Kristian Tylén (16 June 1974 - 19 November 2024) started his academic career at Aarhus University in the classic humanities with a bachelor’s degree in Russian Language and Literature from 1999. Meanwhile, he became a part of the vibrant research environment at the Center for Semiotics where he in 2003 finished his master’s degree in Cognitive Semiotics with a thesis on narratology for which he received Aarhus University’s gold medal.

He went on to do his PhD at The Institute of Language and Communication, University of Southern Denmark, writing a dissertation entitled: “Roses, Icebergs, Hoovers and all that language: An investigation of the cognitive foundations of our comprehension of object mediated communication” which he defended in 2009. During his PhD Kristian started working with experimental approaches to humanistic questions. Among other things, he used neuroimaging to study the effects of objects positioned out of place, in a way that invited for  communication, such as when a chair is positioned on the side of the road to signal that the parking space is reserved. This study was picked up by the media and broadcasted across the world from US to India, including by The New Scientist, sparking headlines, such as “Why a gift speaks a thousand words” and even “Why a gift is a universal sign of love”, to Kristian’s amusement, because it had nothing to do with the study. But maybe it did. Kristian was himself, such a gift, who constantly managed to move his and his collaborators’ perspective on known problems out of place, to enable new discoveries.

After his PhD, Kristian Tylén had post doc positions at The Center for Semiotics in projects on Cognitive and Phenomenological Aesthetics and Joint Diagrammatical Reasoning in Language, again using experimental approaches to study questions, previously tackled through qualitative approaches.

Kristian Tylén played a key role in the establishment of the new degree programmes in Cognitive Science at Aarhus University from 2015, which led to him getting a position as Associate Professor at The Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Science and Semiotics. At the programs, he was a highly regarded teacher in courses in Cognition and Communication, Experimental Methods and Human Computer Interaction. In 2020 Kristian was Aarhus University’s nominee for the Danish National Teaching Prize, initially nominated by his students.

In his research, Kristian has consistently focused on the evolution of communication, both in the short term when participants interact through gestures or produce novel signs to solve collaborative tasks and across language acquisition, and at the time scale of human evolution. Among his many collaborations, he was involved in studying why Danish is such a difficult language to learn and what the basis of creativity is. He then went on to do seminal research in the intersection between cognitive science and archeology, conducting experiments on the putative communicative functions of early human artifacts, findings published in 2020 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. In 2022 Kristian was awarded the prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant with funding from the European Research Council (ERC) to develop his research on the evolution of symbolic behavior. Despite his illness, Kristian continued to work on this project, studying the communicative potential of cave art and other early human artifacts. In 2023, he was promoted to full professor.

Through his research projects Kristian managed to weave a thick network of collaborations, often developing in genuine friendships, across countries and continents. Kristian had prominent roles in multiple scientific societies as a member of the board of the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies (NASS) and of the International Association for Cognitive Semiotics (IACS). From 2009 to 2024 Kristian was a member of the board of The Scandinavian Association of Language and Cognition (SALC) and from 2019 to 2024 he served as president of SALC.

To his colleagues, friends and students, Kristian was known for his always cheerful mood, innovative thinking, pragmatic attitudes towards problems and deep sense of humor. No lunch - or coffee break would go by without Kristian delivering some funny anecdote or coming up with a crazy twist to the topic discussed, even his own cancer, which broke out in 2023. He was always generous and would without questions dedicate his time to any person, high or low, who seeked his help or advice, from helping students with their programming and analyses of experiments to substituting as head of department. Kristian’s door was always open.

Outside work, Kristian was an extremely talented guitarist and composer and was active with his different rock, funk and jazz bands until his death. His funk band VIBR had just started releasing songs from their debut album, and just two days before his death, Kristian gave a concert with one of his other bands, Løgn&Latin, in a full concert venue at Vestergade 58 in Aarhus. A large part of the audience for this, his last concert, was a group of former students, who had heard about Kristian’s illness and wanted to show their respect and care for their former teacher.

Among his many other activities, Kristian was for a long time head of the board of Børnenes Friskole, Risskov and also served as treasurer of the NGO Klima-X. Kristian was also a winter swimmer at the Vikings’ club Jomsborg and went swimming with his wife, Vibeke, the night before his passing.

Kristian was very open about the fact that he had cancer, and he was always willing to talk about it, but didn’t let it control his life or ruin his mood. The only thing that would make him sad was the thought of leaving Vibeke and their three children, Jonas, Bastian and Maja. Our thoughts are with them and their unfathomable loss.

Kristian’s memory will remain with all of us who were privileged enough to know him.