Dr. Keifer-Boyd's Research

Summary of Research & Creative Activities

My research focuses on strategies for teaching critical inquiry and creative approaches with dynamic information technologies; and on the potentials of technological visualization processes to connect knowledge disparities. Engaged in feminist theory and methodologies, I create virtual spaces to raise issues of the politics of representation, identity, and visual display. By problematizing cultural inscriptions and highlighting contextualized signifiers that people use to invest meaning in images, I explore through virtual (Web-based) interactive environments social and personal transformative possibilities. I also investigate virtual and hypermedia programs that others create to reveal underlying concepts of reality and beliefs about knowledge.

CYBERFEMINIST HOUSE: Challenging Inscriptions of Normalcy from Our Embodied Experiences

Goals for the CYBERFEMINIST HOUSE are to change hierarchy to equality, destruction to cooperation, greed to collaboration, and violence to connectivity. Research Question: What is the impact of cybernetic art in redefining human identity in terms of consciousness and communication, and in terms of transgressing the physiological borders of the human? I use house as an analogy for an ecological system of complex connections between people, institutions, and for radical breaks from institutionalization. The five rooms initially constructed in the CYBERFEMINIST HOUSE concern how we are inscribed in spaces and how to transform those inscriptions to match either our embodied experiences or the potential of our lived experiences. We are designing the site to be a place where norms (inscriptions) are questioned and recognized as historically and contextually constructed. It will be a place where difference is valued and inquiry into differences helps one become aware of biases and prejudices and to hopefully move beyond harmful prejudices. We are working with specific groups and places (i.e., an elementary school, a hospital, and a camp for young women) recognizing that when issues are displaced from the local there is loss of social change potential. And, community, including in cyberspace, develops from involvement, shared experience, and memory/history. The programming that we are designing will not allow anonymity to translate into unaccountability. As CYBERFEMINIST HOUSE founder, my research concerns the nature of collaborative ventures in constructing virtual feminist spaces and the benefits of feminist methodologies as a cyberpedagogical approach in art education. Collaboratively, we plan to develop CYBERFEMINIST HOUSE as an immersive space in which Web site visitors construct visual identities of their desired self. To facilitate critique of representational choices, the characters carry baggage filled with text that links to cultural codes inscribed in the features selected. The virtual characters can reject the text items, if they feel that they do not represent their intentions, in either wastebaskets, garbage disposals, composters, or recycling centers. Each item trashed reconfigures self (i.e., perpetual displacement). This is one way that the site will promote cultural critique.

Research Areas:
• Facilitation of Behaviors (Engagement, Collaboration, Growth) in Group Exchange
• Systematic Web based Processing of Physical Feedback in Humans
• Expansion of Environmental Objects (Immersive)
• Implementation of Visual/geometrical Semantics to Cross Language Barriers

A PEDAGOGY TO EXPOSE & CRITIQUE GENDERED CULTURAL STEREOTYPES EMBEDDED IN ART INTERPRETATIONS:

The critical pedagogical approach introduced in this work can raise self-awareness about gender inscriptions that people bestow on what they perceive. If we expose these “normative” stereotypes we may recognize that these constructed perceptions are attitudes that prejudice art as good or bad. Stereotypes of females tend to be aligned with qualities not valued in this society and do not match prevalent definitions of art and artists. My goal in presenting this study and encouraging its use as a teaching approach is to change both the stereotypes and the value system toward women artists. In this interpretative content analysis, I sought viewer rationales that they use for inscribing an artist's gender when looking at art in order to render visible gendered cultural inscriptions. Responses suggested that gender inscription impacted how viewers interpreted a work, and how men and women diverged in describing similar themes.

MULTIVOCAL ART CRITICISM:

Research in multivocal critical dialogue in hypermedia environs involving extra, intra, inter, and circumtextual framing for sychronistic interpretations of art.

INCLUSION POLICY IN PRACTICE:

While art classes offer unique opportunities for inclusion, few include students experiencing severe disabilities. From research (Kraft, 2001) on the least restrictive environment (LRE) mandate of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ([IDEA] U.S.C. 20 § 1412 (a)(5)(A)), we developed HEARTS (Human Empowerment through the ARTS), in June 2001, to practice what we understand as inclusion in the art class. Ten pre-service art educators developed the HEARTS mission, based on study of the law and "communitarian" (Turnbull, 1991) values of equality, liberty, and efficiency. We outline the concept of inclusion (specifically, the art class as the LRE) as the courts interpret the federal mandate, what inclusion means to us, and inclusion practices in the HEARTS program.

VISUAL METAPHORS, CONNECTIVITY, CRITICAL THINKING, & TRANSFORMATIVE POSSIBILITIES:

Research on the potentials of visualization processes to connect knowledge disparities and provide transformative options.

