Research Interests
My academic research is grounded primarily in the study of visual art practice approached through a combination of psychological enquiry and information-based analysis. More recently, this approach is moving towards a focus on the sonic arts. In general, I am interested in the following subjects and in the links between them:
- Aesthetics: visual and auditory complexity in art and nature; how and why things (natural and artificial) are perceived to be interesting and beautiful; how perceived complexity relates to aesthetic judgements.
- Complexity and Complex Systems Theory: models of complexity (especially cellular automata*); algorithmic information theory; data compression as a measure of aesthetic complexity.
- Music: traditional instrumentation (guitar, bass, piano, organ, bells); digital synthesis; generative composition and systems/process music; musical analysis and sonic representation.
- Nature: evolutionary processes; natural patterns; acoustic ecology.
- Perception: visual, auditory and temporal.
- Visual Art, Crafts and Design: drawing; painting; photography; graphic design; needlepoint.
* The pattern on the background of this site is based on a simple one-dimensional block cellular automaton.
