“Shocking the model” John McCrystal

Five Minutes Alone Paul Cleave Penguin, $38.00, ISBN 9780143572312 The Legend of Winstone Blackhat Tanya Moir Vintage, $38.00, ISBN 9781775537755 MiSTORY Philip Temple Font Publishing, $35.00, ISBN 978047328204 You could argue that the artistic imagination is like one of those massively complex algorithms that scientists and economists use to search for patterns and rules in quotidian chaos. By constructing a simulacrum of reality and then tweaking the parameters – computer modellers call this “shocking the model” – they develop an understanding of the elasticity and sensitivity of the status quo to change. And by running a model forwards, they sometimes seek to construct a vision of the future, a probabilistic telling of our fortune.

See more ›