Proceedings of the ECCS 2005 satellite workshop: embracing complexity in design - Paris 17 November 2005

Embracing complexity in design is one of the critical issues and challenges of the 21st century. As the realization grows that design activities and artefacts display properties associated with complex adaptive systems, so grows the need to use complexity concepts and methods to understand these properties and inform the design of better artifacts. It is a great challenge because complexity science represents an epistemological and methodological swift that promises a holistic approach in the understanding and operational support of design. But design is also a major contributor in complexity research. Design science is concerned with problems that are fundamental in the sciences in general and complexity sciences in particular. For instance, design has been perceived and studied as a ubiquitous activity inherent in every human activity, as the art of generating hypotheses, as a type of experiment, or as a creative co-evolutionary process. Design science and its established approaches and practices can be a great source for advancement and innovation in complexity science. These proceedings are the result of a workshop organized as part of the activities of a UK government AHRB/EPSRC funded research cluster called Embracing Complexity in Design (www.complexityanddesign.net) and the European Conference in Complex Systems (complexsystems.lri.fr). Embracing complexity in design is one of the critical issues and challenges of the 21st century. As the realization grows that design activities and artefacts display properties associated with complex adaptive systems, so grows the need to use complexity concepts and methods to understand these properties and inform the design of better artifacts. It is a great challenge because complexity science represents an epistemological and methodological swift that promises a holistic approach in the understanding and operational support of design. But design is also a major contributor in complexity research. Design science is concerned with problems that are fundamental in the sciences in general and complexity sciences in particular. For instance, design has been perceived and studied as a ubiquitous activity inherent in every human activity, as the art of generating hypotheses, as a type of experiment, or as a creative co-evolutionary process. Design science and its established approaches and practices can be a great source for advancement and innovation in complexity science. These proceedings are the result of a workshop organized as part of the activities of a UK government AHRB/EPSRC funded research cluster called Embracing Complexity in Design (www.complexityanddesign.net) and the European Conference in Complex Systems (complexsystems.lri.fr)

Looking at the management sciences through the lens of autopoietic theory

The broad aim of this research has been to employ the various propositions of Humberto Maturana, as derived from his and Francisco Varela's central concept 'Autopoiesis', as a lens or frame through which to critically reflect on both Management Science and major traditions within it. Such reflection has been carried out with both a 'critical' and a 'developmental eye'. From a critical standpoint the research identifies gaps in existing understandings, and suggests ways in which these may be plugged. Used in this mode, the research shows that Autopoietic Theory is a body of knowledge that management scientists, especially inexperienced ones, can turn to as a means of enriching and/or enhancing their practice in distinctive ways, or allowing them to better prepare for it. Used from a developmental standpoint, the research shows how Maturana's epistemological propositions invoke a particular kind of critically reflective Management Science practice, and, how Autopoietic Theory more generally, can stretch the limits of existing practice. In developing these lines of argumentation the main contribution of the work is to remind members of the various Management Science communities that theirs is an activity that is carried out by real human beings first and by impartial scientists second; moreover, that Management Science is an activity that takes place in human, social and organisational contexts. Acknowledgement of this has far reaching ramifications. In that regard, the main contribution of the research can be taken to be an argument in favour of repositioning 'humanity', in all its various facets, much more centrally within the discipline than has been the case hitherto

Complex Adaptive Systems and Conversation Analysis: A New Perspective for Consumer Behaviour Research?

