A single ant is quite a simple creature but an ant colony is capable of anticipating changes in weather and designing complex underground structures. If we try to study the behaviour of one ant, we would find no trace of these complex behaviours since they result from encounters between all the ants in the nest. This is a classic case for a situation where the whole is larger than the sum of its parts. The term, Emergent Behavior, taken from complex system theory, refers to the behaviour of a collective system, or entity, which is driven not by the summation of its individual parts, but by the interactions between them. These interactions hold the power to define the complex entity as a new self-organised whole. The system’s collective behaviour leads to the formation of an unexpected new event.
Each work in the exhibition addresses such moments of emergence in their unique way. Capturing these events enables artists to hone the spontaneous processes into their works and to inform their formalistic properties in essential ways. These events of complexity resonate through every aspect of life and mark the allure of the formation of a being, an entity as a deterministic form. It was even argued that a strong and complex emergence cannot be reduced or simulated, and was even referred to as “magical”. Science had long made its objective to investigate such events of emergence, as they hold the key to understanding life, with all its glorious complexity.
Therefore, the works are generative – they are becoming and working by their own self- organising mechanisms. They draw a seam line between the godlike aura of magic and scientific examination, randomness and regularity, materiality and ideology, and the turmoil feelings of devotion till death.