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Classifying Kubler: Between the Complexity of Science and A r t

1. See James R Cnjtcbfietd, "Is Anything Ever New? Considering Emergence," in Complexity: Metaphors. Models, and Realixy. ed, G. Cowan. D, Pines, and D. Melzner, SFI 5enes in the Sciences of Complexity 19 (Redwood City: Addison-Wesley, 1994), 6, Cnjtchfield asfts, "How is anything new ever discovered, if it must always be expressed in the current language?" 2. George Kubler, Tie Shape of Time: Remarks on the History of Things (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1962), 33-39, 3. See Joyce Brodsky, "Continuity and Discontinuity in Style: A Problem in Art Historical Methodology." _/ouma/of Aesthetics ond Art CnDctsm 39, no, I (Autumn 1980): 27-37. Brodsky proposes to substitute tbe terms "continuity" and "discontinuity" for "convention" and "invention." 4. Kubier. 33. S.lbid,, 33. 34.44,45. 6-Ibid., 120. 7. See Pamela M. Lee. '"Ultramoderne': Or, How George Kubier Stole the Time in Sixties Art." Grey Room 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 Ethnohistory," Ethnofiisiory 4. no. 3 (Summer 1957): 250. Ethnohistory combines aspects of anthropology and history. Dark describes the three major types of methods used m tbe 1950s to understand historical patterns, namefy cross-sectional (a synchronie approach), the institutional (synchronie aspects are minor), and the culture continuum types. Dark states tbat onty the last maintain a balance between tbe synchronie and diachronic aspects of tbe culture. Dark notes on the p^e before (249). while referring to Kubler's 1947 Quechua study, that "Kubler's analysis, as LaFarge's. demonstrates the central core or tieme thai maintains tbe culture in the face of pressure and fragmenting causes and allows it to persist through time," 9. See Caroline Jones. "The Modernist Paradigm: The Artworid and Tliomas Kuhn," Critcal Inquiry 26. no, 3 Coring 2000): 497. Jones notes, "In the spaces where Kuhn's work and the artworid interseaed. Greenberg, Fried, and their definition of Modernism loomed large, but other significant

Originality poses m inherent dilemma in that we must rely on conventions lo be understood but must transcend them to say something new. ' This Insight recurs in Tlic Siwpe of Time: Remarits on the Hisiory of Things, in which George Kubier finds a way to describe art-historical periods through a structural analysis of artistic traditions and periodic breakthroughs of singular achievement. ' Kubler sought to reveal patterns of ctilture by developing a model of change that wotild account for both custom and invention.' He arrived at a description Ellen K. Levy III which the component structures develop chains of "linked solutions" through time, many of which are open to "further elaboration by new solutions."* These sequences point botli backward and forward, calhng attention to the problems that initially motivated them and comprising open-ended orderings that can be reactivated at any time.' The Shape of Time appeared in 1962 during the heyday of formalism, I revisited it dtning the late 1960s when Kubler's analysis of the important role that the state-of-tlie-art field holds for someone embarking on a career was particularly meaningful to me. Formalism had achieved the force ofa master narrative in Boston, where I was a student, but Kubler's writings provided a point of resistance, in that he reminded us that "the present always contains several tendencies competing everywhere for each valuable objective.'**' I took to heart his implicit advice to identify one's artistic kinship among a diversity of artworks from all times, rather than relying solely on recent models, which was tlien common practice in art schools. Kubler himself selected his own models well, gatliering insights from anthropology, ethnography, philosophy, linguistics, and science to bear on the problems of historical change in art.' The Shape of Time also offered way to conceive of art-making as a three-way conversation among art, science, and technology, a model that is again relevant. In his book he anticipated the multidisciplinary thrust of what is now recognized as the science of complex systems. Uke complexity scientists today, he conceived the problem of understanding historical change as one involving many components dynamically interacting on a number of scales. Even prior to the publication of The Shape of Time, the ethnographer Philip Dark observed that Kubler's self-imposed task involved the description ofa culture over time "as it clianges, expands, retracts, incorporates new elements, readjusts, and proceeds, ,, ,Tlie difficulties of maintaining a balance between the representation of the component structural elements and the processes which bind them together and change them as the whole design proceeds through time are many.., , Kubier appears to have obtained it by a dual device, maintaining a balance between structtire and process by first emphasizing the whole and subsequently preserving a balanced relationship in the course of structural considerations."* In 1962,Thomas Kulin's and Kubler's interests converged: both published canonical books that year about historical change within their respective disciplines. 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,^ In turn, Kubler's The Shiipe of Time emphasized that art history should take its cues from the history of science, ' Here was a place to look for fresh ideas about the nature of convention, invention, and variation. Whether or not there was direct
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Eric A. Myers, two successive states from Computer Simulation of o Sandplle, 1988,
created on the Connection Machine 2 at the Boston University Center for Computational Science (images Eric A. Myers). Eric Myers models how avalanches can occur. He notes that in his computer simulation, "grains of sand are added to a pile until a critical state s achieved. The colors represent the hei^t of che pile going from tallest (purple) to shortest (black). If a pile is 4 or more call, then it "falls," by having its height reduced by 4, while each of the 4 nearest neighbors is increased by I. The algorithm keeps the totai amouni of sand the same (not accounong for what comes in or goes out along the edges)." The images are symmetrical because both the rule he applied is symmetrical, and the initial conditions and boundary conditions are symmetrical.

