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Labyrinth

( Size: 30cm x 30cm )

Labyrinth

Leila Kubba Kawash 1999.

Complexity comment:

The perfection of geometric figures reflects their existence in a perfect mathematical space, an imaginary world adjacent to, or intertwined with, that of the philosophers. In this particular Greek myth everything human is inferior, a degraded copy of what should be an ideal and unblemished form, reflecting the perfection of heaven and God. This obsession with simplicity and detached, unchanging regularity is echoed in the subsequent art of Islam. Repetition without change, juxtaposition and overlay are permitted, echoes of nature, confusion or personalities are not.

In the modern world we are beginning to recognise that this view is very much back to front. Indeed we can say that complexity, confusion, unpredictability and change are normal and permitted, but simplification, fixed regularity and perfection are impossible and to be rejected. Reversing old views is becoming quite an habit for the complexity sciences, yet everywhere we look these new ideas seem valid. Overlaying the geometry here is a random looking network of connected strands reminiscent of the neuronal wiring of the brain. These real neural networks do not conform to the simplicity of their artificial equivalents, the connections in our brain change all the time, migrating around, changing their preferences in exactly the same way as we see in society, where friendships, associations, chance encounters and telecommunications ensure that our connectivity to others or 'wiring' changes constantly.

Yet this confusion and apparent mess forms what we can best describe as the most powerful computer on the planet. No artificial computing machine can come anyway near emulating even the pattern recognition abilities of a small child. Our computers, stuck in the simplistic regularity mode of the ancients, possibly deliver the maximum that that construction can achieve. In some ways this exceeds human abilities to deal with simplicity, but in dealing with complexity, the real role of brains, the human mind (especially when divorced from its often interfering 'intellectual' level) remains supreme.

Page Version 1.1 March 2001
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