our works are making us Nature, art and artificial life

RANDAL DAVIS
Portland, Oregon
research@randal-davis.com

In the foundational manifesto Artificial Life (1989) !hristo"her Lan#ton su##ested that artificial life mi#ht $e understood as the stud% of life-as-it-could-be distinct from $iolo#%&s traditional domain of life-as-it-is' (lain enou#h in intent this distinction also usefull% for the nascent disci"line allo)s the *uestion of )hat life-as-it-could-be to remain o"en in "er"etuit%' +his "a"er ad,ances a dou$le readin# of the notional definition first from a "hiloso"hical ,anta#e and then throu#h s%stematic com"arison of the "ro$lematic "arallelisms of "re,ious conce"tions of life in art and science "articularl% those sha"ed $% statistical mechanics endin# )ith a discussion of -ohn !a#e&s use of indeterminac%' .ona$eau / +heraula0 ho)e,er em"haticall% conclude 1h% do )e need Artificial Life2 (1993) )ith the assertion that art inheres in the ,er% foundations of artificial life thou#h "erha"s strate#icall% the% do not am"lif% the "oint' 4o) mi#ht their assertion $e true2 At the most o$,ious life-as-it-is is al)a%s in the "rocess of $ecomin# life-as-it-could-be. Art then ma% alread% an instantiation of the #randest ho"es of artificial life as ar#ued $% 5rederic6 +urner )ith Tempest, Flute & ! "#$$#%. 78em"lar% of an artist )hose )or6 is "rofoundl% tied to a s"ecific conce"tion of nature !a#e )as a fi#ure at once transitional and e"ochal in,itin# com"arison )ith 7instein )ho as the last of the classical "h%sicists remained o""osed to the ne) "h%sics of *uantum theor%' Similarl% !a#e&s conce"tion of nature irreduci$l% random and acausal a""ears oddl% reactionar% oddl% romantic )hen read throu#h the tools of com"le8 d%namic s%stems' +his "a"er )as ori#inall% "resented in 9::: at the 88 th !olle#e Art Association Annual !onference in Ne) ;or6 !it%' +he session Nature in the <icrochi"= Art / Artificial Life )as chaired $% >enneth Rinaldo ?hio State @ni,ersit% !olum$us ?4' Ima#es of art )or6s and scores used in the ori#inal "resentation are not included here'

My title, our works are making us, from John Cages Themes & Variations, serves well as a statement about the possible relation of art and artificial life, as I think here, for e ample, of the claim by J!"! #armer $ %letta &elin that we may be the first creatures to create our successors!' My remarks today concern the complementarity of the (uestions of what art might tell us about artificial life and what artificial life might tell us about art! I will, therefore, proceed in two directions and through two principal areas, first outlining a framework in which one might discuss art and artificial life in essentially identical formalisms! )his will open to a substantial consideration of the work of John Cage, a pro*ect anchored by reference to probabilistic structural models in art and music! +ric &onabeau $ ,uy )heraula- assert, art inheres in the very foundation of artificial life!. )his is surely a striking point, yet their treatment of the (uestion is disappointingly limited, and finally less than persuasive/ &uilding an %0 creature1amounts to making some set of e(uations and our subconscious meet, *ust as an artist makes his or her imagination wander around1until he or she reaches a state of aesthetic satisfaction 23456! )hat I am unmoved by this reduction of artistic activity to wandering around re(uires no apology, as doubts also linger about e actly how and where e(uations and our subconscious might rende-vous! "ubious though these efforts toward e(uivalence may be, there is something to be

Randal Davis

...our works are making us... Nature, art & arti icial li e!

" Randal Davis, #$$$, #$%&

said for the retracing of steps 7 if, as &onabeau $ )heraula- argue, art indeed inheres in the foundation of artificial life, let us look again at that foundation! )he composer Morton #eldman remarked, art is a crucial, dangerous operation we perform on ourselves! 8nless we take a chance, we die in art!3 )his uncertainty, for #eldman, is not simply a restatement of the historical position of the avant9garde but points instead to a more comple view : risk is not the property of a particular style or period but is the condition of art9making itself! ;r, we might say, art making itself! #or the first artificial life conference at the <anta #e Institute, Christopher 0angton contributed a foundational manifesto for the nascent field which approached this refle ivity from a perspective strikingly similar to #eldmans! %rtificial life, for 0angton, framed the conventional in(uiry of biology into life9as9we9know9it1within the larger picture of life9as9it9could9be!= )here is a manifest sense, of course, in which this is trivial : at the risk of an inappropriate pun, virtually any life9as9it9is is in the process of becoming life9as9it9could be! In this reading, it is actually #eldman who seems to make the more striking, even radical, observation! )o be fair, the %0 community would surely regard that ob*ection as a sophistry, willfully ignoring the simple intent of the distinction, sounding as it does a common, indeed central, observation about research in comple dynamical systems! )his was first advanced by "avid Campbell, Jim Crutchfield, J! "! #armer $ +rica Jen with their argument that the symbiotic relationship between e perimental and analytic mathematics and in so doing set the ground upon which 0angton, for e ample, would call for what amounted to a speculative biology!> )his notion of an e perimental mathematics, though, leads to a deeper (uestioning of the relation between these two mathematics!

