BURNING MAN
BLACK ROCK DESERT, NEVADA
touched by an angle
Perspective – its most base definition represents a point of view, more nuanced, it is the faculty of seeing that can reveal provocative patterns of relationship. Inspired by the work of artist Katja Loher, we’ll create an experience of interaction that, like all forms in nature, manifests something greater than the sum of its parts - creating interplays between the perceived and the perceiver, the individual and the universal. Like ants within a colony, we’ll discover what emerges when simple rules give way to more complex adaptations. OnTV will be the stage where actors create plays and movement creates art revealing “a network of self organization, of disparate agents that unwittingly create a higher-level order.” - Emergence author Steven Johnson.
order & anarchy
While there are several principles of emergent behavior we’ll look at two in particular that embody that magical mix of order and anarchy that drives intelligence across everything from ant colonies and brains to cities and software. ENCOURAGE RANDOM ENCOUNTERS Decentralized systems such as ant colonies rely heavily on the random interactions of ants exploring a given space without any predefined orders. These encounters are individually arbitrary but collectively allow individuals to gauge and alter the macrostate of the system itself. PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR NEIGHBORS This may well be the most important lesson that ants have to give us, and the one with the most-far-reaching consequences. The primary mechanism of swarm logic is the interaction between neighboring ants in the field: ants stumbling across each other while patrolling around the nest area. IMPROVISATIONAL PLAY With a “TV guide” we’ll provide interactive programming and improvisational cues that any individual wishing to “channel” themselves on stage can play.
