Juan Luis Suarez Webcast : Read the Summary

Complexity in Cultural Systems

Knowledge Management and Complexity in the Transatlantic Baroque (2005-2009). Study of some of the knowledge management tools developed by the baroque system of culture to prove that far from being just a matter of private pleasure or market consumerism, a society creates new forms of artistic expression in order to harness the complexity in which it is living. Artistic expression is, then, not only the result of cultural identity, but also its pre-condition.

Complexity Theory and the Humanities (2006-2008). Exploration of the possibilities opened up by complex systems theory in the humanities. How research in the humanities can take advantage of the concepts found in complexity theory. Moreover, it will demonstrate that using formalization and calculus as part of various research projects can complement qualitative research in the arts and humanities.

The Hispanic Baroque: Complexity in the First Atlantic Culture (2007-2013). Multidisciplinary and international team, 35 researchers. We consider the cultural system under the light provided by its "baroque patterns". How the formation of discourses on identity (information that guarantees the cultural reproduction) locks with specific technologies of culture (ways of doing things in a reproducible manner) to provide dynamic stability to the whole system. This stability shows that the system is more efficient (permanence) when it produces certain interactions, and that this efficiency relies on its networks of artistic production. How these efficiencies are created in three spheres of culture (the constitution of the Baroque; its religious expressions; a culture of cities), and how and why they emerge, transformed as neobaroque patterns, today.