The research question for this study is “Can concepts from complex adaptive systems and conversation analysis be used to research consumer behaviour?" This is, primarily, a theoretical question. After a wide-ranging literature search no scholarly publications linking the qualitative aspects of complex adaptive systems theory to marketing or consumer research were located. In addition, there appear to be few papers on consumer research which use conversation analysis. A theory for the research methodology was developed. It was argued that the production of a research theory and methodology to test the relevance and appropriateness of two very different theories - complex adaptive systems and conversation analysis was the major undertaking of this thesis. The problem of combining an essentially scientific perspective (complex adaptive systems) with an essentially qualitative one (ethnomethodology and conversation analysis) was resolved as part of the research process. A bridging theory was developed through the common ground offered by the sociology of scientific knowledge on the one hand and social-constructionist theory on the other. This methodology was successful in supporting the choice of conversation analysis as the data-collection method and provided the rationale for observing five characteristics of a complex adaptive system. The methodology was tested empirically and, in keeping with exploratory work, iteratively. It is not intended that this type of research will have predictive value. The complex adaptive system studied was consumers in a small group. There were two research locations with six data-collection sessions in each. The first location collected data from organisational groups. The second collected data from groups of consumers convened in a meeting room.Data were transcribed and analysed for all sessions according to the conventions of conversation analysis. In the meeting-room sessions, data were also collected by electronic-group-support-systems technology and subjected to a modified form of content analysis. The broad findings showed the following. The assumption that there was little evidence of interest in complex adaptive systems among consumer behaviour researchers was confirmed. Apart from one paper calling for the use of conversation analysis in consumer behaviour research, there appeared to have been no subsequent reports of its adoption. The potential for conversation analysis in consumer research has probably not been understood because it was seen as a data-collection method only within an ethnomethodological perspective. The discursive theoretical perspective, which gives a prime position to conversation analysis in the construction of factual accounts, was found to be an innovative way to study consumer behaviour. A discursive theoretical research perspective could have provided a more robust theoretical justification for the fieldwork carried out in this study than the theory of the methodology that was first developed for this study. Conversation analysis did meet the five criteria proposed for surfacing a complex adaptive system in a small group but in an unexpected way. It met these criteria through the research process. In other words, by setting up an appropriate research environment and using conversation analysis, it was shown that a complex adaptive system was in operation.An outcome of employing complex adaptive systems theory and conversation analysis is a new way of seeing groups of consumers as a self-organised, nonlinear, interactive entity. Conversation analysis has proven to be a method of empirically observing this entity, whilst preserving the consumer groups' complex adaptiveness. There were three conclusions. The first is that the discursive paradigm appears to be an alternative paradigm for consumer behaviour research that is appropriate for certain applications. For example, marketing communications and word-of-mouth communication. The second conclusion is that when small-group talk-in-interaction is recorded and analysed using conversation analysis, the characteristics of a complex adaptive system theorised in this study seem evident to the researcher. The third is that complex adaptive systems appear to be capable of being researched in the field, but more work is needed on defining the characteristics to be researched

CYBERNETIFICATION I: Cybernetics Feedback Netgraft in Architecture

During the last decades, architecture has changed its role from fetishizing and fertilizing objectification and objects alike towards glamorising the processing of relations, observations and materialization of the 'objectile'. Steering the design process in contemporary computational architecture through and with a variety of dynamic, interconnecting agents affords re-framing, reviewing, and re-designing prescribed patterns of creating architecture. It critically encourages to examine the concept of feedback beyond the beloved evolutionary algorithm, which presents a technical rather than architectural cultural calculus. ‚CYBERNETICS FEEDBACK NETGRAFT’ proposes cybernetic principles as blueprint or genotype for computational architecture. Such principles allow for a systemic continuation of re-programming the architectural culture currently at stake. The forthcoming observation hovers between theories and meta-models. It argues that the possibilities for design increase through digitization and digitalization. In this respect, the chapter refers to Ross Ashby’s Law of Requisite Variety (Ashby 1957) on one hand and to emergence through digital self-organization on the other. (DeLanda 2011; Johnson 2001). The text offers a critic of the bio-digital and too fantastic (Werner 2014, pp.229-230). The author is starting to suggest an ‘architectural laboratorium of and for computational theory’ built on a systemic approach to emergence and the unforeseen - nourished by cybernetic principles: a cybernetification that eventually can govern and feed back into practice and the art of architecture.In den letzten Jahrzehnten hat die Architektur ihre Rolle verändert; von 'fetishizing' von Objektivierung und Objekten, hin zu einer Veredelung von Beziehungen, Beobachtungen und Materialisierung des 'objectile'. Lenkung Design-Prozess in der zeitgenössischen Computational Architecture durch und mit einer Vielzahl von dynamischen, verbindenden Agenten offeriert ein Re-Framing und Überprüfung von Entwurfsstrategien von vorgeschriebenen Mustern zur Gestaltung von Architekturen. Dies fordert kritisch dazu auf, das Konzept des Feedbacks jenseits der geliebten evolutionärer Algorithmus, der eher ein technisches als ein architektonisches Kulturkalkül. ,CYBERNETICS FEEDBACK NETGRAFT' schlägt vor Kybernetische Prinzipien als Blaupause oder Genotyp für Computational Architecture. Solche Prinzipien ermöglichen eine systematische Fortsetzung der Neuprogrammierung der derzeit auf dem Spiel steht. Die bevorstehende Beobachtung schwebt zwischen Theorien und Metamodellen. In dieser Hinsicht bezieht sich der Text auf Ross Ashby's 'Law of Requisite Variety' (Ashby 1957) einerseits und durch digitale Selbstorganisation auftauchen. (DeLandas) 2011; Johnson 2001). Die Autorin beginnt, ein 'architektonisches Laboratorium' über und für die Computertheorie aufgebaut 'auf einem systemischen Ansatz zu konstruieren

