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on the shoulders of giants, in reverse

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Manfred Mohr: prĆŻkopnĂk poÄĂtaÄovĂ©ho umÄnĂ
Manfred Mohr jako jeden z prvnĂch umÄlcĆŻ pouĆŸil v 70. letech pro svou umÄleckou tvorbu poÄĂtaÄ a algoritmickĂ© generovĂĄnĂ, a patĆĂ tak k prĆŻkupnĂkĆŻm poÄĂtaÄovĂ©ho umÄnĂ
NÄmeckĂœ umÄlec Manfred Mohr patĆĂ k prvnĂm prĆŻkopnĂkĆŻm poÄĂtaÄovĂ©ho umÄnĂ. Jako jazzovĂœ hudebnĂk a klasicky vzdÄlanĂœ vizuĂĄlnĂ umÄlec nejdĆĂve Äerpal z hard-edge abstraktnĂ malby. V roce 1967 v jeho umÄleckĂ© praxi ale pĆiĆĄel zvrat potĂ©, co si vyslechl pĆednĂĄĆĄku francouzskĂ©ho skladatele Pierra Barbauda na tĂ©ma vyuĆŸitĂ algoritmickĂ© kompozice. Na zaÄĂĄtku ĆĄedesĂĄtĂœch let byl Mohr takĂ© vĂœraznÄn ovlivnÄn filosofiĂ umÄnĂ a estetikou nÄmeckĂ©ho filosofa Maxe Bense. Bense sĂĄm byl vysoce interdisciplinĂĄrnÄ zamÄĆenĂœm ÄlovÄkem, pro svou teorii racionĂĄlnĂ estetiky Äerpal ze zĂĄsadnĂch pracĂ svĂ© doby jako napĆ. kybernetika Norberta Wienera, Shannonova teorie informace Äi Birkhoffova snaha kvantifikovat estetickou krĂĄsu dĂla pomocĂ mÄĆenĂ vztahu uspoĆĂĄdanosti a komplexity. Bense je povaĆŸovĂĄn za tvĆŻce konceptu informaÄnĂ estetiky. Bensova racionĂĄlnĂ estetika Mohra transformovala a od abstraktnĂho expresionismu se uchĂœlil k poÄĂtaÄovĂ©mu umÄnĂ zaloĆŸenĂ©m na algoritmickĂ© konstrukci geometrickĂœch tvarĆŻ.
P-197-N/R801, 1977 Plotter drawing ink on paper
zdroj: http://www.bitforms.com/mohr/p-026f-inversion-logique
Manfred Mohr âCubic Limit,â 1973-74 Digital transfer of 16mm film 4 min
Algoritmizace umÄleckĂ©ho procesu byla pro Mohra ideĂĄlnĂ prostĆedek, jak naplnit Bensovy myĆĄlenky racionalizace umÄnĂ: Mohr podnikl analĂœzu svĂ©ho estetickĂ©ho stylu z poslednĂch deseti let a jak vlastnĂmi slovy pĂĆĄe, naĆĄel pĆekvapivÄ mnoho pravidelnostĂ a vzorcĆŻ. Z tÄch vytvoĆil syntax, tedy pravidla pro kombinaci jednotlivĂœch elementĆŻ, jeĆŸ nĂĄslednÄ matematiky popsal, coĆŸ mu umoĆŸnilo takto formalizovanĂœ vlastnĂ âumÄleckĂœ stylâ pĆevĂ©st do algoritmu v programovacĂm jazyce.
âThe first step in that direction was an extended analysis of my own paintings and drawings from the last ten years. It resulted in a surprisingly large amount of regularities, determined of course by my particular aesthetical sense, through which I was able to establish a number of basic elements that amounted to a rudimentary syntax. After representing these basic constructions through a mathematical formalism, and setting them up in an abstract combinatorial framework, I was in a position to realize all possible representations of my algorithms.â (Mohr 1971)
Mohr zmiĆuje v jednom z rozhovorĆŻ, ĆŸe v 70. letech dvacĂĄtĂ©ho stoletĂ bylo pĆi zrodu poÄĂtaÄovĂ©ho umÄnĂ nejsloĆŸitÄjĆĄĂ se vĆŻbec k nÄjakĂ©mu poÄĂtaÄi dostat. Mohr vysvÄtluje, ĆŸe jeho prvnĂ dĂla vznikala na mainframovĂ©m poÄĂtaÄi, kterĂœ byl ve vlastnictvĂ metereologickĂ©ho institutu v PaĆĂĆŸi. Mohrovi bylo dovoleno po veÄerech na poÄĂtaÄi pracovat takĂ© proto, ĆŸe tehdejĆĄĂ ministr zodpovÄdnĂœ za povolenĂ mÄl pro Mohra pochopenĂ, jelikoĆŸ v mlĂĄdĂm byl sĂĄm praktikujĂcĂm umÄlcem.
