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assignment 1 - system analysis

The school, the tree and the Bitcoin, are three systems that have evolved their existence within our world from natural processes or human driven processes.

The school is a system that functions within the system of education, the tree within the biological environment and Bitcoins within a digital environment.

The school is an educational institution in which students study in order to gain knowledge and potentially move into higher education.

Α tree is a multi-year woodish plant that usually develops from a self-supported trunk which then branches out(not necessarily).

Bitcoin is a platform that hosts a digital directory where people can mine, store and trade bitcoins, which are a digital form of currency that can be earned through solving algorithms.

All these three are open systems since they all allow input and output within their environment.

Trees take in water from the roots and and expel water vapor.

Students continuously enrol and graduate while teachers might retire and new ones get hired.

A Bitcoin can be mined, then stored on a server and later transacted.

ADAPTABILITY & STABILITY

The school is typically an adaptable system. Through the years it adapts to new technologies and teaching methods. Teachers get up-to-date training for new material while students get used to the way it functions from early years. Some students might find it difficult to adapt though as the educational system faces everyone the same. Instability might occur as a result. Another form of instability is the potential uprising of the staff due to government decisions which might lead to the closure of the school.

There are many examples of trees which adapt within rainforests or severe weather conditions. Climate change has had a huge negative impact on trees though, in which they cannot adapt, and they eventually go extinct.

Bitcoin shows signs of adaptability because of the growing acceptance of the general public. Through actions such as Bitcoin Cash, it demonstrated how it adapted to survive diff gaming. The stability of the cryptocurrency is not certain, as it depends on external factor actions of the market and exchange values.

LIFE CYCLE

School: Start of term - classes/learning/assignments - midterm break - submission of assignments - term grades given - holidays - start of term

Tree: Seed - leaf sprouts - seeding - small tree - growing tree - mature tree with fruit and seeds - seed

Bitcoin Transaction: Requested transaction - transaction broadcasted to nodes - miners verify the transaction - transactions combined to form a data block - new block added to existing blockchain - transaction completed

All three of the systems are exogenous:

A school is exogenous since its students come outside of its system

A tree is exogenous since it intakes water, which is vital for its survival

A Bitcoin is exogenous since its value is set outside of its system

CENTRALISED/DECENTRALISED - HIERARCHY/NETWORK

The school is a centralised institution. Principals follow orders from the ministry and the laws. Thus it’s hierarchical.

A tree is a decentralised system. A self-organised network of tubes pumping water from bottom up and feeding sugar (food) from top down.

Bitcoin is a centralised system as miners are the ones setting the rules. A P2P payment network that operates on a cryptographic protocol.

CYCLICALITY

A school is a system that it’s cyclical. It’s functions repeat. This can be understood from its life cycle as well as other subsystem cycles such as enrolment and graduation, hiring and firing/retiring, terms.

A tree is a cyclical system since its process always repeats within its reproduction as well as its functionality.

Bitcoin is semi-cyclical as the transactions per week repeat themselves on a weekly basis but not on any other charts. Extensively, all other processes follow cyclical patterns.

Conclusion:

While all these systems differ vastly from each other the, they have a lot of similarities. They are all open systems and yet quite adaptive and cyclical excluding Bitcoin which in contrast has a one way pattern. The School and the Bitcoin are both centralised systems as well hierarchical. On the contrary, a tree is non centralised and non hierarchical. All systems show an overall stability.

#adad2400

In the first ADAD2400 class we were introduced to general theories of systems as well as to system concepts and characteristics.

In this class we split into two groups, where individually one was representing system concept sets and the other one systems. I was assigned with the System of a virus. Virus as we know it can exist physically or digitally. Both kinds share very similar “values”, though, they exist within different environments and have come to existence from different “Gods”. I went down with looking into the virus as a physical existence.

The first of the System Sets Concept person that I discussed with was assigned with the concept of Chaos / Complexity. It can cause a lot of Chaos to organisms by disturbing their natural flow of existence. It can make them sick and some of them might stop functioning. In order for a virus to multiply itself it needs to find a host cell. This is not an easy process as in order to find that host cell, a lot of different variables are considered( eg. temperature, place, time, etc).

