funda-mentals of material and light.
Translucency deals with;
light / darkness,
reflection / absorption
matter / space
Translucency challenges perception because it obscures our vision and at the same time allows us to see through or within materials.
These four variables below help discern the way light interacts with materials. support for theoretical development and taking part in a group Exhibition at Sollentuna art Fair 1996. Grant Konstfack, Artistic Development (KU).

Formgiving Studio Supporting engaged aesthetic activities across cultures and disciplines

To explore and open-up the formgiving process to learn more about how artists & designers weave together explorative methods with the drive to create    artifacts.

To map out the skilful movements employed during the formgiving process.

To move between low technology /hands-on sculptural procedures and high      technology      /digital equipment, such as Rapid Prototyping, and examine if     & how they complement each other to enhance a flowing formgiving process.

To support the renewal of aesthetic reasoning in art/ design in collaboration   with other disciplines.

To revive the use of clay and other malleable materials in the formgiving    process

MY ARTWORK

Kulturhuset Stockholm

Together with astroparticle physicist Lars Bergström, we explored the parallel concepts of complex curvatures in string theory in relation to the theme infinity.