Chaos/Art

Abstract

Historically chaos has been considered the inferior and negligible opposite of order. Either an incoherent melange of disparate elements and forces that preceded the existence of the universe, or an undesired state of confusion and disarray. A lot of contemporary thought however, from mathematics to physics and philosophy, has negated this traditional conception by recognizing the essential role chaos plays in all existence. Rather than just a diminished state of matter or circumstance, chaos is now seen as a vital and necessarily productive omnipresence that results in change, innovation - the new, and many, intrinsically mutual, and coexisting orders as opposed to a single, regulatory and universal order.

By tracing the conception of chaos through Western history I seek to reveal some of the significant misconceptions that have lead to its diminished status. I then posit what I determine as the philosophical qualification of chaos by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guittari. From this qualification I derive a set of ubiquitous principles, and apply them to the practice of six artists; Joseph W Turner, Gerhard Richter, Cecily Brown, Cornelia Parker and Katy Moran, and myself. I strive to show how an art that directly expresses the qualities of chaos attributable to the philosophic project of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari can restore chaos to the central position it occupies. Meanwhile revealing the shortcomings of any institutional claim that the highest forms of truth and knowledge are universal, eternal, and unchanging.