1 The Art of Complex Systems Science Karen Cham Principal Lecturer in Digital Media School of Communication Design Kingston University Knights Park Grange Road Kingston Upon Thames KT1 2TQ k.cham@kingston.ac.uk Introduction ‘at the nascent moment of creativity boundaries between disciplines dissolve’ (Miller 2000) The scientific study of complex systems encompasses more than one theoretical framework, as it is has had to be highly interdisciplinary in seeking answers to fundamental questions about adaptable, changeable systems. Representing this knowledge in a usable way is one of the key ways of understanding complex systems behaviours and developing a workable complex systems science. It is by means of representation that science has always apprehended, represented, understood and anticipated parts and processes of the world around us.; indeed when scientific representations have failed, as was the case for atomic physics in the 1920s, science has struggled to proceed. The standard methodology in scientific research has always been mathematics; do the complex systems scientists of the future need to look for different representational methods ? It is in the arts that one finds expert knowledge and practices for innovation in representation; documentation, visualisation, simulation and embodiment are all artistic methods that can represent complex systems. Indeed there are some precedents that will be expounded here, that have thus far taken divergent perspectives; from Castis algorithmic complexity of art images to Galanters notion of complexity theory as a context for art theory. However, it is also important to point out, that modeling knowledge of complex states via illustration, diagrams and maps may be helpful, but to the art world, those representations are not, in themselves ‘art’; they are the ‘result of a mental effort’ and are well accounted for as knowledge elicitation methods in many disciplines, not least in systems science. So if we are to argue that art processes and practices are to be useful to complexity science, we are also going to have to provide a working definition of what makes a representation 'art' and of course, what is 'not art'.