MohrĆŻv vizuĂĄlnĂ styl se dĂĄle vyznaÄoval tĂm, ĆŸe pouĆŸĂval pouze dvÄ barvy: Äernou a bĂlou. Tato volba doplĆuje celkovou binĂĄrnost jeho tvorby, Mohr ale uvĂĄdĂ, ĆŸe se pouze pro dvÄ barvy rozhodnul jeĆĄtÄ dĆĂve, neĆŸ se zaÄal vÄnovat poÄĂtaÄovĂ©mu umÄnĂ kvĆŻli tomu, ĆŸe chtÄl, aby dĂlo bylo hodnoceno na zĂĄkladÄ tvaru, nikoli barvy. Jeho pozdÄjĆĄĂ tvorba ale jiĆŸ barev vyuĆŸĂvĂĄ.
V poslednĂch ÄtyĆiceti letech Mohr dĂĄle zkoumĂĄ estetiku generativnĂho umÄnĂ. Za jakousi ĆĄablonu, ze kterĂ© jeho dĂla vychĂĄzejĂ, mu slouĆŸĂ vĂcedimenzionĂĄlnĂ krychle, jeĆŸ, s odkazem na Bense, zobrazuje matematickou pravdu a koncept objektivnĂ krĂĄsy (Klutch 2012, s. 79).
P-1611-6_10, 2012 Pigment-ink on canvas
zdroj: http://www.bitforms.com/mohr/p-1611-6_10
 Zdroje:
KLUTSCH, Christoph a (eds.). 2012. Information Aesthetics And The Stuttgart School. In: B HIGGINS, Hannah a Douglas KAHN. Mainframe Experimentalism: Early Computing and the Foundations of the Digital Arts. California: University of California Press, s. 65-89. ISBN 0520268385.
MOHR, Manfred. 1971. Artistâs Statement. In: Manfred Mohr Computer Graphics â Une EsthĂ©tique ProgrammĂ©e. Paris: ARC â MusĂ©e dâArt Moderne de la Ville de Paris. DostupnĂ© takĂ© z: http://www.emohr.com/ww1_out.html
Salon | Artist Talk | The Algorithm of Manfred Mohr. 1963 â Now. In: Youtube [online]. 18. 03. 2016 [vid. 2013-06-18]. KanĂĄl uĆŸivatele Art Basel. DostupnĂ© z: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aN1JcfRc6Xs#!
The artist and well-known theoretician Lev Manovich explores and compares new media revolution to avant-garde art of the 1910s-1920s in the visual arts, design and film. The author argues that the 1920s avant-garde techniques were transformed into the conventions of modern human-computer interface and software, thus functioning as a foundation of post-industrial labour.
Max Bense's Informational and Semiotical Aesthetics by Elisabeth Walther
Max Bense (1910-1990) studied mathematics, physics, geology and philosophy at the Bonn University where he gained his Ph.D. + Sc. in december 1937. Already as a student, he began to publish.
In many of his publications, Max Bense exposed his aesthetical conceptions. In founding and guiding the Stuttgart Universitary Gallery from 1958 until 1978, and opening approximately 100 exhibitions, he possessed a forum to test his aesthetical ideas. In the first place, all his publications were concerning the exploration, the deepening and enlarging of aesthetical and semiotical theories, particularly of the theory of the "aesthetical state" of the works of art as realized signs, sign processes and sign systems. The work of art being situated between the author and the observer, Max Bense always took into consideration the communicational function of art. Nevertheless, one cannot name Max Bense's aesthetics "GefallensÀsthetik" or "aesthetics of pleasure". As an epistemologist he distiguished clearly between aesthetics, sociology of art and psychology of perception which concern the domain of art, too, but are different from aesthetics.
Already in his first book "Space and I" [Raum und ich. Eine Philosophie ĂŒber den Raum (1934)] which he wrote as a young student one finds particularly aesthetical views. The titles of chapters like "Mathematics and Beauty" [Die Mathematik und das Schöne] , "Space and Dance" [Raum und Tanz], "Gestalt and Mind" [Gestalt und Geist] show the starting point of all his researches, namely, that art and mathematics are very closely connected. Many concepts which are investigated in later books are already introduced here , i.e.: "aesthetical experience", "aesthetical process", "uniqueness", "fragility", "act of selection", "aesthetical state", "state of relativity", and so on. He sees the most compelling connection between mathematics and aesthetics in the "act of selection", in mathematics through the "selection of consciousness", in aesthetics through the "selection of feeling".
The connection of mathematics and art or aesthetics is, of course, not Max Bense's discovery. He names many of his forerunners, but, in our century, he is one of the few who called attention to it and defended it as the very foundation of aesthetical research. He considers the artist's and the scientist's creative work to be swinging between "chaos and Gestalt" to reach a "whole" [Ganzes]. He explains also that
there is "no substance without form" and "no reality without Gestalt idea", or "no ideality without matter". Many other concepts such as symbol, word, sense, image, order, system and so on, being introduced programmatically, but rather vaguely, and explained only in later books, are to be found in this first book.
In many of his following books, concerning epistemological, ontological questions or problems of the philosophy of nature or technique, Max Bense always considers aesthetical points of view, but only the second volume of his book "Contours of an Intellectual History of Mathematics" [Konturen einer Geistesgeschichte der Mathematik, II. Die Mathematik und die Kunst (1949)] is exclusively dedicated to the relation between mathematics and art. Firstly, he introduced as most important the concept of "perfection". Perfection, he maintains, was the mighty impulse in constructing our "technical world" which substitutes or penetrates the cultural world. Max Bense understands by perfection mainly the perfection of reasoning in constituting a "mathematical consciousness". He not only connects mathematics with poetry, literature, music or other artistical phenomena, but, accordingly, thinks that "aesthetical consciousness of form in general" is exclusively filled with mathematical thinking. The "original unity of aesthetical and mathematical categories" is expressed in his following sentence: "In the first approximation it suffices to have outlined the possibility of aesthetics which reduces mind to form and form to mathematics [...] For I don't know how to speak otherwise than mathematically about form, if one wishes to speak in general about form obligingly, acceptably and controllably."
