In the exhibition titled Strange Attractors: Exchanges between Reason and Potential, Brian Harper, Assistant Professor of Fine Art at IU Southeast, has curated a collection of artwork that aims to extrapolate from what chaos theory has shown about the ‘Butterfly Effect’ and examine how our perceptions of the world may be altered by seemingly small events in our experiences of being alive. The theory of the ‘Butterfly Effect’ shows that even small variations in the initial condition of a dynamic system can have large consequences as that system evolves. Therefore, a flap of a butterfly’s wings in Chile could initiate a chain of events that causes a tornado in Texas. Much like the flap of a butterfly’s wings, a change in one person’s experience of being alive can therefore cause dramatic changes in the belief system of many. This exhibition aims to bring together artists who not only help to enable these changes in our individual perception of what it means to be human, but also those who create artwork that responds to and derives meaning from the changes happening in our contemporary world. In so doing, these artists help to extract personal meaning from our collective discovery.
