The COT x Music seminars are part of the research and dissemination activities of the project “The Origins of Goal-directedness: a Formal Scenario based on Chemical Organization Theory and Cybernetics”. This project is performed in CLEA and funded by the Templeton Foundation. The idea is to use Chemical Organization Theory (COT) to explain how systems of reactions self-organize so as to become autopoietic (self-maintaining) and goal-directed.

The formalism of COT expresses reactions in a very simple form, such as: a + b -> c + d,  d -> f + g, … The “molecules” (a, b, c…) in these reactions can stand for the most diverse things, including  chemicals, statements, musical notes, biological species and people. The reactions express how combinations of these things (reactants) produce combinations of other things (products). For example: cows + grass -> cows + milk + dung. The network of reactions forms an autopoietic “organization” if all things that are consumed by some reactions are produced again by other reactions, so that the whole functions as a self-sustaining cycle.

To complement the mathematical and computer modelling in the project, we wish to explore potential ArtScience implementations of these ideas, in collaboration with our international partners. In particular, we are interested in musical and other artistic renderings of these processes of self-organization. Thus, the seminar cycle intends to discuss the relations between COT and related topics in systems biology and artificial life with Generative Music (in short, music created by algorithmic structures), and other forms of generative and adaptive art.

More about the The Origins of Goal-directedness: a Formal Scenario based on Chemical Organization Theory and Cybernetics project, you can find here.

Videos

Previous COT x Music seminars videos: