Plasticity and feedback. Schemas of indetermination in cybernetics and art

The paper addresses the problem of representation of the processes of change in dynamic systems, specifically focusing on the mechanisms of feedback and plasticity. How adequately can diagrams and schemas explain temporal relations and predict behavior in exceedingly complex systems? How can we know and render visible what happens in between the discrete moments in which decisions are made? How does the material medium of signal transference affect the resulting mechanisms and schemas that represent them? The aspect of representation forms here a special tension with what Andrew Pickering (in reference to cybernetics) names performative epistemologies and ontology of unknowability. In this paper I explore the ways of describing the mechanisms of signal transference and feedback loops in three different types of systems – neuronal network, electro-chemical assemblage, and live organism, each of which represents different scale and principles of biophysical organization. In particular, I consider Warren McCulloch's diagrams of neural circuits, Gordon Pask's and Stafford Beer's experiment with chemical computers developing new senses, and a work by a Russian art collective “Where the Dogs Run”, in which the activity of a live mouse in a labyrinth is determined by the movements of its virtual doppelgangers.FGW – Publications without University Leiden contrac

Finding Fluid Form: A process aesthetic as a means to engage with the prevailing model of thinking in ecological art

This thesis considers common approaches to eco-art practice and its established discourses. Through a critical review of the field it identifies problems in practice and theory that are potentially counter-productive. It outlines methods used in eco-art that, whilst seeking to address environmental concerns, may unintentionally perpetuate the approaches and attitudes of the prevailing view. The thesis argues that as these approaches and attitudes are widely understood to lie at the cause of current problems its continued use is inappropriate for engaging with ecological issues. In response to this problem the thesis draws together insights from arts practice and theory, Systems Thinking, Cybernetics, Artificial Life research, Deep Ecology and Process Thinking. It develops an experimental framework to guide the initiation, production, dissemination and evaluation of arts practice, which can critically engage with the approaches and attitudes of the prevailing view, but do so without perpetuating these. For the purposes of this thesis the framework is called a process aesthetic. The thesis describes how the process aesthetic is developed and tested through the undertaking of new creative practice, and the critical reflection upon this. The written component of the thesis concludes with an evaluation of the relevance and potential of a process aesthetic, and a consideration of what it might offer to our understanding of ecological art. The thesis contributes to the field of eco-art by drawing upon thinking and practices normally considered peripheral to its discourses. This identifies problems, which contradict its aim of challenging the approaches and attitudes of the prevailing view - problems which to date have been under-acknowledged and not adequately theorised. It establishes that arts practice guided by the process aesthetic demonstrates an approach that can overcome problems recognised within existing eco-art and can act as a critical tool for disturbing the approaches and attitudes of the prevailing view. The thesis establishes that the process aesthetic can be used as a guide for future eco-arts practice and can be a means of regrouping existing artworks, which would normally be overlooked by eco-art discussions. This extends the diversity of eco-art discussions to positively broaden its critical discourses. It thus offers a new and appropriate methodology for arts practice that seeks to engage with environmental issues and ecological thinking

