Law and Complexity.

Tom Faunce's talk on nanotechnology was an interesting case-study of a wicked problem, however, like the maths I think I can quietly appreciate it rather than deeply engage. Apart from this I think the Faunce's points about the ways in which laws are formulated interesting and his ways to deal with problem solving were very helpful.

I think the point that laws are often the culmination of a developed sense of ethics and codes of practice of a society underpin the value of education and activism as having a very real role in helping to address problems. I believe that through collective action and the taking on of more personal responsibility we can address problems like climate change and indigenous rights.

Faunce's final reflections on problem solving and the value of looking for the completely ridiculous reminded me of a quote by surrealist André Breton:

"The man who cannot visualise a horse galloping on a tomato is an idiot"

I think that there is a responsibility of those in policy making positions to inspire others outside the academic and institutional arenas with a sense of the possibilities of the seemingly impossible.

Mathew Zagor's talk on refugee law reminded me of the frustration I had way back at the beginning of the course with the tendency to redefine complex problems to shift responsibility. I was horrified to hear of countries deterring people in foreign waters and foreign airports so that they could side step around the parameters of international refugee conventions. These sorts of complicated legal issues and treaties are an example of something that alienates the greater public from the reality of a situation. Thanks to media spin-doctoring and hype, refugee politics is something that nearly everyone has an opinion on. An opinion which is unfortunately often far removed from the facts.

Thinking about what Zagor said about the Australian government investing money into scare-tactic videos of crocodiles and sharks to deter refugees reminded me of a similar idea from the other side of the problem. Médecins Sans Frontiers attempted to replicate experience to educate ordinary people about the realities of being a refugee with the Refugee Camp in Your City program. These two examples show that the provocation of emotion can be used both positively and negatively in complex situations. Rather than investing money in such nonsensical ways Zagor urged investing in preventative and appropriate development, such as was mentioned in the Sustainable Development forum

Zagor's point about academic knowledge being influential in the making of laws was heartening. It is good to be reminded that academic pursuits can have real world implications.

Question: How easy/possible is to undo laws which add to complexity?

Reflection- The Art of Complexity

detail of Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger's Waterhole installation

I was very confronted by having to prepare a talk on the how my discipline and this course relate to each other. At first I was going to cop out and relate it to my South American politics course because I think that would have been easy. After a semester of studying South America and complexity side by side I'm almost convinced that the continent is more complex than anything that we have discussed.

However, upon reflection I decided that I would much rather explore the relevance of the discipline that I am passionate about and intend to have a career in as I believe that is the forum in which I will put into place the skills that I have learnt in this course.

I will not go over the talk too much as it has already been assessed and presented but I do want to reiterate how this course has influenced my thinking about what I study. I still don't think art is really complex or not complex but do believe that it is/can be part of complex system. I intend to complete my honours thesis on how artists use audience involvement and participation to explore environmental themes. I think doing this course has really forced me to look at the way art can be connected to the world rather than to isolate it on some sort of aesthetic pedestal. I think that the educational potential of art offers real potential in helping to communicate the reality and urgency of some of the complex problems that we face.

One part of the feedback that I got from my talk was that I relied a little too heavily on jargon. The vocabulary that I used, from my point of view, has become so inculcated that I have no objectivity to see it as unusual. I think this is telling about how things become more complicated than they need to be. In a world of over-specialisation it is easy to fail to see how something that you know so well can be difficult from another point of view. I guess this is one of the things that this course is trying to achieve is insight into differences.

Interdisciplanary studies

I can't help but feel that this lecture might have been more help at the beginning of the course, perhaps coupled with Steve Cork's lecture on complexity and systems.

However, the talk was helpful in relation to our China policy briefs.

Hopefully we will be able to use Bammer's six steps to help us when we're working together

1.Taking a systems view

2.Scoping

3.Boundary setting

4.Problem framing

5.Taking values into account

6.Harnessing and managing differences

I think that her point about problem framing is very relevant to the way in which we have been and can approach complexity. It reminds me of the point that Scott MacWilliam made about our approached to The Pacific that we need to be deeply mindful of our own context. I think that Bammer's point about trying to reframe the problems ourselves (hopefully positively, and without too much spin) is useful but I feel that often so much is framed for us and often so effectively that many people don't notice. I think thought that this course will have strengthened our ability to look beyond the spin and try to analyse the component parts of problems.

The article on Enhancing Research Collaboration offered sound advice for group work. Particularly in relation to ways in which to harness differences to best advantage and ways in which to overcome problem-differences. Our China policy group is specialising on the environmental aspects of the China/Australia relationship and our group consists of a mathematician/physicist, a social/environmental scientist and me (spanish and art history). I am especially in a position to benefit from the knowledge of my team members. I am very conscious about inevitable restrictions, particularly time. It is nearing the end of semester and everyone is dealing with competing interests from their other subjects as well as a certain amount of exhaustion. In contrast to worrying about the two weeks that we do have I am trying to keep in mind that policy briefs are often formulated in a matter of hours.

