You Guys Are So Stochastic

A collaborative artwork by Lucy Ward and Dr Karoline Wiesner, inspired by research in complex systems and network theory. Complex refers to a system that has very many interacting components. Examples that may be considered complex systems are diverse: bee colonies, democracies, the human brain and the climate. Though complicated, complex systems may sometimes be reduced to a few simple rules, from which global order or patterns can emerge.

The piece is shown below.

Its title refers to a stochastic process — a mathematical term for a process involving many random events. Such processes typically underlie complex systems.

Lucy Ward:

I was keen to investigate ideas in Complex Systems using the methods and processes of drawing. There are many different facets to the Theory, many of them we discussed, and some of these are included as conversations between the people in the drawing. Using the process of drawing to think about Complex Systems took a number of forms: Some were material – I worked repeatedly from left to right, laying down layers of marks, so as not to smudge the ink. This, in it’s own way, was my set of rules for the system (or drawing). I also wanted to consider the ideas around the appearance of order from apparently random actions. In making the drawing, I knew there would be some sort of formation of the hexagonal grid pattern by the marks, but I did not plan this out, or draw a guide on the paper. It just emerged as I drew more and more people and tried to make a sense out of their distribution. The connecting lines between the people are there to represent the ‘communication’ that occurs between the units of a Complex System. I tried to make these instinctively, imagining the interactions of the people on the page rather than considering the image or composition.

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