I mean the power of specifically growing out of one's self, of

making the past and the strange one body with the near and the
present, of healing wounds, replacing what is lost, repairing
broken molds.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Stefan Arteni

Visual art, evolutionary game theory,

cybernetics, logic of distinctions,
polycontexturality: a heuristic musing.

II
[Notes for a lecture-demonstration; March 9, 2006,
QCC Art Gallery CUNY, New York]

SolInvictusPress 2007
Game Theory

Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics. It has recently drawn attention from
computer scientists because of its use in artificial intelligence and cybernetics.

Some game theorists have turned to evolutionary game theory which includes both
biological as well as cultural evolution and also models of individual learning (for
example, fictitious play dynamics.) These models presume either no rationality or
bounded rationality on the part of players. Evolutionary game theory does not
necessarily presume natural selection in the biological sense.

Game theory has been put to several uses in philosophy. David Lewis used game
theory to develop a philosophical account of convention. In so doing, he provided the
first analysis of common knowledge. In addition, he first suggested that one can
understand meaning in terms of signaling games [signaling games as games of
imperfect information.] This later suggestion has been pursued by several
philosophers since Lewis.
The emergence of cultural behavior in multiple games

One appeal of evolutionary game theory is that it allows for relaxation of the
traditional game theoretical fully-informed rational actor assumption . The
evolutionary models presume that people, or agents, are myopic, and that
individuals may make errors in the sense that strategy selection is driven by natural
selection, imitation, or genetics, and not inductive reasoning. Within the
framework of evolutionary game theory, players may not know all the rules, games
are repeated, agents play multiple games simultaneously and evolve or choose
separate strategies in each. Agents can also apply similar strategies to distinct
games [Jenna Bednar and Scott Page.] Complexity emerges: the whole differs from
the sum of the parts.

The hallmarks of “cultural behavior” are consistency within and across individuals,
variance between populations, contextual effects, behavioral stickiness, low
rationality, and suboptimal performance. The framework rests on two primary
assumptions: (i) agents play ensembles of games, (ii) agents have finite cognitive
capacity. Evolutionary game theory provides a dynamic framework for analyzing
repeated interaction. These replicator dynamics may cause local conventions to
emerge [Jenna Bednar and Scott Page.]
In The Ambiguity of Play, Brian Sutton-Smith defines play’s function as
"the reinforcement of the organism’s variability," so that its evolved
behaviors don’t become too rigid and predictable. This variable
behavior goes from "the actual to the possible" – that is, from physical
play to the play of the mind. Psychologically, Sutton-Smith defines
play as "a virtual simulation characterized by staged contingencies of
variation, with opportunities for control engendered by either mastery
or further chaos."
Jesper Juul, specialist in video game theory and design, describes the conceptual
framework for two types of games:

Progression Games. Game type where variation happens by introducing new

elements and features as the player progresses in the game, that is serially
introduced challenges. The opposite of emergence games [Jesper Juul.]

Emergence Games. Game type where variation appears by the interaction between
elements in the game. Emergence games often surprise players and even the
designers of the game. The opposite of progression games [Jesper Juul.]

However most games can be regarded as a combination/blend of the two types:

emergent, but with embedded progression structures. There is more to the relation
between progression and emergence - emergence may have a strong disposition to
develop towards progression, and the progression of the player with every game as
well as the player expanding the repertoire must also be taken into consideration
[Joris Dormans.]
One may speak of finite and infinite play. James Carse argues cogently that
infinite play is paradoxical - infinite play is played to play, the purpose being to
continue the game. The time of the play is time created within the play. Carse has
clearly indicated that an infinite game means the infinite use of finite means -
infinity arises out of radical finitude.

Martin Heidegger might cast this as an interpellative act, a calling-into-being

within a world whose modality is grounded by play.

"Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries“
[James P.Carse.]

Knowing what the rules delimit, the player can then build upon them, constrained
only by the bounds of his/her creativity. Additionally, the infinite player can then
create new rules based on the paradigmatic and syntagmatic orders of the
existing ones. These new rules have the advantage of sharing a common system
between them, thereby making them intelligible to other players despite their
originality. Therefore, the infinite player always uses rules as means for play
continuation, as opposed to allowing them to constrict his/her play. Since finite
games can be played within an infinite game, infinite players do not eschew the
performed roles of finite play. On the contrary, they enter into finite games, but
they do so without the seriousness of finite players. They embrace the
abstractness of finite games as abstractness, and therefore take them up not
seriously, but playfully.
As has become clear by now, culture is an infinite game, an intricate
kaleidoscope of games being played. Culture is poiesis-autopoiesis, and all
its participants are poietai - makers. Autopoiesis generates boundaries -
infinite play plays with boundaries and rules. There is a nexus of supportive
relations between formalization and play as well as within their chiastic
reversal, the play of formalizations [David Lidov.]

