Chaos, Complexity, and Collage

 I am hopeful that this essay will be published in the next issue of Kolaj magazine: 

CHAOS, COMPLEXITY, and COLLAGE

Steven M. Specht, Ph.D., NCS

Despite extensive efforts by a number of psychological researchers over the decades, the cognitive complexities of “the creative process” has remained somewhat elusive. And of course, thinking about the creative process, as if it were a singular entity, is likely erroneous from the outset.

Nevertheless, a particularly pervasive, and persuasive model of creativity, initially posited by Donald Campbell in 1960, has since been extensively expanded upon by Keith Simonton and others, and involves a process referred to as “blind variation with selective retention” (BVSR). During this extensive process, a creator generates a variety of possible solutions to a problem (or options for a product, or piece of art, writing, or music), from which only a subset is ultimately retained for further consideration. For example, Simonton has shown that Picasso made a number of preliminary sketches of each of the various components of his classic painting Guernica, before eventually choosing which of the variations would be used in his finished composition. According to Simonton, the term “blind” in the BVSR model has been a bit problematic, however, because it can be misconstrued as “random”, rather than the accurate connotation of “unknowing” or, “unsighted”, in terms of the ultimate solution, or creative product. Another interesting feature of “blind” variations considered essential to creativity, is the non-monotonic nature of the process. That is, the progress of variation and subsequent retention is not necessarily linear. A creator might revert back to a variant that had been previously judged to be unworthy of retention – precisely because the end-product is “unknown” at the time any variant is considered. The process emphasizes artistic exploration in a dynamical system of creativity. 

The title of the present paper could be misconstrued as well, in that my goal is to write about chaos not from a colloquial perspective, but rather, from a more technical/scientific perspective. That is, instead of referring to the dictionary definition of chaos as “a state of utter confusion”, or “a confused mass or mixture”, I will refer to chaos as it relates to “chaos theory” (although both perspectives might be relevant to collage as an artistic medium). Although many people are not specifically familiar with “chaos theory”, most people have heard of the “Butterfly effect” – the notion that something as seemingly insignificant as the flapping of the wings of a butterfly in Beijing, might ultimately affect the weather in Wyoming. The concept was popularized by computational meteorologist Edward Lorenz in the 1960s to underscore the fact that end-states of complex dynamical systems can be hypersensitive to the state of their initial conditions -- that simple changes can be multiplied and magnified over time to create substantial changes in the outcome of a dynamical process, like the weather. I contend that the creativity involved in making collages is a similarly complex dynamical process. Interestingly, the ultimate outcomes of even extremely complex systems are not necessarily unbounded, but may capitulate to a limited number of “strange attractors”. Some of the essential features of chaos theory are reminiscent of the “superpositions” suggested by quantum physics (i.e., the existence of simultaneously multiple states), the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and the fate of Schrodinger’s cat! Only when initial conditions are assumed or defined, can the possible end-states of the system be anticipated. Conversely, only when the end-state is known, is it possible to identify, or describe the initial conditions. But in either case, complete a priori knowledge of the dynamical system is precluded.

But rather than going too deep into the scientific woods, I would like to re-focus on collage creation. I have scores of vintage Life magazines in my chaotic (dictionary definitional use) studio, as well as dozens of vintage books, including books about steam engines, anatomy, photography, insects, and history. Of course, I also have many contemporary magazines and books from which to choose potential collage elements. Although all of these sources seem quite static as they sit stacked on the floor or on bookshelves; they create the potential for an extremely complex dynamical system. What may seem like a random act of selection of an element, perhaps is not random at all, but determined by a myriad of slight perturbations in “initial conditions” of the artist and the environment (i.e., the studio milieu). Artists sometime refer to the role of “intuition” in their creative process. And in Simonton’s analysis, this may be one source of “blind variations”. I would suggest that intuition (as well as the stacks of vintage magazine) may be akin to the effects of flapping butterfly wings. When I descend into my studio, I may look out of the corner of one eye, and my attention is drawn to an issue of Life magazine from 1959: alternatively, I may turn my head, and my attention is drawn to a volume of Journal of Art from 1878. The course of my further explorations and experimentation in collage composition continues from one of those initial starting points (or any one of hundreds of starting points), which may ultimately influence the end-point of the process – that is, the collage that I create. But are those really the starting points – the initial conditions – of the complex dynamical system involved in creating a collage? 

Flashback to a few years prior to this hypothetical episode in my studio…

… At the auction house in Lancaster, Pennsylvania (one of my favorite sources of material) I had spent an hour or more carefully surveying potential sources of collage material (and frames) among the lots about to be auctioned off. There wasn’t as much that day as I had seen in the past. But there were three volumes (from 1877, 1878, 1879) of The Art Journal, which contained scores of marvelous, high-quality, vintage etchings. I felt like I had to add them to the vast catalog of potential collage elements in my studio. Most items at this particular auction are sold very cheaply – a box of vintage Life magazines for $10; an ornate and illustrated Bible for $3; a vintage Sears & Roebuck catalog for $2. I expected to get the 3 Art Journal books for $15, perhaps. The bidding started and it became clear that I had competition with another bidder who appeared to be a vintage book buyer (even though these particular books were in “very poor” condition). A series of back-and-forth bidding ended with my successful bid of $220 for the books. Because the bid was unusually high, one elderly woman sitting next to me said, “people are looking at you like you’re crazy”. The box of etchings I extracted from those three books is one of my most prized possessions, in terms of potential collage elements. I have already created (and sold) several pieces which include elements from these sources. My artwork has been positively affected by that event, on that day. The flapping of a butterfly’s wings? What if I had gotten a flat tire that day, and arrived too late to the auction (or not at all)? What if I had overlooked those books? What if I had stopped bidding at $200? I certainly would still be creating collages. And neither I, nor anyone seeing my work, would even be aware of what “might have been”. But there is no doubt that the “initial conditions” of the complex system we call collage (and indeed, any creative endeavor) is affected by an ongoing, complex, cascade of personal events which ultimately define the end-products – for example, my purchasing those three books.

I am not so inclined to call these events random, however, simply because their complexities are difficult to identify. I do not randomly find myself at auction houses 5 hours from my home. I do not randomly bid on just any books and magazines. That is, these stochastic events do have some features which are defined by apparently limited realities -- and yet, the possible outcomes of such a system seem virtually unlimited. 

Even when we intentionally limit the initial conditions, the complexity of collage creation becomes evident. Several years ago, I had the pleasure of participating in a collage project organized by Joel Lambeth called “The Power of N (where N = 10)”. For this project, 10 collagists from around the world were provided with identical packets of potential collage elements. The goal was to see what ten different artists would create after being given the same sources of elements. The results were as one might expect – a beautiful variety of quite distinct collage compositions; even though the same source materials were used. Recently, my friend and fellow collage artist Anthony Morgan and I decided that we would each create a collage (same dimensions) from the same issue of LIFE magazine (Oct. 6, 1965), without collaborating or discussing our progress. What emerged were two collages which represented two different “voices”, and which underscore the complexity of factors which contribute to the creation of collage compositions.

With no intent to demystify the deamons of creativity, I would propose that the “strange attractors” that we settle upon for our collage compositions emerge as the result of complex dynamical systems which are continuously being influenced by an infinitude of changes of “initial conditions” (which begin where?). In fact, the article that you are now reading could be considered emergent from my continual reflections of the collage-creating process.