Synchronized Chaos

Synchronized Chaos is an interdisciplinary art, poetry, literary, science, nature, cultural issues, and travel writing webzine.

We're online at www.synchchaos.com and open to the public!

The brainchild of an international group of contributors and volunteer editors/creative facilitators. Inspired by the mathematical concept of chaos theory, the study of how to effectively model and predict the behavior of systems which seem random, but are in fact highly influenced by initial conditions not yet fully understood.

We’re working with the idea of not-obviously-apparent logic that seems to emerge spontaneously from randomnity. A way to facilitate and promote something we hope will bring enjoyment and inspire thought, creativity, and empathy among readers and contributors.

What this means for our webzine is that we do not impose themes or styles upon our contributors. People are free to pursue their own artistic or personal visions and we dialogue with the contributors if they choose throughout the creative process to provide professional advice and feedback. With the publication of each new issue at the end of every month, we look over the submissions and come up with that month’s theme, which we describe in an editorial introductory letter.

We welcome contributions from new and established writers and visual/musical artists, and focus on quality, craftspersonship, and building relationships with and among our readership and the contributors. We aim to publish a wide variety of work in a variety of styles - photo essays, travelogues, digital artwork, formal and free verse poetry, short fiction and nonfiction, humor, well-written, unique personal experience and memoir, and effectively argued perspectives on pertinent issues.

Examples of contributions which would be great for Synchronized Chaos include well-written travel essays describing one’s experience in a foreign country adding a human face/story to what people may or may not see in the news, poetry re-examining or re-inventing old formal styles for modern issues and sensibilities, graphic art inspired by one’s technical, business, or otherwise non-traditionally artistic background, etc. Who we are, what we are about is constantly evolving and changing depending on submissions we receive. All we ask is for contributors to put thought, time, energy, and attention to craft and style into their work.

We especially welcome those contributors who may not yet have found a home for their work in the publishing world, who prefer the process of creating to the process of selling and promoting their work. We periodically tour art galleries and attend writers’ conferences, and leave the names and websites of our contributors with gallery owners, agents, and publishers whenever we find a potentially good match for someone’s work.

Synchronized Chaos welcomes our readers and encourages people to peruse our offerings. We strive for professionalism, to treat contributors and readers with respect, to offer enjoyment, pleasure, and beauty, and inspire and motivate thought and creativity and love.

Link to the Wikipedia entry on Chaos Theory, which contains an accurate but much less readable link to a definition for Synchronized Chaos.

Some of the inspiration for this project came from the Cubitron art installation at the Burning Man festival, takes place in northern Nevada every summer. The Cubitron is a cubic array of lights which randomly turn on and off based on a computer-generated randomized pattern. People stare at the grid for hours, periodically finding shapes, patterns, all kinds of images in the flashing lights. This brings up a computer science/mathematical discussion about the mathematical algorithms computers use to create randomnity, whether we can generate true randomnity. Also, the Cubitron is a testament to the creative potential of our minds to find and create patterns where supposedly none exist, to come up with novel ideas and solutions for disparate circumstances. That’s what we’re about at Synchronized Chaos - finding, promoting, and encouraging that kind of resourceful, imaginative thinking and helping people along the way as they decide how to harness creativity for positive good.

Also, von Williams’ The Lark Ascending, a piece of music I believe matches the intentions for this project.

Ray Bradbury on writing:

And what, you ask, does writing teach us?

First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation.

So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.