Gao Jianping draws an analogy between painting and the game of go. He also
suggests that ''Art plays an unknowing game with ultimate things, and yet
achieves them" [Gao Jianping.]
Rules /emergence of conventions /constraints

In systems-theoretical parlance, visual art is a symbolically generalized

communication medium. Instances of communication can be viewed as fundamentally
game-theoretic processes, accounting for stimuli, overlaps among stimuli, receiver
bias, common knowledge of players, incomplete information, and sensitivity to the
form of the signal, such as ornamentation and ritual, especially in high-context
cultures. Art constrains perception. Art is a fuzzy rule-based system, where rules are
performative and prescriptive.

Graphical interaction games suggest the emergence of graphical conventions or

conventional graphical schemata within a community [culture immanent interactional
context.] Conventions are culturally evolved higher order cognitions. Over several
thousand years the original Chinese character that represents 'mountain' has evolved
into its current, less complex, form. The change is not arbitrary. It is a result of global
coordination that took place over time and space, culminating in a refined, conventional
form that promotes rapid communication with reduced effort. This is an example of an
evolutionary process where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts [Nicolas Fay,
Simon Garrod, John Lee.] Representations retain a degree of iconicity. They exhibit a
degree of systemacity that make them easily differentiable. Through interaction partners
minimize their collaborative effort, stripping away unnecessary graphical information,
leaving only salient properties.
Evolution of the character Shān (mountain)

Oracle Seal Clerical Semi- Cursive Regular Script

Bone Script Script Cursive Script
Script Script

By Hakuin
 Shan 山 Mountain

Zhang Zhengyu
[Chang Cheng-yu]
(1903-1976)

Kamijo Shinzan
Shan
山
Mountain

Wang Chong 王宠
Jin Nong 金农

Huang Tingjian 黄庭坚 He Zhuo 何焯

Graphical interaction frequently figures in everyday
communication. Examples include sketch maps, explanatory
diagrams, and plans. The basic research findings advance
understanding of some basic aspects of human communication:
emergence of conventions, co-ordination of interpretation, and
effectiveness of representations [Simon Garrod.]
Villard de Honnecourt
Villard de Honnecourt
Villard de Honnecourt
Leonardo da Vinci, perspective diagram
Michelangelo
Buonarroti
Michelangelo
Buonarroti
Michelangelo Buonarroti
Correggio (Antonio Allegri)
Correggio (Antonio Allegri)
This ancient tablet from the 7th Century BC depicts a plan of the world at the time of
Sargon (2300 BC) as a circle surrounded by oceans, with Babylon and the River
Euphrates at its center.
Roman mosaic map of Jerusalem
Giovanni Antonio da
Varese,
The Western Hemisphere,
The Loggia della
Cosmografía, The Vatican
El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos,)
View and Plan of Toledo
"Semiotic dynamics is a novel field that studies how semiotic conventions spread and
stabilize in a population of agents. In these models, a positive feedback loop causes
some naturally occurring variation to propagate and eventually dominate. Recent work
on complex adaptive systems has shown that self-organisation can explain how a group
of distributed agents can reach a coherent set of conventions and how such a set can
be preserved from one generation to the next based on cultural transmission. These
investigations continue by exploring the presence of stochasticity in the various
aspects of communication: stochasticity in the non-linguistic communication
constraining meaning, the transmission of the message, and the retrieval from memory.
We show that there is an upperbound on the amount of stochasticity which can be
tolerated and that stochasticity causes and maintains variation" [Frederic Kaplan.]

Cristiano Castelfranchi distinguishes between communication [getting a

message] and signification [getting a meaning.]
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
A sign-system is non-universal. Attractor network models of
associative memory may explain the dynamics of pattern and
structure recognition [J.J.Hopfield and Igor Yevin.]

Roy D'Andrade [cognitive anthropologist] has introduced

the idea of cultural schemata or cultural models, patterns
that make up the meaning system of a cultural group.
Pursuing the idea of ontological incommensurability,
cultural schemata or models provide a continuity and
coherency in a given culture's systems of belief.
Su Shi 苏轼 (Su Dongpo 苏东坡)
Zhao Mengfu 赵孟頫
Wen Zhengming 文衡明
Wang Duo 王铎
Fu Shan
Zhao Zhiqian 赵之谦
Kamijo Shinzan
Kamijo Shinzan
Tanaka Setsuzan
 The stroke patterns are reduced to eight different strokes in
calligraphy. The character 永 (see picture) contains all different
stroke patterns.

