Final Work

Our work is focussed on exploring our understanding of time, the physical aspects, mans' theories on time and the way we measure it through systems. The way we perceive time can very depending on our engagement in an activity or our chemical balance. In this digital age we are exposed to many different ways of interaction, collaborative tools such as blogs, wikis, you-tube and podcasts have changed the way we actively create social relationships, constructing a new paradigm of knowledge and reality. We live in a world of interweaving networks, making the possibilities for internalizing and appropriating knowledge almost infinite.

The clocks work as individual nodes in the network of life. They have been manually decorated with different patterns, these link up at different points generated by the continual movement of each node, this forms paths. These represent our individual journeys through life. The over all pattern of our journeys are shaped by interaction in the network which causally effect our decision making, we cannot control the movement of each node through time, only the decisions we make as each connection arises. Eventually the batteries will die, our time in the network stops.

Final Work

Elena Asins

Spanish artist working with mathematical equations in the early 1990's.
She calculates sequences of infinite reproducibility in her work. She calculates sequences, the mathematical values of which she then feeds into a computer to make a printout.
Asins' calls her work a "paradoxical representation: art without art, music without sound, interior art". she does not want to appeal to the senses, but to the inner spirit. All lines are pure calculations of space and time, like steps or pulsations. rhythm and progression result only from the spectators reading, excluding any spontaneous global understanding. Her work is characterized by mathematical aesthetic beauty.
Asins' work relates to our experimentation with the chaoscope program, using mathematical formulas to create imagery.

Constructivism

Constructivism proposes new definitions for knowledge and truth that forms a new paradigm, based on inter-subjectivity instead of the classical objectivity and viability instead of truth. The constructivist point of view is pragmatic as Vico said: "the truth is to have made it".

In this paradigm, "sciences of the artificial" (see Herbert Simon) as cybernetics, automatics or decision theory, management and engineering sciences can justify their teaching and have a space in the academy as "real sciences".

One version of social constructivism contends that categories of knowledge and reality are actively created by social relationships and interactions. These interactions also alter the way in which scientific episteme is organized.

Social activity presupposes human beings inhabiting shared forms of life, and in the case of social construction, utilizing semiotic resources (meaning making and meaning signifying) with reference to social structures and institutions. Several traditions use the term Social Constructivism: psychology (after Lev Vygotsky), sociology (after Durkheim, Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, themselves influenced by Alfred Schütz), sociology of knowledge (David Bloor), sociology of mathematics (Sal Restivo), philosophy of mathematics (Paul Ernest). Ludwig Wittgenstein's later philosophy can be seen as a foundation for Social Constructivism, with its key theoretical concepts of language games embedded in forms of life.

* Verum esse ipsum factum, Giambattista Vico

"the norm of the truth is to have made it," or
"the true is precisely what is made"

* Verum et factum convertuntur, Giambattista Vico

"the true and the made are convertible"

* Et, quoi qu’on en dise, dans la vie scientifique, les problèmes ne se posent pas d’eux-mêmes. C’est précisément ce sens du problème qui donne la marque du véritable esprit scientifique. Pour un esprit scientifique, toute connaissance est une réponse à une question. S’il n’y a pas eu de question, il ne peut y avoir de connaissance scientifique. Rien ne va de soi. Rien n’est donné. Tout est construit, Gaston Bachelard (La formation de l'esprit scientifique, 1934)

"And, irrespective of what one might assume, in the life of a science, problems do not arise by themselves. It is precisely this that marks out a problem as being of the true scientific spirit: all knowledge is in response to a question. If there were no question, there would be no scientific knowledge. Nothing proceeds from itself. Nothing is given. All is constructed."

* On a toujours cherché des explications quand c’était des représentations qu’on pouvait seulement essayer d’inventer, Paul Valéry

"We have always sought explanations when it was only representations that we could seek to invent"

* Ma main se sent touchée aussi bien qu’elle touche ; réel veut dire cela, et rien de plus, Paul Valéry

"My hand feels touched as well as it touches; that's reality, and nothing more"

* Intelligence organizes the world by organizing itself, Jean Piaget in "La construction du réel chez l'enfant" (1937)

Kappa Effect

relating to the human perception of time. This effect is noted in the study of psychology
The Kappa effect can be displayed when considering a journey made in two parts that take an equal amount of time. Between these two parts, the journey that covers more distance will appear to take longer than the journey covering less distance, even though they take an equal amount of time. Practically speaking, a faster journey over more distance will still appear more time-consuming than a slower journey over less distance.

