Ellen K. Levy

Classifying Kubler:Between the Complexity

of Science and Ar t1. See James R Cnjtcbfietd, "Is Anything EverNew? Considering Emergence," in Complexity:Metaphors. Models, and Realixy. ed, G. Cowan. D,Pines, and D. Melzner, SFI 5enes in the Sciences ofComplexity 19 (Redwood City: Addison-Wesley,1994), 6, Cnjtchfield asfts, "How is anything newever discovered, if it must always be expressed inthe current language?"2. George Kubler, Tie Shape of Time: Remarks onthe History of Things (New Haven and London:Yale University Press, 1962), 33-39,3. See Joyce Brodsky, "Continuity and Discontinu-ity in Style: A Problem in Art Historical Method-ology." _/ouma/of Aesthetics ond Art CnDctsm 39,no, I (Autumn 1980): 27-37. Brodsky proposesto substitute tbe terms "continuity" and "disconti-nuity" for "convention" and "invention."4. Kubier. 33.S.lbid,, 33. 34.44,45.6-Ibid., 120.7. See Pamela M. Lee. '"Ultramoderne': Or, HowGeorge Kubier Stole the Time in Sixties Art." GreyRoom 2 (Winter 2001): 54, and chap. 4 in Lee.Chwnophobia: On Time in the Art of the / 960s(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004),8. Philip Dark, "Methods of Synthesis in Ethno-history," Ethnofiisiory 4. no. 3 (Summer 1957): 250.Ethnohistory combines aspects of anthropologyand history. Dark describes the three major typesof methods used m tbe 1950s to understandhistorical patterns, namefy cross-sectional (a syn-chronie approach), the institutional (synchronieaspects are minor), and the culture continuum types.Dark states tbat onty the last maintain a balancebetween tbe synchronie and diachronic aspects oftbe culture. Dark notes on the p^e before (249).while referring to Kubler's 1947 Quechua study,that "Kubler's analysis, as LaFarge's. demonstratesthe central core or tieme thai maintains tbe culturein the face of pressure and fragmenting causes andallows it to persist through time,"9. See Caroline Jones. "The Modernist Paradigm:The Artworid and Tliomas Kuhn," Critcal Inquiry26. no, 3 Coring 2000): 497. Jones notes, "In thespaces where Kuhn's work and the artworid inter-seaed. Greenberg, Fried, and their definition ofModernism loomed large, but other significant

Originality poses m inherent dilemma in that we must rely on conventions lo beunderstood but must transcend them to say something new. ' This Insight recursin Tlic Siwpe of Time: Remarits on the Hisiory of Things, in which George Kubier finds away to describe art-historical periods through a structural analysis of artistic tra-ditions and periodic breakthroughs of singular achievement. ' Kubler sought toreveal patterns of ctilture by developing a model of change that wotild account

for both custom and invention.' He arrived at a descriptionIII which the component structures develop chains of "linkedsolutions" through time, many of which are open to "furtherelaboration by new solutions."* These sequences point botlibackward and forward, calhng attention to the problems thatinitially motivated them and comprising open-ended order-ings that can be reactivated at any time.'

The Shape of Time appeared in 1962 during the heyday offormalism, I revisited it dtning the late 1960s when Kubler's

analysis of the important role that the state-of-tlie-art field holds for someoneembarking on a career was particularly meaningful to me. Formalism hadachieved the force ofa master narrative in Boston, where I was a student, butKubler's writings provided a point of resistance, in that he reminded us that "thepresent always contains several tendencies competing everywhere for each valu-able objective.'**' I took to heart his implicit advice to identify one's artistic kin-ship among a diversity of artworks from all times, rather than relying solely onrecent models, which was tlien common practice in art schools. Kubler himselfselected his own models well, gatliering insights from anthropology, ethnogra-phy, philosophy, linguistics, and science to bear on the problems of historicalchange in art.' The Shape of Time also offered way to conceive of art-making as athree-way conversation among art, science, and technology, a model that is againrelevant. In his book he anticipated the multidisciplinary thrust of what is nowrecognized as the science of complex systems. Uke complexity scientists today,he conceived the problem of understanding historical change as one involvingmany components dynamically interacting on a number of scales. Even prior tothe publication of The Shape of Time, the ethnographer Philip Dark observed thatKubler's self-imposed task involved the description ofa culture over time "as itclianges, expands, retracts, incorporates new elements, readjusts, and proceeds,,, ,Tlie difficulties of maintaining a balance between the representation of thecomponent structural elements and the processes which bind them together andchange them as the whole design proceeds through time are many.., , Kubierappears to have obtained it by a dual device, maintaining a balance betweenstructtire and process by first emphasizing the whole and subsequently preserv-ing a balanced relationship in the course of structural considerations."*

In 1962,Thomas Kulin's and Kubler's interests converged: both publishedcanonical books that year about historical change within their respective disci-plines. Ktihn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions popularized the term "paradigm"and stressed the underpinnings of culture as a way to imderstand the histor>'of science, Ktihn was intrigued by historical analyses imderway in the arts,^ Inturn, Kubler's The Shiipe of Time emphasized that art history should take its cuesfrom the history of science, ' Here was a place to look for fresh ideas about thenature of convention, invention, and variation. Whether or not there was direct

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Eric A. Myers, two successive states fromComputer Simulation of o Sandplle, 1988,created on the Connection Machine 2 at theBoston University Center for ComputationalScience (images Eric A. Myers).