Summary of Research & Creative Activities
	My research focuses on strategies for teaching critical inquiry and creative approaches with dynamic information technologies; and on the potentials of technological visualization processes to connect knowledge disparities. Engaged in feminist theory and methodologies, I create virtual spaces to raise issues of the politics of representation, identity, and visual display. By problematizing cultural inscriptions and highlighting contextualized signifiers that people use to invest meaning in images, I explore through virtual (Web-based) interactive environments social and personal transformative possibilities. I also investigate virtual and hypermedia programs that others create to reveal underlying concepts of reality and beliefs about knowledge.
CYBERFEMINIST HOUSE: Challenging Inscriptions of Normalcy from Our Embodied Experiences Goals for the CYBERFEMINIST HOUSE are to change hierarchy to equality, destruction to cooperation, greed to collaboration, and violence to connectivity. Research Question: What is the impact of cybernetic art in redefining human identity in terms of consciousness and communication, and in terms of transgressing the physiological borders of the human? I use house as an analogy for an ecological system of complex connections between people, institutions, and for radical breaks from institutionalization. The five rooms initially constructed in the CYBERFEMINIST HOUSE concern how we are inscribed in spaces and how to transform those inscriptions to match either our embodied experiences or the potential of our lived experiences. We are designing the site to be a place where norms (inscriptions) are questioned and recognized as historically and contextually constructed. It will be a place where difference is valued and inquiry into differences helps one become aware of biases and prejudices and to hopefully move beyond harmful prejudices. We are working with specific groups and places (i.e., an elementary school, a hospital, and a camp for young women) recognizing that when issues are displaced from the local there is loss of social change potential. And, community, including in cyberspace, develops from involvement, shared experience, and memory/history. The programming that we are designing will not allow anonymity to translate into unaccountability. As CYBERFEMINIST HOUSE founder, my research concerns the nature of collaborative ventures in constructing virtual feminist spaces and the benefits of feminist methodologies as a cyberpedagogical approach in art education. Collaboratively, we plan to develop CYBERFEMINIST HOUSE as an immersive space in which Web site visitors construct visual identities of their desired self. To facilitate critique of representational choices, the characters carry baggage filled with text that links to cultural codes inscribed in the features selected. The virtual characters can reject the text items, if they feel that they do not represent their intentions, in either wastebaskets, garbage disposals, composters, or recycling centers. Each item trashed reconfigures self (i.e., perpetual displacement). This is one way that the site will promote cultural critique. Research Areas: • Facilitation of Behaviors (Engagement, Collaboration, Growth) in Group Exchange • Systematic Web based Processing of Physical Feedback in Humans • Expansion of Environmental Objects (Immersive) • Implementation of Visual/geometrical Semantics to Cross Language Barriers
A PEDAGOGY TO EXPOSE & CRITIQUE GENDERED CULTURAL STEREOTYPES EMBEDDED IN ART INTERPRETATIONS: The critical pedagogical approach introduced in this work can raise self-awareness about gender inscriptions that people bestow on what they perceive. If we expose these “normative” stereotypes we may recognize that these constructed perceptions are attitudes that prejudice art as good or bad. Stereotypes of females tend to be aligned with qualities not valued in this society and do not match prevalent definitions of art and artists. My goal in presenting this study and encouraging its use as a teaching approach is to change both the stereotypes and the value system toward women artists. In this interpretative content analysis, I sought viewer rationales that they use for inscribing an artist's gender when looking at art in order to render visible gendered cultural inscriptions. Responses suggested that gender inscription impacted how viewers interpreted a work, and how men and women diverged in describing similar themes.
MULTIVOCAL ART CRITICISM: Research in multivocal critical dialogue in hypermedia environs involving extra, intra, inter, and circumtextual framing for sychronistic interpretations of art.
INCLUSION POLICY IN PRACTICE: While art classes offer unique opportunities for inclusion, few include students experiencing severe disabilities. From research (Kraft, 2001) on the least restrictive environment (LRE) mandate of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ([IDEA] U.S.C. 20 § 1412 (a)(5)(A)), we developed HEARTS (Human Empowerment through the ARTS), in June 2001, to practice what we understand as inclusion in the art class. Ten pre-service art educators developed the HEARTS mission, based on study of the law and "communitarian" (Turnbull, 1991) values of equality, liberty, and efficiency. We outline the concept of inclusion (specifically, the art class as the LRE) as the courts interpret the federal mandate, what inclusion means to us, and inclusion practices in the HEARTS program.
VISUAL METAPHORS, CONNECTIVITY, CRITICAL THINKING, & TRANSFORMATIVE POSSIBILITIES: Research on the potentials of visualization processes to connect knowledge disparities and provide transformative options.