The next person was assigned with the concept of Altruism / Cooperation / Competition / Cohesion. A rather more philosophical discussion for the term of Altruism. A virus itself exists naturally as well as an organism and it is a natural process for some to get infected as this whole interaction happens within the laws of nature. So does a virus practice welfare among the others or not? The question I guess can be answered by a scientist but here is my try. A virus can be both ways altruist and not altruist. Altruist in the sense that it looks after itself and constantly looks for a host cell. Once found it will try to replicate it self and thus we have an autonomous system where all work for all. On the other hand, it is not altruist as the host cell organism that will attract it, will potentially get sick or stop functioning. Additionally, there is always a contra between organisms and viruses, the organisms will always try and defend themselves from viruses hence we have a competition between the two of who will survive last.

#adad2400

#homepage

I took my camera and went down to circular quay for exploration. The seagulls feel like beggars looking into my eyes for food. But while being birds, as a general term they represent freedom. These inner city metropolitan seagulls are in fact a representation of the urban homeless people. The society works exclusively rather than inclusively. These inner city seagulls are homeless too. Their home has been occupied and destroyed by colonialists. One seagull through gave a right answer to these late capitalism problems. (Click on "Experimentations" for content.)

#studiogateway

Final Work

Niko Plaskasovitis Untitled 2017 Video Thirty-two seconds

Niko Plaskasovitis (°1995, Athens, Greece) is an artist who works in a variety of media. By applying abstraction, Plaskasovitis uses a visual vocabulary that addresses many different social and political issues. The work incorporates time as well as space – a fictional and experiential universe that only emerges bit by bit.

His work urge us to renegotiate art as being part of a reactive or – at times – autistic medium, commenting on oppressing themes in our contemporary society. By demonstrating the omnipresent lingering of a ‘corporate world’, he creates with daily, recognisable elements, an unprecedented situation in which the viewer is confronted with the conditioning of his own perception and has to reconsider his biased position.

His works demonstrate how life extends beyond its own subjective limits and often tells a story about the effects of global cultural interaction over the latter half of the twentieth century. It challenges the binaries we continually reconstruct between Self and Other, between our own ‘cannibal’ and ‘civilized’ selves. By merging several seemingly incompatible worlds into a new universe, he tries to create works in which the actual event still has to take place or just has ended: moments evocative of atmosphere and suspense that are not part of a narrative thread. The drama unfolds elsewhere while the build-up of tension is frozen to become the memory of an event that will never take place.

His works doesn’t reference recognisable form. The results are deconstructed to the extent that meaning is shifted and possible interpretation becomes multifaceted. In a search for new methods to ‘read the city’, he creates intense personal moments masterfully created by means of rules and omissions, acceptance and refusal, luring the viewer round and round in circles.

His works are often about contact with architecture and basic living elements. Energy (heat, light, water), space and landscape are examined in less obvious ways and sometimes developed in absurd ways. By rejecting an objective truth and global cultural narratives, he focuses on the idea of ‘public space’ and more specifically on spaces where anyone can do anything at any given moment: the non-private space, the non-privately owned space, space that is economically uninteresting.

His works are given improper functions: significations are inversed and form and content merge. Shapes are dissociated from their original meaning, by which the system in which they normally function is exposed. Initially unambiguous meanings are shattered and disseminate endlessly. By putting the viewer on the wrong track, his works references post-colonial theory as well as the avant-garde or the post-modern and the left-wing democratic movement as a form of resistance against the logic of the capitalist market system.

His works bear strong political references. The possibility or the dream of the annulment of a (historically or socially) fixed identity is a constant focal point. Niko Plaskasovitis currently lives, works and studies in Sydney.

Bibliography

Jencks, C., 1991. The Language of Post-modern Architecture. Random House Incorporated.

Venturi, R., 2017. Complexity and contradiction in architecture. Martins Fontes.

Center for Working-Class Studies | Youngstown State University. 2017. Center for Working-Class Studies | Youngstown State University. [ONLINE] Available at: http://cwcs.ysu.edu/. [Accessed 19 September 2017].

Aaron Magro. 2017. Australians don't loiter in public space – the legacy of colonial control by design. [ONLINE] Available at: https://theconversation.com/australians-dont-loiter-in-public-space-the-legacy-of-colonial-control-by-design-76979. [Accessed 10 September 2017].