Eric Myers models how avalanches can occur. Henotes that in his computer simulation, "grains ofsand are added to a pile until a critical state sachieved. The colors represent the hei^t of chepile going from tallest (purple) to shortest (black).If a pile is 4 or more call, then it "falls," by having itsheight reduced by 4, while each of the 4 nearestneighbors is increased by I. The algorithm keepsthe totai amouni of sand the same (not accounongfor what comes in or goes out along the edges)."The images are symmetrical because both the rulehe applied is symmetrical, and the initial conditionsand boundary conditions are symmetrical.

monuments had also begun co arrange themselves.Works such as George Kubler's poput^ 1962 bookThe Shape of Time (vi/ith which Kuhn found much tosympathi2e) appeared nearly simultaneously withthe art critic Clement Greenberg's 1961 Art ondCulture and close on the heels of Greenberg's inflo-ential essay 'Modernist Paintng' of the previous year."10. George Kubier. "The Shape of Time Recon-sidered." f^rspecto 19 (1982): 113.11. Lee notes that in May 1967 Kuhn and Kubierpresented at the same University of Michiganconference on the structural relationship betweenart and science. Lee. 74, n. 13, The 1957 publica-tion was Thomas S. Kuhn. The Copernican Revolu-tion: Planetary Astronomy in the Deve'opmenf ofWestern Thought (Cambridge and London:Harvard University Press. 1957).12. These questions were eventually asked by

John D. Sterman and Jason Wittenberg when theyran computer simulations to test Kuhn's theory(see n. 26).13. George Kubier. "|The New Reality in Art and5cience]: Comment." in "Cultural Innovation,"Comparative Studies in Society and History H, no, 4(October I 969): 401. Kubier states, "Uke Hafner.Ackerman at one point equates art and sciencewithin the biological metaphor of evolution. In anearlier article he spoke of the horse's evolution asa model; now he speaks of a species of moth inEngland (page 371, n. I ). Yet he gives us no pass-able bridge from evolution to an."14. Thomas S, Kuhn. "The New Reality in Art andScience]: Comment," in "Cultural Innovation,"Comparative Studies in Society and History 11. no, 4(October 1969): 404. Kuhn states that "closeanalysis must again be enabled to display the obvi-ous: that science and art are very different enter-prises or at least have become so during the lastcennjr/-and-a-half."15. Kubier. Shape of Time. 8.16. Remi Clignet, "The Variability of Paradigms inthe fVoduction of Culture: A Comparison of theArts and Sciences." American Sociological Review44. no. 3 (June 1979): 406.17. Robert Scon Root-Bernstein, "On Paradigmsand Revolutions in Sdence and Art: The Challengeof Interpretation." Art Journal 44, no. 2 (Summer1984): 116.

communication between Kuhn and Kubier prior to 1962, many of Kuhn's ideasabout social factors influencing the development of scientific ilieories had beenpreviewed in an earher 1957 publication iliat Kubier may have known." In anyevent, we see that Kiibler and Kuhn asked similar questions. Why do some para-digms thrive while others die out? Do the best models tend to prevail, or doestiming coum above any other considerations? How do you distinguish innova-tive change from fads?'"

We know from some of Kubler's published comments about Ktihn's StructureoiScieDLific Revolutions thai Kubier wa.s admiring but uneasy with respect to what artliistorians might take from it.''Anticipating tiie possibility of misuse. Kuhn him-self cautioned against applying his ideas too loosely to other fields.''* Kuhn andKubier agreed that art and science were problem-solving activities, but both sawart and science as fundamentally differenl kinds of endeavors. Unlike James S.Ackerman and E, M. Hafner, who saw parallels to art history in some of Ktihn'sideas about evolution. Kubier voiced objections to imderstanding historicalchange through biological analogies. His reservations focused on historiansusing well-worn ideas of cycles of birth, growth, and decay, which he believedto be irrelevant to the purposeful nature of art.'^

