Friday, April 16, 2010

"Hysteresis" Catastrophic art - 2 artists and a math/biology postdoc talk about how catastrophies & "sudden changes" are actually a long time coming

Found on, and the information and straight quotes all taken from the article & web site:  
Catastrophic art  by:  Edyta Zielinska


"Hysteresis" Todd Parsons describes is Greek for "Something that lags behind"  is an 3 part art installation and all the beautiful math opening this month (April - so already open. Mom, I'm sending you to go to this for me) at the Nexus Gallery in Philadelphia is a scientific and artistic look at how "sudden catastrophe" is really just a long time coming. 
It is the work of artists:   Jebney Lewis and K.R. Wood 
and the biological mathematics of  Todd Parsons

The article is loosely quoting - but says it so much better than me - it states:
 " The amount of effort it takes to recover from catastrophic failure is far greater than the effort it would have taken to prevent catastrophe, he says. In other words, "The reverse point lags far behind the transition point," says Parsons, pointing to a line graph shaped like a curvy Z."..........
"A lot of people don't seem to be aware of how transition can be sudden and irreversible," says Parsons. Hysteresis is a concept that can apply to anything from ecology and the immune system to the global economy. It describes changes that elude our attempts to make simple linear predictions of future behavior. Hysteresis describes why collapsed fisheries don't recover when catch quotas are set to pre-collapse rates, and why the global economy hasn't recovered when failed banks were bailed out with fresh capital"   Says Todd Parsons


Read more: Catastrophic art - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/57339/#ixzz0lHpKjlfK  
about both the art and science of this exhibit!
really mind blowing




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