Max Bense always endeavoured to combine rationality with art, and found new intermediary stages to show this close relation of art and science, or sensitivity and rationality. The conception of "mathesis universalis" or "the universal idea of humanism", he connects, for instance, with the program for the "Gesamtkunstwerk". Other concepts like "representation" he introduces on the basis of Leibniz.
In his book "Metaphysics of Literature" [Literaturmetaphysik. Der Schriftsteller in der technischen Welt (1950)], Max Bense utilizes beside mathematical, also metaphysical foundations, particularly ontological and cosmological conceptions, and also Heidegger's "fundamental ontology". On account of aesthetical researches, he expressively underlines the role of "methodology" which replaces "ideology". With this he connects formulations concerning "technical world" and "technical existence". Under the title "Technical Existence" [Technische Existenz (1949)], he published a very interesting book in which he defended, with great emphasis, technical civilization. Though not having worked out a real semiotics, he introduces concepts like sign, sign language, expression, representation, sign for something and sign for others, and so on. Also in the chapter "The spiritual purity of technique" [Die spirituelle Reinheit der Technik] of the book "World of Advertising" [Plakatwelt (1952)], he underlines the role of technique in artistical products. This positive outlook to technique explains the later defense of computer art, or, as he also said, the "programming of beauty". He writes: "We inhabit a technical world. A world which we made, the changes of which lies in our hands and perfection of which depends essentially on our reasoning and our imagination." But because of the technical world's constant changing, the perfection was never to be seen as an final state, but only as provisory point in developing processes. Beside, already in "The spiritual purity of technique" he cites Norbert Wiener's "Cybernetics" (1949) and comes to the promising statement that cybernetics will become the "queen of all sciences". In "Kafka's Theory" [Die Theorie Kafkas (1952)], another small book, Max Bense underlines the provisory character of his "Metaphysics of Literature" and points out that it served also as an "explanation of the writer in the technical world".
Now, I wish to speak about his main work on aesthetics. The fist volume has the title "Aesthetica [I]. Metaphysical observations on beauty" [Aestetica [I]. Metaphysische Beobachtungen am Schönen (1954)]. Max Bense presents there "observations, experiences, considerations and conclusions" in literature and painting. He divides aesthetics in three parts: 1) aesthetical object, 2) aesthetical judgment, and 3) aesthetical existence. The old conception of beauty is now understood as a modality of works of art, technical products and products of industrial design, and he distinguishes also between beauty of art, beauty of technique and beauty of nature. Here, we meet for the first time George David Birkhoff's "aesthetical measure" which is the quotient of "order and complexity". In all his following books, Max Bense retained this formula but completed it by considerations from the general information theory. Birkhoff's main idea, that in every work of art there are certain elements in a special order, is a very old thought, but he was the first to bring it in a mathematical relation. The "aesthetical measure" is a comparision measure related only to similar objects, objects of a "family", he said. In the same way as Birkhoff, Max Bense analyzes the works of art as such, not their effects on observers nor their role in history, or their trading value. Now, he reaches a new and clearer understanding of the semiotical state of the works of art. "Not the represented object, but the sign that represents the object is beautiful", he says. He introduces also the concepts of "object message", "existence message" and "form message" to make further distinctions, but he did not yet gain the theoretical foundation of semiotics.
With the concept of message the work of art is explained as "information" in the sense of "innovation" and "originality". The wrtings about information theory led to his conception of "aesthetical information" as a special kind of information in every-day life. The sentence of Claudius' poem: "The moon is rising", is a semantical information, but connected with the other sentence: "The golden stars are shining brightly, and clearly in the sky" represents an aesthetical information because of the new order depending on rhyme and rhythm in the German version. Max Bense completes the old concepts of "content" and "form" with the concept of "medium", "material" or "means". They are the elements of complexity distinguished by Birkhoff. "An aesthetical information rests on its means, on its singular realization", he writes. But to connect Birkhoff's measure with information theory, Max Bense transforms his formula into the informational measure: redundance divided by statistical information. Redundance is obviously the same as order by which the elements are connected. The simplest redundance is, by the way, symmetry. Now, with this enlargement, Max Bense differentiates aesthetics in macro-aesthetics and micro-aesthetics. Macro-aesthetics is concerned with the evident realms of perceptions of the aesthetic object, micro-aesthetics with the not-evident realms of the aesthetic object. Obviously, these conceptions are borrowed from modern physics.
By all these considerations, Max Bense proceeds from metaphysical aesthetics through mathematical aesthetics to informational or statistical aesthetics. Aesthetic communication is elaborated in Volume 3 of "Aesthetica" (1958) with the subtitle "Theory of aesthetical communication" [Aes<thetische Information]. The general scheme of communication is: sender or emitter -> channel -> receiver. In aesthetics it becomes: sender -> aesthetical object -> observer, and is understood as "play" in the sense of Friedrich Schiller or "play theory" by John von Neumann.