Despite Kuhn's and Kubler's pervasive cautions about making analogiesbetween the separate fields of art and science, the paradigm concept has becomethe linchpin for many discussions on possible commensurablhty in tliose fields.In 1979 the sociologisc Remi Clignet described die variability of paradigms inthe production of culture. He questioned how comparisons between art and sci-ence were drawn and warned thai "generalizations are more ideological thanscientific when diey remain ahistorical and are not focused on tbe divergencesand convergences in the histories of specific disciplines. It is perhaps becausesuch demons prowl continuously in the field of sociology, that this particularfonn of knowledge and its paradigms are someiimes described as an art formrather than as a science (Gouldner. 1976; Nisbet, 1976).""^ By contrast, in 1984 in.4ri Journal. Robert Root-Bemstein debated the logic of Kuhn"s restricting the para-digm concept to science, concluding tbai "scientists and artists alike assimilatethe paradigms of their forebears by copyLng and re-creating. Neither artist norpainter will bave access to, or generally care to have access to, the original formu-lations of these problem-solutions, bui both need and get access to the ongoingtraditions of teaching that keep the paradigms alive." ''

artjoumal

18. Kubler. "fThe New Reality m Art and Science]:Comment."" 401. In the same issue on page 412.Kuhn states, "I discover that the problems whichdrove me from talk of theories to talk of para-digms are very nearly identical with those whichmake Kubier disdatn the notion of style.""19. George Kubier, "Period. Style and Meaning inAncient American Art." in "Synnposium onPeriods."" New Uterary History I. no. 2 (Winter1970): 14020. Kuhn, "[The New Reality in Art afid Science]:CofTiment." 412.21. Kubier. Shape of Time, 57.22. Ibid., 59.23. Ibid. In The Structure of Scientific Revalutions,Kuhn had proposed alternations of "normal sci-ence"" with "revolutjon"" until "'crises"" of unan-swered "anomalies'" would lead to '"alternateparadigms."24. Ibid.25. Per Bak and Kan Chen. "SeIf-OrganizedCriticaltty,"" Scientific American, January 1991. 46,Bak and Chen state, "Large interactive systemsperpetually organize themselves to a critical statein which a minor event starts a chain reaction thatcan lead to a catastrophe,'"26. John D. Sterman and Jason Wittenberg, ""PathDependence. Competition, and Succession in theDynamics of Scientific Revolution.'" in ""Applicationof Complexity Theory to Organization Science."'Organization Science 10, no. 3 (May-June 1999):333. The authors state that the simulation showsthe ability of positive feedback processes to cre-ate path-dependent (ock-in to particular equilibriafrom an initially undifferendated choice set. Theauthors conclude that "counter to what one mightexpect, the more intense the competition, thelonger ^ e expected life of the successful theories.There are two reasons. First, strong selectivepressures during the emergence phase ensure thatonly those paradigm candidates v^th high intrinsiccapability can survive. When selection pressure isweak, some paradigm candidates with low innn-sic potential can become dominant. Second, andeven more insidiously, when competiWon is weakmany paradigm candidates with high intnnsicpotential die young as they grow too rapidly,over-extending themselves before their membersdevelop enough skill, understanding, and confi-dence to prevent the accumulation of anomalies.Historical contingencies not only determine whichparadigms succeed but also how long those thatsucceed may thrive."*27. Ibid., 323.28. Ibid,, 336.

One major difficulty has been a lack of agreement on what might constitutethe equivalent of a scientific paradigm. In separate comments puhlished in 1969in Comparative Studies in Society and Histofy, Khler and Kuhn each rejected analogiesberween "paradigms" and anistic style. Kubier coiiduded that "sryle and [Kuhnian]paradigm pertain to different magnitudes..,. Thus paradigm is too rigid, and styletoo formless, for the two conceptions to be correlated significantly."'* In anotherpublication Kubier stated, "But wherever the passage of time is under consider-ation, with Its shifting identities and continuous transformations, the taxonomicnotion, represented hy the term styles, becomes irrelevant.... Style pertains totimelessness; and flow concerns change." "' Kuhn clarified that his concept of par-adigm did not refer to a theory but "to an accepted, concrete example or modelof scientific achievement." He concluded that if any useful analogy is to he madeby art historians, "it wl be pictures, not styles that ser\'e as paradigms.""

