In philosophy and science, emergence is a new way of understanding how interactions between complex processes can produce unexpected and innovative outcomes. This approach has been very useful in reconceptualising creativity and artistic practices as interactive behaviours involved with complex social and material entanglements. This allows us to move away from the figure of an individual 'genius' producing innovative ideas in an ivory tower.

'Emergence' suggests that artworks can arise, like hope, spontaneously and unforeseen from complex interwoven events in the world. Yet, somehow, these artworks are not reducible or precisely traceable to these events. How is this emergence to be understood?

This issue of Drain welcomes various thematic focuses such as:
- Artworks in any media and essays that engage directly or indirectly with unanticipated material, conceptual, social and psychological complexity arising from experiments in facture, procedure, events and participatory exchanges
- Outcomes that allow us to reflect on what is premeditated and what is spontaneous in art
- The political or ethical implications of emergent complexity in climate art or performance
- Multisensory complexities arising from making or experiencing artworks
- Psychoanalytical reverberations of nurturing and caring for emergent and complex stories, archives, or bio artworks, live art, or animals in art
- Curatorial emergent properties arising from any of the above

Essays: around 5,000 words.
Thought Experiments and Creative Writing, and Reviews also accepted and these can be much shorter.
Art Projects should engage directly with the call for entries. Drain would prefer art works created specifically for the web and virtual spaces, but welcomes any combination of still images, audio and video works that can be viewed online.

Deadline June 9, 2025

Please send contributions to Professor Gregory Minissale, University of Auckland (g.minissaleauckland.ac.nz)

For further details see:
https://drainmag.com/submission-guidelines/

Drain is a refereed on-line journal published biannually since 2005. The journal seeks to promote lively and well-informed debate around theory and praxis. We welcome creative responses by practitioners as well as written work. All contributions are peer-reviewed.

Drain is catalogued by the Library of Congress Web Archive.