Mar 07, 2022 (2nd post) for UWE Literature review
Keynote address delivered on October 15, 2014 at the Oslo School of Architecture and Design at RSD3 – Symposium Relating Systems Thinking & Design.[1]
Ranulph Glanville was design theorist and cybernetician. He gave this talk a few months before he passed away.
In his talk, Glanville examines the following three pairs of concepts for similarities and differences:
cybernetics | systems theory
design | to design
art school | university
He then speaks about different types of conversation that leads him to his argument that designing or more general the art school approach serves as a way to create knowledge that could not be accessed through the traditional university approach.
Cybernetics | Systems Theory
The term Cybernetics can be traced back to Norbert Wiener, Systems (as in Systems Theory) to Ludwig von Bertalanffy but „it really doesn’t matter which word you use“ (p. 3), the differences, if any, are small.
For Glanville Cybernetics is more abstract, Systems Theory more pragmatic. A second useful differences is by Charles François who says Cybernetics is more interested in the dynamic element Systems more in structure.[2]
Glanville describes Cybernetics as navigating while correcting for errors („because the world is full of surprises“[3]) in a process of what is called „feedback“. Glanville preferes the term circularity over Cybernetics and mostly uses that term further on.
Cybernetics is „based on error“ and turns errors into opportunities, something that is also typical for artists and designers. Cybernetics responds, it is not initiating. In a cybernetic or circular system is not about one thing controlling an other. Instead every thing is observing each other and reacting based on the observations.
When it comes to the methods of „how to observe such a circular system“, science traditionally looks at such systems „from above“, not touching, affecting and participating. This approach proved to be successful in the past „and it [enabled] us to get here“.[4]
But there is knowledge that remains closed off with this approach. In 1968 anthropologist Magaret Mead opened a new door by putting „into practice the notion that the observer [] should not stand aside and be the traditional scientific observer, but should engage“[5]. Mead provided the impetus when she incited the American Society for Cybernetics: „You’ve learned certain things you call cybernetics, how about you apply those to yourself? How about, as a society, you study societies, you tell societies how they ought to be shaped, you’ve got ideals and so on – how about you apply it to yourselves?“[6]
Glanville states that Margarete Mead’s solicitation largely fell on „dead ears“ and indicates that the path she pointed to is the direction to go. Interestingly he also describes how Magarete Mead’s intervention was what led to the formulation of Second Order Cybernetics, which is credited to Heinz von Foerster. So what does Ranulph Glanville mean when he states that her intervention fell „on dead ears“? How can both be true? This seems to indicate that Second Order Cybernetics is still in its infancy and in need of being further developed.
„How about [a] observer is in a circular relationship with what it’s examining?“ he quotes Mead and answers: „So now you have the same form of system.“ Here he describes simply an observer observing and reacting to a circular system that is observing (and reacting to) the observer itself. A simple example of this would be a viewer watching a Korsakow film, as a Korsakow film is always (observing and) reacting to the input of the viewer.
design | to design
Design is a word of many meanings, but for the main cause of confusion Ranulph Glanville points to the fact, that it is a verb and a noun. So people use the the same word to describe the artefact and the process of making it, which are of course very different things. Most design research is focused on the design artefact and is blind for the process, which renders most design research mostly irrelevant, so Glanville.
For designers design research is disappointingly not helpful because it does not provide useful knowledge on how to make the design artefact better, how to improve the process, but only tells designers what they already know and that is that the design artefact is not perfect.
Glanville, emphasizes the value of making, when it comes to developing knowledge in a complex world – making as a tool to develop knowledge.
art school | university
Glanville sees two different approaches and different traditions when it comes to „act in the world“. The art school approach is „interested in novelty and accepts the notion of good enough“, it uses practice whereas „the university approach“ builds on research tradition, that is „concerned with efficiency and bestness.“[7]
In other words: There is „the university approach“ that identifies the path to knowledge by primarily looking into the past, building on previously gained, proven knowledge whereas the art school approach identifies the path to future knowledge by looking primarily at the current moment, with the acceptance of non-perfection, non-provenness and the notion of „good enough“.
Glanville says: „We have to learn each has a strength and each has something to give us.“[8]
Ranulph Glanville argues not only for the „art school approach“ but more general for neurodiversity and tolerance for the goal of being efficient in solving problems, when he says: „I find it strange that we’re not interested in different ways of thinking. That we [..] have a tendency, to want to preserve only one way of thinking. And for me one of the things which is enormously important about design is design gives us a different way of looking at and solving the things we call problems.“[9]
Design(ing) and Cybernetics are the same thing, they both focus on conversation in the process of doing.
Glanville then dives deeper into the art school approach, when he talks about conversation and dialogue: In a conversation there are three levels of communication: code/command (like in the military), inspiring collaborative thinking process (that builds on misunderstanding or error) and a meta-level-conversation (talking about talking) that helps to fine-tune the conversational process.
A „conversation is actually a circular activity“ that you can have with yourself because „we’re not one person“.[10]
Glanville links design to cybernetics by being in conversation with, for example, pen and paper in a design (or art) process. This circular (or cybernetic) activity through the process of doing is, so Glanwell, „the act that makes design design.“[11]
Glanville delivers the arguments for:
{(Cybernetics|circularity) ≈ (designing|art process)} → {knowledge ≠ (traditional scientific knowledge)}
≈ equals
→ leads to
≠ not equal to
| or
[1] Glanville, Ranulph (2014) How design and cybernetics reflect each other. In: Proceedings of RSD3, Third Symposium of Relating Systems Thinking to Design, 15-17 Oct 2014, Oslo, Norway. Available at http://openresearch.ocadu.ca/id/eprint/2053/
[2] Translated to Korsakow: Cybernetics is more focussed on POSs/Links, Systems on SNUs.
MH FEEDBACK:
I would think that the ‘conversation’ is of relevance to Korsakow. What does Glanville mean with ‘conversation’, e.g. when people have a conversation with their drawing, pen and paper? How do a Korsakow viewer and film converse? Is the viewer really a viewer or more of an interactor? Is it a ‘real’ conversation in which both participants may change (e.g. their views) or is it more of a one-sided, reflective and constructive experience? How does the experience change if i watch a Korsakow film focussed and undisturbed on my own, or if i watch it together with a group of people? What kind of conversation is this then?
Bonus question: Why does Glanville use the term ‘conversation’? Why not ‘dialogue’ ‘exchange’ or ‘discussion’? How would these change the meaning?