Central to 0angton?s seemingly simple distinction, unsurprisingly, is computation, broadly defined as the processing of information! %n earlier paper by 0angton is especially suggestive, and a bit disturbing, in this regard/ )he ultimate goal of the study of artificial life would be to create life in some other medium1where the essence of life had been abstracted from details of its implementation!!! @e would like to build models that are so life9like that they1become e amples of life themselves!A %nd so his conclusion that, where biology addresses the material basis of life, artificial life works upon its formal basis restates nearly verbatim a definition of identity common in early cybernetics! @e are not stuff that abides, Borbert @iener had written some forty years earlier, but patterns that perpetuate themselves!C )his direct lineage from @iener to 0angton reflects : embodies, one could say with some irony : what B! Datherine Eayles finds a defining characteristic of the present cultural moment1the belief that information circulates unchanged among different material substrates!5 Feference to Eayles here cannot omit her acute criti(ue of artificial life methodology, and its salutary caution that 0angton 2and many others6 invite tautology by simply defining life with criteria that artificial life cannot but meet!G If, however, the cultural history of artificial intelligence serves as any precedent, it is not so shocking that methodological conservatism commands a less enthusiastic audience than more radical, however problematic, claims!'4 My sub*ect today is not the resolution of these considerable philosophical issues, but I do believe that some further notes of the relation of art and artificial life might help synthesi-e these concerns! Feturn to #eldmans notion of art as a refle ive risk, and set it against a remark by "aniel "ennettH artificial life research, he
" Randal Davis, #$$$, #$%&

Randal Davis

...our works are making us... Nature, art & arti icial li e!

suggested, is the creation of prosthetically controlled thought e periments of indefinite comple ity!'' "ennetts semantics are more rigorously formali-ed than #eldmans yet in moving artificial life not *ust out of the laboratory but out of the computer, he arrives at precisely #eldmans point! #eldman and "ennett themselves echo here the views of Morse Ieckham, once broadly influential, now largely forgotten, but immensely important in this conte t/ If art is the search for a perfect order, surely man would have found it by this time, or would have given up the search as a bad *obH but in fact, aestheticians and critics have insisted that man has created that perfect aesthetic order over and over again! @hy, then, should he keep doing itJ'. It is a commonplace that the role of art is to order inchoate e perience or, broadly, bring order to chaos! It is less common to think the polarity of the circuit reversed/ namely, that art may serve a disordering function! Ket this was precisely Ieckhams point, that art might function as a rehearsal, a learning situation for the development of new cognitive tools! %rt is the e posure to the tensions and problems of the false world, he postulated, such that man may endure e posing himself to the tensions and problems of the real world! )wo observations need be made here! )he first, perhaps obviously enough, is that this evolutionary view of art is not at all the same as the assertion that art itself evolves! I suggest only that we have sufficient ground on which to consider the activity of art as itself a component of an evolutionary process, the process, as Ieckham has it, of cognitive adaptation! Ket even this first observation 2I will come to the second momentarily6 poses a deep issue for our parallel reading of art and artificial life! Ioet and essayist #rederick )urner has argued that the greatest aspiration of artificial intelligence researchers has already
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been achieved/ the hardware is the human mind and the software is art! @e already have artificial intelligence! )he arts are traditional forms of artificial intelligence going back some tens of thousands of years! )his is not a metaphor, and it arguably constitutes the most accurate definition of art itself!1)his is not mere rhetoric! Ioems, paintings, novels, sculpture and music are artificial intelligence programs to be run on human computers!'3 Fead through "ennett and Ieckham, )urner?s argument is perhaps not even particularly fanciful! )he second observation relates to the necessary variabilities within this evolutionary model, situating the roles of art and adaptation in a broader historical conte t : that is, the matter of probability! Ian Eacking puts the matter succinctly, hypothesi-ing that today our vision of the world is permeated by probability, while in '544 it was not! Irobability, Eacking wryly notes, is the great philosophical success story of the period!'= If Eacking is correct, then, and we further seek to verify Ieckham?s notion, one might e pect to find certain parallelisms in art! )his paper will obviously not allow an e haustive survey of this (uestion, but I think I shall be able to make substantial inroads with the issue! @hat does it mean to describe our present world9view as permeatedL by probabilityJ Iainter and theoretician Jeremy ,ilbert9Folfe suggests one answer/ )he .4th century?s 2which is to say, modernism?s6 preoccupation with chance may be seen as a product of overdetermination in that it is the logical conse(uence of two centuries? attempts to diminish the role chance might play in everyday life!'> 8mberto +co, one of the few critics to systematically confront the problematic of critical methodology for indeterminate works, similarly observes Lour culture?s attraction
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...our works are making us... Nature, art & arti icial li e!

