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ARNAUD MARTIN 89
RESPONSECALL AND
MAY 9, 2015THE EM
ERALD TABLET
by aRnaud maRtIn
PatternImprovisations
B utterflies and moths offer a breathtaking example of evolution
gone out of control, with 200,000 extant speciesno less than 12% of
all known animal species on Earth. Importantly, this diversity has
deployed at rather explosive levels on the wing surface, giving us
the opportunity to contemplate the creativity of nature on a simple
canvas. So lets open some of these wooden drawers from the natural
history museum and look at some specimens. Here is one with a shiny
blue. This one mimics a dead leaf, this other one a hornetthis one
has eyespots
that makes it look like a small owl. If we magnified the wing a
hundred times, the pointillist rendering of individually colored
scales would compare to a Monet observed at a close distance; from
afar, abstract landscapes, complex blends of colors, shapes vibrant
with contrast and fine details. But once past the visual
fascination, would you appreciate these natural objects for their
creative features? Art without an artist, without any intent to
reflect or express the complexity of human experience. The raw
beauty of life forms, elaborated over deep time by a process
coupling random variation and
While the study of biodiversity reveals no human-like
intentionality behind its rambunctious forms, the mechanisms that
generate them possess intrinsically creative properties.
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DECEMBER 2014 - APRIL 2015ARNAUD MARTIN90
natural selection, is somewhat difficult to comprehend to the
human mind, but going beyond the surface of natural phenomena
always reveals new sources of awe.
We must first detach ourselves from an anthropocentric
interpretation of nature to better understand it. As i wonder about
the world that surrounds us, it is easy for me to understand why a
Picasso, the pen i am holding in my hand, or the text in front of
your eyes have come to existence. We humans of the Homo faber kind
are special for our remarkable ability to produce both tools and
language. The former are oriented towards the realization of a
task, the latter is a vehicle of meaning. We are purpose-making
animals and finality guides what we doour nervous system is by
definition wired for projection into the future, anticipating,
imagining, and constantly articulating motivation and action. Even
a dada artist who would aim at creating a purposeless piece would
fail to do so, just by formulating the idea. Absence of
intentionality captures a key feature of natural objects in
contrast to their manufactured counterparts (notice however that
technology is not a specificity of man: the hexagonal honey combs
built by bees maximize volume and robustness while minimizing wax
use with a mathematical perfection). This does not mean that
objects of nature are devoid of a purpose. As minimal as its
stimuli and action range may be,
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ARNAUD MARTIN 91
the tick awaits all day at the tip of the grass with the
perspective to catch a ride on a warm-blooded host. And of course,
some cognitively advanced animals display signs of intentionality
(the curious reader may find online the story of Santino, a
chimpanzee from the Munich Zoo with unusual long-term planning
abilities). But some complex behaviors set aside, and in contrast
with the manufacturer or the artist, the purpose of a given natural
feature generally does not explain how it came to exist in the
first place. There is a subtlety here: giraffes did not grow long
necks with the project of reaching high branches. Rather, giraffe
ancestors that possessed a longer neck opportunistically got access
to pristine food sources. Evolutionary change, or
innovation, is not directed towards a pre-determined goal.
Rather, variation that is available at a given time is
extemporaneously selected; it is a slow process made of small
steps, always determined by immediate needs.
Now that this distinction is clarified, we can venture more
comfortably into a terrain of analogies comparing nature and art.
Or, at least, we can start to ask to what extent the generation of
biodiversity follows parallels with human creative processes. This
is essentially the question asked by a blooming branch of modern
biology called Evo-Devo, and there may be no better phenomenon than
color patterns to explore this foreign shore.
One of the key findings of Evo-Devo is that all animals are made
of a conserved set of genes that existed at a rudimentary state 600
millions of years ago, well before the origin of the first
vertebrates. The genes involved in butterfly wing patterning are
much more than butterfly wing genes, they are shape genes,
repeatedly recruited to sketch territories and boundaries not only
in the wings but also in the embryo and organs of the same
butterfly. And these shape genes
have been around for so long that we have them as well for
drawing our complex anatomy. In my own research, i repeatedly
stumbled upon the fact that genes that act as major molecular paint
brushes for color patterning are being studied by other scientists
as organizing the structure of our brains, eyes, or bones. They
even are present in jellyfish and earthworms, where they probably
fulfill other functions related to morphological specification. We
are all so different, and yet so similar, and there is grandeur in
this view of life.
So the butterfly wing patterns have not evolved from scratch,
and when one looks at novelty under a microscope, things are never
as novel as previously thought. Rather, they are the product of the
re-use of pre-existing ingredients and mechanisms, namely a
universal genetic toolkit specialized in the evolution of form. New
combinations form over time, creating an endless stream of novel
outputs.
photo: Kristina Dutton
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DECEMBER 2014 - APRIL 2015ARNAUD MARTIN92
The technological metaphor works well here: there really is a
palette of genes dedicated to drawing round shapes, to erase lines,
to make pigments, or to apply light effects. And this is the
re-assortment of these tools on the spatial canvas of the insect
wing that is the core process behind pattern diversity: a constant,
free-form tinkering of pre-existing elements. The mechanisms are
elegant in the way they explain some complicated visible by some
simple invisible, and are directly related to the understanding of
our own origins, both from the womb of our mothers (ontogeny) and
from the branches of our evolutionary tree (phylogeny).
It is unclear whether comparing natural patterns to art is a
meaningful metaphor, but if one wants to make such a comparison,
then evolution would be best seen as an improvisation artist. Like
the butterfly wing, the improviser does not know exactly what the
final result will be (im-provisio, unforeseen). It works with
whatever is at its disposal, in interaction with contingency and
constraints, and without looking for perfection. In a world of
constant change, the ways of nature should inspire us and can only
foster our own creativity.
Arnaud Martin (George Washington University) is a butterfly
geneticist interested in how DNA codes for shapes and how
biodiversity has emerged from the tinkering of genetic information.
@evolvwing
Chris Brown, composer, pianist, and electronic musician, creates
music for acoustic instruments with interactive electronics, for
computer networks, and for improvising ensembles. Collaboration and
improvisation are consistent themes in his work, along with the
invention and performance of new electronic instruments and
software. He is a founding member of The HUB, the pioneering
network music ensemble, and has composed many interactive works for
the percussionist William Winant (Iconicities, New World Records.)
His trio with Winant and saxophonist Frank Gratkowski were featured
on the 2009 Donaueschingen Musiktage. His most recent music
explores microtonal tunings, including 6Primes, for piano in
13-limit just intonation, Arcade for string quartet, and Ragamala
Chiaroscuro, for wind trio. Recordings are available on New World,
Tzadik, Pogus, Intakt, Rastascan, Ecstatic Peace, Red Toucan, SIRR,
Leo, and Artifact labels. He is currently a Professor of Music at
Mills College and Co-Director of the Center for Contemporary Music
(CCM).
cbmuse.com
EKPHRASIS
photos: Kristina Dutton