Participants: Mark William Johnson and Paul Hollins
Affiliation: Institute for Educational Cybernetics, University of Bolton
Format: Workshop
Themes: recursion, praxis
The purpose of this workshop is to introduce participants to fast-emerging transformations in internet technologies. As well as introducing and offering hands-on demonstrations of these technologies, the workshop will afford an opportunity to ask what these technologies might mean for cybernetic thinking and praxis. The technologies considered are:
- Real-time feedback technologies using simple scripting languages (Javascript) and emerging standards (WebSockets) – particularly with the NodeJS engine
- Graphical visualisation technologies which can integrate with real-time technology
- AppStore packaging technologies for simple deployment of collaborative activity
- Open Source hardware and its integration with the Real-time web
The underlying rationale for presenting these tools is to explore the ways that technology development and experimentation may be as important in cybernetic investigation as theoretical abstractions. In particular, the potential of these technological initiatives for providing new ways for the collective exploration of the meaning of information, and the consequent impact on collective decision-making will be explored through discussion and demonstration.
Technologies, whilst being the result of abstractions, provide experiences which, with real-time feedback, can be explored collectively in ways which are not possible with cybernetic abstractions alone. It is the role of technology as a bridge between abstraction and experience which is the focus of the demonstrations.
As the constraints of life are dominated more and more by the overwhelming information produced through technology, we consider the extent to which real-time technologies may provide a way in which experiences may be shared and explored recursively. It is in the recursive nature of this exploration that existing cybernetic theories of meaning (e.g. Krippendorf), cognition (e.g. Von Foerster, Maturana) and organisation (e.g. Beer) may be explored and presented in a practical way which may have efficacy in implementation in institutions and societies.