monuments had also begun co arrange themselves. Works such as George Kubler's poput^ 1962 book The Shape of Time (vi/ith which Kuhn found much to sympathi2e) appeared nearly simultaneously with the art critic Clement Greenberg's 1961 Art ond Culture and close on the heels of Greenberg's infloential essay 'Modernist Paintng' of the previous year." 10. George Kubier. "The Shape of Time Reconsidered." f^rspecto 19 (1982): 113. 11. Lee notes that in May 1967 Kuhn and Kubier presented at the same University of Michigan conference on the structural relationship between art and science. Lee. 74, n. 13, The 1957 publication was Thomas S. Kuhn. The Copernican Revolution: Planetary Astronomy in the Deve'opmenf of Western Thought (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press. 1957). 12. These questions were eventually asked by John D. Sterman and Jason Wittenberg when they ran computer simulations to test Kuhn's theory (see n. 26). 13. George Kubier. "|The New Reality in Art and 5cience]: 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 science within the biological metaphor of evolution. In an earlier article he spoke of the horse's evolution as a model; now he speaks of a species of moth in England (page 371, n. I ). Yet he gives us no passable bridge from evolution to an." 14. Thomas S, Kuhn. "The New Reality in Art and Science]: Comment," in "Cultural Innovation," Comparative Studies in Society and History 11. no, 4 (October 1969): 404. Kuhn states that "close analysis must again be enabled to display the obvious: that science and art are very different enterprises or at least have become so during the last cennjr/-and-a-half." 15. Kubier. Shape of Time. 8. 16. Remi Clignet, "The Variability of Paradigms in the fVoduction of Culture: A Comparison of the Arts and Sciences." American Sociological Review 44. no. 3 (June 1979): 406. 17. Robert Scon Root-Bernstein, "On Paradigms and Revolutions in Sdence and Art: The Challenge of Interpretation." Art Journal 44, no. 2 (Summer 1984): 116.

