The Translocal Event and the Polyrhythmic Diagram

This thesis identifies and analyses the key creative protocols in translocal performance practice, and ends with suggestions for new forms of transversal live and mediated performance practice, informed by theory. It argues that ontologies of emergence in dynamic systems nourish contemporary practice in the digital arts. Feedback in self-organised, recursive systems and organisms elicit change, and change transforms. The arguments trace concepts from chaos and complexity theory to virtual multiplicity, relationality, intuition and individuation (in the work of Bergson, Deleuze, Guattari, Simondon, Massumi, and other process theorists). It then examines the intersection of methodologies in philosophy, science and art and the radical contingencies implicit in the technicity of real-time, collaborative composition. Simultaneous forces or tendencies such as perception/memory, content/ expression and instinct/intellect produce composites (experience, meaning, and intuition- respectively) that affect the sensation of interplay. The translocal event is itself a diagram - an interstice between the forces of the local and the global, between the tendencies of the individual and the collective. The translocal is a point of reference for exploring the distribution of affect, parameters of control and emergent aesthetics. Translocal interplay, enabled by digital technologies and network protocols, is ontogenetic and autopoietic; diagrammatic and synaesthetic; intuitive and transductive. KeyWorx is a software application developed for realtime, distributed, multimodal media processing. As a technological tool created by artists, KeyWorx supports this intuitive type of creative experience: a real-time, translocal “jamming” that transduces the lived experience of a “biogram,” a synaesthetic hinge-dimension. The emerging aesthetics are processual – intuitive, diagrammatic and transversal

Being mathematical : an exploration of epistemological implications of embodied cognition

In this thesis I explore epistemological implications of embodied cognition in the hope of developing my apprehension of what it means to think mathematically. I allow my understanding of embodied cognition to emerge in stages, early in the piece laying contrasts against which it may be set, infolding elements to the purpose of qualitatively interpreting data as my thesis finds form. I use the language of autopoiesis to frame an understanding of change in the context of an individual’s learning and also within broader constructs, such as in mathematics classrooms. I recognise dualisms and set them aside in an attempt to reread what it means to think mathematically.Research from a variety of fields constitutes one part of my data, the second part being a selection of experiences drawn from mathematics classes I have taught. In balancing the two, I find that an embodied account contributes a means of interpreting mathematical experience wherein received boundaries, such as between you and me, and categories, such as "number", are not globally robust, and intentionality pervades and shapes the worlds we create.The perspective that embodiment affords my apprehension of mathematical thinking is consistent with a formulation in which judgements of what is good are aligned in part with a kind of aesthetic, whereby being moral is founded in innate dispositions. The question of what one is to do with an embodied epistemology is therefore focused on a consideration of how I am to orient myself to teaching mathematics.Throughout all of this, the locus of my attention remains within the classroom, fixed upon the goal of eliciting perspective and on developing skill in interpreting experience; on becoming a tactful teacher, sensitive to the tacit language of the body

Embodied creativity: a process continuum from artistic creation to creative participation

This thesis breaks new ground by attending to two contemporary developments in art and science. In art, computer-mediated interactive artworks comprise creative engagement between collaborating practitioners and a creatively participating audience, erasing all notions of a dividing line between them. The procedural character of this type of communicative real-time interaction replaces the concept of a finished artwork with a ‘field of artistic communication’. In science, the field of creativity research investigates creative thought as mental operations that combine and reorganise extant knowledge structures. A recent paradigm shift in cognition research acknowledges that cognition is embodied. Neither embodiment in cognition nor the ‘field of artistic communication’ in interactive art have been assimilated by creativity research. This thesis takes an interdisciplinary approach to examine the embodied cognitive processes in a ‘field of artistic communication’ using a media artwork called Sim-Suite as a case study research strategy. This interactive installation, created and exhibited in an authentic real-world context, engages three people to play on wobble-boards. The thesis argues that creative processes related to Sim-Suite operate within a continuum, encompassing collaborative artistic creation and cooperative creative participation. This continuum is investigated via mixed methods, conducting studies with qualitative and quantitative analysis. These are interpreted through a theoretical lens of embodied cognition principles, the 4E approaches. The results obtained demonstrate that embodied cognitive processes in Sim-Suite’s ‘field of artistic communication’ function on a continuum. We give an account of the creative process continuum relating our findings to the ‘embedded-extended-enactive lens’, empirical studies in embodied cognition and creativity research. Within this context a number of topics and sub-themes are identified. We discuss embodied communication, aspects of agency, forms of coordination, levels of evaluative processes and empathetic foundation. The thesis makes conceptual, empirical and methodological contributions to creativity research

