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Chapter 4 - Describing Art Through the Lens of Complex Dynamic Systems

from Part I - Art as a Complex Process

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 March 2025

Paul van Geert
Paul van Geert
Affiliation:
Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands
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Summary

Chapter 4 provides a definition of the visual arts through the lens of complex dynamic systems. Art is defined as (1) a temporally contingent, iterative process involving many interacting components; (2) a distributed and situated process of enactment; (3) an emergent phenomenon; (4) a unique and authentic visual embodiment of self-determined artistic meaning; (5) an embodied meaning that exploits meta-stable, critical state dynamics of values; (6) a pluriform complex dynamic; and (7) a process governed by a dynamic of presentation, re-presentation, and reference. Finally, definitions of art are presented as critical state attractors in artworld systems (all the technical concepts are explained in Chapter 3).

Keywords

complex dynamic systemdefinition of artdistributed processemergenceembodimentcritical statepluriformitypresentationmetastability
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Chapter
Information
A Complex Systems View on the Visual Arts , pp. 73 - 92
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2025

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