“Designing Complexity.” In order to think about the idea carefully and seriously, I find it necessary to rethink what “design” exactly means in the age of information technology. Any design should assume a certain purpose, with which we can arrange individual parts or assign particular functions, whether they are of an object, a machine, or an organization. Complexity, however, makes it difficult to predict where a certain design we have applied would finally lead us to. In the world of complexity – which is the essential nature of the world as such but has become more obvious through the development of the digital media – we should always be ready to be deviated from our original purposes, and be tolerant enough to accept and work on with unexpected developments. When we try to design complexity, we are inevitably designed back by complexity at the same time. To illustrate this new understanding of “design,” I would like to show works of a Japanese artist Shozo Shimamoto (1928), and discuss his idea of “network.”
Hiroshi Yoshioka was born in Kyoto, Japan. He studied philosophy and aesthetics at Kyoto University and teaches aesthetics and art theory at Kyoto University, IAMAS. He is the author of The Present Tense of Thought: Complex Systems, Cyberspace, and Affordance Theory (1997), Information and Life: The Brain, Computers, and the Universe (with Hisashi Muroi, 1993) [both books published in Japanese], and many articles on aesthetics, arts, technology and culture. He was the editor-in-chief of the critical journal Diatxt. (vol.1-8, Kyoto Art Center, 2000-2003) and Yorobon: Diatxt./Yamaguchi (YCAM, 2008). He was the general director of Kyoto Biennale 2003, and Ogaki Biennale 2006.
