This research is based on empirical, embodied studies aimed to generate and regenerate aesthetic reasoning through three approaches:

• an educational approach concerned with developing an aesthetic discipline, supporting a formgiving process aimed to create tangible artifacts.
• an art-based approach supporting an open exploration of distortion and formlessness
• a multi-disciplinary exploratory approach concerned with aesthetic experiences shared in laborations demonstrating complexity and transformation.

The overall aim of the thesis is to explore different types of aesthetic abstractions that elaborate aesthetic reasoning about form and formlessness. The thesis develops methods and models for aesthetic investigation that support, challenge and go beyond the normative conceptions of beauty, with high relevance for teaching 3-D formgiving aesthetics and research by design methodologies. A central method applied throughout the entire research project is a cooperative inquiry method engaging students and experienced professionals as co-researchers in embodied/ interactive physical form studies and laborations.

The content of the thesis is presented in three parts relating to the approaches above:

 -Part 1 defines an aesthetic nomenclature organized within a taxonomy of form in space. This aesthetic taxonomy is outlined in five levels based on essential aesthetic abstractions, emphasizing structure and inner movement in relation to the intention for the development of a gestalt. It originates from the educational program of Alexander Kostellow and Rowena Reed and has been further developed through an iterative educational process using a Concept-translation-form method, resulting in the Evolution of Form (EoF)-model. This EoF-model reciprocally weaves together geometric structures and organic principles into a sequence of seven-stages. To question the normative principles of beauty inherent in the EoF-model, a bipolar +/- spectrum was introduced at each stage to expand the model, aiming for a more inclusive approach to aesthetics.

-Part 2, both challenges and expands the aesthetic reasoning in part 1 through i) solo sculptural exhibitions exploring properties of distortion and transparency in a constructivist art community ii) collaborative projects with physicists concerning infinity and studies of continuous complex curvatures and iii) explorative studies of material breakdown and non-visual studies with ID masters students at Konstfack. 

- Part 3 problematizes the taxonomy of form by applying methods and results from a cross-disciplinary study of complexity and transformation involving artists, physicists, designers and architects. The three year study explored temporal events of changing phenomena and formlessness that did not comply with any traditional aesthetic norms. Based on the experience from 12 laborations, three models were developed: The Transformation-model and Framing the dialogue-model were developed to physically interact with as well as to document and discuss change and transformation through bipolar reasoning. The Aesthetic phase transition-model was developed to capture the particular properties expressed in a transformation and unify stable objects with changing events.  

In conclusion, the thesis claims the value of an inclusive aesthetic mode of abstract reasoning in the scientific and design communities.  A provisional 3 modes of abstraction-model is presented placing numeric, linguistic and aesthetic modes of abstraction as interdependent within a spectrum from separation to contextualization. 

Haptica is an artistic research project in the field of aesthetics that explores practical and theoretical connections between haptic attributes of the hand (making), nose, mouth and throat (tasting) and body (inner presence). The project aims to interlace aesthetic reasoning from sculpture and design to culinary art that emphasises active exploration and intentional form- and taste- giving processes. Haptic perception engages sensory experiences mediated through skin and kinaesthetic system.

The project started with researching how air flows through space and is perceived by subtle sensory receptors under our skin and hair follicles, proceeding to tactile touch of material and grasping of material and instruments used in the creative making and performative process. It then shifted the practical and theoretical models from external space and physical materials to internal airflow through breathing, smelling and tasting that connects with soma aesthetics and reflection through inner presence. The project is a collaboration with Mischa Billing and Annika Göran Rodell, Campus Grythyttan at the School of Hospitality, Culinary Arts and Meal Science, Örebro University.

The design research community is beginning to recognize the organizing capacity of form as a scientific method of its own right. The aim of this study was to a) develop a pedagogically framed case study method that applied a participatory action research approach and b) create a 3-D form model bridging geometric- to organic structures. A 10-step-concept-translation-form method was developed which resulted in a “Evolution of form” model with two axes: The first horizontal axis presents a sequence of geometrically derived forms that gradually take on organic qualities of convexities and concavities. The second axis expands the model in a vertical dimension to include a bipolar spectrum at each stage. This vertical dimension opens up a dichotomy between congruent and incongruent properties in relation to original features of the geometric form.

The discussion deals with the active formgiving process; the need for sculptural awareness and the inner sense of form; validity of the created method and model and finally the pros and cons of aesthetical abstractions that build on geometric references.

This book aims to strengthen an understanding of the sculptural possibilities of form and space through developing a taxonomy and structure that recognizes and gives priority to the 3-dimensional perception of form and space. It is written so as to apply to both the active process of shaping 3-D form and space and analyzing any existing visual situation. Teaching in the Department of Industrial Design (ID) at Konstfack has given me great opportunities to further develop and document this visual study program. Using clay and paper models the students creatively question the "established terminology" and develop solutions that strengthen and/or add new concepts to the program.