Research

Systems Theory

The systems view is a world-view that is based on the discipline of SYSTEM INQUIRY. Central to systems inquiry is the concept of SYSTEM. In the most general sense, system means a configuration of parts connected and joined together by a web of relationships. The Primer group defines system as a family of relationships among the members acting as a whole. Bertalanffy defined system as "elements in standing relationship."

Many early systems theorists aimed at finding a general systems theory that could explain all systems in all fields of science. The term goes back to Bertalanffy's book titled General System Theory. von Bertalanffy's objective was to bring together under one heading the organismic science that he had observed in his work as a biologist. His desire was to use the word "system" to describe those principles which are common to systems in general. In GST, he writes:

...there exist models, principles, and laws that apply to generalized systems or their subclasses, irrespective of their particular kind, the nature of their component elements, and the relationships or "forces" between them. It seems legitimate to ask for a theory, not of systems of a more or less special kind, but of universal principles applying to systems in general.

Systems theory and cybernetics:

The terms "systems theory" and "cybernetics" have been widely used as synonyms. Some authors use the term cybernetic systems to denote a proper subset of the class of general systems, namely those systems that include feedback loops. However Gordon Pask's differences of eternal interacting actor loops (that produce finite products) makes general systems a proper subset of cybernetics. According to Jackson (2000), Bertalanffy promoted an embryonic form of general system theory (GST) as early as the 1920s and 1930s but it was not until the early 1950s it became more widely known in scientific circles.
Cybernetics as the theory of control mechanisms in technology and nature and founded on the concepts of information and feedback, is but a part of a general theory of systems;” then reiterates: "the model is of wide application but should not be identified with 'systems theory' in general," and that "warning is necessary against its incautious expansion to fields for which its concepts are not made."

Cybernetics, catastrophe theory, chaos theory and complexity theory have the common goal to explain complex systems that consist of a large number of mutually interacting and interrelated parts in terms of those interactions. Cellular automata (CA), neural networks (NN), artificial intelligence (AI), and artificial life (ALife) are related fields, but they do not try to describe general (universal) complex (singular) systems. The best context to compare the different "C"-Theories about complex systems is historical, which emphasizes different tools and methodologies, from pure mathematics in the beginning to pure computer science now. Since the beginning of chaos theory when Edward Lorenz accidentally discovered a strange attractor with his computer, computers have become an indispensable source of information. One could not imagine the study of complex systems without the use of computers today.

wee summary of ab's research

A pendulum swinging in a clock is a dynamical system; this is a mathematical formula for any fixed "rule" which describes the time dependence of a point's position in its ambient space. A collection of real numbers determines the system’s state, and small changes in the system mean small changes in the numbers.

This relates to fractals which I have been looking at just because of their aesthetic appeal and I like maths that occurs in nature, phi etc, nautilus shells, sunflowers, the human body…
I have also been looking at the chaos theory and came to this from looking at systems and cause and effect. Chaotic behaviour relates to the butterfly efffect where the dynamical system responds very sensitively to changes in conditions. This results in seemingly random behaviour disturbing the course of motion. "This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future dynamics are fully defined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory (woops wiki)..

I downloaded a programme called chaoscope so i can make fractal ferns and other organic looking shapes by altering the function of the system, changing the values even a tiny bit has a dramatic effect on the appearance of the strange attractor produced by the programme. The word "Chaoscope" was invented by Ralph Abraham to describe computer tools used to help comprehend dynamic systems, a superset of the strange attractors.
watch this video ITS COOL! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vb4OrqPBQyA&feature=related

BUTTERFLY EFFECT- one flap of a butterfly’s wings could change the course of the weather forever… also looked at time paradox surrounding time travel just because it was interesting to read people’s theories. Looked at the grandfather paradox which is about committing suicide by going back in time and killing your grandfather (???hmmmmm), and the problems with doing this. here are some interesting duscussions http://lounge.moviecodec.com/topics/37551p1.html

Looked at things that affect your perception of time, levels of dopamine in your body was something I looked at quite thoroughly. This is affected by drugs, mental illness, anti psychotic drugs and other things I can’t remember exactly but as you get older your levels of it decrease so time appears to be going faster, marijuana also does this. Drugs like coke make time appear to stand still because it’s going so slowly because your levels of dopamine are so high. Interesting…

Kappa effect… kappa opioid agonists include salvia. Strange how time perception is influenced so much by drugs, even anaesthetic etc…