Transdisciplinarity from the Grassroots: Exploring Student-led Dialogues for Sustainability

The responses of higher education (HE) institutions towards the climate crisis and escalating social inequalities have been researched from either “top-down” (i.e., institutionally-led) or “bottom-up” (i.e., student-led) perspectives. As scholars call for enhanced insight into the space between these two poles, this paper provides an autoethnographical account of a “bottom-up” network led by doctoral students – Researchers 4 Sustainability (R4S) – initiated within a UK university to contest “top-down” structures by way of disciplinary silos. Likening disciplines to communicative subsystems, we draw on a social constructivist perspective of dialogue to demonstrate how three forms of dialogue – exploring, explaining and expanding – support not just the transcending of disciplinary boundaries, but crucially, institutional hierarchies, in the creation of sustainability knowledge. Herein, we introduce a framework against which to organise student-led dialogues relative to their inter- and/or trans- disciplinary orientations and offer recommendations for theory and practice

Education Reform at the "Edge of Chaos": Constructing ETCH (An Education Theory Complexity Hybrid) for an Optimal Learning Education Environment

EDUCATION REFORM AT THE "EDGE OF CHAOS":CONSTRUCTING ETCH (AN EDUCATION THEORY COMPLEXITY HYBRID) FOR AN OPTIMAL LEARNING EDUCATION ENVIRONMENT AbstractCurrently, the theoretical foundation that inspires educational theory, which in turn shapes the systemic structure of institutions of learning, is based on three key interconnected, interacting underpinnings -mechanism, reductionism, and linearity. My dissertation explores this current theoretical underpinning including its fallacies and inconsistencies, and then frames an alternative educational theoretical base - a hybrid complex adaptive systems theory model for education - that more effectively meets the demands to prepare students for the 21st century. My Education Theory Complexity Hybrid (ETCH) differs by focusing on the systemic, autopoietic nature of schools, the open, fluid processes of school systems as a dissipative structure, and nonlinearity or impossibility of completely predicting the results of any specific intervention within a school system.. In addition, I show how ETCH principles, when applied by educational system leaders, permit them to facilitate an optimal learning environment for a student-centered complex adaptive system.ETCH is derived from Complexity Theory and is a coherent, valid, and verifiable systems' framework that accurately aligns the education system with its goal as a student-centered complex adaptive system. In contrast to most dissertations in the School Leadership Program, which are empirical studies, mine explores this new theoretical orientation and illustrates the power of that orientation through a series of examples taken from my experiences in founding and operating the Lancaster Institute for Learning, a private state-licensed alternative high school in eastern Pennsylvania

Flocks, Swarms, Crowds, and Societies: On the Scope and Limits of Cognition

Traditionally, the concept of cognition has been tied to the brain or the nervous system. Recent work in various noncomputational cognitive sciences has enlarged the category of “cognitive phenomena” to include the organism and its environment, distributed cognition across networks of actors, and basic cellular functions. The meaning, scope, and limits of ‘cognition’ are no longer clear or well-defined. In order to properly delimit the purview of the cognitive sciences, there is a strong need for a clarification of the definition of cognition. This paper will consider the outer bounds of that definition. Not all cognitive behaviors of a given organism are amenable to an analysis at the organismic or organism-environment level. In some cases, emergent cognition in collective biological and human social systems arises that is irreducible to the sum cognitions of their constituent entities. The group and social systems under consideration are more extensive and inclusive than those considered in studies of distributed cognition to date. The implications for this ultimately expand the purview of the cognitive sciences and bring back a renewed relevance for anthropology and introduce sociology on the traditional six-pronged interdisciplinary wheel of the cognitive sciences

A transdisciplinary study of embodiment in HCI, AI and New Media.

