The Convergence of Complex Systems Theory & Arts Practice in the Digital Arts

What is unique about the computational arts is the capacity for interaction, either in production or in use, and there are numerous divergent theories about digital interactivity across an entire spectrum. However, creating a work of computational art always involves the either the use or design of some sort of rule based system that can be implemented beyond the conceptual. Artistic compositions of dynamic systems that can be tangibly implemented finds its roots in the participatory performances and installations of systems art, yet in digitally interactive artifacts, there is also a virtually tangible, live mediated exchange of elements which constitutes both an entirely new medium and an entirely new form of systems art. In the sciences this type of dynamism or capacity for unpredictable change in systems is a recognized characteristic of complexity; a new type of scientific thinking concerned with systems that display a capacity for self organization and emergent behaviour. Thus the dynamic capacity of digitally interactive systems in use, places the digital interactivity of the computational arts well within the realm of complex systems science