The foundation of this language is derived from the inspiring courses conducted by professor Rowena Reed at Pratt Institute in New York City and also in private Soho classes. Rowena Reed´s method of visual analysis taught her students to "think with their eyes" and to translate an inner vision into concrete experiences. Her challenging way of teaching combined creative exploration with an analytical search for the "Principles of visual relationships".The last pages of this book are dedicated to summarizing her background, philosophy, and educational vision. Moreover, in order to gain a historical perspective, a map is included that outlines the relevant art movements in the beginning of this century and some of the major events in the early work of Rowena Reed and her husband Alexander Kostellow. The Russian constructivist movement is the point of origin for the artistic tendencies and formal language developed by Reed and Kostellow and further developed in this book by Akner Koler.

The authors use new aesthetic criteria concerning structures and properties to explain parallel concepts within theoretical astroparticle physics and contemporary form/compositional research. These aesthetic criteria stem from complex curvature models developed both in string theory and in artistic perceptual research on transitional surfaces and concavities. The authors compare the complex curvatures of the mathematically derived Calabi-Yau manifold with one of Akner Koler's sculptures, which explores an organic interpretation of the looping curvature of a Möbius strip. A goal of the collaboration is to gain experience and insight into the twisting paradoxical forces in the 3D world and to explore the properties of transparency as applied to the Calabi-Yau manifold and a point cloud translation of Akner Koler's sculpture.

Our topic concerns how to conduct practice-based research between and within three aesthetic disciplines: sculptor, professional taster, and performative artist. We continue to work with the material and experiences developed during the 3-year VR-funded HAPTICA research project. Our plan is to actualise a few practical situations that show how we gained both a deeper aesthetic knowledge within our own artistic disciplines and grew more sensitive and knowledgeable about the challenges faced in the other disciplines. The overall topic has been to expand the field of aesthetics by including the proximity senses: tactile, haptic, smell, taste, and movement by conducting artistic research in haptic.

New design methods for educating designers are needed to adapt the attributes of haptic interaction to fit the embodied experience of the users. This paper presents educationally framed aesthetic sensitizing labs: 1) a material-lab exploring the tactile and haptic structures of materials, 2) a vibrotactile-lab exploring actuators directly on the body and 3) a combined materials- and vibrotactile-lab embedded in materials. These labs were integrated in a design course that supports a non-linear design process for embodied explorative and experimental activities that feed into an emerging gestalt. A co-design process was developed in collaboration with researchers and users who developed positioning and communications systems for people with deafblindness. Conclusion: the labs helped to discern attributes of haptic interactions which supported designing scenarios and prototypes showing novel ways to understand and shape haptic interaction.

Professors Cheryl Akner-Koler and Lena Tibell of the Nanoform project describe the artistic methods and benefits that it might afford to both science and society.

Nano design through haptic and aestethic laboratory experiments

We experience an urgent climate crisis that shakes our whole existence and calls for change. The field of industrial design education has expanded over the past decades towards a new language of speculative design projects, aiming to influence industry and address unsustainable manufacturing. How designers typically use their capacities for change, is shown in the discursive qualities of proposed solutions. Within the current educational context, not given a commercial brief, new methods arise. This international design master's course aims to find better future product concepts that nudge sustainable ways of living. How they initiate and prototype these product ideas, is through design fiction and co-creation, conceptualizing and proposing solutions to essential problems and needs. By the use of prototypes, designers can bring essential future solutions into the present. This paper outlines how the new ‘Anticipative Co-creation Method’ emerged. As the foresighted concepts intend to address the negative trends in overconsumption and unsustainable lifestyle, the designs for the far future function as inspirational future versions of the relevant suggestions for today. Through interpersonal anticipatory engagement, concepts grow out of the design fiction. In a dialog with each other students verbalize scenarios and through co-creation concepts become ‘real’ as different videos were created. We have observed that the students build empathy for each other through co-creative activities within the method of anticipation. If we want a thriving future, we need to act now. The design profession has never been more essential in building and critically assessing design futures literacies. 

In 2010, the project MER was funded be The Knowledge (KK) foundation. Lars Eriksson, associate professor in applied aestetics and creative events at Grythytte Academy Örebro University, initiated the project MER which focuses on the way people move and interact in the environment around the meal.

This project has conducted a number of studies about the meeting between utensils, food and the guest in motion, creating the culinary experience. The poster presents a summary of a provocative method applied in all of the different studies.