I found Michael Smithson's talk refreshing. After eleven weeks treating black swans and unknowns as an element of fear and key player in collapse it was good to be reminded that unknowns are vita to freedom, hope, privacy, trust and curiosity. It sort of feels like the course went through all the ills released from Pandora's box and now we're just searching around for the dregs of hope.

I found the Nature of Uncertainty reading to be a bit frustrating, which in a way I guess was the point. The conclusion sort of sums up my frustration:

"This chapter has focused on the nature of uncertainty. The differences between

the essays highlight not only the wide range of perspectives that need to be

accommodated, but also that there is currently no accepted structure within

which to discuss uncertainty.... this chapter demonstrates that, while uncertainty

is relevant to every discipline and practice area, the attention and resources devoted

to conceptualizing it are very uneven."

Black Swans and Exhibitions

Getting towards the end of the course and the end of the year I have started to think about how the problem solving capabilities that we've been armed with apply to my own discipline. I gave a talk about art and complexity and how I think that it isn't necessarily a complex discipline. However, the skills from the course are more likely to be put into use into my other great passion, curatorship.

I believe that art and exhibitions are some of the best community education tools that we have and that it has great potential to mediate between the academic conversations of complex problems and the general public. Examples that I have mentioned include The Refugee Camp in Your City and the Vaka Moana exhibition at the National Museum. I have often felt throughout this course that my studies are trivial next to the lawyers, scientists and engineers. However, I remind myself that I believe that art is integral to human expression and often reveals truths in the world that no other discipline can.

This year I have been lucky enough to be involved in a few exhibition projects and I have begun to go back over them and apply the knowledge from Steve Cork's lecture on scenario planning and Gabrielle Bammer and Mike Smithson's lecture on the unknown and interdisciplinary studies.

The problem of putting together exhibitions would be hard pressed to be defined as a wicked problem, but the experience certainly has to mediate between a series of conflicting interests and unknowns. They do however have the advantage of a deadline which means that is has to come to something in the end.

The process of scenario planning was something that I really put into use for the Cube3 project that I am a co-director of. The project consists of a demountable space made from six 2x1m white panels. The Cube is installed in public spaces and displays art. This year we were accepted to go up to the This Is Not Art festival in Newcastle to display the cube for five days in Civic Park. This meant organising an artist, their artwork, the transport of the cube (big and heavy) to Newcastle, liaising with festival staff and organising funding.

The scenarios that we theorised about included

• Lack of funding
• Vandalism
• Bad weather
• Theft
• Electrical failure
• Earthquake
• The artwork breaking
• The artist pulling out
• The transport failing to come through
• The cube being tipped by strong winds
• Injury to staff or the public

As it turns out the event was rampant with problems. The festival agreed to transport the cube for us, only to damage it and crack the surface. There was a communication breakdown between us, the organisers and the artist, which resulted in the artwork not going up the first day. After all those kinks had been ironed out the following three days were filled with near-on torrential rain and the project had to be dismantled.

I don't think we could have avoided the problem of the weather (complex system that it is) but I think that some of the communication problems would have been ironed out by following Gabrielle Bammer's advice about team work and clearly defining what everybody's responsibilities were and eliminating some complications.

I'm still not convinced that the problem is complex but I have found that the ways we have been learning can be applied to many different levels of problem solving.

On another tangent the artwork that we presented ties nicely into some concepts of complexity that we have addressed. Benjamin Foster designed a drawing machine which works on a complex system of iteration. He has reprogrammed a lino-cutting machine to learn to draw like he does. The machine never produces the same drawing twice instead outputting a random sequence of images and words. The drawings that it produces are beautifully human. The above link explains the system much better than I can.

Writing Policy Briefs

After Jamila's talk the things to keep in mind while writing our policy briefs are:

Who are you going to be dealing with? Who is in the meeting? Consider all parties.

Know what you’re trying to achieve and the context of the argument.

Being aware of the different pressures that the decision maker faces

Personal style of the decision maker

I found something quietly hilarious about the advice given us today. There was just such a range from the macro to the microcosmic. Right from the grand machines of politics to the fact that Kevin Rudd only likes to read Tahoma Size 12 font. This sort of summed up for me the breadth of everything that we have to deal with and the unpredictable dynamic between the important and the seemingly inconsequential. The need to constantly justify your need for funding was a reminder that everything essentially comes back to economics

Policy Briefing Day

After doing the group work for the policy brief I am reflecting on the six points raised by Gabrielle Bammer

1.Taking a systems view

2.Scoping

3.Boundary setting

4.Problem framing

5.Taking values into account

6.Harnessing and managing differences

I think that in the process that the whole group took on China relations and our smaller group took on environmental relations with China succeeded fairly well in working to this framework. We tried to fit our piece of the puzzle into the broader system of political and regional relationships. We carefully chose which parts of the problems we thought we could have an effect on (environmental management skills, photovoltaics, carbon capture and storage) and from there we set boundaries. We tried to frame the problem positively recommending a positive and collaborative relationship with China while considering the interest and value that Australia has from its own context. As much as I really don't like group work I have begun to feel, towards the end of semester the process of harnessing and managing differences has become more effective and I have learnt a lot from my colleagues.

