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Embracing Complexity in Design
ART IN THE SCIENCE OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS
An International Exhibition-Workshop
Wednesday 13th – Saturday 16th June 2007
Brighton University, Grande Parade & Lighthouse Media Centre, Kensington
St
What contribution can art make to the
science of complex systems?
Complex systems are generally diverse and made up of multiple interconnected
elements. They are adaptive in that they have the capacity to change and
learn from events. The scientific study of complex adaptive systems encompasses
more than one theoretical framework and is highly interdisciplinary, seeking
the answers to some fundamental questions about living, adaptable, changeable
systems.
Art is interpreted in its widest sense. It includes diverse media, from painting to music and dance, from digital art to poetry and theatre, from sculpture to opera and photography. There are precedents for exploring interactions between art and science, and many art works can be viewed as complex systems. For this event the specific question concerns the science of complexity systems. Can art generate new ideas and help to solve problems? Can give means of communicating complexity? Can art provide new methods of scientific inquiry? Can art … ?
The event brings together artists and scientists in the Embracing Complexity in Design research cluster; members of Brighton University’s Arts & Communications Faculty; and the Brighton Lighthouse creative media organization.
We are hoping that this workshop will give us some completely new insights into the question.
What contribution can art make to the science of complex systems?
We have suggested that art may generate new ideas and help to solve problems,
may give means of communicating complexity, and may provide new methods
of scientific inquiry. We hope that those participating will contribute
many more.
The format of the workshop will be lectures, discussions, conversations and seminars in the context of a variety of installations. There is a strong emphasis on creativity, and we want to constrain participating artists as little as possible.
The science of complex systems is still very young – and there are many different views on what constitutes this science. Most people agree that complexity can emerge from the interaction of autonomous agents – especially when those agents are people. Complexity seems to be a feature of multi-level systems, with intra and inter-level dynamics at micro-, meso-, and macro-scales. The dynamics of complex systems can be path dependent, with future events depending on previous events over long periods of time. For me, the defining feature of complex systems is that it is not possible to make predictions of their precise state at precise points of time in the future – certainly this appears to be the case for systems that include human beings. Participating scientists will have their own views on these things.
The most important aspect of this event is the interaction between artists and scientists to address the theme question. We don’t know what the outcome will be, but we will encourage self-organisation that facilitates interaction.
We plan to have session in which participants can discuss the works of art and installations exhibited by the artists. Interspersed we plan to have workshop sessions organised around individual artists and their work. The general format will be sessions starting with the artist describing their work and their views on it, leading to wider discussions with the other artists and scientists. These discussions will mostly be gently moderated by members of the cluster. Other members of the cluster will help to record the events, by acting as rapporteurs capturing the discussions for publication on our web site, www.complexityanddesign.net.
Since we don’t believe in top-down control and we do believe in self-organisation and emergence, the outcome of this meeting is unpredictable. There is a risk that nothing will come out of it, balanced by a possibility that it will produce something completely new.
In this spirit we’ll try to put in place sufficient structure for us all to be comfortable and to enjoy ourselves, leaving enough freedom for the participants to develop the event as they want to. We do ask that everyone engages with everyone else, and that we all engage with the art-complexity question that it driving the event.
MATMOS
Karen Cham & Jeff Johnson
Aided & assisted by Vernon S Partello MD Consultant, Molecular Model
Co,
A collaborative sculpture as documentation of a time based dialogic process on art in the science of complex systems
It is proposed that during this three day workshop/exhibition the invited contributors and guests will be able to contribute to the construction of a sculpture based on the aesthetics of scientific models of molecular structures.
Different coloured balls, connectors and rods will be available in the exhibition space throughout the three day event, as will coloured marker pens and shape stickers.
People will be asked to select, combine and mark their own combinations of the above over time in an intuitive response to the programme events and/or patterns emerging in the model as it grows.
This process will be filmed as a time lapse one take long shot, with a view to creating a video document of the collaborative process and the sculpture taking shape. Karen Cham will take note on the evolving form, content and aesthetics of the piece in relation to the programmed events with which to annotate the video.
The name of the work, ‘Matmos’ is taken from the seething
lake of evil slime beneath the city Sogo in the film Barbarella (Vadim,
1968). Here it is used as pun on the cartesian division between mind and
matter, the judeo-christian evil being, of course, anchored in the latter.
Juxtaposed with the aesthetics of molecular structures, and the embodied
process of making, the whole becomes a pun on Enlightenment thinking that
is discombobulated by complexity.