A Complex Systems View on the Visual Arts

Paul van Geert is emeritus professor of developmental psychology at the University of Groningen. He is a pioneer in the application of the complex dynamic systems approach to a broad range of developmental and educational areas from cognitive development to learning in schools. As an artist, his practice arises out of and is inseparable from van Geert's immediate community and surroundings, reflecting the people, materials and site of its creation.

• Part I. Art as a Complex Process: 1. A nonlinear affordance for exploration; 2. Art and Process: definitions and ontologies; 3. From processes to complex dynamic systems; 4. Describing art through the lens of Complex Dynamic Systems; 5. Art in a complex, dynamic web of functions; Part II. Entangled Timescales of Visual Arts: 6. Timescales of art as interacting processes; 7. Timescales of artistic activity: creation and experience of art; 8. Timescales of artistic careers; 9. The timescale of excellence and celebrity; 10. The timescale of art history; 11. The timescale of deep history and of human evolution; Part III. Understanding Art Through Dynamic Models: 12. Dynamics of cultural and market value; 13. Dynamic modeling of the emergence of excellence in the arts; 14. Modeling long-term trends and discontinuities in art.

'The book is congenial to the universe of the arts, to creativity and improvisation. Paul van Geert provides an extremely revelatory and inspiring account - both for the hobby expert who goes to openings every week and to the art historian who will find an orderly universe that permits a systematic and piecemeal walk-through history.' Ingar Brinck, Professor, Department of Philosophy and Cognitive Science, Lund University, Sweden