communication between Kuhn and Kubier prior to 1962, many of Kuhn's ideas about social factors influencing the development of scientific ilieories had been previewed in an earher 1957 publication iliat Kubier may have known." In any event, we see that Kiibler and Kuhn asked similar questions. Why do some paradigms thrive while others die out? Do the best models tend to prevail, or does timing coum above any other considerations? How do you distinguish innovative change from fads?'" We know from some of Kubler's published comments about Ktihn's Structure oiScieDLific Revolutions thai Kubier wa.s admiring but uneasy with respect to what art liistorians might take from it.''Anticipating tiie possibility of misuse. Kuhn himself cautioned against applying his ideas too loosely to otherfields.''*Kuhn and Kubier agreed that art and science were problem-solving activities, but both saw art 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's ideas about evolution. Kubier voiced objections to imderstanding historical change through biological analogies. His reservations focused on historians using well-worn ideas of cycles of birth, growth, and decay, which he believed to be irrelevant to the purposeful nature of art.'^ Despite Kuhn's and Kubler's pervasive cautions about making analogies between the separate fields of art and science, the paradigm concept has become the linchpin for many discussions on possible commensurablhty in tliose fields. In 1979 the sociologisc Remi Clignet described die variability of paradigms in the production of culture. He questioned how comparisons between art and science were drawn and warned thai "generalizations are more ideological than scientific when diey remain ahistorical and are not focused on tbe divergences and convergences in the histories of specific disciplines. It is perhaps because such demons prowl continuously in the field of sociology, that this particular fonn of knowledge and its paradigms are someiimes described as an art form rather 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 paradigm concept to science, concluding tbai "scientists and artists alike assimilate the paradigms of their forebears by copyLng and re-creating. Neither artist nor painter will bave access to, or generally care to have access to, the original formulations of these problem-solutions, bui both need and get access to the ongoing traditions of teaching that keep the paradigms alive." ''
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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 which drove me from talk of theories to talk of paradigms are very nearly identical with those which make Kubier disdatn the notion of style."" 19. George Kubier, "Period. Style and Meaning in Ancient American Art." in "Synnposium on Periods."" New Uterary History I. no. 2 (Winter 1970): 140 20. 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 science"" with "revolutjon"" until "'crises"" of unanswered "anomalies'" would lead to '"alternate paradigms." 24. Ibid. 25. Per Bak and Kan Chen. "SeIf-Organized Criticaltty,"" Scientific American, January 1991. 46, Bak and Chen state, "Large interactive systems perpetually organize themselves to a critical state in which a minor event starts a chain reaction that can lead to a catastrophe,'" 26. John D. Sterman and Jason Wittenberg, ""Path Dependence. Competition, and Succession in the Dynamics of Scientific Revolution.'" in ""Application of Complexity Theory to Organization Science."' Organization Science 10, no. 3 (May-June 1999): 333. The authors state that the simulation shows the ability of positive feedback processes to create path-dependent (ock-in to particular equilibria from an initially undifferendated choice set. The authors conclude that "counter to what one might expect, the more intense the competition, the longer ^ e expected life of the successful theories. There are two reasons. First, strong selective pressures during the emergence phase ensure that only those paradigm candidates v^th high intrinsic capability can survive. When selection pressure is weak, some paradigm candidates with low innnsic potential can become dominant. Second, and even more insidiously, when competiWon is weak many paradigm candidates with high intnnsic potential die young as they grow too rapidly, over-extending themselves before their members develop enough skill, understanding, and confidence to prevent the accumulation of anomalies. Historical contingencies not only determine which paradigms succeed but also how long those that succeed may thrive."* 27. Ibid., 323. 28. Ibid,, 336.

