And I may as well complete the set by posting the powerpoint of the last of the lectures I  recently delivered at UTS.  It’s on the subject of Improvisation in Audio Culture but covers such theoretical frameworks as Systems Theory, Distributed Cognition and Swarm Intelligence as well as things like emergent and non-linear behaviour before veering off into the more esoteric end of town examining learnings from Punk Rock and Zazen teachings.  These are interesting lenses through which to view the phenomena of human interaction in small musical groups.  And the complexity is superbly illustrated by this wonderful sonification of the ‘3 body problem’ in physics.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_w6JprsXK8&w=560&h=315]

I stumbled across two things of particular note doing the research for this lecture.  Firstly, the concept of ‘Stigmergy’ – which can be used to describe situations where an agent does not communicate directly with other agents, but instead affects the environment – which other agents then respond to.   This is an interesting analytical reference point since it is common – in fact much of on-line interaction can be described in this way.  The second thing was this terrific paper by David Borgo which talks at length about many of the ideas I discuss in my lecture.  A great read if you’re interested in the way Distributed Cognition and Swarm Intelligence can be used to look at human interaction.