Abstract:
In this paper I take a wider, cultural theory based, view than is
usual in the literature of collaboration and its role in creativity. I
will explore the nature of the collaborative interaction as a
cybernetic process and draw on the systems theoretic
approaches of Burnham's systems aesthetics, Wiener's
eybemetics, Deleuze and Guattari's machinic phylum and
aturana and Varela's autopoiesis to build up a cultural
framework of the interactive behaviours between individuals
that constitute collaboration. I then canvass some actual
historical collaborations as well as my own personal experience
as both an artist working in Art & Technology and as a
technologist working for many other artists. I will also look at
some of the empirical work that has been done on collaboration
and explore how it and the historical and personal experiences
fit into the structure of interactive relations that the cultural
systems approach has brought out.
