This may interest some list members.
Please don't reply to me about this. I'm about to go on holiday!
Ranulph
Cybernetic Serendipity Redux—online discussion
40 years ago, Jasia Reichart's exhibition "Cybernetic Serendipity"
showed that the interactive confluence of cybernetics, computing and
art had arrived.
(60 years ago, Norbert Wiener published his book “Cybernetics”. 50
years ago the worlds first electronic performance installation—the
Philips Pavilion at the Brussels World Fair—was launched.)
40 years later, while computers and art remain, cybernetics has
nearly vanished, although there is a reviving interest in it in art.
In remembering Cybernetic Serendipity we have the chance to re-open
the debate, to reconsider the relationship particularly between
cybernetics and art, and to do so taking into account the way that
cybernetics has developed during its period of near invisibility.
Thus, we can revisit and reconsider: if Cybernetic Serendipity were
to be launched today, what should go in it, how should it be
exhibited, and what would cybernetics and art learn from each other?
That, of course, depends not only on developments in art practice,
but also (and more critically) on what is new in cybernetics, and how
can that inform art: and, what is new in art, and how can that inform
cybernetics.
This is a chance to reopen the connection, to explore again, and to
move beyond some of the current models taken from cognitive science,
computing, AI and AL, and complexity, to the (much more radical)
field of their origin, cybernetics.
The immediate celebration will be an online discussion, Cybernetic
Serendipity Redux, considering art, exhibitions and cybernetics now.
This will run during September. There is a small team of discussants,
to keep the ball rolling, but I hope you'll join in as much as you
can. You can find this at:
http://www.media.uoa.gr/yasmin/index.php?yasminText=discussions-schedule
There is also a ning site, where we will store material:
http://cyberdesign.ning.com/
Do please consider signing on to these sites and taking part. You
would be greatly valued.
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