Tag: cybernetics

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Colloquy of Mobiles at ZKM — Progress Update #15

Colloquy of Mobiles at ZKM

Above and below: Replica of Gordon Pask’s 1968 “Colloquy of Mobiles” by TJ McLeish and Paul Pangaro now installed at ZKM. All photos courtesy of Morgane Stricot, ZKM.

Today we celebrate the  anniversary of the unveiling of our replica of Gordon Pask’s Colloquy of Mobiles on February 26, 2020, at Centre Pompidou in Paris where it was part of the extraordinary exhibition MUTATIONS / CRÉATIONS 4: NEURONES / LES INTELLIGENCES SIMULÉES.

Colloquy of Mobiles at ZKM

That opening was rich in energy and interactions as demonstrated in these short videos.

In March the exhibition had to close prematurely due to COVID.

Thereafter the great staff of Centre Pompidou and ZKM disassembled, transported, and reassembled Colloquy at ZKM in Karlsruhe, Germany, where it has become part of the permanent collection.

We look forward to the museum’s reopening to the public and the opportunity for TJ Mcleish, Colloquy’s master fabricator, to travel to ZKM and animate the replica to make it fully operational once again.

Read more about Colloquy here.

 

 

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Cybernetics, AI, and Ethical Conversations

“As a designer, I shall act always so as to increase 
 the total number of choices for a user.”

Quote above: An approach to interface design based on Heinz von Foerster’s Ethical Imperative where “choices” are distinguished from “options” — options are anything that is possible, while choices are only those options that are viable and well-suited to this user in this moment.

More and more, today’s AI makes the world we see and the world we live in — and we need to respond. In a presentation hosted by the AiTech Agora at TU Delft, Paul Pangaro responds with a proposal for collaboration that bridges AI and cybernetics with conversation.

Click for video of presentation.          Click for full abstract and slides.

“Pandemic” comes from “all” and “people”, meaning something negative that effects us all. While not biological, today’s AI foments polarization, pushes irrelevant products, spreads social bias, and surveils our lives. AI touches billions and sways more of us,  in more invasive and uncontrolled ways, every day.

AI came out of cybernetics, a practice that evolved from a series of trans-disciplinary conversations called the Macy Meetings. This history offers a way forward. Continue reading “Cybernetics, AI, and Ethical Conversations”

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Colloquy Featured in INTERACTIONS MAG — Progress Update #12

Inside page showing Colloquy images

While the 2018 replica of Gordon Pask’s Colloquy of Mobiles is being crated in preparation for its time at Centre Pompidou, the magazine INTERACTIONS has printed a brief description of the project in their DEMO HOUR feature section. Here’s the text of the story: Continue reading “Colloquy Featured in INTERACTIONS MAG — Progress Update #12”

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I Want a “Turning Test for Conversation”

After Dubberly Design

(Diagram after Dubberly Design Office)

That’s not  a typo — A Turning Test. For Conversation.

We all know the Turing Test for Intelligence — when a human will judge if a machine is “intelligent.” I want a machine that will judge if a conversation is “intelligent.”

That’s right, “intelligent” — the quotes mean it’s ambiguous and we ought to discuss it. The meaning of “intelligent”  is subject to opinion and personal values. For me, intelligent conversations are forward-moving, collaborative, generative — they go to new and interesting places. And for you?

I like this proposal for a Turning Test because: Continue reading “I Want a “Turning Test for Conversation””

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Revisiting Cybernetic Serendipity

Portion of Pask’s Colloquy of Mobiles
Female form from Pask’s Colloquy of Mobiles

(This post relates closely to our COLLOQUY 2018 Project.) In a spectacular, definitive revisiting, Jasia Reichardt, curator of the original and groundbreaking Cybernetic Serendipity from 1968, provides a walk-through of the entire exhibition in a new video from the D.C. Art Science Evening Rendezvous (images are from her talk).  Continue reading “Revisiting Cybernetic Serendipity”

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Talking about The Future of Cybernetics

Click here to see the video from the talk. Click here to download the PDF of the slides.

Cybernetics is often confused with robotics and AI, chip implants and biomechatronics, and more. Don’t want to disappoint you but cybernetics is none of those things (though it has a lot to say about all of them). Cybernetics is not freezing dead people, neither. (I’m hoping that’s less of a surprise. Maybe not.)

worlds fair nano
Worlds Fair Nano – March 2018 – San Francisco

Hoping to clear up all that confusion in 20 minutes, I gave a talk on Saturday, March 10th, 2018, at 2pm at Worlds Fair Nano in San Francisco.

To speak about the future of cybernetics (as in this short video) is to speak about its past and present (requiring another short video). In an era that vacillates between rampant AI utopianism and rampant AI dystopianism, what does cybernetics have to offer our future? Continue reading “Talking about The Future of Cybernetics”

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Remaking COLLOQUY – Progress Update #1

Colloquy as imagined and situated in staging space

No, our replica of The Colloquy of Mobiles is not yet real—this is only a photoshopped image of how it will look in our staging space in May at College for Creative Studies in Detroit (CCS). But the photo speaks our intention and hints at our progress.

The CCS MFA Interaction Design (IxD)‘s Colloquy 2018 Project— to remake Gordon Pask‘s original installation at London’s Institute for Contemporary Arts in 1968—is well under way.

CCS students have been mining the historical materials on The Colloquy and building a repository of understanding to share with the world.  Continue reading “Remaking COLLOQUY – Progress Update #1”

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Remaking Pask’s COLLOQUY OF MOBILES

Gordon Pask's COLLOQUY OF MOBILES 1968
COLLOQUY OF MOBILES 1968 (www.medienkunstnetz.de)

Imagine walking into a gallery and seeing these larger-than-life mobiles hanging from the ceiling — they rotate, blink, squawk, and sometimes synchronize with each other, completely without human intervention. You walk among them, blocking their interactions, using a flashlight to attract their attention, wanting to get in on their conversation.

This was Gordon Pask’s COLLOQUY OF MOBILES at the Institute for Contemporary Art in London, part of an exhibition called Cybernetic Serendipity in 1968. Yes, 50 years ago in 1968 — an exploration of machine-to-machine and person-to-machine conversations in an interactive, immersive environment, perhaps the first of its kind. Frequently praised for its originality and influence, Pask’s COLLOQUY is a precursor to practices of contemporary art and design, as well as a prescient vision of our future with machines that may choose to act on their own.

Continue reading “Remaking Pask’s COLLOQUY OF MOBILES”

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Designing Our World

Design as ConversationTo “design our world” has been the goal of every human generation. Every day we wake up to an invitation to become whom we wish to become. I believe the role of design is to help all of us to achieve that goal for ourselves — that is, to be designers of our own world.

Ambitious, I realize. As is trying to tame wicked problems through design.

But what is “design” anyway? Why isn’t “design thinking” enough? And what’s this got to do with cybernetics, anyway? I offer viewpoints in my Heinz von Foerster ’17 Lecture, entitled Designing Our World: Cybernetics as Conversations for Action. See the abstract, video, and supporting materials here.

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My First iPhone

I remember June 29, 2007, as if it were yesterday (almost). I bought my first iPhone from the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York City on the first day it came out. I had worked all day on a typical consulting gig from my apartment, which was a 10-minute walk to the flagship Apple store. Around 4pm I had done enough so I figured, What the hell? — yes, it was that casual — I’d stroll over to see what was up. What I found was a party. I hadn’t intended to, but I got on line to buy. Continue reading “My First iPhone”