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for all those processes which, instead of relying on a univocal, necessary se(uence of events, prefer to disclose a field of possibilities!L'A In musical composition, for e ample, Iierre &oule- remarked, classic tonal thought was founded on a universe defined by gravitation and attraction!L'C #ollowing &oule-, the pages of &ach?s Musical Offering might be said, I think, to pose this counterpoint as a deep analog to the Bewtonian universe, the symmetries, balances and ine orable progression of its lines reinforcing the reassuring image of the universe as a vast, e plicitly ordered, machine! If one then turns to 0aMonte Koung?s Composition #5, 1960, the passage from one world9view to another is manifest!'5 #rom Koung?s early #lu us period, the te t score first asks the performer to turn a butterfly 2or any number of butterflies6 loose in the performing area with the suggestion that doors and windows may be opened! %ccordingly, the composition may be considered finished when the butterfly flies away! It?s hard not to regard this is as a #lu us 2in6version of 4 !!", John Cage?s silent piece, framing interiority and e teriority! Koung?s score in fact provides the interpreter with a set of boundary states for the work, although it is obvious that contained within that parameter space are a huge number of possible reali-ations! )he score, to borrow from Eerman <abbe, gives not an ob*ect in the conventional sense, but La pro*ect, a composing model, a compositional problem situation!L'G )he problem situation of Composition #5, 1960 is in this sense nothing but a collection of probabilities! Iut simply, the shortest possible performance 7 the butterflies going directly to the window : is an e tremely unlikely outcome, yet neither is it likely that they would remain in the room indefinitelyH there is, in short, a distribution of probable durations!

My thinking here takes inspiration from Michel <erres and his argument for J!M!@! )urner as Lthe first true genius of thermodynamics!.4 Eis appreciation of the painter depends upon the marking of this passage to a Lnew world !!! MatN the borderline of the aleatory!L %s a conse(uence of this passage, atmosphere itself becomes visible, a new world,L <erres writes, about to discover how atoms and molecules dissolve and disseminate!L )hat the boundary tested by )urner in his works of the late '534?s, a willed disordering of the atmosphere, or what <erres calls the Labandon !!! to &rownian motion,L remains unresolved becomes apparent as our brief survey continues! Clemenceau, for e ample, wrote of Monet, in 'G.G, using virtually the same language as <erres, asking, Lare we not thus close to a visual representation of &rownian motionJ Certainly the gap between science and art is bridged here!L.' %nd one cannot, of course, fail to think in this regard of Jackson Iollock who, we know, felt strongly for his work as the embodiment of fundamental processes and forces, once remarking to Eans Eoffman LI am nature! Ket Iollocks performance was hardly that of mere automatism or other blind force 9 LI deny the accident,L he avowed, in conversation with @illiam @right, or in his famous e clamation, Lno chaos, damn itOL @ith the possible e ception of Marcel "uchamp, no artist has been more closely associated with the use of chance operations than John Cage! Eis methods of musical composition, often devilishly intricate, made e tensive use of chance operations from 'G>' and the landmark Music of Changes, until his death in 'GG.H these procedures were often derived, more or less loosely, from the mechanisms of the # Ching! Ee also adapted these procedures for use in the creation of literary te ts, as well as visual art works!

Randal Davis

...our works are making us... Nature, art & arti icial li e!

