Edge of Chaos

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This work is yet another practical demonstration of my interest in semiclosed or rather self-sufficient and re-generative systems combined with exploration of space as an medium of expression. Four-times no-input setup is built of four condenser microphones directed at four active speakers respectively. Feeding audio input back to its output ad infinitum creates a chain of cause-and-effect that forms a circuit or loop. The notion of cause-and-effect has to be handled carefully when applied to feedback systems as:

“Simple causal reasoning about a feedback system is difficult because the first system influences the second and second system influences the first, leading to a circular argument. This makes reasoning based upon cause and effect tricky, and it is necessary to analyze the system as a whole.”(1)


It is hypothesised that dynamical systems with feedback can experience an adaptation to the edge of chaos. (2) This term is used to denote a transition space between order and disorder a region of bounded instability that engenders a constant dynamic interplay between the opposing poles. This work creates a framework for such phenomena to occur and for audience to enter this realm and add to (or subtract from) it.

(1) Karl Johan Åström; Richard M. Murray (2010). “§1.1: What is feedback?”. Feedback Systems: An Introduction for Scientists and Engineers. Princeton University Press
(2) Schwartz, K. (2014).“On the Edge of Chaos: Where Creativity Flourishes”. KOED