In "Aesthetica 4", with the subtitles "Programming of Beauty. General Text Theory and Text Aesthetics" [Programmierung des Schönen. Allgemeine Texttheorie und TextĂ€sthetik (1960)], Max Bense investigates the works of art as "vehicles of aesthetical information". He determines the aesthetic process as sign process and replaces the concept of literature by the concept of text, because the letter comprises literature, and all other kinds of possible "linear and non-linear texts", he maintains. The discussion of text, metatext, and context leads to the classification of texts of all kinds. His "text theory" consists also of text materiality, text phenomenality, text statistics, text logic, and so on. But only in his book "Theory of Texts" [Theorie der Texte. Eine EinfĂŒhrung in neuere Auffassungen und Methoden (1962)], he develops his methods more exactly and presents them more didactically. He speaks more comprehensively about sign theory, but also about "sign beauty", a term which the German philosopher Johann Augsut Eberhard published in 1806.
The development of Bense's Aesthetics is shown best in "Aesthetica. Introduction to New Aesthetics" [Aesthetica. EinfĂŒhruung in die neue Aesthetik (1965)] which comprises the foregoing four volumes together with a new fifth part. He demands here of aesthetical "minimal conditions": extensionality, materiality, realization thematics, process thematics, and communication, and for aesthetical "maximal conditions": triadic sign function, order relation, aesthetical uncertainty relation, and value relation. But only in the paperback "Introduction to Informational Aesthetics" [EinfĂŒhrung in die informationstheoretische Aesthetik (1969)], Max Bense represents the Peircean semiotics in formalizing his only verbal given conceptions. The Peircean triadic sign relation consisting of M or medium relation, O or object relation, and I or interpretant relation, is written down as a function or relation of M, O, I which were divided by Peirce in three parts or trichotomies, so that three subsigns (an expression of Bense) result which were called by Peirce for M: qualisign, sinsign, legisign; for O: icon, index, symbol; and for I: rhema, dicent, argument.
In the second part of this book with the subtitle "Small Text Theory" [Kleine Texttheorie], Bense utilizes also the Peircean ten triads or sign classes, each of which combines one subsign of M, O, and I. The already known conception of "situation" is now discussed once more in connection with the thematics of signs. But these connections of signs, and the system of ten sign classes were analyzed only in his next book "Sign and Design" [Zeichen und Design. Semiotische Aesthetik (1971)]. Particularly interesting are the explanations of creativity, semiotics of design, colour and form, and the communicative and creative scheme in advertising. Sign connections and the system of ten sign classes are extensively analyzed, and founded on Peirce's universal categories of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness, and on his particular catergories of Firstness of Firstness, Firstness of Secondness, and so on. Now, Max Bense understands aesthetics as a theory of aesthetical processes and/or systems, and he introduces the relevant semiotical operations of adjunction, superisation and iteration. In doing so, he can distiguish different aesthetical states. The concept of "creation", already introduced, is understood as "methodological creation" which refers to art and science, likewise. The concepts of information, creative process, intellectual work, innovation, selection, construction, and so on, gain consequently a clearer meaning. Max Bense considers aesthetics here as "essence of the theory of mathematically and semiotically describable states", and characterizes it as provisory, not as absolute.
The "creative principle" is examined in relation to semiotics, and particularly to its operations of adjunction, superisation and iteration thoroughly in his book "The Improbability of Aesthetics, and the Semiotical Conception of Art" [Die Unwahrscheinlichkeit des Aesthetischen und die semiotische Konzeption der Kunst (1979)[. The creative principle, going back to a sentence of Peirce, is given in the creation scheme:
Thirdness over Firstness creates Secondness, or: interpretant over medium creates object. Herewith, the analogy with Biskhoff's formula is evident, if one identified order with interpretant, complexity with medium, and the product (which is Birkhoff's measure) with object. But most important in this book is the determination of the "aesthetical state" by a special sign class which is different from all others. By the numerical representation of subsigns and sign classes and by considering the connection between triads (or sign classes) and trichotomies (or thematizations of reality), Max Bense found out that this one corresponds to the "aesthetic state". If one uses numbers, the connection is expressible by dualization. Then, one sees that the Peircean sign class "rhematical iconical legisign" has the identical inverse as its corresponding trichotomy, and this is a unique property. One sees, too, that there is a full symmetry. To take this sign class as binding for the aesthetic state of the works of art, Max Bense freed himself from Morris' meaning who held that the work of art can be characterized only as an icon. He found out, too, that this triad /trichotomy represents not only the "aesthetical state" but also the "sign as such" and the "number as such". The identity of sign, number and aesthetical state which he suggested in all his former publications, finally becomes for him convincing on account of his semiotical investigations. And he remarks that he does not change other authors' meaning of beauty.
The theme of this special sign class appears, once more, in his last book which I edited after his death: The self-reality of signs" [Die EigenrealitÀt der Zeichen (1992)]. Here, all his reflections about this sign class are discussed in reference to the self-reality of the sign. Representation and reality are connected inseparably in the sign, and signs are relating consciousness and world. Perception, experience, and reasoning depends on signs. Because nothing is representable without signs, the mentioned three domains: aesthetics, mathematics and semiotics are inseparably connected, and so, Max Bense reaches in his last book the themes of his first one, with the difference that he can prove now what he anticipated so many years ago.