One major difficulty has been a lack of agreement on what might constitute the equivalent of a scientific paradigm. In separate comments puhlished in 1969 in Comparative Studies in Society and Histofy, Khler and Kuhn each rejected analogies berween "paradigms" and anistic style. Kubier coiiduded that "sryle and [Kuhnian] paradigm pertain to different magnitudes..,. Thus paradigm is too rigid, and style too formless, for the two conceptions to be correlated significantly."'* In another publication Kubier stated, "But wherever the passage of time is under consideration, with Its shifting identities and continuous transformations, the taxonomic notion, represented hy the term styles, becomes irrelevant.... Style pertains to timelessness; and flow concerns change." "' Kuhn clarified that his concept of paradigm did not refer to a theory but "to an accepted, concrete example or model of scientific achievement." He concluded that if any useful analogy is to he made by 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 referring to tlie Conquistadores' dire impact on indigenous art," He stated, "In tlie grammar of historical change, the Mexican conquest is like a paradigm, displaying . . . [how] the traditional behavior of a person or of a group is challenged and defeated."" He then describes how the Spanish invasions of Mexico resulted in the complete suppression of Indian culture. Paradigm functions in this context as an upheaval where subsequent behavior is changed; Kubler's description of the Mexican conquest of Native American art is here the eqtiivalent of Kuhn's notion of revolution.'^ For me one of the intriguing passages in Kubler's book is when, immediately following his account of the Mexican conquest, he shifts gears to talk about the 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 correlate phase shifts with concepts of feedback frequency: One of the concerns of complexity science is to investigate under what circumstances events are likely to either be magnified tlirough feedback or instead dissipate. As Per Bak and Kan Chen demonstrated decades later with a simulation of avalanches, a particular grain of sand can land on a specific spot on a sandpile and either cause a large avalanche or pass unnoticed.'* Kubier recognized that a model of historical change 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 new approaches to testing ideas about how historical change occurs. As an example, a 1999 simulation of Kuhn's work on scientific revolutions recasts Kuhn's theories in the current light of complex systems, revealing how the dynamics of competition and succession among paradigms is conditioned by many feedback loops created by local conditions of science and society. "The model applies a stochastic, nonlinear dynamic to social phenomena and human behavior and "captures the 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 to investigate the relative importance of structural versus contextual factors in determining the fate of new ideas."''The study noted, "The dynamics generated by the model resemble the Ufe cycle of intellectual fads." '" This observation resonates with Khler's discussion on shifts in fashions. As another example of new
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Raymond Loewy, Evofu tio nary Chart, 1934, 36 X 24 n (91.4 X 6 ! cm) (image The Estate of Laurence Loewy: ptioiograph provided by David Hagerman, Loewy Design. LLC), In his cfiarts. Loewy frequently juxtaposed images of the evolution of ladies' fashions, including shoes and bathing suits, with images of technology over the same tin:ie penod. This image appears in Raymond Loewy, Industiial Design ( 1979; Woodstock. NY: Overiook Press, 1988). 76.

29. Hanne Andersen, F^er Barker, and Xiang Chen, The Cognrtrve Structure of Soentj/fC Revo/uorK (Can^ridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 2006). 30. Sahotra Sarkar. "Systems Biology." available online at www,medbiowoHd.com/ postgenomtcs_blog/?p= 12.

approaches to explaining historical change. Hanne Andersen, Peter Barker, and Xiang Chen believe that they tan now profitably apply insights from the field of cognitive science to Kuhn's ideas."Tliese scientists apphed a "dynamic frame model" in order to challenge received ideas about Kuhn's notion of incommensurability To vastly simplify, the model takes into account the likelihood that there may be continmties of references at different phases of paradigm development, which hive been overlooked in prior accounts of Kuhn's theory. This approach appears to have brought about large remappings that affect the way Kuhn's ideas have been generally interpreted.To my knowledge similar methods have yet to be applied to test Kubler's theories. Given the way biology was conceived during the r9os and 1960s. Kubler's rejection of applying biological analogies to art is understandable. When he published The Siiapc ofTime, only nine years had pa.ssed since Watson and Crick's elucidation of the structure of the genec code, and the scientific rule of thumb was that DR-^ yields RNA yields protein. Not only has this unidirectional flow since been challenged by the finding of prions and RNA viruses, but our current approach to biology considers the role of time in molecular biology, "exanuning flows of information between nucleic acids, and from them to proteins, control of gene expression through negative feedback and switches .. ."*''The relatively
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31. Model organisms refer to the use of simpler organisms for initial scientific case studies of hiological systems; see Institute for Systems Biology. "Using Model Organisms." online atwww.system 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 Brief Overview," Science, new series 295, no. 5560 (March L 2002): 1662-64. 33. Lee, 46-77. 34. Generally, complex systems include large numbers of small parts or components that intera a with similar nearby components. These local interactions often lead to the entire system organizing itself without any single element exerting centrai control. Such a system is self-organized and dynamic. 35. Kubler, Shope of Time, 60. 36. In complex systems research, emergence refers to the understanding that functional attributes can emerge from interactions among a network's components 37. Kubier, "Period. Style and Meaning in Ancient American Art." 140. 38 Kubier. Shape of Time. 28:1 believe that Kubier anticipates dynamic systems when he notes that "the cross-section of the instant, taken across the full face of the moment in a given place, resembles a mosaic of pieces in different developmental states, and of different ages, rather than a radial design conferring its meaning upon all the pieces." This idea is then further explored on pp. 33 and 34 in his discussion of "linked solutions" and speciation, 39. Stephen Wilson, Information Arts: Intersections of An. Soence, ond Technology (Cambridge. MA, and London: MfT Press. 2002). 208. 40. Ibid.. 351.1 use the term "A-Life" as Wilson does to indicate in a broad sense that A-Ufe researchers are exploring concepts of evolution. 41. Richard Dawfcins. 7e Selfish Gene (Oxford. UK: Oxford university Press. 1976). 88. According to the theory, a mme is a self-replicating unit of data that materializes itself as an instruction for the human mind and that gets passed on whenever one human imitate another. See also Susan J.