" Randal Davis, #$$$, #$%&

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In the score of $ontana Mi% 2'G>56, for e ample, Cage instructed the performer to make chance superimpositions of rudimen9 tary graphic materials on transparencies 2points, lines and curves6, the relations of which were to be read against the e(ually arbitrary superimposition of a scale of measure! )hus we see, on the one hand, a system for the generation of what is, in effect, a randomi-ed result evaluated against a normative measure 7 clock time in this case! Cage was moving toward an infinitely e tensible conception of time, the medium for the Lsimultaneities and interpenetrationsL to which he often later referred! % spectacular illustration is the monumental piano solo from the Concert for &iano an' Orchestra 2'G>C9>56, a virtual encyclopedia of notations : nearly '44! %s if an instruction common to Cage?s work of the period, Lto be performed in whole or in part,L cannot but guarantee an essentially fortuitous, or arbitrary, distribution of events, the piano solo itself may be performed alone or in combination with any other of the orchestral parts, and either may be accompanied, or not, by $ontana Mi%! @ith Julie 0a-ar of the 0os %ngeles Museum of Contemporary %rt, Cage began planning (ol)*hol)o+er in the early 'GG4?s as a retrospective of his scores, te ts and visual art works! )he pro*ect also came to include works by artists Cage felt important to himH the final selection included 'AC ob*ects by >4 artists, and it is in the treatment of these ob*ects that the retrospective was most provocative! 0a-ar recalls Cage?s consistent emphasis in planning (ol)*hol)o+er as Lan e hibition that functioned as a compositional environment,L through which content and design would be determined by chance operationsH indeed, Fichard Doshalek, director of the Museum of Contemporary %rt, wrote of it as a Ltranscending composition by Cage, in this case for museum!L.. )he principles Cage had developed for his large9scale multimedia compositions
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throughout the 'GA4?s and 'GC4?s were brought to bear on (ol)*hol)o+er through F;P+F, a computer program authored by Cage?s collaborator, %ndrew Culver! )he program sub*ected the e hibition checklist to daily chance operations to determine which of the 'AC pieces would be on view 2on any given day, appro imately =4Q6 and where each would be placed in the galleryH F;P+F would typically add or delete '= to .' pieces on a daily basis!.3 )emporal continuity was thus an immediate casualty of (ol)*hol)o+erH visitors on successive days were e ceedingly unlikely to see the same e hibition, but this could, obviously, manifest only with repeated viewings! Immediately conspicuous to even a one9time viewer, though, was the disruption of spatial continuityH works were often hung unusually high or low on the wall, and at times directly ad*acent to one another, leaving large areas of wall surface empty! Constant placement and replacement left the usually pristine museum walls in patent disrepair, erratically marked by holes, scratches and scrapes, recalling the compositional process of the Music for &iano series 2'G>.9>A6 in which imperfections in the score paper were used to plot the position and nature of sound events! )his visual noise, a residue of the continual installation, was also strikingly suggestive of the structured, or framed, ambient sound of 4,!!"!.= %lthough the output of F;P+F consisted of instructions for the daily activities of museum staff, one might still imagine F;P+F operating a kind of virtual museum! <pecifically, I would like to suggest here the comparison between F;P+F and a cellular automata program! % brief formal statement, from <tephen @olfram, clarifies fundamental similarities and announces important differences/ Cellular automata are simple mathematical ideali-ations of natural systems! )hey consist of a lattice of discrete identical sites1values of the
" Randal Davis, #$$$, #$%&

...our works are making us... Nature, art & arti icial li e!

sites evolve in discrete time steps according to deterministic rules that specify the value of each site in terms of the values of neighboring sites!.> @olfram later further generali-ed that cellular automata may be viewed as computers, in which data1is processed by time evolution!.A )he fundamental difference between F;P+F and cellular automata is thus immediately clearH F;P+F is a program with neither continuity nor memory! Cellular automata are recursive, or iterative, systems in which output returns as input! )o restate this observation more acutely, the se(uence of events in F;P+F is without conse(uenceH the system?s state at any generation is causally independent of preceding generations! #rom the perspective of ,regory Chaitin?s algorithmic information theory, the cellular automata is evidently sub*ect to an e treme degree of algorithmic compression, re(uiring only the rules and the specification of the initial state! It is similarly apparent that the results of that same number of generations of F;P+F remain incompressible, therefore approaching a random state!.C @hile Cage?s procedures are fascinating, it is difficult to see in what sense they may be called Levolutionary!L If anything, the opposite conclusion is more persuasive! +volution, in its broadest sense, is a recursive system spread across generationsH the disposition of ob*ects by F;P+F may create interesting or provocative groups and constellations, but they will not evolve in any meaningful sense, since, in effect, each generation of F;P+F is the first! ;ne might, then, simply remark that such behavior does not occur in F;P+F, but that is to miss a vital point for the purpose of this comparison! ;ne might more accurately observe that, where the cellular automatas iteration re-uires this interaction, F;P+F?s operations effectively prohi.it it!