The parliament house exercise was a lesson in learning that things will never go as planned. However, I think that through missing out on the session with the policy advisor we gained a lot talking to specialists at ANU. Our adaptability came to create something positive out of a negative situation.

The policy briefing day was a good exercise but it also felt frustrating having to minimise such complicated problems to the scope of the exercise. Despite the frustration I suppose that it garnered empathy for the pressures faced by policy makers and politicians who need to deal with such issues on a day to day basis. I felt that for every piece of information I read there was so much more I could and should know.

For all the complicated issues that we talked about on the day I was immediately struck by a very simple failing. The arrangement of the room made it incredibly difficult to pay attention to the information that was being made by the student 'think tanks'. Although this is quite insignificant in the scheme of things I think it is metaphorical of the thing that I keep getting stuck on: Complex problems are often complicated by issues in communication and the perceptions of the invisible stakeholders, the public.

I was impressed by the group that were dealing with the balances between corporate interests and population health. I thought that the recommendations that they offered took small parts of the problem and offered measurable, practical solutions that communicated appropriately with the audience. I.e. The red-orange-green traffic light system was something that would not achievable.

This same results driven approach was employed by the refugee group who focused on the economic positives of humanitarian migration rather than framing the problem with a scare tactic approach.

Once again the importance of communication was shown with the group who addressed the aging population. Their presentation was obviously very well researched with a basis of solid evidence but the way in which they presented it obfuscated their message. They often swapped speakers and had people standing up and sitting down. This was accompanied by a very detailed powerpoint presentation. There was so much stimuli that on reflection I have no memory of the facts that they presented.

The pretend PM reiterated Jamila's point of talking at a level and manner appropriate to your audience. As well we were all criticised for not considering economic information carefully enough. This was true but we found that the information was incredibly hard to find with the resources available.

I think the exercise was effective. I started with no real knowledge of the China-Australia relationship other than what I had gleaned from newspaper headlines. By the end of the fortnight I felt like I had an insight and opinion on the problem and that I had benefited from the knowledge of my student colleagues.

Overall Course Themes and Reflection

Going back over the whole course I wanted to pick out some commonalities, in no particular order, that can be broadly applied to unravelling complexity:

• Complex problems are comprised of many interconnected agents
• Complex problems often have competing interests
• The consideration of history and culture is important in problem solving
• Interconnected systems can end in rapid collapse
• Education is important to unravelling complexity
• Communication is necessary to help solve problems
• Never underestimate human emotion and unpredictability as a complicating factor
• Adaptability is an important in successful systems
• Imagine the impossible
• Be prepared for unknowns
• Look outside the obvious sources for problem solvers: Be both inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary

At the end of the course I am slightly frustrated that we did not have more time to delve deeper into the interesting topics that we have explored. Perhaps future courses will rejig the format so deeper engagement with the ideas.

That being said, I think that this course has really helped me to connect the perspectives of my own discipline to a greater framework of knowledge. I hope that going into honours I will employ some of the knowledge and newly gained known-unknowns and known-knowns to deepen my understanding of art, cultural studies and curatorship. It has also been invaluable in connecting me to a broader academic community. I have met people with who I hope to work in the future.

And So It Proved True

"One of the surprises that you get in the course will arise from the diverse ways that scholars with different disciplinary perspectives describe and think about complex issues. Those of you studying the sciences and technologies will, I predict, be uncomfortable with the discursive approach to knowledge that you will see in the approach of scholars in the humanities and social sciences. You will find your deeply-held notions of realism challenged and some of you might become quite upset. Those of you in the humanities and social sciences will be uncomfortable with the conviction you see in scholars from the sciences. You will find your views of knowledge as a social construct are not shared by these other scholars in very deep ways, and some of you will become uncomfortable with the counter-attacks on a number of cherished beliefs of the world of postmodern scholarship. All of this uncomfortableness is to be treasured."

Reflecting on what Lawrence Cram said at the beginning of this whole adventure, I can't help but applaud his prescience. However, I am equally surprised about how our tutorial group developed together and arrived at a reasonable point of empathy for each others points of view. There were definitely times when tutes escalated to frustration with people diametrically opposed to others. Upon reflection I think we gained more from our differences than we lost.