Celebrating the 40th anniversary of Cybernetic Serendipity
Practise and/or/exor Theory
How wide is the division between Theory and Practise?
Academic discourse vs/and the making of things?
Are the two activities mutually exclusive, or detrimental to each other..
The site is unsurprisingly peppered with the seeds of theoretical discussions and a search for raison d'êtres, a rational, a contextualisation of "Cybernetics in the Now". Hardly surprising as this medium being linguistically bound is not so amenable to the types of expression found in visual arts.
I suspect many of the artists in Cybernetic Serendipity were makers with little critical theory, something that is perhaps more prominent today with the apparent requisite that "artists in education" need also to be theoretically aware.
There other means of investigating cybernetics apart from via language, exhibitions such as Maverick Machines and its successor Pask Present demonstrate how cybernetics can be experienced as well as being read about.
What other modalities might also be explored to explore "Cybernetics in the Now" ?
Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs)
Interactive Brainwave Experiences eg brainball
I am not altogether dismissing the value of academic theory ;), though I do believe that the act of making (art/design/electronics/software/chemistry etc) offers a whole set of different insights, alternative metaphors and new ways of thinking - exercising both sides of the left / right brain, serial & parallel, logical and intuitive, visual and verbal, etc
It is one thing to theorise about how something might work or behave and another to try and realise in the real.
The making informs, reveals, surprises and challenges - the complex unfolding interactions between the maker, the materials and the processes, the acts of construction and design - an ongoing recursive cybernetic process.
Academic discourse vs/and the making of things?
Are the two activities mutually exclusive, or detrimental to each other..
The site is unsurprisingly peppered with the seeds of theoretical discussions and a search for raison d'êtres, a rational, a contextualisation of "Cybernetics in the Now". Hardly surprising as this medium being linguistically bound is not so amenable to the types of expression found in visual arts.
I suspect many of the artists in Cybernetic Serendipity were makers with little critical theory, something that is perhaps more prominent today with the apparent requisite that "artists in education" need also to be theoretically aware.
There other means of investigating cybernetics apart from via language, exhibitions such as Maverick Machines and its successor Pask Present demonstrate how cybernetics can be experienced as well as being read about.
What other modalities might also be explored to explore "Cybernetics in the Now" ?
Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs)
Interactive Brainwave Experiences eg brainball
I am not altogether dismissing the value of academic theory ;), though I do believe that the act of making (art/design/electronics/software/chemistry etc) offers a whole set of different insights, alternative metaphors and new ways of thinking - exercising both sides of the left / right brain, serial & parallel, logical and intuitive, visual and verbal, etc
It is one thing to theorise about how something might work or behave and another to try and realise in the real.
The making informs, reveals, surprises and challenges - the complex unfolding interactions between the maker, the materials and the processes, the acts of construction and design - an ongoing recursive cybernetic process.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Kuja on
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Nice shot, RichardB!
>> How wide is the division between Theory and Practise?
Or culture and practical reason…
>> Academic discourse vs/and the making of things? Are the two activities mutually exclusive, or detrimental to each other…
I don’t think they are mutually exclusive. "Theorization during the process of making" (I guess this is a valid image).
>> The site is unsurprisingly peppered with the seeds of theoretical discussions and a search for raison d'êtres, a rational, a contextualisation of "Cybernetics in the Now".
I don’t agree. There are many “hands-on” fellows here…
>> Hardly surprising as this medium being linguistically bound is not so amenable to the types of expression found in visual arts.
Well, cybernetics is the basis of interactivity, concept highly valued by what have been called as “new media art” (bad term).
>> I suspect many of the artists in Cybernetic Serendipity were makers with little critical theory, something that is perhaps more prominent today with the apparent requisite that "artists in education" need also to be theoretically aware.
Your statement needs to be checked out. I suspect there were the two types in CS.
>> There other means of investigating cybernetics apart from via language, exhibitions such as Maverick Machines and its successor Pask Present demonstrate how cybernetics can be experienced as well as being read about.
Agree completely.
>> What other modalities might also be explored to explore "Cybernetics in the Now" ?
Truly interactive (not reactive) pieces, mainly. (Usman Haque has written about it).
>> Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs)
Maybe.
>> Interactive Brainwave Experiences eg brainball
Curious project. I need to check this out.
>> I am not altogether dismissing the value of academic theory ;), though I do believe that the act of making (art/design/electronics/software/chemistry etc) offers a whole set of different insights, alternative metaphors and new ways of thinking - exercising both sides of the left / right brain, serial & parallel, logical and intuitive, visual and verbal, etc
I appreciate this overreaching approach.
>> It is one thing to theorise about how something might work or behave and another to try and realise in the real.
Not proved theory is only hypothesis.
>> The making informs, reveals, surprises and challenges - the complex unfolding interactions between the maker, the materials and the processes, the acts of construction and design - an ongoing recursive cybernetic process.
I’d like to reinforce my image of “theorization during the process of making”.
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