Nesting complex systems

Abstract

This thesis discusses an artistic method of engaging with complex systems. The engagements take the form of inserting a certain something (an object, a task, a conversational prompt, myself) into a complex system with well-defined and elaborate technical processes serving specific and declared goals. The insertion is not meant to interrupt, disrupt, or destroy the system. The inserted thing is foreign to the system and is often understood as unproductive or absurd by it. However, the system can digest and process the thing successfully and spit it out the same way it does with what the system is meant to and does take in every day. This insertion is an act of nesting in the biological sense-making a nest from concocting foreign materials with existing materials-where the thing inserted becomes an anchor or an entry point from which a particular network of existing knowledge and relations are drawn out and revealed. Then, rigorous observations about what is revealed are made; materials produced by these encounters (between the things inserted and the systems) are collected. This gesture of insertion is an attempt at understanding a complex system without abstraction, reduction, or simplification. It is not possible to "see the whole picture" of these complex systems. However, one could, nonetheless, engage with it and allow a part (perhaps arbitrary to the system) to speak to the whole. The projects presented in this thesis engage with the complex systems of nanoscale fabrication, campus building construction, synthetic biology, and imaging technologies in the sciences. These seemingly disparate fields are united by an investigation of how emerging science and technology challenge an understanding of what a person is and how a person understands, as well as an interest in the very costly infrastructure that supports the new developments.