Kubier uses the term "paradigm" In The Shape of Time sparingly, when refer-ring to tlie Conquistadores' dire impact on indigenous art," He stated, "In tliegrammar of historical change, the Mexican conquest is like a paradigm, display-ing . . . [how] the traditional behavior of a person or of a group is challengedand defeated."" He then describes how the Spanish invasions of Mexico resultedin the complete suppression of Indian culture. Paradigm functions in this con-text as an upheaval where subsequent behavior is changed; Kubler's descriptionof the Mexican conquest of Native American art is here the eqtiivalent of Kuhn'snotion of revolution.'^

For me one of the intriguing passages in Kubler's book is when, immedi-ately following his account of the Mexican conquest, he shifts gears to talk aboutthe cycles of shifts in fashion that take place on "another scale of magnitude."^Khler's sequence of thought suggests that he was considering how to correlatephase shifts with concepts of feedback frequency: One of the concerns of com-plexity science is to investigate under what circumstances events are likely toeither be magnified tlirough feedback or instead dissipate. As Per Bak and KanChen demonstrated decades later with a simulation of avalanches, a particulargrain of sand can land on a specific spot on a sandpile and either cause a largeavalanche or pass unnoticed.'* Kubier recognized that a model of historicalchange would probably need to be applicable to both revolutions and fads,depending on a range of factors and contingencies.

The abrupt change of scale adopted by Kubier also resonates with newapproaches to testing ideas about how historical change occurs. As an example, a1999 simulation of Kuhn's work on scientific revolutions recasts Kuhn's theoriesin the current light of complex systems, revealing how the dynamics of compe-tition and succession among paradigms is conditioned by many feedback loopscreated by local conditions of science and society. "The model applies a stochas-tic, nonlinear dynamic to social phenomena and human behavior and "capturesthe sociological dynamics of paradigms as their members formulate and solve'puzzles.' recognize and react to anomalies, and alter their beliefs and behavior.Competition for membership and resources is explicit. The model is used toinvestigate the relative importance of structural versus contextual factors in deter-mining the fate of new ideas."''The study noted, "The dynamics generated bythe model resemble the Ufe cycle of intellectual fads." '" This observation reso-nates with Khler's discussion on shifts in fashions. As another example of new

M WINTER OO9

Raymond Loewy, Evofu tio nary Chart, 1934,36 X 24 n (91.4 X 6 ! cm) (image The Estate ofLaurence Loewy: ptioiograph provided by DavidHagerman, Loewy Design. LLC),In his cfiarts. Loewy frequently juxtaposed imagesof the evolution of ladies' fashions, including shoesand bathing suits, with images of technology overthe same tin:ie penod. This image appears inRaymond Loewy, Industiial Design ( 1979;Woodstock. NY: Overiook Press, 1988). 76.

29. Hanne Andersen, F^er Barker, and XiangChen, The Cognrtrve Structure of Soentj/fC Revo/u-orK (Can^ridge, UK: Cambridge UniversityPress. 2006).30. Sahotra Sarkar. "Systems Biology." availableonline at www,medbiowoHd.com/postgenomtcs_blog/?p= 12.

approaches to explaining historical change. Hanne Andersen, Peter Barker, andXiang Chen believe that they tan now profitably apply insights from the fieldof cognitive science to Kuhn's ideas."Tliese scientists apphed a "dynamic framemodel" in order to challenge received ideas about Kuhn's notion of incommen-surability To vastly simplify, the model takes into account the likelihood thatthere may be continmties of references at different phases of paradigm develop-ment, which hive been overlooked in prior accounts of Kuhn's theory. Thisapproach appears to have brought about large remappings that affect the wayKuhn's ideas have been generally interpreted.To my knowledge similar methodshave yet to be applied to test Kubler's theories.

Given the way biology was conceived during the r9os and 1960s. Kubler'srejection of applying biological analogies to art is understandable. When hepublished The Siiapc ofTime, only nine years had pa.ssed since Watson and Crick'selucidation of the structure of the genec code, and the scientific rule of thumbwas that DR-^ yields RNA yields protein. Not only has this unidirectional flowsince been challenged by the finding of prions and RNA viruses, but our currentapproach to biology considers the role of time in molecular biology, "exanuningflows of information between nucleic acids, and from them to proteins, controlof gene expression through negative feedback and switches . . ."*''The relatively

91 artjonul

31. Model organisms refer to the use of simplerorganisms for initial scientific case studies of hio-logical systems; see Institute for Systems Biology."Using Model Organisms." online atwww.sys-tem s bi o I ogy. o rg /1 n tro_to_t5B_and _Sy stem s_Biology/Using_Mode!_Organisms.32. See Hiroaki Kitano. "Systems Biology: A BriefOverview," Science, new series 295, no. 5560(March L 2002): 1662-64.33. Lee, 46-77.34. Generally, complex systems include largenumbers of small parts or components that inter-a a with similar nearby components. These localinteractions often lead to the entire system orga-nizing itself without any single element exertingcentrai control. Such a system is self-organizedand dynamic.35. Kubler, Shope of Time, 60.36. In complex systems research, emergencerefers to the understanding that functional attri-butes can emerge from interactions among anetwork's components37. Kubier, "Period. Style and Meaning in AncientAmerican Art." 140.38 Kubier. Shape of Time. 28:1 believe that Kubieranticipates dynamic systems when he notes that"the cross-section of the instant, taken across thefull face of the moment in a given place, resem-bles a mosaic of pieces in different developmentalstates, and of different ages, rather than a radialdesign conferring its meaning upon all the pieces."This idea is then further explored on pp. 33and 34 in his discussion of "linked solutions" andspeciation,39. Stephen Wilson, Information Arts: Intersectionsof An. Soence, ond Technology (Cambridge. MA,and London: MfT Press. 2002). 208.40. Ibid.. 351.1 use the term "A-Life" as Wilsondoes to indicate in a broad sense that A-Uferesearchers are exploring concepts of evolution.41. Richard Dawfcins. 7e Selfish Gene (Oxford.UK: Oxford university Press. 1976). 88. Accord-ing to the theory, a mme is a self-replicating unitof data that materializes itself as an instruction forthe human mind and that gets passed on when-ever one human imitate another. See also Susan J.

