Emergence

The idea of Emergence inspires and informs my art. Emergence occurs when something at a higher level appears out of  a set of interacting components within a complex system. For example your organs, such as your heart, are made up of atoms and molecules which combine to form cells. The cells each do their own thing unaware of something called a heart and unaware of its function – and unaware of lungs, yet the heart is made up of these interacting cells. Similarly, we are made up of a set of organs and their material relationships such as blood vessels. None of these organs are aware of what is a human being or democracy. Organs and humans are both emergent properties or entities, at a “higher level” of functioning and awareness than their components.

This urges representation. See my painting “Emergence”  and  “Emergence II“.

I have no doubt that each of us is a component, like a cell, in a larger entity. The Internet is perhaps the nervous system. Roads certainly move humans and resources around the planet. I am not sure if cells are trying to communicate with us, but I don’t know how to communicate with them. Similarly I don’t know how to communicate with that which is coming about “above” me.

But I would like to!