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to end this chapter by returning to this topic. The focus now is on music, and
the intersection between Beer's cybernetics and the work of the composer
and performer Brian Eno. If Beer himself is not widely known, many people
have heard of Eno and, with any luck, know his music (which is, like any
music, impossible to convey in words, though what follows should help to
characterize it). Eno's first claim to fame was as a member of Roxy Music, the
greatest rock band to emerge in the early 1970s. Subsequently, he left Roxy
and went on to develop his own distinctive form of “ambient” and “genera-
tive” music (as well as important collaborations with David Bowie, Talking
Heads, and U2), with
Music for Airports
(1978) as an early canonical example.
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The content of this music is what I need to get at, but first I want to establish
Eno's biographical connection to cybernetics.
In an interview with David Whittaker (Whittaker 2003, 53-63), Eno re-
called that he first became interested in cybernetics as an art student in Ips-
wich between 1964 and 1966. The principal of the art school was Roy Ascott,
Britain's leading cybernetic artist, who will reappear in the next chapter, and
the emphasis at Ipswich was on “process not product. . . . Artists should con-
centrate on the way they were doing things, not just the little picture that
came out at the end. . . . The process was the interesting part of the work”
(53). Eno was drawn further into cybernetics in 1974 when his mother-in-law
lent him a copy of Beer's
Brain of the Firm
, which she had borrowed from Swiss
Cottage Library in London. Eno was “very, very impressed by it” and in 1975
wrote an essay in which he quoted extensively from
Brain
. He sent a copy to
Beer, who came to visit him in Maida Vale (Whittaker 2003, 55-56).
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In 1977
Beer invited Eno for an overnight visit to the cottage in Wales, where Eno
recalled that dinner was boiled potatoes and the following conversation took
place (55):
[Beer] said “I carry a torch, a torch that was handed to me along a chain from
Ross Ashby, it was handed to him from . . . Warren McCulloch.” He was telling
me the story of the lineage of this idea . . . and said “I want to hand it to you. I
know it's a responsibility and you don't have to accept, I just want you to think
about it.” It was a strange moment for me, it was a sort of religious initiation . . .
and I didn't feel comfortable about it somehow. I said “Well, I'm flattered . . .
but I don't see how I can accept it without deciding to give up the work I do
now and I would have to think very hard about that.” We left it saying the offer
is there, but it was very strange, we never referred to it again, I wasn't in touch
with him much after that. I'm sure it was meant with the best of intentions and
so on but it was slightly weird.
