Acknowledgements

List of Figures

Introduction

Sarah Horton and Victoria Mitchell

 

PART 1: PATTERN DYNAMICS

Introduction

1. The Anxious Spiral

Krzysztof Fijalkowski

Representing Kinematics and Dynamics by Pattern-Breaking in Nature, Art and Music

Brian Whalley and J. Harry Whalley

Drawing Dynamic Patterns: The Protein Maze

Gemma Anderson, Jonathan Phillips and John Dupré

The Metamorphogram: Pattern as Memory of Experience

Alun Kirby

Crumpling: An Exploration of Nature

Dewi Brunet and Gwenaël Prost, for the CRIMP Ccollective

Somewhere Between Weaving and Painting

Geoff Diego Litherland (with Angharad McLaren)

Knotting Across Species: Creating Order from Chaos

Eleanor Morgan

Simplifying Complexity: The Visual Language of Neuroscience

Gill Brown

 

PART 2: MORPH, FLUX, MUTATE

Introduction

Unrepeating-Repeat

Danica Maier

Pattern Evolution

Kate Farley

Geomorphology: Mapping the Land, Above and Below Water

Glyn Brewerton

Flux

Katy Hammond

Drawing Fire

David Griffin

Imago Images

Robert Hillier

The Chaos of Delight: Spatial and Temporal Interruptions

Lesley Halliwell

 

PART 3: DECOMPOSE--RECOMPOSE

Introduction

Foment

Catherine Yass

Meniscus

James Quinn

Digital Dadaism

Chris Brown

Forty-Four Sounds

Mark Graver

A Type of Chaos

Pauline Clancy

Fragile Order

Charlotte Hodes

Shatter

Zoë Hillyard

The Moments I am Looking For...

Judith Stewart

Expanded Visuality: Photography as a Patterning Mechanism for the Animated Form

Katarina Andjelkovic

 

PART 4: VIRUS

Introduction

Global Ghost Map

Anne Eggebert

Embodied and Coded: Drawings as Viral Systems

Daksha Patel

Viral Experiments

Louise Mackenzie

Contagious Pattern: The Spread of Appropriated Patterns by Contemporary Artists

Andrew Bracey

 

PART 5: SOCIAL IMAGINARY

Introduction

You'll Never Walk Alone: Aa Song of Community and Struggle 1945-2021

Sarah Lowndes

Dialectical Reversal in About Two Worlds

David Mabb

Distance and Disruption: The Organizsed Disorder of the Body in Illness

Catherine Baker

Unfolding Thinking: Nanotechnology Meets Fine Art Practice

Les Bicknell

Instead of the Feeling of Home

Townley and Bradby

Designing for the Real World: The Importance of Chaos

Anthony Hudson

Order?

Sarah Blair

You Guys Are So Stochastic

Lucy Ward and Karoline Wiesner

Clouds in the Machine

Sarah Horton

 

PART 6 NOTHINGS IN PARTICULAR

Introduction

The Shape of Dust

Doris Rohr

Mimesis: Nothings in Particular

William Prosser

Mottled Geometries: The Lure and Allure of the Pattern in the Carpet

Victoria Mitchell

Ghost Flower 3

Andrea Stokes

Dom Sylvester Houédard: Exhibiting Spiritual Architypestractures and Cosmic Dust

Nicola Simpson

 

Notes on Contributors

Bibliography

Index

This collection explores critical and visual practices through the lens of interactions and intersections between pattern and chaos.

The dynamic of the inter-relationship between pattern and chaos is such as to challenge disciplinary boundaries, critical frameworks and modes of understanding, perception and communication, often referencing the in-between territory of art and science through experimentation and visual scrutiny. A territory of 'pattern-chaos' or 'chaos-pattern' begins to unfold. 

Drawing upon fields such as visual culture, sociology, physics, neurobiology, linguistics or critical theory, for example, contributors have experimented with pattern and/or chaos-related forms, processes, materials, sounds and language or have reflected on the work of other artists, scientists and scholars.

Victoria Mitchell is Research Fellow at Norwich University of the Arts. She has published papers on various aspects of art, design and textile culture, pursuing an interdisciplinary theoretical approach which focuses on material, making, metaphor and meaning, and is co-editor of The Material Culture of Basketry (Bloomsbury, 2020), for which she wrote on pattern in the context of braiding and dancing.
Dr Sarah Horton is an artist-researcher whose practice includes sculpture, drawing and painting often resulting in site-specific artwork. Her doctorate 'Decoration: Disrupting the workplace and challenging the work of art' indicates an ongoing interest in the way pattern, decoration and ornament is used in fine art and in a wider sense to indicate value and identity.