Outline for Talk on Cybernetics

About

This talk is loosely based on the format of the talk I gave at LiWoLi last May. The talk at LiWoLi traced the history of cybernetics during the Cold War, and how its theories were represented in a non-military context, specifically in popular cinema and television of the 1960s. I used various multimedia documents to support to ideas and to ground the discussion in tangible, practical examples of what can often be intimidating or overly-theoretical concepts.

Topics

This re-edited version is intended to be an introduction to cybernetics, detailing some of its fundamental concepts but mainly focusing on providing an overview with select examples of its cultural and political impact during from the 1940s until today. The course of discussion would will follow a selection of the below topics:

• Wiener's experiments with the Anti-Aircraft Predictor in the early 1940s
• Precognitive Systems: Using the War Sciences to Predict the Future (Link to Tri1.2 essay)
• Using Systems to Overcome a Crisis: The New Strategists and the Cuban Missile Crisis
• Operation Igloo White: The Cybernetic Jungle and Sensory Environments in South East Asia
• The Cybernetic Overseer: Project Cybersyn and Computers in Government
• The Communes and the Birth of The Countercultural Dream in Silicon Valley (Link to Tri1.1 essay)
• The Network Effect: How Cybernetics shapes Network Theory
• Social Feedback: How Critical Mass Drives Feedback Online

Outcomes

From this talk, the participants should have a good overview of cybernetics and its social influence over the last 70 years.