ISSS 2021 | The Art and Science of the Impossible: The Human Experience
65th Meeting of the International Society for the Systems
July 8-13, 2021 — Online Conference, #ISSS2021
Conference page — The deadline for submissions is 15 June 2021
- Early bird pricing rate until 31 May 2021
- ASC and Cybsoc members are entitled to a discount
Call for participation
- Cybernetics at ISSS #1: In Search of a Critical Cybernetics — A Call for Contributions
- Cybernetics at ISSS #2: Practising Cybernetics inDiscussion — A Call for Questions
- Cybernetics at ISSS #3 — Open call
Cybernetics sessions at ISSS 2021
The American Society for Cybernetics (ASC) and the British Cybernetics Society (CybSoc) are pleased to collaborate with the International Society for Systems Sciences (ISSS) to offer a series of cybernetics sessions within the 2021 ISSS conference, The Art and Science of the Impossible. Following on from the ASC session at ISSS 2019, we hope to continue to explore the multiple relations between cybernetics and other systems fields in the context of contemporary challenges.
Sessions will include performance, panel discussion, work on practical challenges, paper presentations, and playshops.
We welcome contributions addressed to the calls that follow.
Cybernetics at ISSS #1: In Search of a Critical Cybernetics — A Call for Contributions
‘Today’s AI’ and ‘critical cybernetics’ (organised by Tom Scholte)
Across the decades since its founding, the field of cybernetics has, at times, been accused of uncritical evangelising regarding the scope of both its explanatory power and its emancipatory promise. Yet, even at the height of the post-WWII scientific and technological optimism in which cybernetics was founded and to which it contributed, Norbert Wiener (1950) struck a cautionary tone, warning against the social upheaval that this interdisciplinary field might unleash through its transformative potential, particularly within the realm of the automatization of human labour and decision making. Today, several decades into the information age, the full understanding of the term kybernetes has been obscured from popular view and cybernetics has fragmented as a discipline. Nevertheless, the mutual embeddedness of so many of the world’s citizens within communication infrastructures is one legacy of cybernetics. We live in a world that cybernetics has wrought, whether we like it or not.
Wiener’s concerns speak to present challenges. Over the last decade, a number of popular books by eminent scholars of communications have urgently drawn our attention to the perverse manner in which the mechanisms of what is still sometimes called cyber-space have a deleterious impact on our social world. These books have begun to powerfully examine the information science behind such increasing social ills as income inequality and racial profiling, exposing the manner in which the human blind spots embedded within “algorithms of oppression” (Noble, 2018) serve as “weapons of math destruction” (O’Neil, 2016) that are “automating inequality” (Eubanks, 2019).
Cybernetics’ legacy implies a responsibility to act. Does it also present opportunities? Are there ways in which cybernetics’ ideas and history can help in critically addressing the distinctions, assumptions, and contingencies embedded in the algorithms to which we have surrendered so much of our privacy and autonomy in exchange for more convenient consumption?
As later cybernetics moved towards primarily social rather than technological contexts, it developed various reflexive ways of critiquing itself. Contemporary cyberneticians have begun to bring these reflexive practices back to the context of technology, criticizing the “algorithmic paradigm” (Fantini van Ditmar, 2016) as obscuring human agency, falsely simulating objectivity, and obstructing conversation (Krippendorff, 2019; Pangaro, 2020). Meanwhile, renewed attention on the distinctiveness of cybernetics’ performative materiality (Pickering, 2010) suggests possible alternate paradigms for technology that can be recovered from cybernetics’ past. Are there other areas of cybernetics’ multifaceted traditions that are relevant here? Are there further opportunities in blending aspects of cybernetics with critical approaches from the systems sciences, such as Werner Ulrich’s (1983) critical systems heuristics, in order to develop new branches of cybernetic inquiry and critique? What additional arrows can cybernetics place in the critical quiver of those endeavouring to pry open the foundations of our “black box society” (Pasquale, 2015) and expose the partial and prejudiced distinctions within? How do we, as contemporary cyberneticians, play our role in accounting for, and addressing, the cybernetic legacy that has, in this domain, served to further magnify the power and impact of human epistemological limitations; favouring the distinctions drawn by the powerful few over the material needs of the many?
How to contribute:
1. Paper presentations. Authors should follow the guidance from the main ISSS call for papers in category 2 and 3 – see the call for papers linked from https://www.isss.org/online-2021/ for details. Abstracts should be submitted no later than June 15. Submission should be through the ISSS journals site: https://journals.isss.org/
2. Performances. Cybernetics has a long tradition of including performance components alongside more traditional academic presentations. Proposals for online performances of up to 1000 words should be sent to Ben Sweeting at ben.sweeting@asc-cybernetics.org no later than June 15 and contain: (1) proposed length of performance, (2) title, (3) description and (4) practical details for how the performance will be enacted.
3. Playshops. Participants may wish to facilitate an online playshop, that is, an experiential, interactive, participatory event that demonstrates/embodies some notion relevant to the conference theme. Proposals of up to 1000 words should be sent to Ben Sweeting at ben.sweeting@asc-cybernetics.org no later than June 15 and contain: (1) A clear description of planned activities, (2) The number of possible participants, and (3) practical details for how the playshop will be facilitated.
