[iDC] how long is a piece of string?

[Mark Shepard]

Brian, Katharine,

Let's see how far we can spin this thread?

>> cybernetics still considers 'systems', which to some extent is  
>> grounded in the underlying assumption that a system in itself has  
>> some form of boundary and can be studied objectively as an entity-  
>> which can be limiting as  an approach.
>
> Indeed, very limiting. My understanding is that the feedback loop,  
> whose purpose or "teleology" is to maintain a system in a steady  
> state, has
> become the paradigm of control in contemporary societies. To  
> achieve this steady state, the control engineer must identify the  
> variables of the system, both in the machinic actor and in its  
> environment.

Clearly first-order cybernetics as exemplified by, say, the  
Homeostat, follows this logic. But my understanding of how the field  
evolved (which is limited, although I think Hayles (1999) provides a  
useful introduction) is that second- and third-order theoreticians  
such as Gordon Pask sought ways of thinking about interaction with  
(and through) computers that favored "open" over "closed" systems,  
with outcomes that were not knowable outside the system's  
performance. By "underspecifying" the goals of the system, the focus  
shifted from maintaining systems in a steady state to ones capable of  
evolving with and through "conversations" between machines, people  
and environments that unfolded over time.  His Conversation Theory  
may be worth revisiting for a way of thinking through how the act of  
story-telling–as something that unfolds over time–produces a "shared"  
space "between" actors resulting in "outcomes" to which neither can  
lay claim to exclusive authorship. Or maybe not.

Another place to look might be his Colloquy of Mobiles, part of the  
1968 exhibition «Cybernetic Serendipity» held at the ICA in London:  
http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/colloquy-of-mobiles/ - Here, the  
closed loop determining the interaction between the machinic actors  
of the system is interrupted by the viewer/participant wielding  
mirrors and flashlights, influencing how the system itself evolves  
(learns).

At the same time, it might be helpful to differentiate between  
"addressable" and "non-addressable" things (spaces, events,  
subjects, ...)? Computation normally requires that which it "operates  
on" to be addressable: as a variable, IP address, memory register,  
sensor threshold or peak, whatever. This is the "discreteness"  
Chalmers et. al. refer to. Non-addressable things are those that  
either don't fit a known pattern or can't be described or specified  
in the terms available at the time "code" is initiated, and are  
therefore hard to represent symbolically to the computer. Neural- 
networks and evolutionary programming are two approaches to this  
"problem."

But is this "problem" itself not the problem? The critique of  
encroachment of the domain of the "addressable" upon that of the "non- 
addressable" is long-standing. Deleuze (1992) discusses this in the  
context of the dissolution of forms of societal enclosures  
(Foucault), new forms of mobility and corresponding regimes of  
control. Further, as Law (2004) shows, the messy, non-addressable  
aspects of the "real world" pervade the scientific laboratory as much  
as they do everyday life. So I'd think it's less a question of  
looking away from science to art, but recognizing the inter-weavings  
of the two (among others) in the larger frame of this thing we call  
life. If technology is to be the answer (and it may not be in this  
case, but Katharine, you originally frame it as such), how we frame  
the question is, in fact, *the* critical question. Asking how we  
might narrate the (last remaining?) spaces "in-between" (as Ian  
Sinclair does in Orbital London, or J.G. Ballard does in Concrete  
Island for that matter) would inevitably to lead to us down the line  
to yet another mobile application designed to direct the tourist to  
that hidden cafe located "off the beaten path." Perhaps "local  
knowledge" is best left local?

I want a SATNAV device that helps me get lost...

I think Brian eloquently expresses how at least art can work toward  
producing "non-addressable" spaces/subjects:

> This is the liberating side of art: when you really engage with it,  
> it brings you into contact with what you don't know, it vibrates  
> you, as it
> were, between the presence and absence of any consistency of the  
> self, and in this way opens you up a processual change of state,  
> which is the very process of living.

So, maybe the question then (if the answer is to be technology): how  
do we create technologies that work toward enhancing the  
serendipitous, the unexpected, the schizogeographic,  the always  
already _un_known, the stuff which elides what Brian describes as  
"the imposed patternings of everyday existence in technological  
societies", or in plain terms, that which simply enhances the very  
_process_ of living?

Mark

+++

Delezue, Gilles, (1992). Postscript on Societies of Control. OCTOBER   
59, MIT Press,

Hayles, N. Katherine, (1999). How We Became Posthuman. University of  
Chicago.

Law, John, (2004). After Method: Mess in Social Science Research.  
Routledge.