recent field of systems biology is focused on "model organisms" and on themathematical modeling and simulation of complex interactions among compo-nents of an organism that are viewed as part of one system. '' The field has alsodeveloped strategies to construct biological systems having desired properties.Such simulations are based on design principles that might explore the conver-sion of a stochastic system into one that is deterministic.''

The mathematician Norbert Wiener, one of the founders of cybernetics(a theory of control and communication), suggested tliat living organisms beviewed as systems governed by feedback control. But in Wiener's own time,molecular biology could not attain a systems-level understanding. As insightfullyelaborated by Pamela M. Lee, Kubler's ideas were greatly influenced by the devel-opment of cybernetics and structurahsm.^'The object of cybernetics and systemstheory today is generally coosidered to be the interdisciplinary study of complexsystems, wbich emphasizes the role of local interactions in leading to an entiresystem organizing itself without central control." Kubier may have seen duesto processes involved in historical periodicity in the idea of "linguistic drift.""However, in the 1960s, concepts of self-oiganization and emergence had yet tobe generally elaborated.**

Rubier helieved in the coexistence of various styles, patterns, and structures,wbich may have assisted his ability to detect large patterns and not just instancesof change." In order to understand periodicity in culture. Kubier needed toobserve not only a fixed set of features, but a set of features that might vary overtime in order to determine degrees of similarity and difference under dynamicconditions.'* Kubler's intuition that feedback systems might offer a way to antic-ipate bow patterns on a large scale grow from local conditions was propheticof developments in the science of complex systems, for while the patternsunearthed by Kubier ultimately involve the flow of information, matter, andenergy, his ideas embody a view consistent with complexity science's descrip-tions of nonlinear models and self-organization.

As the artist Stephen Wilson has noted, "Nonlinear, dynamic systems prom-ise to have a major impact on boLb science and art in the next decades." '^^ I sug-gest tliat Kubier vrould have been receptive to art theory consistent with complexsystems. His interest in feedback would likely resonate witb some strands ofcontemporary art research such as A-Ufe, in which evolution is the focus.-"^ Forexample, using artificial-life programming, both artists (e.g., Karl Sims, andChrista Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau) and design engineers implementgenetic algorithms in roughly the following way: starting with a certain numberof virtual engines that have different sets of traits, the traits are then mixed toproduce another generation of engines, and survivors are selected to pareat yetanotiier generation. Some random changes (mutations) are added, and the pro-cess is repeated for many generations. Fitness criteria are selected. As a result,"evolution" tliat might have taken generations to achieve under usual circum-stances can, with the assistance of supercomputers, be simulated very quickly.The survivors of this simulation are those that come closest to a desired result,since it has been liard to build emergence into the system. Contrary to Kubler'sbelief in the early 1960s tlut biology was largely irrelevant to understanding art,discoveries of the relationships of genotype to phenotype as informed by non-linear, dynamical systems have brought about a new understanding of how an

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Christa Sommerer and LaurentMignonneau, Ufe Spades II, 1997, inceracciveinstallation. Collection of NTT-ICC. Tokyo. Japan(artwork 1997 Christa Sommerer and LaurentMignonneau),This work, originally developed for the ICCInterCommunicotion Museum in Tokyo, is anartificial-life environment, in which both on-sitevisitors to the museum and Internet visitors fromall over the worid could interact through evoiu-tionary forms and images. By simply typing andsending an e-mail message, one could create one'sown artificial creature. See www.interface,ufg.ac.at/christa-laurenc/WORKS/FRAMES/FrameSet.html.

