Plasticity: noise, correlation and interaction.

Abstract

This paper introduces the interactive and performative installation artwork, Plasticity (Jane Grant, John Matthias, Nick Ryan and Kin) and its software engine the Neurogranular Sampler via a journey through the synchronized pendulum clocks of Christian Huygens, entrainment in dynamical systems, and correlations and noise within neuronal networks. I examine ways in which the public are 'playing with noise' in the artwork and suggest that the public engagement with the work is closely connected to the fact that the dynamics of the artificial neuronal network lie at the borders between synchrony and randomness.