Gene Youngblood, Expanded Cinem

Pg. 109

Synaesthetic cinema by definition includes many aesthetic modes, many "ways of knowing," simultaneously omni-operative. The whole, however, is always greater than the sum of its parts. This is a result of the phenomenon called synergy. Synergy is the behavior of a system unpredicted by the behavior of any of its parts or subassemblies of its parts. This is possible because there is no a priori dependency between the conceptual and design information (i.e., the energy) of the individual parts. The existence of one is not requisite on the presence of another. They are harmonic opposites. In physics this is known as the Theory of Complementarity: the logical relation between two descriptions or sets of concepts which, though mutually exclusive, are nevertheless both necessary for a complete knowledge of the phenomenon.