Cheryl Akner-Koler

Professor, PhD, Dept of Industrial Design, Konstfack University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, Stockholm, Sverige

Unfolding the Aesthetics of Complexity

Theme and issues
This presentation is about the findings from an artist research project on crossdisciplinary study in Complexity and Transformation (C&T). The project was driven from Konstfack involving artists, designers, physicists, and architects. It involved experimental studies that combine aesthetic strategies and rule based mechanisms aimed to explore the theme complexity and transformation. During four workshops, 12 physical lab sessions were performed that offered different interpretations of the theme. These workshops were videofilmed from an insider’s perspective, exposing a very candid exploratory process and dialogue.

The Swedish term laboration was adapted and anglicized to coin the crossdisciplinary, embodied activities during the lab sessions in the workshops. The interactive methodologies were practice-based supporting learning through experience. The similarities and clashes that arose between and across disciplines made it possible to recognize the essence of the aesthetic strategies concerning embodiment, play, gestalt and spatial staging.

The following three procedural models were developed focusing on ways to link concepts with aesthetic features and properties of complex phenomena: i) Aesthetic phase transition-model dealing with objects and events focusing on a sequence of aesthetic phase transition, ii) Transformation-model using inductive and deductive reasoning comparing contrasting concepts and features over time, iii) Framing the dialogue-model using a bipolar spectrum to frame complex behavior and support a multidisciplinary, individualized dialogue.

The C&T project recognized that knowledge is context-dependent and subjectively framed. The results of a questionnaire and interviews with the participants showed that aesthetic strategies can complement the systematic and precise reasoning characterizing physics to support an embodied understanding of the theme complexity and transformation. The presentation will end with a manifest called ‘Unfolding the aesthetics of complexity’