The aim of this thesis is to report on a transdisciplinary approach, regarding the complexity of thinking about human embodiment in relation to machine embodiment. A practical dimension of this thesis is to elicit some principles for the design and evaluation of virtual embodiment. The transdisciplinary approach suggests, firstly, that a single discipline or reality is, on its own, not sufficient to explain the complexity and dynamism of the embodied interaction between the human and machine. Secondly, the thesis argues for thinking of transdisciplinary research as a process of individuation, becoming or transduction, that is, as a process of mediation between heterogeneous approaches rather than perceiving research as a stabilized cognitive schema designed to accumulate new outcomes to the already-there reality. Arguing for going beyond the individualized approaches to embodiment, this thesis analyzes three cases where the problems that appear in one case are resolved through the analysis of the following one. Consisting of three phases, this research moves from objective scientific ¿reality¿ to more phenomenological, subjective and complex realities. The first study employs a critical review of embodied conversational agents in human¿computer interaction (HCI) in a learning context using a comparative meta-analysis. Meta-analysis was applied because most of the studies for evaluating embodiment are experimental. A learning context was selected because the number of studies is suitable for meta-analysis and the findings could be generalized to other contexts. The analysis reveals that there is no ¿persona effect¿, that is, the expected positive effect of virtual embodiment on the participant¿s affective, perceptive and cognitive measures. On the contrary, it shows the reduction of virtual embodiment to image and a lack of consideration for the participant¿s embodiment and interaction, in addition to theoretical and methodological shortcomings. The second phase solves these problems by focusing on Mark Hansen¿s phenomenological account of embodiment in new media. The investigation shows that Hansen improves on the HCI account by focusing on the participant¿s dynamic interaction with new media. Nevertheless, his views of embodied perception and affection are underpinned by a subjective patriarchal account leading to object/subject and body/work polarizations. The final phase resolves this polarization by analyzing the controversial work of Alan Turing on intelligent machinery. The research provides a different reading of the Turing Machine based on Simondon¿s concept of individuation, repositioning its materiality from the abstract non-existent to the actual-virtual realm and investigating the reasons for its abstraction. It relates the emergence of multiple human¿machine encounters in Turing¿s work to the complex counter-becoming of what it describes as ¿the Turing Machine compound¿.Ministry of Higher Education in the Sultanate of Oma

Commoning the food system: Barriers, opportunities and resilience strategies on the case of CampiAperti, Bologna, Italy

The concept of ‘Food sovereignty’ was articulated by the global peasant movement La Via Campesina in 1994, in response to the neo-liberalisation of agriculture. Most academic research on food sovereignty focusses on the global South, and only little attention has been paid to the European peasant movement and their strategies to build food sovereignty in a context in which, according to European La Via Campesina, the EU Common Agricultural Policy is putting a small farm out of business every three minutes, and agro-industry emits one fourth of all carbon emissions in the continent. This thesis discusses the transformative potential of food production and the decommodification of foodstuff from a commons and commoning perspective. Analysing the case of CampiAperti, a producer Association in Bologna, Italy, I demonstrate multiple production systems in use-value through the lens of the peasant condition where farmers have taken ownership over the production stages of their selected craft, and through commoning have put in place an agroecological value system based on animal and labour rights. In exerting their value system, two autopoietic mechanisms were developed to assert their ecological and social boundaries from the state, capitalist system and free-riders. The first one is the participatoryguarantee-system (PGS), and the second is the collaborative price-mechanism (CPM). The PGS is instrumental to self-certifying their foodstuff, which raises the critical question of boundaries and enclosures from a commons perspective. While the CPM is used to eliminate competitive behaviour amongst producers by setting their own ‘just prices’. This mechanism is scrutinised on competition, and on the tension between guaranteeing a livelihood for farmer and the affordability of their foodstuff for consumers. Both PGS and CPM mechanism defy the capitalist logic of neo-liberalisation of the food system as well as the logics of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), and thus these mechanisms are strategic political tools to emancipate from the capitalist food market and are employed to self-govern their own markets. Foodstuff is evaluated as a common good, arguing that the created food system is a closed commons circuit.  Conducting fieldwork on farms, markets, and assemblies, the study addresses the possibility of materialising food sovereignty by examining production and distribution of foodstuff in usevalue. It utilises a practice-centred approach and draws on a mixed-method, multi-sited ethnographic strategy to explore how individuals take responsibility of their re/production and examines the producer’s commitment to participate in self-governing the food system through commoning. The ethnographic study is supplemented with a discourse and conversational analysis to get a deeper understanding of CampiAperti’s organisation and of their complex horizontal governance structure