"Eternity"

The "calligraphic" use of the brush became in China and Japan an art
form, and one that exerted great influence on painting. Foregrounding
the medium and the technique, it makes a strong statement that it is
nothing but ink and the artist's hand.
Nantembo
Honami Kōetsu (calligraphy)
and Tawaraya Sōtatsu (painting),
Poem Card (Shikishi)
Yamamoto Gempo
[from the Shambhala Zen Art Gallery]
Yamagida Seizan
Xu Wei
Japan,
ceramic bowl
Ogata Kenzan, ceramic bowl
Appropriation of Far Eastern visual production techniques:

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Tibetan calligraphy

[from www.shambhala.org/teachers/vctr/calligraphies-ges.html]
 Appropriation of Far Eastern visual production techniques:

Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Tibetan calligraphy

[from www.shambhala.org/teachers/vctr/calligraphies-ges.html]
Teacher with writing tablet,
Greek vase painting

Greek Lapidary Writing,

5th century BC
Byzantine era Greek handwriting
Greek Dedicatory Inscription in the center of a mosaic floor - decorative writing
Roman era mosaic - Greek writing integrated in the
composition as graphic decorative design
Greek and Runic script on gravestone - decorative writing
Decorative writing: Byzantine enamel medallion with Greek inscription ‘ The Mother of God’
Writing as
interlaced
ornament

The Book of Kells

Writing as
interlaced
ornament

The Book of Kells

Writing as
interlaced
ornament

Page from the Book of

Nunnaminster with a
zoomorphic initial 'd'.
Follower of Hugo van der Goes - writing as interlaced ornament
Medieval musical
notation system

11th century hymn to

John the Baptist
Medieval musical
notation system

Fragment of an Antiphonale
after 1250
 European
Gothic Style

Simone Martini
Saviour Blessing (tympanum)
and Madonna of Humility (lunette)
1341
Third sinopias
Palace of Popes, Avignon
 European
Gothic Style

Simone Martini
Saviour Blessing (tympanum)
and Madonna of Humility (lunette)
1341
Fresco
Notre-Dame-des-Doms, Avignon
 Renaissance

Manner Of Francesco del Cossa

Carlo Crivelli
Mannerism

Pontormo (Jacopo Carucci)

Mannerism

Pontormo (Jacopo Carucci)

 Baroque

Gerard ter Borch

Culture-embedded formal conventions [formal affordances and
constraints]:
Systems of proportions [Jay Kappraff]
Canons of proportions [iconometry]
Projective transformations

System-wide constraints:
Medial constraints
Physiological constraints:
Sight: myopia [blurred shapes]
astigmatism [image is not clearly focused either in the
horizontal or in the vertical plane and in some cases vertical lines
may appear to be leaning over]
accommodation problems/eyes are affected differently

Resulting in: a lack of depth perception/ dissociation of outline

and color patch
 Gino Severini
Root 3 based composition
[From Maurizio Nicosia,
Il Lato Operaio dell’Arte. Various editions of
Severini e la pittura murale.]
Severini’s essay
Since man was made in the image and
likeness of God, it was believed the
human proportions would reflect a divine
cosmic order. Drawings by Francesco di
Giorgio Martini illustrate this notion .

Francesco di Giorgio Martini,

Illustration from the
Trattato di architettura
c. 1470
Francesco di Giorgio
Martini,
Illustrations from the
Trattato di architettura
c. 1470
Albrecht Dürer,
proportions diagram

Albrecht Dürer,
proportions diagram
 An 1851 print

Analytic Diagrams of Proportion and the

Human Body: From L'idea della architettura
universale (book 1, part 1, page 40), 1615
Author: Vincenzo Scamozzi (Italian, 1552–1616)
The Byzantine canon expressed
in face units:
on the left, a figure of 9;
on the right, the Paleologan canon
of 9⅔ units

Hjalmar Torp
The Integrating System of Proportion
in Byzantine Art, Acta Ad
Archeaologiam
Et Artium Historiam Pertinentia,
Volume 4,
Giorgio Bretschneider 1984
Diagram by Hjalmar Torp
Manuel Panselinos, circa 1300
El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos) and the possible use of the Paleologan canon
El Greco
(Domenikos
Theotokopoulos)
and the possible use
of the Paleologan
canon [on the left
a figure by
Panselinos]
 ⅓ face

⅓ face

Rosso Fiorentino
and the Mannerist
canon of 9 faces
according to
Giovan Paolo
Lomazzo’s
Idea del Tempio ⅓ face
Della Pittura
Francesco Primaticcio
Royal Staircase (detail)
1530s
Stucco
Apartments of the
Duchesse d'Étampes,
Fontainebleau:
the Mannerist
canon of 10 faces
according to
Giovan Paolo
Lomazzo’s
Idea del Tempio
Della Pittura
17th century
Byzantine Icon,
mixed perspective
system
Barnaba da Modena: mixed perspective system
Niccoló
di Buonaccorso:
mixed perspective
system
Juan Gris (Jose Victoriano
Gonzalez): mixed
perspective system
Pietro Perugino
(Pietro di Cristoforo Vanucci):
central (linear) perspective
Francesco di Giorgio Martini:
central (linear) perspective
Roman wall painting: reverse perspective
André Derain: reverse perspective
 The intentional use of
inclined vertical lines

Milton Avery

Raoul Dufy
The intentional use
of inclined vertical
lines

Henri Catargi
Raoul Dufy and the intentional dissociation of outline and color patch
Raoul Dufy
Raoul Dufy
Raoul Dufy
Raoul Dufy
Raoul Dufy
Raoul Dufy