recent field of systems biology is focused on "model organisms" and on the mathematical modeling and simulation of complex interactions among components of an organism that are viewed as part of one system. '' The field has also developed strategies to construct biological systems having desired properties. Such simulations are based on design principles that might explore the conversion 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 be viewed as systems governed by feedback control. But in Wiener's own time, molecular biology could not attain a systems-level understanding. As insightfully elaborated by Pamela M. Lee, Kubler's ideas were greatly influenced by the development of cybernetics and structurahsm.^'The object of cybernetics and systems theory today is generally coosidered to be the interdisciplinary study of complex systems, wbich emphasizes the role of local interactions in leading to an entire system organizing itself without central control." Kubier may have seen dues to processes involved in historical periodicity in the idea of "linguistic drift."" However, in the 1960s, concepts of self-oiganization and emergence had yet to be 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 instances of change." In order to understand periodicity in culture. Kubier needed to observe not only a fixed set of features, but a set of features that might vary over time in order to determine degrees of similarity and difference under dynamic conditions.'* Kubler's intuition that feedback systems might offer a way to anticipate bow patterns on a large scale grow from local conditions was prophetic of developments in the science of complex systems, for while the patterns unearthed by Kubier ultimately involve the flow of information, matter, and energy, his ideas embody a view consistent with complexity science's descriptions of nonlinear models and self-organization. As the artist Stephen Wilson has noted, "Nonlinear, dynamic systems promise to have a major impact on boLb science and art in the next decades."^'^ I suggest tliat Kubier vrould have been receptive to art theory consistent with complex systems. His interest in feedback would likely resonate witb some strands of contemporary art research such as A-Ufe, in which evolution is the focus.-"^For example, using artificial-life programming, both artists (e.g., Karl Sims, and Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau) and design engineers implement genetic algorithms in roughly the following way: starting with a certain number of virtual engines that have different sets of traits, the traits are then mixed to produce another generation of engines, and survivors are selected to pareat yet anotiier generation. Some random changes (mutations) are added, and the process is repeated for many generations. Fitness criteria are selected. As a result, "evolution" tliat might have taken generations to achieve under usual circumstances 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's belief in the early 1960s tlut biology was largely irrelevant to understanding art, discoveries of the relationships of genotype to phenotype as informed by nonlinear, dynamical systems have brought about a new understanding of how an

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Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau, Ufe Spades II, 1997, inceraccive installation. Collection of NTT-ICC. Tokyo. Japan (artwork 1997 Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau), This work, originally developed for the ICC InterCommunicotion Museum in Tokyo, is an artificial-life environment, in which both on-site visitors to the museum and Internet visitors from all over the worid could interact through evoiutionary forms and images. By simply typing and sending an e-mail message, one could create one's own 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 through

