The Synergy of Art and Science

THE PROJECT CONCEPT HAS BEEN BASED on the intention to examine the relations between science on complexity and art. The exhibition has revised borders between the rigorously ordered area of science and a haphazard art zone. The foundations of the scientific theory of complexity go back to the discovery that very simple rules might result in creation of exceptionally complex structures and phenomena. Extremely rare events are vital for their dynamics. The less frequent the event, the more significant it is. Rare events, extremely hard to foresee, if not to notice, carry a determining impact on shaping the reality in various fields, such as economy, financial markets, social psychology or ecology.

Extremely rare events phenomenon was a source of reflections and artistic experiments in the course of an over one year seminar. Artists, scientists and architects have approached the science on complexity from individual points of view of their respective fields. Aleksandara Wasilkowska in cooperation with Michał Piasecki arranged the exhibition area through a complex system of parametrically generated spatial forms, constructed of uniform, multiplied concrete blocks. The architecture offered by young architects, by means of simplification, refers to the notions of self-organization and emergency present in the architecture theory since the 50's, illustrated by the idea of utopian cities. The exhibition showed two visualizations of urban solutions, La Ville spatiale by Yon Friedman and I've heard about by Francois Roch.

The artists' approach has been partly theoretical, treating the science on complexity as an exploration zone, the creative search test area. Artistic objects and scientific documents in video form, as attracting components, introduced into a homogenous system, materialize the concept of destabilization, thus developing the new space structure. The interference by artists and scientists into the exhibition space caused disturbances, point oriented activation and disruption of the coherent architectonic system.

Artists attempted to solve the Extremely Rare Events problem on two completely different levels of presentation. The method selected by Janek Simon involved constant signals announcing the coming catastrophe. Simon has skillfully manufactured, produced, generated various extremely rare events causing defined reactions and phenomena - then closely observed - in material objects. The artist has showed a series of works applying various means of expression; i.e., modulated sound, color (illustrating the so called Gauss phenomenon) or movement giving an impression of optical confusion in the well known installation, The Fan, featuring a pair of shoes substituting a double pendulum. Other works visualizing the catastrophic theories include small house constructions under ever growing deformation.

Agnieszka Kurant has dealt with rare events by means of exploring reality perception in her pieces entitled "End of Certainty" (a single block floating, levitating over an architectonic structure); World is Immobile. For Lilia Prigogine (a jumping squirrel, framed in air, questions the gravitation law); Future Anterior ("New York Times" daily presenting the vision of events to happen on September 29th 2020 described by journalists following a clairvoyant's message, the newspaper print disappears in reaction to the surrounding temperature); Language is a Virus from Outer Space (a transparent plate with the radio waves sequence received from cosmos engraved, with the "Wow" comment by an American scientist going back to 1977).

As a result of shared efforts, Agnieszka Kurant, Oskar Dawicki, Janek Simon, Edwin Bendyk and Łukasz Ronduda have formulated The Noo Vanguard and Art Autonomy Manifesto. The text supports the theory and explains the assumptions by the authors of the project.

The Extremely Rare Events/ Noo Vanguard Distribution, the Ujazdowski Castle Contemporary Art Center, Warsaw, August-September 2009.