Cage was fond of citing to imitate nature in its manner of operationas a purpose of his art! )his remained a constant in his thought from the time of his first e posure to Indian philosophy in the 'G=4s, and he fre(uently used images of nature, particularly the weather, in describing his music! %lthough himself a formidable amateur naturalist 7 attaining considerable sophistication as a mycologist 7 Cages view of nature remains deeply problematic! James Iritchett, attempting to e plicate Cages thinking on this point, succeeds in demonstrating, however inadvertently, the difficulties of what he calls taking the comple natural world as an ideal model for his own art! Cage, Iritchett argues/ 1saw the world of nature, with its vast multiplicity of simultaneous activities, as surpassing all attempts to measure it! Indeed, he felt that the very act of measuring, by super9 imposing a static arrangement on fluid e perience, could produce a false, restricted view of e perience!.5 Cage, at least asspeaking through Iritchett in this case, is in a certain way correctH it is a commonplace to mark this kind of ine haustibility! )here is, though, a curious absolutism to the apparently corollary relativism 7 since any scale might finally fail, Cage argues, all such measures should be considered necessarily flawed! ;ne cannot then but note that Cages considerations of scale are themselves, one might say, curiously without scale, and thus confuse rather than clarify underlying issues! @e may accept the impossibility of the complete measure of a system but does this mean that no measure is possible at allJ ;f course not, as Cage?s own practice would demonstrate, premised as it was on meticulous calculation! Cage?s concern is, in fact, more properly with the effect of ones choice of a scale of measure on subse(uent observations! )his itself hardly precludes a shared or otherwise consensually validated measure, but Cage, of course, could rightly
" Randal Davis, #$$$, #$%&

Randal Davis

...our works are making us... Nature, art & arti icial li e!

hold profound reservations about the metaphysics of that epistemic normativity!.G It is also clear, though, that Cage?s conclusion 7 what I referred to as the absolutism in his relativism 7 is finally metaphysical! In this opposition of stasis and fluidity, Cage saw the arbitrariness of any scale of measure, and I believe he retreated from this challenge! )here is some irony here, for Cage was, on the one hand, acutely sensitive to the profound ways in which, for e ample, musical form and compositional device mirrored social structures! )hus there remained for him a curiously mystified regard of natural process, one irreducibly random and acausal! In this sense, Cage emerges, however oddly it may first appear, sub*ecting an essentially Fomantic view of nature to, as ,ilbert9Folfe argued, an array of modernist devices! ;ne might, though, see in his position a confirmation or, at least, naRve restatement of the butterfly effect, the sensitive dependence on initial conditions characteristic of comple dynamic systems which will always be, so to speak, below the radar! Joan Fetellack, however, conducted a series of substantial interviews with Cage ending only days before his une pected death, and attempted on several occasions to (uestion Cage about chaos and comple ity theoryH it is apparent from his answers that he had, perhaps unsurprisingly, no substantive knowledge of these matters!34 Fetellack, however, was not so easily dissuaded in her efforts to enlist Cage to the cause of comple ity! In LIoethics of a Comple Fealism,L she asks, Lis it meaningful to say that what 0oren- has done for the butterfly effect in science, John Cage1has done in the artsJL )he answer would, as we have seen, appear to be rather resoundingly in the negative! Fetallack however, goes on to argue that Cagean chance operations were Ldeeply in accord with his pledge to imitate not nature but her
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processes!L3' )his is, I submit, (uite simply not true, surely not insofar as research in comple ity and artificial life has afforded any substantial insights into these processes! Fetellack is at considerable pains also to align Cage with the tradition of %merican pragmatism, a point of much greater meritH at the same time, we have also seen certain aspects of his thought which might suggest that (uite as strong a case might be made for his continuity with, for e ample, the transcendentalist tradition! Cage?s particular fondness for )horeau, dating from the late 'GA4?s, is the most conspicuous emblem of this duality! )his, I would suggest, is Cage?s closest approach to what we presently know of the comple ity of nature?s processesH the contemplative method of )horeau bears some relationship, at least anecdotally, to James ,leick?s narrative of physicist Mitchell #eigenbaum?s pivotal discovery in chaos theory of period doubling!3. 8nfortunately for Fetellack, and others who would con*oin Cage with theories of chaos and comple ity, #eigenbaum?s epiphany was fundamentally one of the discovery of pattern, precisely what Cage?s method, indeed his world9view, re*ects! My sub*ect today, however, is not finally whether his commentators have particularly well or poorly served Cage! It is, instead, more important to see in these slippages and elisions evidence 9 the fault lines, if you will 9 of deep, and largely unresolved, (uestions surrounding his positions! Cage was an artist of astounding originality and inventiveness, yet our regard for his e traordinary talents and discipline, as well as the obvious breadth and depth of his influence, should not blind us to the fact that much of his work proceeded from an outlook, an episteme, which is now (uite as alien as 0aplacean determinism! Cage, I would suggest, is e emplary of an artist whose work derives from a conceptual
" Randal Davis, #$$$, #$%&