Looking at the management sciences through the lens of autopoietic theory

The broad aim of this research has been to employ the various propositions of Humberto Maturana, as derived from his and Francisco Varela's central concept 'Autopoiesis', as a lens or frame through which to critically reflect on both Management Science and major traditions within it. Such reflection has been carried out with both a 'critical' and a 'developmental eye'. From a critical standpoint the research identifies gaps in existing understandings, and suggests ways in which these may be plugged. Used in this mode, the research shows that Autopoietic Theory is a body of knowledge that management scientists, especially inexperienced ones, can turn to as a means of enriching and/or enhancing their practice in distinctive ways, or allowing them to better prepare for it. Used from a developmental standpoint, the research shows how Maturana's epistemological propositions invoke a particular kind of critically reflective Management Science practice, and, how Autopoietic Theory more generally, can stretch the limits of existing practice. In developing these lines of argumentation the main contribution of the work is to remind members of the various Management Science communities that theirs is an activity that is carried out by real human beings first and by impartial scientists second; moreover, that Management Science is an activity that takes place in human, social and organisational contexts. Acknowledgement of this has far reaching ramifications. In that regard, the main contribution of the research can be taken to be an argument in favour of repositioning 'humanity', in all its various facets, much more centrally within the discipline than has been the case hitherto

Enactive Cinema: Simulatorium Eisensteinense

The dissertation at hand explores the very grounds, within which the phenomenon of cinema emerges. It is a study of the intrinsic dynamics of cinema author’s mind in the process of creating moving image. Alas, it is not a historical, cultural, or ideological study into the handicraft, the narrative genres, or technological developments of cinema. Instead, it discusses possible foundations of cinema in the human nature, as seems viable in the light of the contemporary biological and psychological constraints. The dissertation is set to define a kind of cinema, which reflects the recent scientific knowledge about neural underpinnings of human activity, and which draws its emotional power from one’s experimental resources of understanding and interacting with others within the everyday world. While attribute of ‘enactive’ carries the explicit sense of pragmatic doing and meaningful acting in the world, it is the embodied simulation of the world, which will provide the cognitive environment for creative enactment. Emotions, in addition to determining unconscious, involuntary understanding about the state of things, also determine all conscious, intentional, and imaginative aspects of cognition. Faithful to the spirit of Eisenstein the dissertation deliberately deviates from other mainstream cinema research: instead of the spectator, the focus here is on the author’s cognitive processes

Mountain Dance: A Transdisciplinary Exploration of Environmental Dance as an Autopoietic Expression of Ecological Connectivity and Synthesis

