Complexity in action Two examples Defining complexity Dynamic

Complexity in action Two examples

Defining complexity • Dynamic, non-equilibrium systems • Permeable boundaries/internal noise • Emergence of collective phenomena; selforganisation • Tipping points/phase changes

Two key ideas • Emergence of collective phenomena; selforganisation • Deleuze’s idea of agencements machiniques (assemblages)

Emergence of collective phenomena: examples from physics • Transition to turbulence • Rayleigh-Bénard convection (demonstration and simulation) • Nuclear fusion

First example: tweeting teachers

Chats as agencements machiniques An assemblage, in its multiplicity, necessarily acts on semiotic flows, materials flows, and social flows simultaneously (Deleuze and Guattari 1988)

Emergence in an assemblage The assemblage … determines which variables will … obey obligatory rules and which will serve instead as a fluid matter for variation … There is indeed braking and resistance at a certain level, but at another level … there is nothing but come -and-go … and corridors of passage travelled in both directions (ibid. , p 100)

Second example: physics gender gap

Second example: physics gender gap

• Peeing in the snow

How a (sociomaterial) complexity perspective helped • Importance of tweets as actors • Importance of images as actors • Emergent communication patterns (and more) • Sensitivity to the physical • Becoming aware of “the background” • Assemblage entangles unexpected components (peeing and curriculum sequence)