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Mondrian Experiment by A. Michael Noll, 1964
An experiment  done by Noll juxtaposing a Mondrian's 'Composition with Lines' (1917) with a similar piece generated by a computer using an algorithm and viewers were asked to compare then. Left is an article he wrote on the experiment.The results were very interesting in that very few correctly identified the Mondrian version.
memory of a broken dimension â walkthrough
marcus de sieno â photograph of the little dumbbell nebula eaten by bacteria found on my gymâs 20-pound dumbbells
ryoji ikeda â data.path installation in madrid
machinima piece made from virtual environments Kevin Carey created in the Fall 2012.
premiered at (ᎳÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌÌlitch) Art Genealogies at LEAP Berlin

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rosa menkman
nils frahm piano, visuals by rosa menkman.
Inventing the future with design: what can Left accelerationism learn from design
(the text was presented on 21. 1. 2016 at Skolska28 Gallery as a part of Diffractions Lecture Series)
 We live in peculiar times. The times that seem to be, consciously or unconsciously, heavily influenced by what has already turned out to be prophetic books. As all holy books, these literary fortune-tellers consist of fictional narratives of an abhorrent nature, which unfortunately are already realities. Or what could be more Orwellian that the latest story forged together not in the dirt of underworld, but at the most pristine places of our society: the intellectual monasteries of academia? Now, in the technologically most advanced times, it is actually possible to publish a scientific article claiming that diet soft drinks are better for losing weight than clean water. The article underwent a peer-review process, that is true, but letâs not pay attention to the fact that âthe research was funded by the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) Europe, whose members include drinks giants such as Coca-Cola and PepsiCoâ 1.
I started with a dystopian story of our dystopian times in order to point out the universal truth we can find in the works of masters of dystopian prose such as Orwell, Huxley or Zamyatin, that high-tech culture does not guarantee best outcomes simply because, in the words of historian Melvin Kranzberg: âTechnology is neither good nor bad; nor is it neutralâ 2. Any given technology is political but flexible, as it always exists in excess of the purposes for which it may have been designed. 3 We can therefore dismiss with confidence that strange notion portraying technology as an organism somehow existing outside time and space, in a metaphysical realm where everything is neatly determined in the Newtonian fashion. In other words, the notion of technological determinism has been rendered invalid not only by our common sense, but also by academic arguments of people like the great sociologist Manuel Castells who writes that:
âWe know that technology does not determine society: [technology] is society. Society shapes technology according to the needs, values, and interests of people who use the technology.â 4
But whose needs?, we shall ask. Historically, those needs and values were of course dictated by the ruling classes of the time and even though this has radically changed in the 20th century due to the democratization and âhumanizationâ occurring in the field of design and its methodologies â of which I am going to talk later â it remains truism that the political attributes of large-scale and extremely expensive technological projects are shaped largely by those in power, whoever that might be.
Inventing the future by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams
And it is the latent power of technology to transform the world for the better on which Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams build the whole premise of their latest book Inventing the Future. On technology they write:
âThe internet and social media are giving a voice to billions who previously went unheard, bringing global participative democracy close than ever to existence. Open-source designs, copyleft creativity, and 3D printing all [promise] a world where the scarcity of many products might be overcome. New forms of computer simulation could rejuvenate economic planning and give us the ability to direct economics rationally in unprecedented ways. The newest wave of automation is creating the possibility for [numerous] types of boring and [humiliating] work to be permanently eliminated. Clean energy technologies make possible virtually limitless and environmentally sustainable forms of power production. And new medical technologies not only enable a longer, healthier life, but also make possible new experiments with gender and sexual identity.â
Some of the technological advancements listed above are uncontroversial since they are already in place, others waiting to be tapped and developed further. But why should we be afraid to exercise our creativity and base our political strategies on what at the moment still seems to be beyond the reach? Is it not the case that the human brain oftentimes comes up with visions of technologies whose actual construction will inevitable take place some time in near future? Did we forget to re-read the old dusty book called History where we may find that it was in 1908 when:
âNikola Tesla foresaw a technology that would allow âa business man in New York to dictate instructions, and have them instantly appear in type at his office in London or elsewhereâ and would allow global access to âany picture, character, drawing, or print.ââ 5
or perhaps
âthirty years later, when the prolific writer H. G. Wells articulated his idea of a âWorld Brainâ as âa depot where knowledge and ideas are received, sorted, summarized, digested, clarified and compared.â 6
Utopian ideas that came true
I could also mention the seminal essay As We May Think, written in 1945 by the US engineer Vannevar Bush, in which the reader finds description of gadgets that predate Googleâs search engine, Google Glass, Wikipedia, iPads and the modern human-computer interaction.
In every single case all the great ideas which eventually became reality were at first deemed unrealistic, impractical, utopian. Yet it is exactly this utopian thinking that Srnicek and Williams want us to embrace and foster.
Although I started my essay giving an example on how corporatism infiltrates even the most sacred institutions, the authors vehemently proclaim: enough of dystopian and defeatist thinking! But there is a lingering question mark in the air, asking how we got into this negative mindset in the first place.