...our works are making us... Nature, art & arti icial li e!

frame at once transitional and epochal! )his is why, for e ample, modernist and postmodernist theoreticians may claim him for their own! In this, Cage invites comparison with +instein who, as the last of the classical physicists, remained inalterably opposed to the Lnew physicsL of (uantum mechanics! <imilarly, Cage now appears, for all his reliance upon the LchanceL he observed, erroneously, in nature, a somewhat reactionary figure! LIt would seem to me,L Jeremy ,ilbert9Folfe argues/ 1that art never surrenders its sub*ectivity to chance but rather thinks of chance as a source of refreshment and relief through which its traditional theme, the production of meaning through the une pected, may be persistently maintained!33 I am not altogether encouraged by the self9 consciousness of this Lrefreshment and reliefL : moderation of this sort always puts me in mind of %rnold <chSnberg?s warning that the middle road was the only one that did not lead to Fome! ;n the other hand, I am taken with ,ilbert7Folfes formula for the production of meaning, and its corollary sense that our encounters with the une pected must be maintained! In that spirit, I would return now, by way of a few concluding remarks, to the matter of evolution! )he role of probabilistic e planation in natural selection was fundamental, as M!<!J! Eodge reads "arwin?s contrast of chance and chances 2which is to say, with the former, essentially random mutations and, with the latter, a probabilistic assessment of adaptability6 in the effort to situate natural selection relative to Bewtonian determinism!3= %nd if this (uestion was, one might say, present at the creation, so it remains! Its most familiar contemporary form is the (uestion of the origin of life, which, if left to LpureL chance, appears, at considerable understatement, e ceedingly unlikely! Claus
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+mmeche thus refers to evolutionary theory as a Ltheory about organisms that are already partially well adapted, well9 constructed and highly organi-ed biophysical systems!L3> Ierhaps the single most powerful answer presently available to this (uestion is found in <tuart Dauffmans pioneering work with random &oolean networks! )his e traordinary mathematical research produced the profoundly counterintuitive conclusion that a randomly connected network, at least within certain degrees of connectiveness, will evidence a spontaneous, or emergent, favoring of a sufficiently restricted range of outcomes 2states6 as to seemingly defy probability! )his suggests, as Dauffman provocatively terms it, the e istence in nature of the possibility of order for free!3A Dauffman?s work clearly commands a refiguring of conventional oppositions of randomness and order! Central to his discovery of the behavior of the random networks and what he calls the BD fitness landscape, a mathematical formalism for understanding the constraints and stimuli to selection, is the notion of the Ledge of chaos!L It is in this particular region of comple ity : Dauffman, @olfram and 0angton, among others, have all demonstrated : that emergent behavior and self9reproduction occur! @hat Jeremy ,ilbert9Folfe called modernism?s Lpreoccupation with chanceL has, perhaps then, come to an end, as a specific conception of chance has itself been superceded! @e remain, though, within the Lfield of possibilitiesL +co finds in open works! Conspicuous among those is, of course, that it is, by now, evident that the tools of comple ity and artificial life are well9 suited to the technologies of art9making! I hope that my remarks today have worked, however, to at least outline further possibilities! Dauffman?s model of the fitness landscape is, I think, immensely important
" Randal Davis, #$$$, #$%&

...our works are making us... Nature, art & arti icial li e!

here! Eis researches suggest that, in the presence of insufficient comple ity, the landscape will be LflatL and selection will not be significantly different than purely random behavior! If, at the other end of the range, comple ity is too high, the landscape will be so LruggedL as to restrict the possibilities for selection! It seems to me that, if, as Ieckham and )urner, for e ample, suggest, we regard art as a constituent element of a broader evolutionary process, art becomes a way in which we may, so to speak, modulate that comple ity in our social processes and, ultimately, in our evolution! )he particular advantages of the present moment seem to me to consist in the potential 7 for the first time 7 for truly interactive art works! It would, therefore, follow that we might seek art works which would remain, in a sense, in an open form, which would be, in evolutionary terms, less the organism than the landscape itself!
Botes to the te t ' John Cage, Themes & Variations 2&arrytown/ <tation Eill Iress, 'G5.6! J!"! #armer $ %letta &elin, %rtificial 0ife/ )he Coming +volution, in Christopher 0angton 2editor6, /rtificial 0ife ##1 2anta $e #nstitute 2tu'ies in the 2ciences of Comple%it), Vol3 4 2Menlo Iark/ %ddison @esley Iublishing Company, 'GG.6/ 5'>! . +ric @! &onabeau $ ,uy )heraula-, @hy "o @e Beed %rtificial 0ife, in Christopher 0angton 2editor6, /rtificial 0ife1 /n O+er+ie* 2Cambridge/ )he MI) Iress, 'GG>6/ 3..! 3 Morton #eldman, notes to the recording by %ki )akihashi $ )he Dronos Tuartet of &iano & 2tring 5uartet 2Bew Kork/ +lektraUBonesuch C>>G9CG3.49., 'GG36! = Christopher 0angton, %rtificial 0ife, in Christopher 0angton 2editor6, /rtificial 0ife1 2anta $e #nstitute 2tu'ies in the 2ciences of Comple%it), Vol3 V# 2Menlo Iark/ %ddison @esley Iublishing Company, 'G5G6/ '! > "avid Campbell, Jim Crutchfield, J! "! #armer $ +rica Jen, L+ perimental Mathematics/ )he Fole of Computation in Bonlinear <cience,L Communications of the /CM .5/= 2%pril, 'G5>6/ 3C=935=! )hey argue the symbiotic relationship
Randal Davis