Biackmore. The Mme Machine (Oxford, UK:Oxford University Press, 1999); and Aaron Lynch.Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads throughSociety (New York: Basic Books, 998).43. See Stephen Dougherty. "Culture in the DiskDrive: Computa ti on alism. Memetics. and the Riseof Posthumanism," Diacritics 31, no. 4 (Venter2001): 85-102.43. Joseph Poulshock, "Reviewed Work(s):Darwinian! Culture: The Status of Memedcs sa Science by Robert Aunger," Quarterly Review ofBioiogy 77, no. 2 (June 2002): 174-75.44. Kubler, Shape of 7fne, vi

initial arrangement of elements can result in a variety of forms over time. Withthe ability of artists to use imaging methods to see deep Into tlie living cell, tosimulate biological processes, and even to fashion new life forms, biology hashecome newly germane to the history of art.

Cultural models of innovation and learning such as language and a.rt arequite responsive to feedback mechanisms.They hear meaningful analogy to hio-logical processes like mutation and adaptation, Richard Dawkins has attemptedto explain cultural transmission, with "mmes" forming a basic unit of replica-tion and the cultural equivalent of genes.^' However, to date no actual mecha-nism has been found that could establish a predictive theory of evolutionaryprocesses acting on language, intelligence, or culture, Darwinian approacheshave also been apphed. although as yet without much success, to such diversefields as linguistics, psychology, psychiatry, epistemology, computation, physics,chemistry, economics, literary theory, and ethics.^'

Khler was searching for a way to link unstable, contingent, historical condi-tions which have no predetermined end. To construct any theory^ of art-historicalperiodicity, one would need to locate the effective regularities in art. Kublerneeded a way to identify elements of form-classes, and he likely would haveheen interested in how complexity scientists identify regularities within a givendomain. In fact he referred to the structural elements in linguistics, concluding,"Similar regularities probably govern the formal infrasu-ucture of every an,"** Henoted that "the antipodes of the human experience of time are exact repetition.

artjouma]

Zhang Huan, Gont No. 3,2008, cow sHn.steel, wood, and polystyrene foam, 15 ft. I in. x32 ft. lOm, x 13 f t 9 in, (4.6 x 10 x 4.2 m).installation view. Blessings, Pace Wildenstein,New York, May 9-July 25, 2008 (artwork Zhang Huan: photograph by Gordon R.Christmas, provided by Pace Wildenstein)

A$. Ibid., 63: Murray Gell-Mann defined "effectiveregularities'" in conversation with me. 2002.46. Murray Gell-Mann. -Regularities andRandomness," in Art and Camplexity, ed. JohnCasti and Anders Kariqsi (Amsterdam; Elsevier,2003). 47-59.47. John Casti, "Complexity and Aesthetics: !sGood A n 'Complex Art'?" in An and Complexity21-31.48. Kubier. Shope of Time. 103.49. Kubier, "The Shape of Time Reconsidered,"113.50. Kubier, Shope of Ttme. I OB.1 I . Roberta Smith, "Zhang Huan." New forkTimes, "Art in Review." May 23.2008.

which is onerous, and unfettered variation, which is chaotic," antidpatingphysicist Murray Gell-Mann s method for gauging the complexity of a scientifictheory tlirough locating its "effective regularities."-*^ Gell-Mann founded theSanta Fe Institute in the mid-1980s; its scientists frequently conduct computersimulations, Gell-Mann identifies "effective complexity" as "the algorithmicinformation content-a kind of minimum description lengthof the regulari-ties of the entity in question."-'" This is the length of the shortest program thatcan reproduce all the observations in a concise mathematical statement, bestexpressed as an algorithm, or computer program. The term sometimes used todescribe this program is "Kolmogorov complexity,"-'' Kubier recognized thatpredictive restilts, although obtainable to some extent in hnguistics, had provedelusive in art history. He arrived at a length of periodicity consisting of twostages of sixty years' diu-ation each and fifteen-year artistic spans.**

Kubler's search, like those of complexity scientists, also entailed a search formechanisms of change and quantification, which are needed to make a sdenceof these theories. He located his mechanism of change in the concept of "primeobjects," stating, "Within each sequence, prime objects and vast masses of repli-cas are to be discovered. Prime objects . . . remotely comparable to mutant genes,are capable of generating change."** One example he offered is lhat of theToltec-Mayan figure later re-created by Henry Moore in his reclining figures.'* Anotherlineage, from Meret Oppenheim's Object (1936), a fur-lined teacup, to Zhang Huan'sGiant No. 5, tracing the aesthetic genealogy of iur from nattire to culture, was identi-fied by Roberta Smitli during Huan's 2008 exhibition in New York.'' Oppenheiminverts fur's protective outer role in nature, converting it into a useless drinkingcup, effecting a change from nature to ctUture. In Giant No. 3, Huan staples togethercowhides with hooves and tails in a dramatic, fifteen-foot, over-the-top carica-ture of a pregnant woman, emphasizing fur as part of the sodety of spectacle.

