Systems thinking and practice for action research

This chapter offers some grounding in systems thinking and practice for doing action research. There are different traditions within systems thinking and practice which, if appreciated, can become part of the repertoire for practice by action researchers. After exploring some of these lineages the differences between systemic and systematic thinking and practice are elucidated – these are the two adjectives that come from the word 'system', but they describe quite different understandings and practices. These differences are associated with epistemological awareness and distinguishing systemic action research from action research. Finally, some advantages for action research practice from engaging with systems thinking and practice are discussed

All That Is Cyber Melts into Control: a Rhetorical Analysis of Cybernetic Metaphors

This thesis historicizes and interprets the logic of cybernetics as a communication technology and how it shaped notions of control in the mid-20th century. To situate my analysis, I focus on cybernetics, the tradition within communication studies that focuses on controlling communication through the application of feedback loops to a particular system. Since the discovery and popularization of cybernetics by the late 1950s, its central logic has been widely applied to computational technology and influenced future systems theories. Specifically, my thesis employs a rhetorical examination of cybernetic metaphors through metaphor criticism to trace the genealogy of cybernetic discourses that I argue attempted to reconstitute political structures through stabilizing systems that would maintain and regulate the social, political, and economic forces of society. My thesis explores archival exchanges between Soviet Cybernetics Review, Ali İrtem, and Stafford Beer to tracing the intellectual history of discourses that employed cybernetic thinking through metaphors to re-constitute the political-economic systems internationally

The art of conversation: design cybernetics and its ethics

Purpose This paper discusses ethical principles that are implicit in second-order cybernetics, with the aim of arriving at a better understanding of how second-order cybernetics frames living in a world with others. It further investigates implications for second-order cybernetics approaches to architectural design, i.e. the activity of designing frameworks for living. Design/methodology/approach The paper investigates the terminology in the second-order cybernetics literature with specific attention to terms that suggest that there are ethical principles at work. It further relates second-order cybernetics to selected notions in phenomenology, pragmatism and transcendental idealism. The comparison allows for conclusions about the specificity of a second-order inquiry. In line with the thematic focus of this journal issue on the framing of shared worlds, the paper further elaborates on questions relating to the activity of designing “worlds” in which people live with others. Findings The paper highlights that a radical openness toward the future and toward the agency of others is inscribed in the conception of second-order cybernetics. It creates a frame of reference for conceiving social systems of all kinds, including environments that are designed to be inhabited. Originality/value The paper identifies an aesthetics grounded in the process of living-with-others as an ethical principle implicit in second-order cybernetics thought. It is an aesthetics that is radically open for the agency of others. Linking aesthetics and ethics, the paper’s contributions will be of specific value for practitioners and theoreticians of design. Considering second-order cybernetics as a practice generally dealing with designing, it also contributes to the wider second-order cybernetics discourse

Systems practice and the design of learning systems: orchestrating an ecological conversation

Human beings live in language and only they can take responsibility for how they think and act. So what understandings of response are possible? The relationship between responsibility and response-abilty is explored in the light of emerging critiques of the prevailing Western attitude to reason, viz: Lakoff and Johnson's (1999) fundamental challenge to prevailing models of Western thought. They argue that reason (on which much practice is built, including research practice) is: (i) not disembodied, but arises from the nature of our brains, bodies and bodily experience; (ii) evolutionary, in that abstract reason builds on and makes use of perceptual and motor inference present in 'lower' animals; (iii) is not universal in the transcendent sense but rather universal in that it is a capacity all humans share; (iv) mostly unconscious; (v) largely metaphorical and imaginative and (vi) not dispassionate but emotionally engaged. Systems practice is introduced as a means to orchestrate a particular type of conversation; it is also an ecological conversation. As a species our unique selling point is that we can engage in conversation. In the process we bring forth both ourselves and our world. To converse is to turn together, to dance, and thus an ecological conversation is a tango of responsibility. A conversation is inventive, unpredictable and is always particularizing to place and people. Drawing on experiences of teaching systems thinking and practice for environmental decision making a praxiology is outlined for stakeholder responsibility and response-ability. It is argued that capacity building in systemic inquiry and the design of learning systems are central to this praxiology

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

The Cybernetics of Design and the Design of Cybernetics

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to connect two discourses, the discourse of cybernetics and that of design. Design/methodology/approach – The paper takes a comparative analysis of relevant definitions, concepts, and entailments in both discourse, and an integration of these into a cybernetically informed concept of human-centered design, on the one hand, and a design-informed concept of second-order cybernetics, on the other hand. In the course of this conceptual exploration, the distinction between science and design is explored with cybernetics located in the dialectic between the two. Technology-centered design is distinguished from human-centered design, and several axioms of the latter are stated and discussed. Findings – This paper consists of recommendations to think and do things differently. In particular, a generalization of interface is suggested as a replacement for the notion of products; a concept of meaning is developed to substitute for the meaninglessness of physical properties; a theory of stakeholder networks is discussed to replace the deceptive notion of THE user; and, above all, it is suggested that designers, in order to design something that affords use to others, engage in second-order understanding. Originality/value – The paper makes several radical suggestions that face likely rejection by traditionalists but acceptance by cyberneticians and designers attempting to make a contribution to contemporary information society