Society (New York: Basic Books, 998). 43. See Stephen Dougherty. "Culture in the Disk Drive: Computa ti on alism. Memetics. and the Rise of Posthumanism," Diacritics 31, no. 4 (Venter 2001): 85-102. 43. Joseph Poulshock, "Reviewed Work(s): Darwinian! Culture: The Status of Memedcs s a Science by Robert Aunger," Quarterly Review of Bioiogy 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. With the ability of artists to use imaging methods to see deep Into tlie living cell, to simulate biological processes, and even to fashion new life forms, biology has hecome newly germane to the history of art. Cultural models of innovation and learning such as language and a.rt are quite responsive to feedback mechanisms.They hear meaningful analogy to hiological processes like mutation and adaptation, Richard Dawkins has attempted to explain cultural transmission, with "mmes" forming a basic unit of replication and the cultural equivalent of genes.^' However, to date no actual mechanism has been found that could establish a predictive theory of evolutionary processes acting on language, intelligence, or culture, Darwinian approaches have also been apphed. although as yet without much success, to such diverse fields as linguistics, psychology, psychiatry, epistemology, computation, physics, chemistry, economics, literary theory, and ethics.^' Khler was searching for a way to link unstable, contingent, historical conditions which have no predetermined end. To construct any theory^ of art-historical periodicity, one would need to locate the effective regularities in art. Kubler needed a way to identify elements of form-classes, and he likely would have heen interested in how complexity scientists identify regularities within a given domain. In fact he referred to the structural elements in linguistics, concluding, "Similar regularities probably govern the formal infrasu-ucture of every an,"** He noted that "the antipodes of the human experience of time are exact repetition.
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Zhang Huan, Gont No. 3,2008, cow sHn. steel, wood, and polystyrene foam, 15 ft. I in. x 32 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 "effective regularities'" in conversation with me. 2002. 46. Murray Gell-Mann. -Regularities and Randomness," in Art and Camplexity, ed. John Casti and Anders Kariqsi (Amsterdam; Elsevier, 2003). 47-59. 47. John Casti, "Complexity and Aesthetics: !s Good A n 'Complex Art'?" in An and Complexity 21-31. 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 fork Times, "Art in Review." May 23.2008.

which is onerous, and unfettered variation, which is chaotic," antidpating physicist Murray Gell-Mann s method for gauging the complexity of a scientific theory tlirough locating its "effective regularities."-*^ Gell-Mann founded the Santa Fe Institute in the mid-1980s; its scientists frequently conduct computer simulations, Gell-Mann identifies "effective complexity" as "the algorithmic information content-a kind of minimum description lengthof the regularities of the entity in question."-'" This is the length of the shortest program that can reproduce all the observations in a concise mathematical statement, best expressed as an algorithm, or computer program. The term sometimes used to describe this program is "Kolmogorov complexity,"-'' Kubier recognized that predictive restilts, although obtainable to some extent in hnguistics, had proved elusive in art history. He arrived at a length of periodicity consisting of two stages of sixty years' diu-ation each and fifteen-year artistic spans.** Kubler's search, like those of complexity scientists, also entailed a search for mechanisms of change and quantification, which are needed to make a sdence of these theories. He located his mechanism of change in the concept of "prime objects," stating, "Within each sequence, prime objects and vast masses of replicas are to be discovered. Prime objects . . . remotely comparable to mutant genes, are capable of generating change."** One example he offered is lhat of theToltecMayan figure later re-created by Henry Moore in his recliningfigures.'*Another lineage, from Meret Oppenheim's Object (1936), a fur-lined teacup, to Zhang Huan's Giant No. 5, tracing the aesthetic genealogy of iur from nattire to culture, was identified by Roberta Smitli during Huan's 2008 exhibition in New York.'' Oppenheim inverts fur's protective outer role in nature, converting it into a useless drinking cup, effecting a change from nature to ctUture. In Giant No. 3, Huan staples together cowhides with hooves and tails in a dramatic, fifteen-foot, over-the-top caricature 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 the Massachusetts 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 most branches of technology in the decorative arts, their industrial growth in response to a social demand, and their maturity in conflict and balance with other things. Both the beginning and che end depend on highly localized conditions and are unpredictable in detail." Cyril Stanley Smith, "On Art, Invention, and Technology," Leonardo 10 ( 1977): 144, The image first appeared in MIT's Tecfino/oiy Review, jiine 1976, p. 36,