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Cyril Stanley Smith, S-curve chart, 1976(image 1976 Alumni Association of theMassachusetts Institute of Technology),Smith writes. "Curve depiaing the beginning,growth, and maturity of anything whatever.Adapted from a paper on the hardening of steel,it is here used to show the beginnings of mostbranches of technology in the decorative arts,their industrial growth in response to a socialdemand, and their maturity in conflict and balancewith other things. Both the beginning and che enddepend on highly localized conditions and areunpredictable in detail." Cyril Stanley Smith, "OnArt, Invention, and Technology," Leonardo 10( 1977): 144, The image first appeared in MIT'sTecfino/oiy Review, jiine 1976, p. 36,

52. Cyril Stanley Smith, "On Art, Invention, andTechnology." Leonardo 10, no. 2 (Spring 1977):I'M.53. Ibid., 145-46.54. Cyril Stanley Smith, "Art. Technology, andScience; Notes on Their Historical Interaction,"Technology and Culture M, no. 4 (October 1970):493-549.55. Ibid,. 496, 497,56. Cyril Stanley Smith, A Search for Structure(Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press, 1981.57. Kubier, Shope of Time. 10,58. George Kubier. "The New Reality in Art andScience." in "Cultural Innovation." ComporavyeStudies in Society ond History 11. no, 4 (October1969): 402. See also Carroll W. Purselljr, "TheHistory of Technology and the Study of MaterialCulture." Amencon Quofteriy 35. no. 3 (1983):304-15.

like Kubier, Cyril Stanley Smith, the influential metallurgist and professorat MIT and roughly Kubler's contemporary, also looked for a mechanism of his-torical change. His S curve, developed from a paper on the transformations ofmicrostructure responsible for the hardening of steel, can be used, according toSmith, "to apply to the nudeation and growth of anything that has recognizableidentity and properties depending on the coherence of its parts. It reflects theunderlying structural conflicts and balance between local and larger order, andthe movement of interfaces in response to new conditions of components, com-munication, cooperation, and conflia,"*^ Smith noted that hoth biology andmetallurgy were "messy" because they engaged complex strucmres and revealedrelationships between real strncture and properties at all levels of analysis."

Surely the description "messy" is applicable to art! Both Kubier and Smithnoted that art and technology Involve selecting and manipulating matter/'' Bothspoke admiringly of Knbler's teacher. Henry Fodllon, and praised Focillon's Lifeof R)rms.'' Focillon stressed the importance of materials in shaping the artist'svision, believing that aesthetic and technological factors were inseparable in thefashioning of art. Sniith similarly examined the interdependence of art and tech-nology, with the artistic imagination prompting technological discovery andemerging technologies in tum promoting artistic creation, an interdependencehe traced through the technologies of iron casting and electrometallurgy Smithshowed how art helps define our visions of technology and enlarges our bodyof technological knowledge.^"

Artifacts provided Kubier another way to relate the history of science to arthistory through considerations of technology's backdoor influences on science.For Kubier, inventions are purposeful solutions to problems. He stated that"tools and instruments, symbols and expressions all correspond to needs, andall must pass through design into matter." concluding that "the artist is an arti-san."" As with the history- of art, the history of technology provides us withobjects, which extend our "knowledge of the human past," Kubier stated thatartists and scientists "resemble each other more as artisans than as intellectualsand that they are most alike when they are fashioning their instruments."*^*Tolook at the history of invention is to see dynamic, unsuble. and competitive

artjoumal

Sergi Valverde and Ricard V. Sol, Potentcitation network for the 7000 flrt patents inthe USPTO database, 2007, fig. I from SergrValverde, Ricard V. Sol, and David Hales,"Development of an Integrated Package forNetwork Evolutionary Dynamics," 2007(image Sergi Valverde and Ricard V. Soie),The figure wds created as supplementary materialfor an e-publication: Sergi Valverde, Ricard V.Sol, Mark A. Bedau, and Norman Packard,"Topology and Evolution of TechnologyInnovation Networks." Physical Review E 76,056118 (2007), To look at &\e history of inventionis to see dynamic and competitive streams ofinfluences. One can see these dynamics at work inthe US Patent and Trademark Office. Valverde,Sot, Bedau. and Packard find "not only that theo-retical and computational methods can be used tostudy the fundamental properties of evolutionaryprocesses, but that these methods can be appliedto paten: citations. For example, computer simu-lations have provided evidence of universal fea-tures in the evolution of both artificial and naturalsystems. In these experiments, populations ofself-replicating computer programs (i.e.. digital'life') mutate and evolve in a fitness landscapetowards maximizing the likelihood of survival. Ifthe principle of universality holds, then studyingthese artificial organisms will be somehow equiva-lent to study the natural evolutionary processes."