According to the authors, we can primarily blame the capitalist realism, which Mark Fisher describes as:
âthe widespread sense that not only is capitalism the only viable political and economic system, but also that it is now impossible even to imagine a coherent alternative to it. Once, dystopian films and novels were exercises in such acts of imagination â the disasters they depicted acting as narrative pretext for the emergence of different ways of living.â 7
Indeed, even the science fiction authors par excellence find nowadays difficult to ponder an alternative to the current hegemony of neoliberalism and capitalism, which only deepens the marasmus in the collective imagination
But contemporary Left did react, challenging the status quo by employing various political tactics and conjuring up political movements with mass popular support, yet achieving dubious results. In the core of such thinking is, however, a faulty reasoning stemming from the logic that if technological progress leads to capitalism, then in order to negate capitalism, Left has to negate modernisation as well. In reality, what this thinking of the Left entails is a rejection of all forms of domination, a strong adherence to direct democracy and a decision-making process based on consensus. Srnicek and Williams call this stance folk politics.
The name is derived from customary meanings of the word âfolkâ: folk as local and small-scale. Folk politics embraces the notion that immediacy â that is no political mediation through third parties â politics of horizontalism, local communities, intuition, face to face communication and ethical consumption are more authentic, better and thus preferable.
And here is the root of the problem inherent in folk politics: its approach to solving the current economical, social and ecological problems is to scale-down the whole world to the âhuman levelâ of local politics so as to be easily manageable. It ignores many crucial points, however.
Firstly, far from being only an asset of the Left, many features of folk politics, especially the focus on the local, fair-trade are already parts of the mainstream, happily integrated in the daily routine of capitalist exchange. This fact was famously expressed by Jodi Dean when she said that âGoldman Sachs doesnât care if you raise chickensâ 8, which can be translated as saying that small, albeit well-meaning alternations at the edge have no potential to alter substantially the whole system. For that, broad, systemic thinking, taking into account the whole ecology of a problem, is necessary.
And that is the second argument the authors make why contemporary praxis of Left politics is incapable of transcending capitalism into post-capitalist society. Although local politics is necessary, as they claim, since all politics starts at the local level, the book proposes that to make meaningful changes, the Left has to end its antagonism towards any hierarchical structures, abstract analysis or mathematical modelling without which any attempt to comprehend and manage complex problems is bound to fail or omit important details which are deeply intertwined with other issues.
One of the complex problems the authors portray in the book is Capitalism itself. Who is able to say that understands it? Is it not the reason behind arguments against any social planning that economy (and the society) is so complex that we have to let the individuals and free markets ârun the showâ?
Nick Srnicek writes in his essay in the book Object that a problem with capitalism is that it is beyond our phenomenological experience, that it evades any perceptual or empirical representation, therefore it is essentially a non-object. How are we to deal with it? And how do we feel about it?
Here I have to borrow from Gilles Deleuze in Mark Fisherâs book Capitalist Realism where he calls Franz Kafka a prophet of distributed, decentralized, cybernetic power. 9 Fisher then writes that in capitalism:
âthe centre is missing, but we cannot stop searching for it [âŠ]. It is not that there is nothing there â it is that what is there is not capable of exercising responsibilityâ 10
the system is everywhere, but nowhere, there is no central authority to blame, just the Law (Capitalism)
Furthermore, Josef K in Kafkaâs Trial is very much aware of his condition that he is not responsible for himself, the higher, invisible hand (the pun intended) governs his life, nevertheless there is no central authority to which he could plead, just an endless bureaucratic stream of higher or lower clerks, without necessary power to change anything.
How can we make sense of imperceptible network of capitalist relations propagating all around us? How can we escape it? Or, should we escape at all?
Nick Land through Nietzsche argued: âNot to withdraw from the process, but to go further, to âaccelerate the process,ââ 11 of merging with the system. The contemporary Left on the other hand seems to feel excited about succumbing to a certain form of anarcho-primitivism. Is there a third, middle way?
Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams write that:
âIf complexity presently outstrips humanityâs capacities to think and control, there are two options: one is to reduce complexity down to a human scale; the other is to expand humanityâs capacities. We endorse the latter position. Any postcapitalist project will necessarily require the creation of new cognitive maps [⊠and] technological interfaces [âŠ]â
In order to understand the complex non-object such as economy, we need a cognitive prosthesis that would enable us to see better the individual components and more importantly interrelations of the system. Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams argue for re-purposing technology, emphasizing long-term, mission-oriented thinking rather than the current neoliberal common sense where technology is predominantly created with short-term profits as the sole purpose.
Despite the widespread belief, it is the public which through the State funded the most innovative and crucial technology of last century, be it microchips, development of graphical interface, the Internet, World Wide Web. Quite rightly, the authors call for democratic control over government spending, steering technologies towards socially useful and sustainable goods. Having learnt that technology is intrinsically embedded in society, such re-purposing of the technology means that we need to know exactly how any potential technology will fit into the existing socio-cultural context. Therefore cognitive mapping is required not only for understanding the economy, but also the entire society. What are the actual working methods and processes that can be utilised, without starting from scratch? It turns out there is a field that has been gaining momentum in recent years, and which is perfectly equipped to fulfil these demands: it is design, or more specifically the growing field of fusing formal rigour of cybernetics with human intuition: the field of systemic design.