Eniatype: Transdisciplinary Practice for Methodologies of Communication

Full version unavailable due to 3rd party copyright restrictions.The thesis demonstrates a rethinking of methodologies of communication through ecological design. Human communication and ecological accountability are inextricably linked in architectural design: the current global ecological crisis underscores this fundamental connection. Within architectural practice the communication from architect to participant or environment is not at all straightforward. This is also true of the dyadic relation between context, design and communication in architectural education. Notational systems within architectural education used as a communication tool have made the composition of architecture an activity like the composition of fiction: the activity of communication. So deep is the connection between architecture and communication in our culture that for much of the time we ignore it and behave as if notation were really a transparent window – just as in reading a working drawing in architectural practice we may ignore the intermediacy of notation and imagine that thoughts are reaching us directly from the architect’s mind. The most important criterion of notational systems, whether literally or architectural, is precisely that it should not draw attention to itself, nor disturb the illusion of neutrality and faithfulness. Through original design exploration, this work proffers a critical vision towards the built environment. These conceptions challenge the everyday education of architectural design by offering a transdisciplinary framework for design production. The work concludes with the necessity for a new design field entitled ‘Eniatype’. Eniatype is still in its nascent stages. It has the potential to become a far-reaching awareness that bonds the disciplines of design ecologies, theory of notation, instructional design and aesthetics; together they form the acronym ENIA. The work establishes the theoretical foundation for Eniatype in four parts. Part one, ideation, is a survey of visions on architectural practice illustrating original concepts such as ‘Correalism‘, ’Reflexive Architecture‘ and ’Recursive Vision‘. Part two, Enia, illustrates the principles of design ecologies, theory of notation, instructional design and aesthetical strands in projects such as ’Basque Enia‘ and ’Beijing Enia‘. Part three, Type, conveys the principles of the logical theory of types in ’Working Drawing, Participant and Environment‘. Part four, Eniatype, synthesise these approaches through a series of research sessions towards a transdisciplinary idea of architectural education and practice. The work describes a burgeoning field, Eniatype, which promotes ecological transitions within local and global contexts through architectural education. By linking working drawing and environment within architectural education, unique ecological design proposals were produced, which promote a new role in defining the ciphers of future design thought

Aerospace Medicine and Biology: A cumulative index to the 1982 issues

This publication is a cumulative index to the abstracts contained in the Supplements 229 through 240 of Aerospace Medicine and Biology: A continuing Bibliography. It includes three indexes: subject, personal author, and corporate source

Towards a model of educational outcomes : investigations with Australian and Filipino students

The research described in the papers summarised above is multifaceted necessarily so, since its “object”, learning processes and outcome, is complexly governed by a large number of variables. Serious research in this area involves the initial determination of the relevant factors, the resolution of problems relating to the measurement of these variables, the formulation of a theoretical model to guide empirical work on the relationships and/or interactions between the selected variables and the actual empirical testing of hypotheses generated by the model. In the present case, the research results led to refinements of the model, rendering the investigation even more complex. A further complicating dimension was added to the present research by its investigation of the cross-cultural applicability of concepts and variables derived from western theory and research. Such cross-cultural work is deemed essential to the development of a general model of human learning in the educational context

The Irresistible Animacy of Lively Artefacts

This thesis explores the perception of ‘liveliness’, or ‘animacy’, in robotically driven artefacts. This perception is irresistible, pervasive, aesthetically potent and poorly understood. I argue that the Cartesian rationalist tendencies of robotic and artificial intelligence research cultures, and associated cognitivist theories of mind, fail to acknowledge the perceptual and instinctual emotional affects that lively artefacts elicit. The thesis examines how we see artefacts with particular qualities of motion to be alive, and asks what notions of cognition can explain these perceptions. ‘Irresistible Animacy’ is our human tendency to be drawn to the primitive and strangely thrilling nature of experiencing lively artefacts. I have two research methodologies; one is interdisciplinary scholarship and the other is my artistic practice of building lively artefacts. I have developed an approach that draws on first-order cybernetics’ central animating principle of feedback-control, and second-order cybernetics’ concerns with cognition. The foundations of this approach are based upon practices of machine making to embody and perform animate behaviour, both as scientific and artistic pursuits. These have inspired embodied, embedded, enactive, and extended notions of cognition. I have developed an understanding using a theoretical framework, drawing upon literature on visual perception, behavioural and social psychology, puppetry, animation, cybernetics, robotics, interaction and aesthetics. I take as a starting point, the understanding that the visual cortex of the vertebrate eye includes active feature-detection for animate agents in our environment, and actively constructs the causal and social structure of this environment. I suggest perceptual ambiguity is at the centre of all animated art forms. Ambiguity encourages natural curiosity and interactive participation. It also elicits complex visceral qualities of presence and the uncanny. In the making of my own Lively Artefacts, I demonstrate a series of different approaches including the use of abstraction, artificial life algorithms, and reactive techniques