Notes

Matter, according to Henri Bergson, is made up of "modifi cations, perturbations, changes of tension or of energy and nothing else."' The forms of life differ from this only in their greater complexity of organization and their capacity to over come torpor,2 for both are immersed within the same univer sal stream of duration and constitute not different entities, but rather different modalities, of a single elan vital. Yet even as Bergson wrote, life was no longer so surely, nor by so great a magnitude, the most complex nor the most autonomous entity in the universe. For during the same years, the math ematician Henri Poincare was discovering, to his own horror, that the mechanics of just three moving bodies bound by a single relation - gravity - and interacting in a single iso lated system produced behavior so complex that no differen tial equation, neither known nor possible, could ever describe it.3 Poincare's discovery showed that evolving systems with even very few parameters may quickly be deprived of their deterministic veneers and begin to behave in a seemingly independent (random) fashion. What this meant was that it was no longer possible to show that one state of nature fol lowed another by necessity rather than by utter caprice. Time, in other words, reappeared in the world as something real, as a destabilizing but creative milieu; it was seen to suffuse everything, to bear each thing along, generating it and degen erating it in the process. Soon there was no escaping the fact that transformation and novelty were the irreducible quali ties that any theory of form would need to confront.4 It was no wonder that futurism - the social movement most deeply sensitized to cataclysmic perturbations - was ob sessed with complexes: delirious, infernal, and promiscuous. For the very ethics and physics of the futurist program, con ceived as an open, far-from-equilibrium system, responsive to and willing to amplify every destabilizing fluctuation in the environment, necessitated its multiple impregnation both in and by the social, material, and affective systems that sur rounded it. The futurist universe - the first aesthetic system to break almost entirely with the classical one - could prop erly be understood only in the language of waves, fields, and fronts. The type of movements it was obsessed by were those that carved shapes in time not space; it studied the stabilities achieved through homeostatic knots of force in perpetual strife, it embraced the beauty and evanescence of becoming.
Yet futurism's profoundest gift to our century was its seemingly hubristic attempt to link the biosphere and the mechanosphere within a single dynamical system. Umberto Boccioni's three-painting series Stati d'animo be longs to this project and as such comprises the first purely modal paintings in the history of art since the late medieval period.5 The spatiotemporal locus of the train station scene is here splintered and kaleidoscoped into so much elementary matter, but only the better to be redeployed intensively, like sounds in a musical continuum or topological flows on a two dimensional plane - scattered, accelerated, accreted, col lided into three entirely distinct surfaces, or developmental fields. One scene, but three modalities of inhabiting matter. As prime exemplars of modal complexity, it was natural that railroad stations should play a privileged role in futurist prac tice; they were the first literal, complex systems of material flows manifested at a phenomenal scale whose associated forms could be apprehended as such, understood and actively engaged. The dynamical and morphological phenomena associated with this type of multiple convergence of flows have already been developed in relation to this work.6 But the middle panel in the Stati d'animo series, Quelli che partono, seems to belong to an opposite but related problem, and one that deserves serious attention. Quelli che partono no longer describes a convergence of flows but rather the event of their breaking up, or bifurcation. What does it mean, then, when something stable and con tinuous ceases to be so? What does it mean when the unfold ing of a dynamical process suddenly shifts into a new mode, when an ensemble of units and forces breaks up to form two or more independent, more highly organized systems? The painting Quelli che partono wedges its own diagonal cascades and chevron forms between its two neighbor panels: on one side, the undulating, orbicular, systolic-diastolic processes of organicism and embrace depicted in Gli addii, and, on the other, the inertial, gravity-subjugated, vertical striations of Quelli che restano. The fullness and roundness of the first work is not simply one field of shapes among three, but rather the very plenitude from which the other two are derived. Between the first panel and the other two, there has taken place a catastrophe
