The 26th Annual Meeting of the Society for Literature, Science and the Arts (SLSA)

Activity: Talk or presentationConference PresentationsResearch

Jan Müggenburg - Speaker

Lively Artifacts. BCL-Engineers and their Self-Organizing Machines

“Lively Artifacts: BCL Engineers and Self-Organizing Machines”
Cybernetic research in the 1960s faced a dilemma: On the one hand, there was a growing awareness that human beings share specific organizational principles with nonhuman (biological and technological) systems and that the boundaries between them had started to blur. On the other hand, cyberneticians such as Heinz von Foerster and the members of his Biological Computer Laboratory worried about a future society in which automated technologies could threaten individual liberty and constrain human creativity. As von Foerster famously put it: “If we don‘t act ourselves, we shall be acted upon.” In my talk I will discuss both the abstract models and the material prototypes that members of the BCL designed to address this dilemma. For instance, Ross Ashby intended devices such as the ”Grandfather Clock” to model principles, such as ”self-organization” or ”nontrivialization,” and organizational processes thought to explain certain characteristics of autonomous behavior. Rather than doing repetitive mechanical work, these machines were expected to act creatively and unpredictably. I will argue that we can read these “lively artifacts” as part of a design strategy to reconcile the idea of the free subject with cybernetic research.
27.09.201230.09.2012

Event

26th Annual Meeting of the Society for Literature, Science and the Arts - SLSA 2012

27.09.1230.09.12

Milwaukee, United States

Event: Conference

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Researchers

  1. Ines Lietzke-Prinz

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  1. Weaving Fabrics
  2. Sekem – Humanistic Management in the Egyptian Dessert
  3. “I’ll Worry About It Tomorrow” – Fostering Emotion Regulation Skills to Overcome Procrastination
  4. Co-productive agility and four collaborative pathways to sustainability transformations
  5. Occurrence of the antidiabetic drug Metformin and its ultimate transformation product Guanylurea in several compartments of the aquatic cycle
  6. Plant resource-use characteristics as predictors for species contribution to community biomass in experimental grasslands
  7. Préparer Erasmus: tout un projet
  8. Contrasting temporal trends and relationships of total organic carbon, black carbon, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in rural low-altitude and remote high-altitude lakes
  9. Influence of carbon nanoparticle modification on the mechanical and electrical properties of epoxy in small volumes
  10. Multisensory Design of Retail Environments
  11. Queer Theory After Marriage Equality. Edited collection in the journal "South Atlantic Quarterly"
  12. Plant–flower visitor interaction webs
  13. Ästhetik des Überblicks
  14. Angst
  15. Harmonisierung der Standards zur Klimaberichterstattung?
  16. Carbon–biodiversity relationships in a highly diverse subtropical forest
  17. Institutional Entrepreneurship
  18. Participation of Adolescents in the Development of a Smartphone App-based Intervention to Promote the Health Literacy
  19. Implementing Environmental Management Accounting in South-East Asian Companies
  20. Effects of training on employee suggestions and promotions
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  22. Planning Table
  23. Ärger in der Freundschaft
  24. In situ studies of light metals with synchrotron radiation and neutrons
  25. Mathematik 1
  26. The Hidden Space of Production
  27. Konventionelle Verwaltung im Cyberspace?
  28. Biodiversity–stability relationships strengthen over time in a long-term grassland experiment
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  30. Facebook – todo un mundo a descubrir
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  32. Schulinspektion in Hamburg
  33. Mitarbeitergespräch
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  37. Nachhaltige Entwicklung
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  40. Precipitation hardening on mechanical and corrosion properties of extruded Mg10Gd modified with Nd and La
  41. Tiefen der Täuschung
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  43. Adjustments of Wage-Tenure Profiles with Respect to Entry Age
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