Reference list
Eubanks, V. (2019). Automating inequality: How high-tech tools profile, police, and punish the poor. Picador.
Fantini van Ditmar, D. (2016). IdIOT: Second-order cybernetics in the ‘smart’ home [Doctoral dissertation, Royal College of Art]. British Library. https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.690638
Krippendorff, K. (2019). Agency, algorithms, new forms of oppression and how cybernetics might respond [Conference presentation]. Acting Cybernetically. 2019 Conference of the American Society for Cybernetics, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhehTApQi1s
Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of opression: How sarch egines reinforce racism. NYU Press.
O’Neil, C. (2016). Weapons of math destruction: How big data increases inequality and threatens democracy. Penguin Books, Limited.
Pangaro, P. (2020). Cybernetics, AI, and ethical conversations [Seminar presentation]. AiTech Agora Series, TU Delft. https://youtu.be/VvJpkqKlv9Q
Pasquale, F. (2015). The black box society. Harvard University Press.
Pickering, A. (2010). The cybernetic brain: Sketches of another future. University of Chicago Press.
Ulrich, W. (1983). Critical heuristics of social planning: A new approach to practical philosophy. Haupt.
Wiener, N. (1950). The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society. Eyre and Spottiswoode.
Cybernetics at ISSS #2: Practising Cybernetics in Discussion — A Call for Questions
Work on practical challenges within the conference (organised by John Beckford)
The practice of cybernetics is held to offer the possibility of providing insights to challenges, issues and problems that have not been amenable to more conventional methods of inquiry or have simply proved intractable. Our hope is to make the value of practical cybernetics more obvious.
For this session conference delegates are invited to submit a question about some practical problem or challenge that concerns them and to have that question explored through the lenses of cybernetics.
The session will be chaired by Prof. John Beckford, FCybS, President of the Cybernetics Society with the challenges explored by a diverse panel of cyberneticians. There will be two definite outcomes – the pleasure of the exploration and a publishable recording of the discussion, a third outcome is the possibility of steps towards a resolution – but nothing is guaranteed!
Potential participants are invited to make a short submission (about 300 words) which:
1: States the question that you would like to subject to cybernetic exploration – live questions are especially welcome! For example:
- How might the practice of cybernetics have helped governments to deal with the Covid pandemic?
- How might the application of cybernetics to an organisation such as <name> enable improvements in effectiveness and efficiency?
- How could the application of cybernetic ideas to the design of complex systems such as buildings or transport infrastructure provide benefit?
2: Establishes the parameters of the issue or challenge itself:
- What is your challenge?
- Why do you consider it to be a challenge??
- What characteristics make you believe it is amenable (or not!) to cybernetic inquiry?)
3: Provides a very brief personal bio (not more than 50 words)
Questions will be reviewed by a panel seeking novelty, challenge and provocation and selected accordingly – and we encourage you to be bold in your propositions.
The session process will invite each successful proposer to briefly outline the challenge (2 minute), the panellists will then (3 minutes each) comment from a cybernetic perspective after which the audience will be invited to use a chat facility to contribute to a rich discussion. The chair will summarise the discussion and thinking with the final word going to the proposer.
Questions should be submitted through the ISSS journals site by June 15: https://journals.isss.org/
Cybernetics at ISSS #3 — Open call
Forum for progressing topics are most pressing for you right now.
Cybernetics is a transdisciplinary field that is focused on circular causality in numerous contexts, including ecological, technological, cognitive, and social systems, and practical activities such as designing, learning, managing, and conversation. Contemporary cybernetics varies widely in scope, with cyberneticians variously adopting and combining technical, scientific, philosophical, creative, and critical approaches.
We welcome contributions on any and all aspects of cybernetics for this open track. New theoretical provocations, work in progress, case studies from practice, and development of the relations between cybernetics and other systems fields will be especially welcome.
Contributions may take the form of traditional paper presentations, performance, or interactive playshops, under which we welcome any experiential, interactive, participatory event that demonstrates/embodies its topic. If submitting a proposal for a playshop please submit an abstract and details of practicalities such as length and any technical requirements, etc.
How to contribute:
1. Paper presentations. Authors should follow the guidance from the main ISSS call for papers in category 2 and 3 – see the call for papers linked from https://www.isss.org/online-2021/ for details. Abstracts should be submitted no later than June 15. Submission should be through the ISSS journals site: https://journals.isss.org/
2. Performances. Cybernetics has a long tradition of including performance components alongside more traditional academic presentations. Proposals for online performances of up to 1000 words should be sent to Ben Sweeting at ben.sweeting@asc-cybernetics.org no later than June 15 and contain: (1) proposed length of performance, (2) title, (3) description and (4) practical details for how the performance will be enacted.
3. Playshops. Participants may wish to facilitate an online playshop, that is, an experiential, interactive, participatory event that demonstrates/embodies some notion relevant to the conference theme. Proposals of up to 1000 words should be sent to Ben Sweeting at ben.sweeting@asc-cybernetics.org no later than June 15 and contain: (1) A clear description of planned activities, (2) The number of possible participants, and (3) practical details for how the playshop will be facilitated.
