  This paper summarizes a talk presented at the April NATO ASI on
Spatiotemporal Chaos in Complex Fluids, in Santa Fe, NM. The paper gives
reasons that make complex fluids good material systems for conducting
experiments on pattern formation and other nonequilibrium phenomena. Much of
the discussion focuses on the different phenomena observed in solidification
and how the increasing complexity of fluid systems decreases the velocity scale
for achieving "rapid" solidification. Five systems are compared to illustrate
this point: simple fluids, simple alloys, thermotropic liquid crystals,
lyotropic liquid crystals, and diblock copolymers. Finally, an example is given
of the kinds of transitions that may be observed in rapid solidification.