52. Cyril Stanley Smith, "On Art, Invention, and Technology." Leonardo 10, no. 2 (Spring 1977): I'M. 53. Ibid., 145-46. 54. Cyril Stanley Smith, "Art. Technology, and Science; 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 and Science." in "Cultural Innovation." Comporavye Studies in Society ond History 11. no, 4 (October 1969): 402. See also Carroll W. Purselljr, "The History of Technology and the Study of Material Culture." Amencon Quofteriy 35. no. 3 (1983): 304-15.

like Kubier, Cyril Stanley Smith, the influential metallurgist and professor at MIT and roughly Kubler's contemporary, also looked for a mechanism of historical change. His S curve, developed from a paper on the transformations of microstructure responsible for the hardening of steel, can be used, according to Smith, "to apply to the nudeation and growth of anything that has recognizable identity and properties depending on the coherence of its parts. It reflects the underlying structural conflicts and balance between local and larger order, and the movement of interfaces in response to new conditions of components, communication, cooperation, and conflia,"*^ Smith noted that hoth biology and metallurgy were "messy" because they engaged complex strucmres and revealed relationships between real strncture and properties at all levels of analysis." Surely the description "messy" is applicable to art! Both Kubier and Smith noted that art and technology Involve selecting and manipulating matter/'' Both spoke admiringly of Knbler's teacher. Henry Fodllon, and praised Focillon's Life of R)rms.'' Focillon stressed the importance of materials in shaping the artist's vision, believing that aesthetic and technological factors were inseparable in the fashioning of art. Sniith similarly examined the interdependence of art and technology, with the artistic imagination prompting technological discovery and emerging technologies in tum promoting artistic creation, an interdependence he traced through the technologies of iron casting and electrometallurgy Smith showed how art helps define our visions of technology and enlarges our body of technological knowledge.^" Artifacts provided Kubier another way to relate the history of science to art history 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, and all must pass through design into matter." concluding that "the artist is an artisan."" As with the history- of art, the history of technology provides us with objects, which extend our "knowledge of the human past," Kubier stated that artists and scientists "resemble each other more as artisans than as intellectuals and that they are most alike when they are fashioning their instruments."*^*To look at the history of invention is to see dynamic, unsuble. and competitive
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Sergi Valverde and Ricard V. Sol, Potent citation network for the 7000 flrt patents in the USPTO database, 2007, fig. I from Sergr Valverde, Ricard V. Sol, and David Hales, "Development of an Integrated Package for Network Evolutionary Dynamics," 2007 (image Sergi Valverde and Ricard V. Soie), The figure wds created as supplementary material for an e-publication: Sergi Valverde, Ricard V. Sol, Mark A. Bedau, and Norman Packard, "Topology and Evolution of Technology Innovation Networks." Physical Review E 76, 056118 (2007), To look at &\e history of invention is to see dynamic and competitive streams of influences. One can see these dynamics at work in the US Patent and Trademark Office. Valverde, Sot, Bedau. and Packard find "not only that theoretical and computational methods can be used to study the fundamental properties of evolutionary processes, but that these methods can be applied to paten: citations. For example, computer simulations have provided evidence of universal features in the evolution of both artificial and natural systems. In these experiments, populations of self-replicating computer programs (i.e.. digital 'life') mutate and evolve in a fitness landscape towards maximizing the likelihood of survival. If the principle of universality holds, then studying these artificial organisms will be somehow equivalent to study the natural evolutionary processes."

