[-empyre-] Re: Artificial Societies

["Mauro Annunziato" <mauro.annunziato@tiscali.it>]

> A question for Mauro and Ken. One of the most striking things about
> your works is this notion of "artificial societies." This is explicit
> in Mauro's work and writing, and more implicit in Ken's, but still
> present in complex / multiple agencies such as Autopoiesis. These works
> (and others like them) involve interacting, and increasingly,
> "communicating" agents, and take an interest in the global or emergent
> properties of large groups of these agents.

> But how, exactly, are these systems "societies"? If we call them that,
> what does that imply for both how we view these systems, and how we
> understand the societies (or whatever) we live in?

> One of the strong critiques of a-life science from cultural /
> anthropological scholars like Stefan Helmreich, is that in creating
> "model agents," a-life science is (deliberately or not) propagating a
> certain set of ideologies and values about the nature of agency (most
> often, a-life agents resemble the autonomous, "free will" type subject
> of liberal humanism and lassez-faire capitalism).

> What are the implications of this critique for your "artificial
> societies"? Can these systems be platforms for experimenting with
> prospective societies (..."as it could be") or are they stuck with
> reproducing society and subjectivity "as we know it?"

> cheers,

> Mitchell



The term I am using, "artificial societies", is intended to describe 
something of different by human/animal societies. My interest is not in the 
ambiguity between real and artificial and I don't intend to confuse these 
two levels. The focus of attention is in the exploration of the RELATIONS 
(or reflections) that can emerge or evolve between these two worlds. 
Therefore I cannot claim to speak about "life as we know it".



Furthermore, when I create an a-life installation I don't pretend to 
elaborate a "scientific model" as the "alifers" scientists do. I try to 
generate a dynamic scene, or a scene frozen in its development,  where I try 
to express an emotion of the "life in building", the "society in building". 
I prefer to think more about a sort of "theatre representation" instead of a 
pseudo-scientific modelling. One time in some paper I wrote "the art of life 
as it could be". I don't want to renounce my freedom of expression that I 
find only in the art domain. The freedom to expose scientific incoherence, 
imaginary, impossible and provocative worlds.



Where are the artificial societies ?   Basically I would to stress the idea 
that the aesthetical quality of these works are grounded over the result of 
the composed interaction of many "individuals" and progression trough 
genetic evolution or cultural dynamic. In the images of "Artificial 
Societies" and in "Relazioni Emergenti", the accent is on the genetic 
mutation and emergent selection, at the contrary in "E-Sparks" the accent is 
the social communication using a partial behaviour emulation modelling. In 
all the cases any significant quality of the artwork (both aesthetical 
patterns either complexity of relations/reflections) are derived by social 
interaction between the agents and their relation with the humans. Probably 
in "E-Sparks" the "social architecture is more developed" and it can give a 
more complete answer to your question. In example in the backstage 
experiment described in www.plancton.com/papers/evolang.pdf  it is 
interesting the formation of cluster of individuals which develop a dialect 
in respect to the main language developed by the whole society.

Likely I am not a profeet, so you cannot take these "theatre" to image new 
perspective for the future society. But what I try to do is to arise 
questions, doubts, reflections about our future and our roots. I cannot give 
answers, I expect each one visit my installations will find own answer to 
the questions I try to arise.



Finally about "liberal humanism and lassez-faire capitalism". For me it was 
a problem at the beginning. Studying and experimenting with alife I changed 
idea. In fact the idea of the evolution as "survival of the strongest" is 
now quite obsolete. The winning societies are that ones show ability to 
develop cooperation and many researchers on this field are concentrated of 
the emergence of cooperation. Typically this appears much more like the 
ability of the society to "protect the young weak" at least to give him the 
chance to express his innovation potential (like in the case of  children 
care).



I work also in scientific field using alife as an optimisation tool. All 
researchers working in this field know that you should be able to let emerge 
niches of evolution in order to reach a higher level of optimisation. 
Typically, the emergence of niches of evolution, require some form of 
partial islanding which appears still again a form of protection of the weak 
at least for a while.



Finally an alternative way to think about evolution is consider the 
importance of  selection induced by self-organization (i.e. Stuart Kaufman) 
. In this framework, an individual has success if he is functional to the 
self-sustenance of the ecosystem where the individual is immerged.



My conclusion is that the idea that the a-life environments are connected to 
a sort of "far west" village under the "survival of the strongest" law,  is 
related to a scientific simplification applied to the evolution mechanisms. 
Evolution is not more the "old-fashioned Darwinism", neither the Hitlerian 
experiments, neither the capitalism theoretical base.

Evolution is evolution, a very complex thing. A-life studies evolution and 
social structures. Generally it is able to demonstrate the impossibility to 
control the effect of manipulation of natural genetic patrimony of our 
ecosystem. At least in the idea of their founders, a-life is a science of 
the ecology. Never I saw used a-life to demonstrate that the economic "far 
west" is the best.

Any case not me.



Mauro



______________________________________
Mauro Annunziato
Plancton Art Studio
plancton@plancton.com
www.plancton.com