between e perimental and analytic mathematics and in so doing set the ground upon which 0angton, for e ample, would call for what amounted to a speculative biology! A Christopher 0angton, L<tudying %rtificial 0ife with Cellular %utomata,L &h)sica .." 2'G5A6/ '=C! C Borbert @iener, The 6uman 7se of 6uman 8eings 2Bew Kork/ %von &ooks, 'GAC6/ '34! 5 B! Datherine Eayles, 6o* 9e 8ecame &osthuman 2Chicago/ 8niversity of Chicago Iress, 'GGG6/ ' G B! Datherine Eayles, Barratives of %rtificial 0ife, in ,eorge Fobertson, et al3 2editors6, $uture:atural 2Bew Kork/ Foutledge, 'GGA6, throughout, esp! '>4 $ '>3! % revised version of this te t appeared subse(uently in her 6o* 9e 8ecame &osthuman 2note 5 above6! %lso see E!E! Iattee, <imulations, Feali-ations, and )heories of 0ife, in Christopher 0angton Veditor6, /rtificial 0ife1 2anta $e #nstitute 2tu'ies in the 2ciences of Comple%it), Vol3 V# 2Menlo Iark/ %ddison @esley Iublishing Company, 'G5G6/ AA, A59AG! '4 <ee, for e ample, "rew Mc"ermotts %rtificial Intelligence Meets Batural <tupidity, in John Eaugeland 2editor6, Min' ;esign 2Cambridge/ )he MI) Iress, 'G5'6/ '=39'A4! '' "aniel "ennett, %rtificial 0ife as Ihilosophy, in Christopher 0angton 2editor6, /rtificial 0ife1 /n O+er+ie* 2Cambridge/ )he MI) Iress, 'GG>6/ .G'! '. Morse Ieckham, Man,s (age for Chaos 2Ihiladelphia/ Chilton, 'GA>6/ 34G! '3 #rederick )urner, )empest, $lute, & O<, =ssa)s on the $uture 2Iersea &ooks, Bew Kork, 'GG'6/ '3'9 '3.! '= Ian Eacking, @as )here a Irobabilistic FevolutionJ in 0oren- DrWger, et al3 2editors6, The &ro.a.ilistic (e+olution, Volume #1 #'eas in 6istor) 2Cambridge/ )he MI) Iress, 'G5C6/ =>! '> Jeremy ,ilbert9Folfe, LBot &y Chance %lone,L in <arah ,avlak $ Chris Draus 2editors6, Chance1 The Catalogue 2<anta Monica/ <mart %rt Iress, 'GGA6/ n!p! 'A 8mberto +co, The Open 9or>, translated by %nna Cancogni 2Cambridge/ Earvard 8niversity Iress, 'G5G6/ ==! 'C Iierre &oule-, Items for a Musical +ncyclopedia/ <eries, in :otes of an /pprenticeship, translated by Eerbert @einstock 2Bew Kork/ %lfred %! Dnopf, 'GA56/ 34=! '5 0a Monte Koung, Compositions, in 0a Monte Koung 2editor6, /n /ntholog) of Chance Operations 2Bew Kork/ 0a Monte Koung $ Jackson Mac0ow, 'GA36/ n!p! ,

...our works are making us... Nature, art & arti icial li e!