streams of influences, revealing complex adaptive systems in action. The US Patem and Trademark Office can reveal these streams of feedback, since its citations indicate which parts of prior inventions were retained in developing new products. The visuahzation of a patent citation network by Sergi Valverde and Ricard V. Sol constitutes a kind o evidence of the process of how influence occurs. All the preceding diagrams, images, simulation, and figures included with this essay similarly argue for the significance of visual metaphors in developing a theory of cultural evolution. Buildings, decorations, and artifacts can reveal how innovative or adaptive uses may lead to a breakup of constraints, yielding unpredictable results. Within the context of complex systems. Kubler's form-classes linked in formal sequences can be seen as equivalent to the various solutions and adaptive improvements that typify the history of innovation. In Kubler's narrative, when the Conquistadores invaded Mexico, their newer technology displaced the old. As they colonized foreign land, they insisted that the conquered Indians renounce their existing methods of building and decoration and replicate those of the Spanish victors. But these replications in luin became subject to local adaptations and alterations, creating variation from which a selection was made. Tlie opening up of a discipline to considerations of social and historical contingencies proved less controversial for Kubier than for Kului, since art has always been expected to reflect social realities. In talking about the favorable reception of The Shape of Time. Kubier suggested that those who responded saw in the work a release "from the pigeon-holes of art history."" He escaped from some of the confines placed on art history through the widened perspectives other disciplines offered, such as the history of science and technology In explaining economics, Brian Arthur comments that when the car replaces the horse, not only does the horse disappear, but also all the accompanying industries like the smithy, the pony express, the stables, and so forth. Arthur's point is that the car places in new niches people who are motivated to help that technology thrive, and as a result, the technological web is linked to the economic web."^" Within the history of invention there are competitive pressures to increase the performance of technological innovation and transmit these changes. This can lead to subsystems that monitor and control the initial system. Complexity can increase as functions and modifications are added. Or another innovative approach can make an invention altogether obsolete. Uke artworks, inventions can be seen as either priceless or worthless at different times and in different contexts. Does tlie complexity of art generally increase over time? Do artistic styles become increasingly simpler or more complex? There is evidence both ways. Frank Stella started out as a Minimalist, and his work has become increasingly elaborate. By contrast. Piet Mondrian's path went firom naturalism to a pared abstraction. How vA Kubler's ideas hold up now that some of the basic tenets of art are changing? As Steven Johnson has noted, "We are living through a period when the combination of digital age network technologies, public sector investment (the creation of the Internet itself), and market-driven incentives (the 'most repeatable programming' notion) have come together to create an upward trend in the complexity of the culture.,.. The Kolmogorov complexity has expanded rapidly."*' New economic and technological forces have created today's world of
97 artjournat

59. Kubier. "The Shape of Time Reconsidered,'* 119, 60. See M, Mitchell Waldrop, "Secrets of the Old One." in Convexity: The Emerffng Science ot the Edge of Order and Oiaos (New Yortc Simon and Schuster. 1992). 119. 61. Steven B. Johnson, afterword, Ererylhing Bad
Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture h

Actually Making Us Smarter (New York: Riverhead, 2005).

PAPYROCLIPPOPSIDA
COLLECTION OF MAXON AND MORTON
C e n i H E D AND PHYLOGENETtCALLY AfWWNGm BY C V, hlORTON

Q
FOSSIL

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

vastly increased speed. Our culture has evolved from a Taylorist mode of scientific management toward a tailor-made model. Today we can conceive of production {e.g., medicine) eventually keyed to individual genomes. Just as biology and technology have coevolved to forge a new industry, we contemplate new art forms that merge the biological with the technological. Are the tensions between novelty and tradition that Kubler unearthed still Ukely to hold, or have they been permanently disrupted?
Bien K. Levy focuses on complex systems in her exhibitions, publications, teaching, and lectures (e.g.. at the 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 An journal's issue on "Contemporary Art and the Genetic Code" (1996). and a Distinguished Visiting Feflowship of Arts and Sciences at Skidmore College ( 1999). Group exhibitions include Petroliarw (2nd Moscow Kennale. 2007) and Gregor Mendel (Field Museum. Chicago, 2006).

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