59. Kubier. "The Shape of Time Reconsidered,'*119,60. See M, Mitchell Waldrop, "Secrets of the OldOne." in Convexity: The Emerffng Science ot theEdge of Order and Oiaos (New Yortc Simon andSchuster. 1992). 119.61. Steven B. Johnson, afterword, Ererylhing BadIs Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture hActually Making Us Smarter (New York: Riverhead,2005).

streams of influences, revealing complex adaptive systems in action. The USPatem and Trademark Office can reveal these streams of feedback, since its cita-tions indicate which parts of prior inventions were retained in developing newproducts. The visuahzation of a patent citation network by Sergi Valverde andRicard V. Sol constitutes a kind o evidence of the process of how influenceoccurs. All the preceding diagrams, images, simulation, and figures includedwith this essay similarly argue for the significance of visual metaphors in devel-oping a theory of cultural evolution. Buildings, decorations, and artifacts canreveal how innovative or adaptive uses may lead to a breakup of constraints,yielding unpredictable results. Within the context of complex systems. Kubler'sform-classes linked in formal sequences can be seen as equivalent to the varioussolutions and adaptive improvements that typify the history of innovation. InKubler's narrative, when the Conquistadores invaded Mexico, their newer tech-nology displaced the old. As they colonized foreign land, they insisted that theconquered Indians renounce their existing methods of building and decorationand replicate those of the Spanish victors. But these replications in luin becamesubject to local adaptations and alterations, creating variation from which aselection was made.

Tlie opening up of a discipline to considerations of social and historicalcontingencies proved less controversial for Kubier than for Kului, since art hasalways been expected to reflect social realities. In talking about the favorablereception of The Shape of Time. Kubier suggested that those who responded saw inthe work a release "from the pigeon-holes of art history."" He escaped fromsome of the confines placed on art history through the widened perspectivesother disciplines offered, such as the history of science and technology

In explaining economics, Brian Arthur comments that when the car replacesthe horse, not only does the horse disappear, but also all the accompanyingindustries like the smithy, the pony express, the stables, and so forth. Arthur'spoint is that the car places in new niches people who are motivated to help thattechnology thrive, and as a result, the technological web is linked to the eco-nomic web."^" Within the history of invention there are competitive pressuresto increase the performance of technological innovation and transmit thesechanges. This can lead to subsystems that monitor and control the initial system.Complexity can increase as functions and modifications are added. Or anotherinnovative approach can make an invention altogether obsolete. Uke artworks,inventions can be seen as either priceless or worthless at different times and indifferent contexts. Does tlie complexity of art generally increase over time? Doartistic styles become increasingly simpler or more complex? There is evidenceboth ways. Frank Stella started out as a Minimalist, and his work has becomeincreasingly elaborate. By contrast. Piet Mondrian's path went firom naturalismto a pared abstraction.

How vA Kubler's ideas hold up now that some of the basic tenets of art arechanging? As Steven Johnson has noted, "We are living through a period whenthe combination of digital age network technologies, public sector investment(the creation of the Internet itself), and market-driven incentives (the 'mostrepeatable programming' notion) have come together to create an upward trendin the complexity of the culture.,.. The Kolmogorov complexity has expandedrapidly."*' New economic and technological forces have created today's world of

97 artjournat

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Conrad V. Morton, Popyroc/fppopiJdo, 1995,chart of the evolution of paper clips. Colleconof Henry Petroski (photograph provided byHenry Petroski).Morton, a Smitisonian curator, created thistongue-in-cheek rendering for an article by HenryPetroski that was published in American Sderst in1995, Conripetitive pressures have led to thedevelopment and perfection of different kinds ofpaperclips, and these have brought about thelineage visualized in this chart.

vastly increased speed. Our culture has evolved from a Taylorist mode of scien-tific management toward a tailor-made model. Today we can conceive of produc-tion {e.g., medicine) eventually keyed to individual genomes. Just as biologyand technology have coevolved to forge a new industry, we contemplate new artforms that merge the biological with the technological. Are the tensions betweennovelty and tradition that Kubler unearthed still Ukely to hold, or have they beenpermanently disrupted?

Bien K. Levy focuses on complex systems in her exhibitions, publications, teaching, and lectures (e.g.. atthe Banff Centre). Represented by Michael Steinberg Fine Art (NYC), she was president of CAA (2004-6)and currently is a visiting scholar (NYU). Honors include a NASA arts commission ( 1985), editing Anjournal's issue on "Contemporary Art and the Genetic Code" (1996). and a Distinguished Visiting Feflow-ship of Arts and Sciences at Skidmore College ( 1999). Group exhibitions include Petroliarw (2nd MoscowKennale. 2007) and Gregor Mendel (Field Museum. Chicago, 2006).

M WINTEIL 1O09

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