But before we can understand what this means it will be neces sary to understand precisely what a form is, how it arrives, and why the "form problem" has been so difficult to handle. Most classical theories of form are limited by a major shortcoming: they are unable to account for the emergence, or genesis, of forms without recourse to metaphysical models. One of these classical theories - perhaps the paradigmatic one - is the so-called hylomorphic model. According to this model an in dependently constituted and fixed form is understood to be combined or impressed with a certain quantity of hyle, or matter, itself conceived as a fundamentally inert, homoge neous substance. Once brought together, these two abstract elements are said to form a thing. Yet, as we will see, a form can no more be fixed and given in advance (in what space would this work of forming be done?) than can "matter" seri ously be considered to be either static or homogeneous.7 Much of this perennial misunderstanding found itself recapitulated throughout our modern scientific tradition because it lent itself well to reductionism and controlled quantitative model ing. Reductionism is the method by which one reduces com plex phenomena to simpler isolated systems that can be fully controlled and understood. Quantitative methods, on the other hand, are related to reductionism, but they are more fundamental, because they dictate how far reductionism must go. According to them, reductionism must reduce phenomena to the ideal scale at which no more qualities exist within a system, until what is left are only quantities, or quantitative relations. This is, for example, the basis of the Cartesian grid system that underlies most modern models of form.8 The classical grid system does not, strictly speaking, limit one to static models of form, but it does limit one to linear models of movement or change. A linear model is one in which the state of a system at a given moment can be expressed in the very same terms (number and relation of parameters) as any of its earlier or later states. The differential calculus of Newton is precisely such a model describing flows on the plane (differen tial equations are mechanisms that generate sets of continuous numerical values that, when fed into Euclidean space, appear as linear movement). But if the standard calculus can successfully model the evolution of successive states of a system, it can do so only insofar as it plots the movements of a body within that system, and never the changes or transformations that the system

itself undergoes. Indeed, not only the system but also the body that moves through it is condemned to perpetual self-identity: for it, too, can change only in degree (quantity) and never in kind (quality).9 Further, these types of smooth continuous changes are not true changes at all, at least not in the deep qualitative sense that we would need to explain the genesis or appearance of a form. Modern topological theory, largely introduced by Poincare, offered a decisive breakthrough with respect to the limitations of these systems. On the one hand, it entailed the revival of geometrical methods to study dynamics, permitting one visu ally to model relationships whose complexity surpassed the limits of algebraic expression; on the other, it permitted one to study not only the translational changes within the system but the qualitative transformations that the system itself under goes. The classical calculus of Newton and Leibniz was devel oped along the lines of a ballistic model, the plotting of trajectories of real bodies against an inert, featureless, and immobile space whose coordinates could be exhaustively de scribed in purely numerical terms (x, y). Topology instead describes transformational events (deformations) that intro duce real discontinuities into the evolution of the system itself. In topological manifolds the characteristics of a given mapping are not determined by the quantitative substrate space (the grid) below it, but rather by the specific "singular ities" of the flow space of which it itself is part. These singu larities represent critical values or qualitative features that arise at different points within the system depending on what the system is actually doing at a given moment or place. It is just this variability and contingency that is of great importance. What exactly are these singularities? In a general sense, singularities designate points in any continuous process (if one accepts the dictum that time is real, then every point in the universe can be said to be continually mapped onto itself) where a merely quantitative or linear development suddenly results in the appearance of a "quality" (that is, a diffeomor phism eventually arises and a point suddenly fails to map onto itself).°1 A singularity in a complex flow of materials is what makes a rainbow appear in a mist, magnetism arise in a slab of iron, or either ice crystals or convection currents emerge in a pan of water. Some of these singularities bear designations - "zero degrees Celsius," for example, denotes the singularity at
which water turns to ice or ice back to water - yet most do not. Thus matter is not in any sense homogeneous, but con tains an infinity of singularities that may be understood as properties that emerge under certain, but very specific, condi tions." What is crucial about all of this is the following: both "ice" and "water," as well as "magnetism" and "diffusion," are forms, and they are all born at and owe their existence to singularities. Indeed, there is no form anywhere that is not associated with at least one (though most likely more than one) singularity. In topology singularities of flows on the plane are more limited and specific but can give rise to enormously complex and variegated behavior. These have already been classified in various ways, most often as attractors and separatrices whose varieties and combinations give rise to specific qualities and behaviors: sinks, sources (repellors), saddles, and limit cycles. Each of these describes a particular way of influencing the movement of a point in a given region of the system or space.'2 Now clearly, a plane is a very simple, even rudimentary space. A flow in the plane can essentially be described by