Category: Cybernetics

Systems and cybernetics related content.

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Happy 105th Birthday, Heinz!

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Mai and Heinz von Foerster in Pangaro’s 1970 Citroën DS21 in Pescadero, California, in the early 2000s (Photograph: Paul Pangaro)

Heinz von Foerster was born 105 years ago today. He was a major figure in the beginnings of cybernetics from the middle of the 20th century, and through to its flowering as second-order cybernetics. His ideas can be magical and one of his papers is still a favorite and voted the favorite of students in cybernetics + design courses year upon year.  His wife, Mai, also magical in her clarity as well as succinctness (a trait not shared by Heinz), once said to me, “Heinz has a mind like a crystal.” He demonstrates this so well in his “Ethical Imperative”, a cybernetic koan worthy of contemplation and action: Continue reading “Happy 105th Birthday, Heinz!”

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Lost History of Cybernetics

Norbert Wiener Media ProjectNorbert Wiener is the centerpoint of a new project to raise awareness about the history of cybernetics.

There are quite a few videos, including a 16-minute trailer about the proposed full-length documentary (full disclosure: I’m advisor to the project and appear on-screen). The site also offers a wonderful talk by Andy Pickering, proposing a new synthesis and New Macy Meetings. (Andy started using the term “antidisciplinarity” in reference to cybernetics, which brought cybernetics to the attention of Joi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab, as described in his piece in the Design + Science Journal.)

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Workshop on Modeling Conversation

To understand conversation is to understand how we learn about the world and how we communicate and collaborate with others. Products and services can benefit from a better understanding of conversation. Designers benefit from understanding conversation better, because they can design for better conversations.

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Conversation Model by Minsun Mini Kim, SVA IxD MFA Grad. Click for full view.

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Hippie Modernism Opens @Cranbrookart

Cranbrook Museum Entry

After its opening run at Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, “Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia” has moved to its second location, Cranbrook Art Museum. Curated by Andrew Blauvelt, this installation has focus and intensity.

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Frameworks for Interaction and Conversation

Banner for cybernetics course for designers

In the Fall 2016 Semester, CCS MFA Interaction Design is introducing a new elective, Frameworks for Interaction and Conversation.  It’s an in-depth course that explores cybernetic models of effective action that apply to design of software, services, products, entertainment, or organizations.  Continue reading “Frameworks for Interaction and Conversation”

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MIT Media Lab & Design

I believe that by bringing together design and science we can produce a rigorous but flexible approach that will allow us to explore, understand and contribute to science in an antidisciplinary way. — Joi Ito

Joi Ito, director of the MIT Media Lab, is starting a new journal with MIT Press and MIT Libraries called Design and Science. His introductory post takes the stand that science suffers from narrow vocabularies that create silos of thinking and restrict rich collaboration.

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Design is Conversation

The paper “Cybernetics and Design: Conversations for Action” [PDF] has recently gone to print in a peer-reviewed journal. It offers a rationale for the position that design is conversation; perhaps a surprising idea, but the logic in the paper is rigorous. Cybernetics offers a foundation for 21st-century design practice, here is the core of it:

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Designing the first Design Conversation

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Let’s imagine we are the catalyst for starting a new project, some design challenge relating to a new app.

First, we all recognize the value of the participants in a conversation. We all experience the improvement in thinking and outcomes when we work with someone else. This seems to say, “more participants means better outcomes”—hah, you know that’s not such a good idea. Too many voices, too much distraction. So, how would we decide whom to have in that first conversation?

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