CityMetric. 2017. Why skyscrapers show capitalism at its worst – and its most sublime | CityMetric. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.citymetric.com/business/why-skyscrapers-show-capitalism-its-worst-and-its-most-sublime. [Accessed 20 September 2017].

web.archive.org. 2017. No page title. [ONLINE] Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20071018012456/http://www.birdwatch.co.uk/website/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=476&Itemid=32. [Accessed 20 September 2017].

#studiogateway

Experimentation

In my last experiment I decided to go for some photography near a construction site. By taking photos of it and editing them after I realised the existence of some photos I had taken and forgotten about from circular quay a week ago. They are all photos of buildings under construction. They are intriguing and semiotic. Antithetical to the freedom that birds represent, these buildings are hosts to paid slaves, who through their energy and exploitation the system survives.

#studiogateway

Experimentation

After looking into seagulls I decided to look into rats, another inner city animal, living under the cities. In the catacombs and sewers, away from the eye of the society creates it’s own microcosmos. Through some basic research about the rat I found out that the human and the rat have 99% similar DNA and share a lot of biological properties. By critically conceptualising and by researching to different levels I figured that the rat is the animal mostly used for experimentation in medicine labs as we shale all these attributes. The next step of experimentation in the labs goes to cats as we share a very similar cerebral cortex. Finally primates are the ones closest to the human at all levels and are the last step of experimentation. They are supposed to “worth” more to our culture and are used less and less with time and rats & cats don’t have any value at all thus they can be used indefinitely.

#studiogateway

Modern Art: Money laundering for the rich. I started exploring on how a contemporary creative rebellion would look like by asking myself questions of what would this work rebel against. After a lot of research I found out a lot in regards to art & design and the connection to rebellion. Taking the issue from it’s initial position, creative rebellion is often connected with Utopia. It is in the horizon… I take two steps forward, and it gets away by two steps. I take ten steps, and the horizon takes another ten steps further away. As long as I walk for, I’m never going to reach it. Why is utopia useful then? It keeps you walking Galeano said in one of his books. It’s where creativity and rebellion root from, without the idea of the Utopia, the world would be “flat”. On the other hand, art never stopped a war and never got anybody a job. That was never its function. Art cannot change events. But it can change people. It can affect people so that they are changed… because people are changed by art - enriched, ennobled, encouraged - they then act in a way that may affect the course of events… by the way they vote, they behave, the way they think(Bernstein, 1972), which shows that art plays a vital role for the rebel. Additionally, contemporary art is definitely developing a political project when it endeavours to move into the relational realm by turning it into an issue(Bourriaud, 2002). As for this work I did a research to find out what’s happening behind the scenes of the art market. Apparently, a lot of money laundering is happening, between the auction companies and the famous “art collectors”, who probably don’t even know the value of the art they hold.

@vickybrowne10022017

#ADAD1002 #MODERNART #studiogateway

Modern Art: Money laundering for the rich

#studiogateway

The debate about anonymity in art sales has intensified as some people wonder whether a lack of ownership transparency has invited criminal activity.

#auctions #studiogateway

The art market is virtually unregulated — prices are flexible, deals are made in secrecy, and “private collectors” remain anonymous — making it exceptionally ripe for money laundering.

#art #china #money #world economic forum #hannibal #studiogateway

It is in the horizon... I take two steps forward, and it gets away by two steps. I take ten steps, and the horizon takes another ten steps further away. As long as I walk for, I’m never going to reach it. Why is utopia useful then? It keeps you walking. (Galeano)

#studiogateway

“The point is, art never stopped a war and never got anybody a job. That was never its function. Art cannot change events. But it can change people. It can affect people so that they are changed... because people are changed by art - enriched, ennobled, encouraged - they then act in a way that may affect the course of events... by the way they vote, they behave, the way they think.” (Bernstein, 1972)

#studiogateway

“Contemporary art is definitely developing a political project when it endeavours to move into the relational realm by turning it into an issue.” (Bourriaud, 2002)

#studiogateway

briiadad

Artistic response to Jane Bennetts “A political ecology of things” titled “Un-naturally natural” @nikopl

nikoplaskas-blog

Artistic response to Jane Bennetts “A political ecology of things” titled “Un-naturally natural”

#studiogateway

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