two param eters, or two degrees of variability or "freedom." Most systems in the real world, that is, most forms or morphogenetic fields, are clearly more complex than this. Yet it is enough to under stand how forms emerge and evolve in simple "2-space" to gain an appreciation of how more complex forms evolve in more complex spaces. What is central here is the dynamical theory of morphogenesis, which characterizes all form as the irruption of a discontinuity, not on the system but in it or of it. For a form to emerge, the entire space (system) must be trans formed along with it. This type of local but generalized transformation is called a catastrophe. A catastrophe describes the way in which a sys tem - sometimes as a result of even the most infinitesimal perturbation - will mutate or jump to an entirely different level of activity or organization. Now it is a basic tenet of the laws of thermodynamics that in order for something to hap pen within a system, there must first be a general distribution of differences within that system. In dynamics these are called "potentials" or gradients and their essential role is to link the points in a system and draw flows from one place to another. A potential is a simple concept:13 anything sitting on one's
desk or bookshelf bears a potential (to fall to the floor) within a system (vector field) determined by gravity. The floor, on the other hand, is an attractor because it represents one of several "minima" of the potential in the system. Any state of the system at which things are momentarily stable (book on the shelf or on the floor) represents a form. States and forms, then, are exactly the same thing. If the flow of the book on the shelf has been apparently arrested, it is because it has been captured by a point attractor at one place in the system. The book cannot move until this attractor vanishes with its corresponding basin and another appears to absorb the newly released flows. The destruction of the attractor (and the creation of a new one) is a catastrophe. Now before developing this theory further it will be necessary to make a few observations. It appears, in a certain sense, that the concept of form has been defined as a state of a system at a particular point in time. In fact, forms represent nothing absolute, but rather structurally stable moments within a system's evolution; yet their emergence (their gen esis) derives from the crossing of a qualitative threshold that is, paradoxically, a moment of structural instability. This is possible because forms are not simply systems understood in the classical sense, but belong to a special type known as "dissipative systems." A dissipative system or structure is an open, dynamical system. By "open" one means that it is an evolving system, like a pot of coffee or the local weather, that has energy (information) flowing out of it, and likely into it as well. From where does this energy come and to where does it go? It comes from other systems, both those contiguous to it and those operating within it or upon it: that is, at entirely different scales of action. We will see what this means in a moment. For now, one need only note that it is the continual feeding and siphoning of energy or information to and from a system that keeps the system dynamic - simultaneously in continual transformation locally and in dynamic equilibrium globally. The flow of energy through a system ensures the following: 1. That information from outside the system will pass to the inside. The effects of this simple operation are actually very complex: the outside of the system becomes slightly depleted in the process and transformed in its capacities and potentia
energies; the operation affects the inside by perturbing its flows ever so much away from their equilibria or attractors, "priming" the system for potentially creative disturbances (morphogenesis). It also carries energy or information from inside the system to outside, producing these same effects now in reverse. 2. That information from certain levels in the system is trans ported to other levels, with results that may be very dra matic.14 What one means by dramatic is simply this: certain parts, or strata, of the system may already have absorbed as much energy as they can hold in their current stabilized con figuration. Any change at all, no matter how tiny, will precipi tate a catastrophe (a morphogenesis), forcing the system to find a new equilibrium in the newly configured field. The effect of these liberated and captured flows on the neighbor ing systems creates an algebraic problem too complex (be cause full of nonlinearities) to predict. Qualitative modeling has a chance, however, because at the very least it offers ana lytic precision where before there were only "black boxes" of mysterious, irreducible forces. It is the property of every dissipative system perpetually to seek a rest state or equilibrium where it will remain until another threshold in the system's dynamic is crossed. Again, figures of structural stabilization gather around singularities that themselves are defined dynamically, for these, too, can be maintained only at a certain energy cost. Every real system is made up of other systems, and they are all continually leaking information to one another in such a way as to link them across a single "continuum of influence."'5 All the forms of the universe are produced as by-products or maps of particular evolutionary segments of one or another dynamical system. Indeed, forms are not fixed things, but continuous metastable events. Catastrophe theory is one method for describing the evolu tion of forms in nature. It is essentially a topological theory that describes the behavior of forces in space over time, but its techniques have been extended to many real world phe nomena, such as the forming of tools, the capsizing of ships, embryology, and psychology (anorexia nervosa, fight-flight theory). This is possible because the behavior of real forces in real space (forces applied to a beam, weight poorly distributed
