{"id":{"repo_id":"mit","oai_identifier":"oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/153336"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/mit/oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/153336","repository":{"repo_id":"mit","name":"MIT","base_url":"https://dspace.mit.edu/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Emergence: Speculative Ecologies & Evolution in Art","abstract":"This thesis explores emergence as a focal point within my art practice. Emergence is the phenomenon through which complex systems exhibit properties and behaviors that are not directly attributable to any of the individual components within a system. Instead, these properties emerge through the (often entangled) relationships and interactions between individual, and often heterogeneous, components of a system. By orienting my work towards emergence, I propose a necessary shift towards an ecological and systems-based understanding of the world, one in which artworks can begin to be imagined in networks of relations and interdependence, doing so as a means of probing new ways of Being in an increasingly complex and entangled world. The thesis presents two frameworks for further exploring emergence, including an understanding of the exhibition as a “speculative ecology” and the different roles that instructions, rule-based systems and contracts could take on in staging evolutionary processes. The ecological framing of the exhibition emphasizes a renegotiation of agency amongst the exhibition’s components, open-over-closed systems and a focus on the integration of life cycles into the work; the use of instructions, rule-based systems and contracts enables the translation and embedding of evolutionary processes as part of the work's conceptualization and execution, aiming to inscribe change and instability as a core element in the work. The thesis draws on references from the fields of art and computation to expand upon historical lineages of thinking, in relation to several works that I have developed during my time at MIT’s program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT).","abstract_html":"This thesis explores emergence as a focal point within my art practice. Emergence is the phenomenon through which complex systems exhibit properties and behaviors that are not directly attributable to any of the individual components within a system. Instead, these properties emerge through the (often entangled) relationships and interactions between individual, and often heterogeneous, components of a system. By orienting my work towards emergence, I propose a necessary shift towards an ecological and systems-based understanding of the world, one in which artworks can begin to be imagined in networks of relations and interdependence, doing so as a means of probing new ways of Being in an increasingly complex and entangled world. The thesis presents two frameworks for further exploring emergence, including an understanding of the exhibition as a “speculative ecology” and the different roles that instructions, rule-based systems and contracts could take on in staging evolutionary processes. The ecological framing of the exhibition emphasizes a renegotiation of agency amongst the exhibition’s components, open-over-closed systems and a focus on the integration of life cycles into the work; the use of instructions, rule-based systems and contracts enables the translation and embedding of evolutionary processes as part of the work's conceptualization and execution, aiming to inscribe change and instability as a core element in the work. The thesis draws on references from the fields of art and computation to expand upon historical lineages of thinking, in relation to several works that I have developed during my time at MIT’s program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT).","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Medina, Alejandro"],"institution":"Massachusetts Institute of Technology","degree_name":"Master","degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":"Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 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Emergence is the phenomenon through which complex systems exhibit properties and behaviors that are not directly attributable to any of the individual components within a system. Instead, these properties emerge through the (often entangled) relationships and interactions between individual, and often heterogeneous, components of a system. By orienting my work towards emergence, I propose a necessary shift towards an ecological and systems-based understanding of the world, one in which artworks can begin to be imagined in networks of relations and interdependence, doing so as a means of probing new ways of Being in an increasingly complex and entangled world. The thesis presents two frameworks for further exploring emergence, including an understanding of the exhibition as a “speculative ecology” and the different roles that instructions, rule-based systems and contracts could take on in staging evolutionary processes. The ecological framing of the exhibition emphasizes a renegotiation of agency amongst the exhibition’s components, open-over-closed systems and a focus on the integration of life cycles into the work; the use of instructions, rule-based systems and contracts enables the translation and embedding of evolutionary processes as part of the work's conceptualization and execution, aiming to inscribe change and instability as a core element in the work. The thesis draws on references from the fields of art and computation to expand upon historical lineages of thinking, in relation to several works that I have developed during my time at MIT’s program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT)."]},{"key":"dc:description.degree","label":"Dc Description Degree","values":["S.M."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Emergence: Speculative Ecologies & Evolution in Art"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.advisor":["Urbona, Gediminas"],"dc:contributor.department":["Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture"],"dc:creator":["Medina, Alejandro"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2024-01-16T21:52:02Z"],"dc:date.available":["2024-01-16T21:52:02Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2023-06"],"dc:description.abstract":["This thesis explores emergence as a focal point within my art practice. Emergence is the phenomenon through which complex systems exhibit properties and behaviors that are not directly attributable to any of the individual components within a system. Instead, these properties emerge through the (often entangled) relationships and interactions between individual, and often heterogeneous, components of a system. By orienting my work towards emergence, I propose a necessary shift towards an ecological and systems-based understanding of the world, one in which artworks can begin to be imagined in networks of relations and interdependence, doing so as a means of probing new ways of Being in an increasingly complex and entangled world. The thesis presents two frameworks for further exploring emergence, including an understanding of the exhibition as a “speculative ecology” and the different roles that instructions, rule-based systems and contracts could take on in staging evolutionary processes. The ecological framing of the exhibition emphasizes a renegotiation of agency amongst the exhibition’s components, open-over-closed systems and a focus on the integration of life cycles into the work; the use of instructions, rule-based systems and contracts enables the translation and embedding of evolutionary processes as part of the work's conceptualization and execution, aiming to inscribe change and instability as a core element in the work. 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