(course for Artscience, 2005/2006)
with appearances by Joel Ryan.

(still under construction..)

assignment 1:

study a case in which complex behaviour of a system emerges from the interaction of (relatively) simple agents. Make sure you’ve answered these questions:
– what is the system, what are the agents ?
– what do the agents actually do, how do they interact ?
– what is the complex behaviour which occurs ?
– why can this behaviour labelled ’emergent’, why is it so different from what you’d predict by looking at the behaviour of one agent alone ?

write a small paper of between 1000-2000 words, please mention your sources, and please post it on the forum.
A good starting point if you have no clue, is to download the Netlogo software and play around with the examples.
These examples come with an explanatory text which could inspire you to look for other sources.

netlogo:
http://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/
more stuff on:
http://netlogo.modelingcomplexity.org/

assignment 2:

Develop an idea (in groups of two) for a project in which the end result is caused by the interaction of agents of some sort, and in which you can speak of some kind of ’emergent’ behaviour. The project can be any medium, agents can be small programmes, but also humans (with or without special instructions), robots (if you have/make them) or anything you can imagine.
A starting point can be to somehow visualize/sonify the behaviour of the system you studied in your little paper. Another starting point can be to imagine how you can train ants to make the art you’d like to make yourself.
The idea is that we actually realize these ideas in the course, so if you’re ideas are completely unrealistic, we’ll have to think about developing a model to show what would happen.

write a small text of 500-1000 words describing your idea (include pictures/sketches etc. to explain things…).