Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
the viable system model, syntegration, Musicolour, the Fun Palace—these are
all
revealing machines
that in one way or another explore their worlds for what
they have to give.
T H E A R T S
We have explored the origins of cybernetics in science, as a science of the
brain and psychiatry, but we have also seen how quickly it spilled over into all
sorts of fields—robotics, complexity theory, management, politics, education,
and so on. Some of these only came to the fore in specific chapters, but others
appeared in several. One theme that has arisen in most concerns intersec-
tions (or fusions) of cybernetics and the arts: the Dream Machine, brainwave
music, Brian Eno's music (and even Jimi Hendrix and feedback), architecture
(the detailed tuning of parts in Christopher Alexander's work; the adaptive
architecture of Archigram, Price, and Pask; aesthetically potent design en-
vironments), synesthesia and Musicolour, interactive theater, robotic and
interactive sculpture (the Colloquy of Mobiles). The Dream Machine and
brainwave music can be postponed for a moment, but the other artworks just
mentioned all serve to dramatize the basic ontology of cybernetics beyond
the world of science and help us grasp it. In doing so, they also echo the other
themes just mentioned: an experimental approach to design as a process of
revealing rather than enframing, a leveling of power relations between artists
and audiences, a blurring of modern social roles. At the same time, we should
recall the oddity of many of these artworks. Again and again, the question that
has come up is: is it art? Does the Dream Machine count as visual art? Does
brainwave music or Eno's music count as music? Did the Fun Palace count as
architecture? What could Pask sell Musicolour as? The clash between these
odd artifacts and modern classifications points to the more general theme of
this topic: that ontology makes a difference, in both practices and products.
S E L V E S
Another cross-cutting theme that surfaced especially in chapters 3, 5, and 6
has to do with, variously, the brain and the self, in ways that I tried to catch up
in a contrast between modern and nonmodern apprehensions. The modern
take on the brain can be exemplified by work in traditional AI (and its coun-
terparts in the cognitive sciences more broadly): an image of the brain as,
centrally, an organ of representation, calculation, and planning. The modern
apprehension of the self I take to resonate with this: an idea of the self as a