in a ship's hull) follows exactly the same rules as forces mod eled in complex (topological, parameter, or "phase") space.16 Catastrophe theory recognizes that every event (or form) en folds within it a multiplicity of forces and is the result of not one, but many different causes. Let us look at how this is done. Catastrophe theory is a fundamentally Heraclitean "science" in that it recognizes that all form is the result of strife and conflict. It shows that the combination of any two or more conflicting forces may result in entirely irregular and discon tinuous behavior if allowed to interact dynamically. This means that if one plots these forces on a plane as intersecting at a point, each force will be affected unequally as the point is moved in any direction. The effects of this initial difference produced in one of the forces may simply be compensated for, or absorbed by, a proportionate gain in the opposite force; but it may also happen that a small drop in the first force will trig ger a gain in a third force that will diminish the second force to an even greater degree than the diminishment undergone by the first force. This will then set up a feedback cycle between the first and third forces that may in a short time overwhelm the second entirely. In this case, the second force could actu ally be said to have been fated for demolition by its own initial strength. Had it been weak at the outset a completely different scenario may have ensued, one that might have allowed it to dominate in the end. The point here is that conditions on the dynamical plane are very erratic, and mere position means far less than the pathway by which one arrives there.17 Catastrophe theory specializes in accounting for these situations. It is inter ested in the effects of forces applied on a dynamical system from outside, forces that it then becomes the task of the sys tem to neutralize, absorb, or resolve. As the resultant point begins to make its way across the plane (phase space), it will, according to the theory, encounter (nonlinear) regions where its behavior goes haywire, where gradual, continuous inputs produce sudden, discontinuous results. Here the system flips - a catastrophe - and gives rise to a whole new state or form. It is the way in which catastrophe theory resolves or embraces conflict and difference that constitutes its radical opposition to hylomorphic theory. For catastrophe theory grants a certain reality to all virtual forces in a field, even those that have not been actualized, but remain enfolded until a singularity can draw them out. A form arises from something called a
deploiement universel ("universal unfolding"), a dynamical pathway in which every virtuality is activated, even though only some get chosen.19 Forms are always new and unpredict able unfoldings shaped by their adventures in time.20 And, as we will see, only a fold offers the proper conditions to sustain another unfolding. The idea that every object in the world can be associated with one or another dynamical system is not new; indeed, D'Arcy Thompson had already argued this back in 1917.21 Yet a dy namical system is much more than a substrate space, it is in fact an "evental" complex. Now a catastrophe, as I have al ready suggested, can occur only in the region of a singularity. The regions on the plane (of parameter space) that give rise to catastrophes usually occupy but a small portion of the available space and they always have a regular and beautiful form. This form is what is known as the "catastrophe set" (the seven elementary catastrophes classified by Rene Thom). This form - the cusp, or catastrophe set - is a form indeed, yet it is of a slightly different nature than the forms discussed till now. Though the cusp fully belongs to the dynamical system, it is only a two-dimensional projection of the higher dimensional "event-form" unfolding as a catastrophe on the event surface above it. Here the catastrophe is actually a three-dimensional irruption on a two-dimensional surface (note that the action of folding is already a passage toward a higher dimension). What is interesting is that the catastro phe set always has the same form (geometrically) even though the catastrophe event-form (the specific unfolding) is unpredictable and open-ended. The catastrophe set is, in fact, an example of a virtual form.22 Virtual forms are real "folds" (not symbolic, not ideal) in real n-dimensional space that can give rise to indeterminate mor phogenetic events in the n+ 1 space (the space one dimen sion higher up).23 A genuine freedom and indeterminacy reigns in the n+ 1 event space (the catastrophe surface) where forms are actualized or unfolded, since the precise number, quality, and combination of real forces converging on the fold is quasi-random and unknowable in advance. Indeed, it is more truly the task of historians and theoreti cians to reconstitute these after the fact than for science to predict them before they happen. Among the examples that Thom gives of geometrical entities that function like virtual or enfolded forms are his concepts of "charts" or "genetic forms."
