Communication from the American Society for Cybernetics

Citation

(2010), "Communication from the American Society for Cybernetics", Kybernetes, Vol. 39 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/k.2010.06739eaf.001

Communication from the American Society for Cybernetics

Article Type: Communications and Forum Section From: Kybernetes, Volume 39, Issue 5

Cybernetics: art, design, mathematics – a meta-disciplinary conversation

How would you like to shape and take part in a conference where the main activity is to explore by listening, talking and questioning (conversing) rather than listen to, and give, prepared lectures; and where the aim is to move forward, taking next steps as a result of these conversations, rather than reporting on the already discovered? In other words, go to a conference where the intention is to move forward by conferring.

That is the central feature of our conference – a conference of conversation, of listening, talking and questioning. Of open minds, and delight in the unthought-of.

And what better way to make an interesting conversation than to bring together people whose backgrounds and interests are different, yet who want to learn by listening to others, to find what can be shared? In other words, to transcend boundaries.

So, we bring together practitioners and theorists who wish to explore across boundaries, from four different subjects. But not just any four subjects. Subjects that already hold conversations together in pairs: cybernetics, art, design and mathematics. With all four together, we have a wider conversation, greater variety.

Our four subjects have a special quality in common. Each is used to comment, throw light on and inform other subjects. Perhaps, mathematics is the most obvious case: a subject in its own right that is used everywhere to illuminate (and make operable) other subjects. But also a subject that can comment on itself: a subject which is a meta-subject, even to itself.

Our conference is surrounded by three other, related events. Look on the web site, chose what you like, and come and join us at the Experimental Media Performance Arts Centre at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, from the evening of 30 July to late afternoon on 2 August, with surrounding events on 29 and 30 July, and 3-5 August.

You can visit us at: www.asc-cybernetics.org/2010/

Cybernetics: Art, Design, Mathematics – A Meta-disciplinary Conversation is a joint project of the American Society for Cybernetics, and the Experimental Media and Performance Arts Centre and Department of Architecture, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.