American Society for Cybernetics at RSD14
RSD14 Arcs of Impact
program | registration (in Toronto, Canada and full online, pay-what-you-can option).
Members of American Society for Society (ASC) will be presenting papers and leading various workshops at the upcoming Relating Systems Thinking and Design Symposium, held in Toronto and available online. Below, you will find the full online program.
All sessions are accessible through Pay What You Can giving the audience full access to the complete online program no matter where you are in the world.
Ecologies of Knowing: Design Cybernetics Day
October 12, 2025, online | Hosted by #NewMacy and ASC at Systemic Design Symposium (RSD14)
#NewMacy and ASC will host an online Cybernetic Takeover Day: Ecologies of Knowing. In conversation with this year’s conference theme, Arcs of Impact, presentations and workshops will explore relationality in complexity across design, education, environment, and organizational models. Join us on a day that features diverse cybernetic practices including community initiatives in Brazil, creations of experimental glossaries, laboratory approaches to student-centered curriculum, and investigations into ecological interdependence of honeybees.
Cybernetics Program
Key Dates and Program Details (Schedule in Toronto/Eastern Time, GMT-4)
Part I: Glossaries, Dictionaries, and Archives (Oct 12)
An Experimental Glossary, or a Workshop on the Coming of Pluriverses by Claudia Westermann and Kate Doyle at 8:00 AM – 9:30 AM Toronto/Eastern Time (GMT-4) on October 12, 2025.
House of Annetta by Fran Edgerly, Aska Welford, and Kate Doyle at 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM Toronto/Eastern Time (GMT-4) on October 12, 2025.
Part II: Architecture, Design, and Pedagogy (Oct 12)
Relationality and the architect’s ego by Annan Zuo at 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM Toronto/Eastern Time (GMT-4) on October 12, 2025.
Between Care and Control: How to weave good intentions into complex systems? By Annan Zuo, Fred Steier, and Claudia Westermann at 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM Toronto/Eastern Time (GMT-4) on October 12, 2025.
If a Laboratory, what is Cybernetics? By Paul Pangaro, Jude Lombardi, and Eve Pinsker at 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM Toronto/Eastern Time (GMT-4) on October 12, 2025.
Action Without a Plan – Passion, intention, cybernetics by José dos Santos Cabral Filho and Ana Paula Baltazar at 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM Toronto/Eastern Time (GMT-4) on October 12, 2025.
Honeybees, Nature and Arcs of Circularities by Jude Lombardi and Mariah Guimarães Di Stasi at 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM Toronto/Eastern Time (GMT-4) on October 12, 2025.
Part III: Organizations, Models, and Environments (Oct 12)
What could be so, Systems Design at the intersection of Organisational Theory and 2nd order Cybernetics by Damian Chapman at 10:00 AM – 11:30 AM Toronto/Eastern Time (GMT-4) on October 12, 2025.
Camping and More: a simple case study workshop applying Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model by Allenna Leonard at 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM (only in-person) Toronto/Eastern Time (GMT-4) on October 12, 2025.
Other Keynotes, Talks, and Workshops at RSD14 (Online, Oct 5, 6)
A Conversation on Contrapractice by Dulmini Perera and Tony Fry at 6:00PM – 7:00 PM Toronto/Eastern Time (GMT-4) on October 5, 2025.
The conversation between ASC member Dulmini Perera and design scholar Tony Fry is one of the Framing Keynote Conversations for the RSDX online festival that will precede RSD14. Presenting insights from an ongoing research project, the speakers will outline how contrapractice is a response to the current accelerating, unsustainable defuturing practices globally. As they explain, the ability to create and accelerate change has totally outstripped any collective ability to understand and appropriately deal with unconsidered consequences. At present, there is a huge divide between what needs to be understood and the extent of available understanding (not least by the planet’s political leadership).
Configuring Incompossible Futures by Claudia Westermann, Chris Speed, Elisa Giaccardi, and Mike Phillips at 5:00 PM – 6:00 PM Toronto/Eastern Time (GMT-4) on October 6, 2025.
The panel with ASC’s Vice President Claudia Westermann, Chris Speed, Elisa Giaccardi, and Mike Phillips makes another Framing Keynote Conversation for the RSDX online festival. Beginning with a reflection on Roy Ascott’s famous Groundcourse and his turbulent 10-month presidency at the Ontario College of Art (now OCAD University) in 1971-72, this panel examines what it means to engage in radical pedagogies in art and design today and how such endeavours might configure incompossible futures.
Tangle Circuits and the Limits of Knowing by Louis Kauffman and Thomas Fischer (time TBD)
Convened by ASC’s past president Lou Kauffman and former Exec Board member Thomas Fischer, this 90-minute workshop invites participants to explore questions that are fundamental and omnipresent in systemic design research and practice: What can be known? What can be predicted reliably? What do limits on knowing and prediction imply for design? These questions are not new. Yet, given today’s growing mistrust of expertise on the one hand and reliance on technological innovation in service of social, economic, and environmental control on the other, they are relevant and controversial as ever. This workshop will introduce, and make available for interaction, a tang[ib]le interaction kit to allow participants to explore these questions by configuring, and trying to predict, “tangle circuits.”
