Food for the Great Hungers
In January 2009, Boho completed a 4-week residency at the Manning Clark House Scholarly and Cultural Centre to research and devise an interactive installation performance entitled Food for the Great Hungers, based on Complex Systems science and Australian history. This process was supported by the Australia Council Inter-Arts office, the Manning Clark House Scholarly and Cultural Centre, Leximancer Software and the Foundation for Young Australians' Hunting Season.
Hungers uses techniques from Complex Systems science to create a simulated re-imagining of Australian history since 1901 under the audience's control. Using an array of purpose-built interactive devices, the audience will revise and alter Australia's responses to the challenges and crises of the 20th century, exploring a range of alternative Australias to answer questions such as: how did our society grow and evolve over the decades and centuries? Is Australia's unique culture the result of decisive action on the part of its leaders, the physical geography of this continent, or merely due to chance?
Complex Systems Science
Since the late 1970s, Complex Systems Science (CSS) has been bridging the gap between natural science, social science and the humanities. Complex Systems are distinguished by two properties: Emergence and Self-Organisation. Human societies are quintessential Complex Systems. Since its coelescence from other disciplines in the 1970s, the study of complex systems has provided insights into areas as diverse as Neuroscience, Psychology, Physics and Economics. The dynamic of history has traditionally been explained as a series of entirely contingent events - in Henry Ford's words: 'one damn thing after another' - or as an inexorable progress or series of waves. CSS is showing us how general rules governing interaction between individuals set the bounds in which contingency plays out. CSS studies the interactions in small groups using Game Theory and in whole societies using Social Network Theory. Fundamental properties of networks help explain sudden shifts in public opinion and attitude, such as patriotic tides in wartime, and their subsequent retreats.