Design research as a variety of second-order Cybernetic practice

> Context • The relationship between design and science has shifted over recent decades. One bridge between the two is cybernetics, which offers perspectives on both in terms of their practice. From around 1980 onwards, drawing on ideas from cybernetics, Glanville has suggested that rather than apply science to design, it makes more sense to understand science as a form of design activity, reversing the more usual hierarchy between the two. I return to review this argument here, in the context of recent discussions in this journal regarding second-order science (SOS). > Problem • Despite numerous connections to practice, second-order cybernetics (SOC) has tended to be associated with theory. As a result, SOC is perceived as separate to the more tangible aspects of earlier cybernetics in a way that obscures both the continuity between the two and also current opportunities for developing the field. > Method • I review Glanville's understanding of design, and particularly his account of scientific research as a designlike activity, placing this within the context of the shifting relation between science and design during the development of SOC, with reference to the work of Rittel and Feyerabend. Through this, I summarise significant parallels and overlaps between SOC and the contemporary concerns of design research. > Results • I suggest that we can see design research not just as a field influenced by cybernetics but as a form of SOC practice even where cybernetics is not explicitly referenced. > Implications • Given this, design research offers much to cybernetics as an important example of SOC that is both outward looking and practice based. As such, it bridges the gap between SOC and the more tangible legacy of earlier cybernetics, while also suggesting connections to contemporary concerns in this journal with SOS in terms of researching research. > Constructivist content • By suggesting that we see design research as an example of SOC, I develop connections between constructivism and practice

Introduction [to: Cybernetics: state of the art]

The Introduction to 'Cybernetics: state of the art' gives an overview of the contributions the first volume of the book series ‘CONVERSATIONS’. ‘CON-VERSATIONS’ is based on and driven by cybernetic principles. It engages with pressing questions for architecture, urban planning, design and infrastructure; in an age of increasing connectivity, AI and robotization; in an evolutionary state of the Anthropocene, perpetuating anxiety as well as excitement and joy of a future, that we will be able to predict with less and less certainty. The editors acknowledge cybernetics as a contemporary, effective and efficient way of dealing with current and future challenges for humankind. We understand cybernetics as the art of interacting, listening, learning and conversing with environmental – internal and external – impulses and perturbations. It allows for comprehending the best part of our world as infrastructure and as system and to leave an object-oriented understanding behind. Although CON-VERSATIONS does not explore in detail the inter-, cross- and trans- disciplinary nature of cybernetics, nor its inter-sectoral and international approach, those characteristics are naturally deeply embedded in cybernetics. This first volume invites the reader to enjoy a glimpse into the past and to imagine a cybernetic future. At this stage the reader may ask the question: What is this ‘Cybernetics-Thing’? Isn’t this all digital? Isn’t this all about robots, and the Internet – and not about humans – about Cyberspace and virtual reality? About Cyber-hacking and machines that do what they want because of some smart-ass intelligent computer program?Der Text gibt einen Überblick über die Beiträge zum ersten Band der Buchreihe "Conversation". Kybernetik: Stand der Technik "CON-VERSATIONS" basiert auf kybernetischen Prinzipien. Es beschäftigt sich mit drängenden Fragen für Architektur, Stadtplanung, Design und Infrastruktur; in einem Zeitalter zunehmender Konnektivität, KI und Robotisierung; in einem evolutionären Zustand des Anthropozän, Angst weiter sowie Aufregung und Freude an einer Zukunft, die wir mit immer weniger Sicherheit. Die Herausgeber erkennen die Kybernetik als zeitgenössisch an, effektiver und effizienter Umgang mit aktuellen und zukünftigen Herausforderungen für die Menschheit. Der Text versteht Kybernetik als die Kunst des Interagierens, des Zuhörens, Lernen und im Gespräch mit umweltinternen und -externen Impulsen und Störungen. Er ermöglicht, unsere Welt als Infrastruktur und als System zu verstehen. CON-VERSATIONS zeigt nicht detailliert die inter- und transdisziplinärer Natur der Kybernetik, noch ihrer sektorübergreifenden und internationalen Ansatz, da diese Merkmale natürlich in der Kybernetik verankert sind. Dieser erste Band lädt den Leser ein, einen Blick in die Vergangenheit zu werfen und sich eine kybernetische Zukunft vorzustellen. In diesem Stadium kann der Leser die Frage stellen: Was ist das 'Kybernetik-Ding'? Ist das nicht alles digital? Geht es nur um Roboter und das Internet – und nicht um Menschen – über Cyberspace und virtuelle Realität? Über Cyber-Hacking und Maschinen, die tun, was sie wollen, weil einige Smart-Ass intelligent Computer Programm