" Randal Davis, #$$$, #$%&

'G Eerman <abbe, ;pen <tructure $ the Iroblem of Criticism, &erspecti+es of :e* Music .C/' 2@inter, 'G5G6/ 3'3! .4 Michel <erres, )urner )ranslates Carnot,in 6ermes1 0iterature, 2cience, &hilosoph) 2&altimore/ Johns Eopkins 8niversity Iress, 'G5.6, throughout, especially >C9>5! .' ,eorges Clemenceau, LClaude Monet,L in Charles #! <tuckey 2editor6, Monet1 / (etrospecti+e 2Bew Kork/ Iark 0ane, 'G5>6/ 3>>! My attention was called to this passage by Mark C! )aylor?s study of the relation of comple ity theory to Mark )ansey?s painting, still further evidence of the continuing fascination of the (uestion! <ee )aylor?s The &icture #n 5uestion 2Chicago/ )he 8niversity of Chicago Iress, 'GGG6/ GG9'.5! .. Julie 0a-ar, nothingtoseeness, and Fichard Doshalek, "irectors #oreword, in John Cage, et al3, (ol)*hol)o+er 2Bew Kork/ Fi--oli &ooks, 'G536, n!p! .3 John Cage died before planning for the e hibition was complete, and the ultimate fidelity of the pro*ect to his concepts has aroused debate, notably Fichard Dostelanet-s virulent criticism of the e hibition in Folywholyover/ %ntiseptic Eavoc in the Bame of John Cage, an appendi to his recent ?ohn Cage @e%Aplain@e'A 2Bew Kork/ <chirmer &ooks, 'GGA6/ 'A'9'AC! <ee also, for contrast, his essay on Cages 6&2C6; in that same volume! .= Joan Fetallack 2editor6, Musicage1 Cage Muses on 9or's /rt Music 2Eanover/@esleyan 8niversity Iress $ 8niversity Iress of Bew +ngland, 'GGA6/ '3>! .> <tephen @olfram, Cellular %utomata, first published 'G53, later in his Cellular /utomata & Comple%it)1 Collecte' &apers 2Menlo Iark/ %ddison @esley Iublishing Company, 'G5G6/='3! .A <tephen @olfram, 8niversality and Comple ity in Cellular %utomata, first published 'G5=, later in his Cellular /utomata & Comple%it)1 Collecte' &apers 2Menlo Iark/ %ddison @esley Iublishing Company, 'G5G6/ '>4! .C ,regory J! Chaitin, /lgorithmic #nformation Theor) 2Cambridge/ Cambridge 8niversity Iress, 'G5C6! )his work was introduced in his Fandomness and Mathematical Iroof, 2cientific /merican .3./> 2May, 'GC>6/ =C9>.! .5 James Iritchett, The Music of ?ohn Cage 2Cambridge/ Cambridge 8niversity Iress, 'GG36/ '=C! .G <tephen E! Dellert, #n the 9a>e of Chaos 2Chicago/ )he 8niversity of Chicago Iress, 'GG36/ 349=C, A.9AA for an e cellent philosophical

treatment of the (uestions of measure and prediction! 34 Joan Fetallack 2editor6, Musicage1 Cage Muses on 9or's /rt Music 2Eanover/ @esleyan 8niversity Iress $ 8niversity Iress of Bew +ngland, 'GGA6! 3' Joan Fetellack, LIoethics of a Comple Fealism,L in Mar*orie Ierloff $ Charles Junkerman 2editors6, ?ohn Cage1 Compose' in /merica 2Chicago/ 8niversity of Chicago Iress, 'GG=6/ .>'! 3. James ,leick, Chaos1 Ma>ing a :e* 2cience 2Bew Kork/ Piking, 'G5C6/'>C9'5C! 33 Jeremy ,ilbert9Folfe, LBot &y Chance %lone,L in <arah ,avlak $ Chris Draus 2editors6, Chance1 The Catalogue 2<anta Monica/ <mart %rt Iress, 'GGA6/ n!p! 3= M!J!<! Eodge, Batural <election as a Causal, +mpirical $ Irobabilistic )heory, in 0orenDrWger, et al! 2editors6, The &ro.a.ilistic (e+olution, Volume ##1 #'eas in the 2ciences 2Cambridge/ )he MI) Iress, 'G5C6! 3> Claus +mmeche, The Bar'en in the Machine, translated by <tephen <ampson 2Irinceton/ Irinceton 8niversity Iress, 'GG=6/ '4! 3A <tuart Dauffman, /t 6ome #n The 7ni+erse 2Bew Kork/ ; ford 8niversity Iress, 'GG>6/ .37.=!

Randal Davis

...our works are making us... Nature, art & arti icial li e!

" Randal Davis, #$$$, #$%&

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Randal Davis

...our works are making us... Nature, art & arti icial li e!

" Randal Davis, #$$$, #$%&

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