[alife] 2nd Call for abstracts: Workshop on Steering living and life-like systems at ALife XV, Cancún, Mexico, July 2016

[Rob Mills]

2nd call for abstracts: *Steering Living and Life-like Complex Systems*, to
be held at ALife XV in Cancún, Mexico Monday, 4 July  – Friday, 8 July 2016


**Abstract submission deadline: 9 May 2016**

**Invited speaker (TBC): Aaron Bugaj, Biosphere 2 - a case study**

===== TOPIC AND SCOPE =====
New technologies that exploit or emulate the unique properties of living
systems have great potential, but the non-linearity and complexity
exhibited by these systems render conventional “brute force” approaches to
control insufficient.  An emerging collection of approaches use "steering",
whereby we continually interact with systems and attempt to move them
between attractors.  This may be achieved, for instance, via manipulating
the abiotic environment (e.g. in the evolution of biofilms) or by artifacts
injecting social information (e.g. in bio-hybrid societies), in each case,
understanding system dynamics and using effective leverage points can thus
reduce the effort needed to retain a given desirable state.
Conceptually-related approaches are also being proposed in life-like
complex adaptive systems such as regional economies, industrial networks
and smart cities.  Numerous crucial living and life-like systems consist
of, or are profoundly influenced by, interconnected ecological, economic
and social dynamics; and thus developing steering approaches may require
the integration of participatory or political processes with tools from
artificial life and complexity science.


===== EVENT DETAILS =====
The workshop will be a broad-ranging and discursive event, with a number of
short, provocative talks covering key themes and questions in steering
complex systems from different perspectives.  To maximise output and
progress on ideas, it will comprise two main sessions, as well as a
workshop dinner and informal scheduled coffee time discussion meetups.  The
main sessions aim to: (1) frame the dialogue and identify issues,
opportunities and challenges in steering complex living and life-like
systems and (2) pull together and develop ideas from the preceding
interactions for a position paper in an interdisciplinary journal.

We have an invited speaker, Aaron Bugaj (TBC), who will talk about lessons
learned from Biosphere 2, an ambitious systems ecology experiment.

Invited speaker: Aaron Bugaj (TBC) -- Biosphere 2, a case study.
Lessons learned from an ambitious systems ecology experiment and how they
can be applied to modern day complex systems management and intervention.


===== SUBMISSIONS =====
We invite contributions in the form of one-page abstracts for oral
presentation, indicating ideas, challenges, or solutions in steering
complex living or life-like systems (please see the full list of topics
below).  Abstracts will be selected on the alignment with topic and
capacity to provoke debate.
In addition, during the workshop we will have opportunity for
demonstrations of prototype methods or tools that could aid the steering of
complex systems.

Send your abstract to the organisers by 9 May 2016!

More information: https://steeringcomplexsystems.wordpress.com/workshop-2016

Main conference website: http://xva.life/

kind regards,
Alexandra Penn (University of Surrey) a.penn at surrey.ac.uk
Rob Mills (University of Lisbon) rob.mills at fc.ul.pt
Emma Hart (Edinburgh Napier University) E.Hart at napier.ac.uk


===== KEY THEMES =====
Key topics of interest include:
* Conceptual, philosophical and technical issues in steering living systems
-- what are the key challenges, opportunities and methodologies?
* Examples of steering living or life-like systems: Case studies,
experiments and models
* Ethical and societal issues in manipulating natural or life-like systems
* Technical, philosophical and social implications of a “life-like” systems
approach to societal issues – metaphor or more?
* Strategies for predicting, mitigating or adapting to unintended
consequences of intervention in complex systems
* Methods for identifying key points of intervention or “system levers”
* Manipulating selective contexts and fitness landscapes for system steering
* Designing interventions in complex systems
* Adaptive management, whole-systems and complexity design approaches
* Impact of intervention in models of self-organisation and collective
behaviour
* Synthetic ecology, living technology and bio-hybrid societies and systems
* Societal involvement in system steering: participatory approaches,
narratives for understanding complexity, political processes, policy design
and evaluation in the context of complex adaptive systems.
* Experiential steering of complex systems: intuition, craft and
interaction vs modelling and scientific understanding. Constructing
experiential environments for understanding complexity
* "natural complex system steerers" – niche constructors, environmental
engineers etc
* Other perspectives: approaches to steering complex adaptive systems from
other domains, what can we learn?