This research explores the complexity of the human-nature relationship through the emergent arts-based lens of environmental dance. The work is guided by a transdisciplinary mission—to actively create bridges and connections between and among disciplines typically thought to be independent bodies of knowledge in their own right: here they merge and become synergistic partners, producing a new way of knowing that is greater than the sum of two independently-partnered disciplines. A transdisciplinary approach opens us to know a multiverse where a holistic perspective expands the traditionally singular viewpoint of the existing predominant Cartesian paradigm. The study allows space for “environmental dance” to emerge as a true transdiscipline. Furthermore, this project is based upon the intuitive sense that the arts, once again, as exemplified by “environmental dance,” can offer nuanced insights and pedagogical strategies for future research and development, which may inspire and guide holistic, imaginative, creative and systems-oriented engagement of humans with the natural world. The groundwork for reaching this goal lies in the emergent “environmental dance” theory that has directly originated as a “product” of this research. The emergent theory known as Satori Loop© provides an underlying prerequisite shift in perspective, mindfulness and embodied awareness that restructures the way humans have previously chosen to engage the natural world, while celebrating the unifying concepts of diversity and connectivity in a self-organizing universe. The research design draws upon a dual methodology: phenomenology and grounded theory, in tandem with a “pastiche” of arts-based methods that work together in complementary synergy, opening up a nuanced way to study and further describe the phenomenal interface of the dancing human body embedded in the dynamic, living landscape. As a thorough inquiry into the “lived experience” of the environmental dancer, a prominent feature of this study is the adaptation of the Goethean scientific process/method as a model for the “environmental dance” creative process, effectively enjoining “art “with “science”. Finally, this research aims to demonstrate how the arts can become a viable, complementary balance to science offering an equilibrium in the ways we can choose to more holistically know and be in the world

Emergent Design

Explorations in Systems Phenomenology in Relation to Ontology, Hermeneutics and the Meta-dialectics of Design SYNOPSIS A Phenomenological Analysis of Emergent Design is performed based on the foundations of General Schemas Theory. The concept of Sign Engineering is explored in terms of Hermeneutics, Dialectics, and Ontology in order to define Emergent Systems and Metasystems Engineering based on the concept of Meta-dialectics. ABSTRACT Phenomenology, Ontology, Hermeneutics, and Dialectics will dominate our inquiry into the nature of the Emergent Design of the System and its inverse dual, the Meta-system. This is an speculative dissertation that attempts to produce a philosophical, mathematical, and theoretical view of the nature of Systems Engineering Design. Emergent System Design, i.e., the design of yet unheard of and/or hitherto non-existent Systems and Metasystems is the focus. This study is a frontal assault on the hard problem of explaining how Engineering produces new things, rather than a repetition or reordering of concepts that already exist. In this work the philosophies of E. Husserl, A. Gurwitsch, M. Heidegger, J. Derrida, G. Deleuze, A. Badiou, G. Hegel, I. Kant and other Continental Philosophers are brought to bear on different aspects of how new technological systems come into existence through the midwifery of Systems Engineering. Sign Engineering is singled out as the most important aspect of Systems Engineering. We will build on the work of Pieter Wisse and extend his theory of Sign Engineering to define Meta-dialectics in the form of Quadralectics and then Pentalectics. Along the way the various ontological levels of Being are explored in conjunction with the discovery that the Quadralectic is related to the possibility of design primarily at the Third Meta-level of Being, called Hyper Being. Design Process is dependent upon the emergent possibilities that appear in Hyper Being. Hyper Being, termed by Heidegger as Being (Being crossed-out) and termed by Derrida as Differance, also appears as the widest space within the Design Field at the third meta-level of Being and therefore provides the most leverage that is needed to produce emergent effects. Hyper Being is where possibilities appear within our worldview. Possibility is necessary for emergent events to occur. Hyper Being possibilities are extended by Wild Being propensities to allow the embodiment of new things. We discuss how this philosophical background relates to meta-methods such as the Gurevich Abstract State Machine and the Wisse Metapattern methods, as well as real-time architectural design methods as described in the Integral Software Engineering Methodology. One aim of this research is to find the foundation for extending the ISEM methodology to become a general purpose Systems Design Methodology. Our purpose is also to bring these philosophical considerations into the practical realm by examining P. Bourdieu’s ideas on the relationship between theoretical and practical reason and M. de Certeau’s ideas on practice. The relationship between design and implementation is seen in terms of the Set/Mass conceptual opposition. General Schemas Theory is used as a way of critiquing the dependence of Set based mathematics as a basis for Design. The dissertation delineates a new foundation for Systems Engineering as Emergent Engineering based on General Schemas Theory, and provides an advanced theory of Design based on the understanding of the meta-levels of Being, particularly focusing upon the relationship between Hyper Being and Wild Being in the context of Pure and Process Being