These figures, such as the capture morphology illustrated here, are said to exist virtually somewhere in all biological beings, waiting to be unfolded in a variety of situations. These are, however, not at all fixed engrams, "but are defined dynamically, by a kind of never-ending embryology." The charts are triggered by so-called perception catastrophes the sudden appearance, for example, of an object of prey in the visual or olfactory field of the predator (note that this event is already the projection of a fold embedded in another, contiguous space) - that is, by the sudden eruption of par ticular geometric configurations in the outside world that correspond to, and trigger, a virtual matrix within the animal. But the (predator-prey) loop need not be conceived as a correspondence phenomenon;25 instead, it can be seen as a chance encounter of two flows on the same fold that causes their mutual, spontaneous geometricization and common unfolding into a single form: the "capture." The capture chreod - the moving template through which virtual forms are actualized - is once again the n-l "space" that guides, but does not entirely determine, morphological events play ing themselves out on another closely linked but higher dimensional surface.
Among the most powerful geometrical concepts invented to depict the relation between phenomenal forms (phenotypes) and the morphogenetic fields in which they arise is Conrad Waddington's concept of the "epigenetic landscape." The epigenetic landscape is an undulating topographical surface in phase space (and therefore a descriptive model, not an explanatory device) whose multiplicity of valleys corresponds to the possible trajectories (shapes) of any body evolving (appearing) on it. [figure 18] Assuming that there exists at all levels of nature a principle corresponding to the path of most economic action or least resistance (which is only a misguidedly negative expression of the deeper principle that every action is nonetheless accom panied by its own sufficient conditions), the rivulets and modulations of the epigenetic landscape correspond to built in tendencies, or default scenarios, that would condition the evolution of forms in the hypothetical absence of supplemen tary forces acting over time. But one should not be fooled into taking the "form" of the epigenetic landscape as itself "essential," fixed, or predetermined. For it, too, is only a template, or virtual form, assembled in another dimension, as a multiplicity generated by an extremely complex field of forces. [figure 19] Once time is introduced into this system, a form can gradu ally unfold on this surface as a historically specific flow of matter that actualizes (resolves, incarnates) the forces con verging on the plane. These are the phenomenal forms that we conventionally associate with our lived world. What we have generally failed to understand about them is that they exist, enfolded in a virtual space, but are actualized (un folded) only in time as a suite of morphological events and differentiations ever-carving themselves into the epigenetic landscape. We would not be unjustified in saying, then, that in Boccioni's Stati d'animo series, what we find depicted are three evental complexes, or three morphogenetic fields, each arising within the same complex system of real matter and forces. Their startling morphological variety can be accounted for by the fact that each is triggered by a different singularity that, in turn, binds it to a specific attractor - farewells: turbulence, aggregation; parting: bifurcation, declension;
staying: inertia, laminarity. The inchoate qualities of the form "fragments" that traditionally we are conditioned to see here are, in fact, nothing else than the manifest work of time plying the folds of matter to release the virtual forms within it. Each panel defines a unique field of unfolding, a section through a distinct epigenetic landscape in which forms exist only in evolution or equilibrium, that is, as event-generated diagrams, incarnating the multiple conflictual play of forces across all the dimensions of space and their modalities of convergence at a single specific instant in time.