***
For all those who have not heard the news, we have entered into a new age called anthropocene. This new epoch is defined as the age of humans. For some commentators latest buzzword, for scientist mostly a new taxonomic item for categorizing the world in the Aristotelian tradition, whereas for humanities and arts it is a potent metaphor, a new great meta narrative showing us how the accumulative consequences of human actions are so vast that Mother Nature is telling us: âgo my children, go, you have matured, you are on your own nowâ. Indeed, it seems we have superseded Mother Nature in the leading role and now we have the power to shape our world according to our own image. We live in a âman-madeâ worldâa world that is predominantly shaped by human activity, and therefore we can re-name the anthropocene as the age of human intention, or the age of design.
We interact with physical and biological systems in the way that we can already manipulate them and re-define what is possible. For instance, the field synthetic biology where the leading academic and designer, Neri Oxman, creates 3D printed skins for interplanetary travels with before never-seen materials;
or the artist and real cyborg Neil Harbisson who, being colorblind, uses a sensor-antenna attached to the back of his skull in order to transcode visual images into sound waves which his brain learnt to interpret as visual stimuli. But he went further and can âseeâ infrared and ultraviolet spectrum, thus expanding the normal human capabilities.
If the human activity is now the dominant planetary force and influences the physical and biological systems, why talk about these systems separately? Where the concept of Anthropocene is most powerful is in realizing that all systems are social systems of which we are both objects and subjects â agents of great power. Researches have accepted a consensus (Stockholm Memorandum, 2011) that human intervention has intervened in all aspects of the planetary ecology, rendering even natural and ecological systems socially influenced. But are we willing to take the responsibility for our actions? And if Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams demand that we re-purpose the technology, how do we ensure that we will do that correctly, without destructive unintended consequences of unwise decisions?
Architect and professor of design Harold G. Nelson writes:
âAs scientist or humanities scholars are looked to for advice on preferred actions in response to large scale and complex issues they are essentially being asked to become design consultants. Unfortunately descriptions and explanations â the role of the sciences and the humanities â do not prescribe. And predictions and control â the contributions of technology and applied arts â do not justify action. The formulation [âŠ] and justification of intentional actions comes through designers creating designs on behalf of others.â
Perhaps before we proceed to answer why designers seem to have a privilege status over others, we should clarify what we mean by the word design.
Defining design is essential, since there is still mythology and many falsehoods around the word. The cause is the ingrained misunderstanding of design as being solely about objects and the artistic, subjective and mystical process called creativity. Although creativity is involved, such description is an immense simplification.
The late Czech-born philosopher Vilem Flusser asserts that design creates a bridge between soft and hard sciences, being an internal link between art and science. This understanding of design has been severed since Renaissance, making the designer âonlyâ a craftsman or artisan. It was the famous German school Bauhaus where re-unification of design as the link between art and technology took place.
Nigel Cross compares design with science and writes that whereas scientific method describes a pattern of behaviour for solving problem which science uses for discovering what in nature already exists, design is a pattern of behaviour or thinking for creating things that are not yet in existence. He concludes that science is analytical, design constructive or synthetic.
The dichotomy analysis/synthesis calls for explanation. By analysis we mean the classical paradigm of scientific reductionism which tears apart any system to its atomic elements which are analysed in isolation through their properties. In other words, analytical approach treats any system as a mere sum of individual elements.
Synthesis, on the other hand, is a paradigm emphasizing the holistic approach, which gains understanding of the given system by looking at the relations and connections between individual components, acknowledging that systems exist in a broader, changing context, possibly with feedback loops.
Moreover, in systems exist synergies of elements that give rise to the emergent properties. We find a well-known example of emergence in water. While it makes no sense to talk about wetness of hydrogen or oxygen, it is their combination that gives rise to such emergent property.
Therefore, under synthetic or systemic thinking, the system is not a mere sum of its parts, it is more than the sum of its parts. This design, systemic thinking is in fact something that is also called soft systems thinking.
Given that we find ourselves in anthropocene where all systems are social systems and given the systemic approach of design, it is no coincidence that we can see designers promoted to positions where they create complex business strategies, organizational structures and are often used for complex social systems, policy-making and community design.
This shift from artifacts and communication to designing organizational and social transformation is best visualized by Jones and van Patter in their graph of four dimensions of design:
Four dimensions of design, the third and fourth are focus of systemic design
Artifacts and communications:
Products and services: (including service design, product innovation user experience)
Organizational transformation (complex, bounded by business or strategy): change-oriented, design of work practices, strategies, and organizational structures
Social transformation (complex, unbounded): design for complex societal situations, social systems, policy-making, and community design.
These four dimensions do not exclude each other. It is a commonplace that designers working on higher dimensions will draw from experience and knowledge of lower ones.
Having visualized the four dimensions of design, we can finally see why conceptualizing design as an activity producing tangible objects is an extremely limited view. Such definition would incorporate approximately first two dimensions.
The better definition of design is to propose that design is a synthesising process of defining relationships and making connection between things, humans or ideas, so that they function as a system.