In an interdisciplinary setting, participants from the fine arts, physics, design, biology, culinary arts and mathematics met to explore a two-fold project involving nano and haptics. Using methods that interlace macro- and nano-scale phenomena and technologies, we were able to develop a physical, embodied relationship to a world that is far beyond the direct sensation of touch and human interaction. During this three-year project, a core team of participants developed the following experimental approaches and methods: Aesthetic labs, Surrealist games, Nanofabrication, Infectious formgiving, Process video documentation and Performative staging.

With access to nanofabrication laboratories, the team explored form using deposition and etching tools on the tip of a strand of hair as a physical, tangible point of departure. Creating tangible relationships with nano phenomena and creating token imagery makes these invisible parts of our world more accessible and workable on a wider and more visionary scale.

Given the strict protocol in the NanoFabrication Center and the general principle of working flat and clean in such environments, the methods applied by the NanoForm project the haptic approach, the use of dirty human material in a sterile environment and above all the open-ended manner of searching and acting uncovered new territory and gave this project an extraordinary position in the nano research community.

The intention of this research is to investigate how interaction designers may explore felt time through the culinary practice of sourdough baking. In this exposition we share how the physical experience and manipulation/shaping of time in sourdough baking provides an experience of fulfillment and satisfaction. We show our insights on how interaction designers, and possibly many other communities of practice and discourse, may learn from this.

The goal is to inspire the audience to engage in a broad and critical discourse around felt time and to emphasize the value of prototyping a felt time repertoire in interaction design. The research exploration is built on the collaboration between an interaction designer/researcher, a culinary connoisseur baker and a sculptor/design researcher and teacher.

Morse code has been used as a communications system at a distance to transmit text through tone or light pulses. This comparative study aims to test and evaluate the vibrotactile identification of Morse coded signals communicating instructions for movement. The pulses were presented on abdomen and wrist among 14 males (40-85 yr) experienced in acoustic Morse code and the rate of pulses was 12 words per minute using a Vibration Motor mounted in a plastic holder. There identification results were statistically significantly better on wrist compared to abdomen. Words were identified significantly better on the wrist as compared to abdomen but the identification results of the letters were equally good in both placements. There was a negative correlation between age and the pooled identification results tested on wrist PCC r=-0.45 (p<0.02). The participants rank ordered the wrist, over the abdomen, as the best place for positioning the vibrator. The results support haptic/tactile interaction research in positioning and communication system. Our future plans are to apply the results to the project "Ready Ride" for instructions for horseback riding for people with deafblindness as well as activity and movement for elderly people with impaired vision and hearing.

This demonstration presents three vibrotactile aids to support personswith deafblindness. One aid, Monitor, consists of a microphone that detectssounds from events which are then processed as a signal that is adapted to thesensitivity range of the skin. The signal is sent as vibrations to the user withdeafblindness, who can interpret the pattern of the vibrations in order to identifythe type and position of the event/source that produced the sounds. Another aid,Distime, uses a smart phone app that informs the user with cognitive impairmentand deafblindness about a planned activity through; audio, visual or tactileinteraction that is adapted to the abilities of each individual. The last aid, Ready-ride, uses two smart phones and up to 11 vibrators that help the horse back riderwith deafblindness to communicate with the instructor from a distance viavibrators placed on different parts of the riders body e.g. wrist, thigh, back, ankle.

There are approx. 1300 people with deafblindnes (DB) in Sweden where about 100 of them are with complete deafness (D) and blindness (B). The number will reach about 30000 if we also include people older than 65 with severe visual impairment (VI) and hearing impairment (HI) and several million worldwide.  Difficulties in time perception, environmental perception, music perception, mobility, social participation and communication are examples of their frequent problems. Five haptic technical aids are developed to reduce these problems. Distime is an application in a smart phone to inform the user about the planned activities by choosing different information channel depending on the sense that works and her/his ability. The activities can be presented as sound or vibrations for users with B; as images, movies and also as vibrations for those with D and vibrations for those with DB. Monitor informs users with D and DB about ongoing events with the aim to increase their environmental perception. Using an specific algorithm for environmental sounds, it converts the audible sounds produced by events to sensible vibrations which can be sensed and interpreted as events. Good Vibrations uses an specific algorithm for music and converts the audible music to vibrations which can be felt with the aim to increase music perception for users with severe HI, D/DB as well as for users with normal hearing who want extra enhanced experience of the music. Ready-Ride is a positioning and communication aid to improve the mobility of riders with severe VI, B or DB. It is used for distance communication between a trainer and a rider with VI where the trainer can send information about the rider’s position give commands or feedback about the riding. VibroBraille informs users with B/DB about the short notifications received from different applications in her/his cell phone. It converts the text to its corresponding Braille pattern where the active points are vibrating.