What we called systemic design is not a design discipline per se (in a sense that would generate a tangible product), but rather integration of systems thinking and design methods which bring human-centered approach to complex problems at the third and fourth dimension of design. By complex problems we mean situations where it is nearly inconceivable that any single expert or manager can understand the entire system, let alone suggest a solution. Such problems have emergent properties, rendering it impossible to make design or management decisions based on sufficient individual knowledge (which practically means that any politician has almost zero chance to solve any significant problems).
These complex design problems received its own name. Theoretician Horst Rittel called them âwicked problemsâ, because they cannot be analysed or reduced with classical analytical problem solving methods and techniques. Apart from their sheer complexity, one of the reasons being that wicked problems consist of a human element, so it is necessary to negotiate between frequently conflicting demands. However, calling these complex situations âproblemsâ might be misleading, because the most difficult part in solving wicked problems is to know what they actually are, and that requires mapping and visualizing the whole ecology of a system. Otherwise we may not realise how they are interrelated to other components of the system and due to the feedback loops, changing one component can yield catastrophic results in other places.
Definitions of wicked problems, Source: Systemic Design Principles for Complex Social Systems, Peter H. Jones, PhD
To consider human activity and concerns in a social system is necessary for several reasons. They contribute to understanding of the system, but are also valuable information for designers, because having real human needs and values in mind, designers can suggest solutions that are relevant, as opposed to imposing arbitrary solutions based upon personal preferences.
Le Corbusierâs vision of Paris, fortunately not realized
Totalitarian modernist architecture of the first half of 20th century suffered tremendously from not taking the human being into account. One canonical example that should deter anyone is the work of famous Swiss architect Le Corbusier who was commissioned to re-design Paris. His vision had little to do with human needs, instead he created technocratic solution deprived of organic elements, which epitomises a city we may find in any dystopian literature.
The idea of human-centred design is not new, Scandinavian designers have been using participatory design methods, involving extensive cooperation with potential users, since 1970s, but it was the US design agency IDEO that pushed HCD into mainstream as a tool for solving complex business and social problems.
Although there are interesting cases where HCD is used at the level of government to improve social services, one such case is the Danish design agency Mindlab, nowadays, even according to academic literature, HCD seems to have become a buzzword sold by companies as a new thing just to improve companyâs image.
Furthermore, the creativity of design profession has been in last decades again diminished into making small, incremental changes, fearing to change the status quo of products that are selling. With the increase of virtual reality, there is also a chance that designers will work as âmaster designersâ of a personalized virtual word, designing our virtual avatars and the whole virtual experience: safe virtual havens where we can hide from the harshness of reality.
But that was to be expected. If technology is inherently political, the same holds for design, since it is design whose methods are applied to developing technology. Repurposing technology must be inevitably preceded by repurposing design.
Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams suggest that we need a tool for cognitive mapping of the intangible, non-object, that is the economic system. Why not appropriate the tools that design already has?
At Oslo School of Architecture and Design, the current epicentre for the research in systemic design, they developed a tool for mapping super-complex problems called GIGA-mapping. Created by designers with strong visual skills, these GIGA-maps provide a visual guide through the full context of a problem. They reveal unexpected relations between multiple layers, scales and design dimensions, from individual objects and humans to society.
GIGA-mapping helps visualising super-complex problems and relations between components
Are GIGA-maps the cognitive mapping the authors call for? Or did they have in mind genuinely new tools, expanding our perceptual apparatus to unprecedented capacity of cyborgs? Or did they think of just more powerful, more brutal data-mining of Big Data?
GIGA-maps have been used at the forefront of current design praxis. Although still in development, they already help designers to cope with wicked problems. If not powerful enough to map the whole socio-economical system, the technique can be used for mapping smaller parts of our lives: voting system, system of taxes, relations between governmental bodies, the flow of money in public spending etc. Whereas rigorous mathematical modelling might be unpopular among the Left, this so-called âsoftâ approach to systems is certainly more accessible, not only to the theoreticians, but also the general population.
Systemic design should not be viewed as a new political salvation, rather it is a set of conceptual, formal tools and methods that could bring creative, yet systemic, abstract thinking and reasoning about capitalism to the contemporary Left politics. Something the Left desperately needs. Because knowing the opponent certainly helps.
Final question: why do we not hear the word âcreativeâ in connection with politics?
https://www.rt.com/news/329290-coca-cola-diet-study/ â©
Melvin Kranzberg, âTechnology and History: ââKranzbergâs Lawsââ, Technology and Culture 27:3 (1986), p. 54 as cited in Srnicek and Williams, Inventing the future, p.152 â©
Ibid, p.152 â©
ED. BY MANUEL CASTELLS and GUSTAVO CARDOSO. The network society: from knowledge to policy. 2006, p. 3 â©
KLEINROCK, Leonard. An Early History of the Internet, p. 26 â©
Ibid, p. 26 â©
FISHER, Marc. Capitalist Realism Is there no alternative?, 2009, p. 1 â©
as cited by SRNICEK, Nick and Alex WILLIAMS. Inventing the future: postcapitalism and a world without work. 2015, p. 25 â©
FISHER, Marc. Capitalist Realism Is there no alternative?, 2009, p. 25 â©
Ibid, p.64 â©
LAND, Nick, Robin MACKAY and Ray BRASSIER. Fanged Noumena: collected writings 1987-2007. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Sequence Press, 2012, viii, p. 449 â©