2015.10.25 NATC International Symposium at the Tokyo Univ. of Art Campus (Yokohama, Basha Michi). With Jasia Reichardt, curator of the 1968 ICA exhibition "Cybernetic Serendipity".

1. Cybernetic Serendipity, reloaded
2015.10.25 NACT International Symposium
Dominique Chen (Dividual Inc. / NPO Commonsphere)

2. Agenda / 議題
1) to layout an overview of the history of
Cybernetics
サイバネティクスの歴史の概観を提示
2) to image the future (and desirable) state
of Cybernetic Serendipity
未来の（望ましい）サイバネティック・セレンディピティを
イメージする

4. Mechanical Computation
Algorithm
Internet
Smart phones
Media
Communication
Governance
Cybernetics

5. kybernetes

6. cyber -
org(anism)
punk
sex
space
war

11. Cybernetic Serendipity
realized by the Internet
and penetrated in the Society

12. Cybernetics is acting as a feedback
system for Humanity
サイバネティクスは人類に対するフィードバッ
クシステムとして作動している

13. reviewing the subject: Cybernetics
解題：サイバネティクス
• computational control of systems related to human being
人間に関係するシステムの計算機的制御
• “How can man and machine can coexist?”
人間と機械はどのように共存できるのか？
heteronomous system (von Neumann) autonomous system (Wiener)
principle matching (identical) fitting (coherence)
mode of
organization
input/output
mapping function
operational closure,
behavior specific to the system
mode of
interaction
world defined by instruction and
representation
emergence of meaning
F. Varela : “Autonomie et Connaissance – Essai sur le Vivant” (Eds. du Seuil, Paris, 1988), P222

14. New and Old Problem

15. ‫الهند‬ ‫بحساب‬ ‫والتفريق‬ ‫الجمع‬ ‫ كتاب‬
Algoritmi de numero Indorum
(825)

16. Alan Turing John von Neumann
Norbert Wiener

17. “It is the purpose of Cybernetics to
develop a language and techniques that
will enable us indeed to attack the
problem of control and communication in
general, but also to find the proper
repertory of ideas and techniques to
classify their particular manifestations
under certain concepts. “
Norbert Wiener
Human Use of Human Being (1950) p17

18. milestones of Cybernetics discussions
サイバネティクスの標石
• N.Wiener and the Macy Conference:
Von Neumann, Wiever, Shannon
• Heinz von Foerster : Observing Systems (Observing Observation)
• Maturana=Varela : Autopoiesis theory (Life systems)
• Ernst von Glasersfeld: Radical Constructivism
• N. Luhmann : Social System Sociology
• E. Thompson : Enactivism theory
• all deal with the problem of evolving system of communication
すべてコミュニケーション・システムの進化と関係する

19. • TECHNIUM by Kevin Kelly
modern cybernetic comprehension of technology
現代におけるサイバネティックな技術論

20. reviewing the subject: Serendipity
解題：セレンディピティ
• Happy Accidents / Chance Discoveries
幸せな邂逅 / 機会の発見
• Nowadays Happy C.S. includes:
• Greater accessibility to knowledge base via Search
Engines, Wikipedia, Open Educational Resources, Q&A
• Greater matching of social and personal
opportunities: Social Networking Services,
Crowdfunding, Crowdsourcing, Market place, Open
Source Software / Content

21. reviewing the subject: Serendipity
解題：セレンディピティ
• some momenta of UnHappy Accidents
不幸せな邂逅のいくつかの事例
• Facebook+Twitter : Arab Spring ~ DAESH (IS)
• E. Snowden case : PRISM (NSA / Five Eyes)
• Flash Crash of 2.45 (2010) : High Frequency Trading Algorithms of
Wall Street 高頻度取引アルゴリズム
• Ad Tech’s influence on users minds (e.g. Facebook experiment) 広告技
術がユーザーの意識に及ぼす影響（Facebook実験など）
• Accidental Bombing by Assault Drones 爆撃ドローンによる誤爆

22. “At present nothing prevents our thinking
of this. We may dream of the time when
the machine à gouverner may come to
supply - whether for good or evil - the
present obvious inadequacy of the brain
when the latter is concerned with the
customary machinery of politics. ”
Père Dubarle,
cited in : Norbert Wiener
Human Use of Human Being (1950) p180

23. “Its real danger, however, is the quite
different one that such machines, though
helpless by themselves, may be used by a
human being or a block of human beings
to increase their control over the rest of
the human race or that political leaders
may attempt to control their populations
by means not of machines themselves but
through political techniques as narrow and
indifferent to human possibility as if they
had, in fact, been conceived
mechanically.”
Norbert Wiener
Human Use of Human Being (1950) p181

24. “The great weakness of the machine - the
weakness that saves us so far from being
dominated by it - is that it cannot yet take
into account the vast range of probability
that characterizes the human situation.”
Norbert Wiener
Human Use of Human Being (1950) p181

25. “The same methods that today just
manipulate what we want to buy could
tomorrow be used to control which news
outlets we follow, whose opinions we
trust, and even which politicians we vote
for. ”
Murray Shanahan
The Technological Singularity (2015)

26. Cybernetic Serendipity?
Cybernetic Complexity?
Cybernetic Uncertainty?
Cybernetic Chaos?

27. Media information technologies have
changed the human perception of reality
メディア技術は人間の現実の知覚を
変容してきた

28. What is the state of expression in the
information society?
情報社会における表現の状況とは？

29. “Nous ne manquons pas de
communication, au contraire nous en
avons trop, nous manquons de création.
Nous manquons de résistance au présent.
La création de concepts fait appel en elle-
même à une forme future, elle appelle une
nouvelle terre et un peuple qui n’existe
pas.”
G. Deleuze, F.Guattari
「Qu’est-ce que la Philosophie」(1996)

30. [Leonardo Magazine, 2001]

31. • The media reception of Cybernetic Serendipity was on the whole extremely favorable.
In a review symptomatic of much press coverage, the Evening Standard enthused:
"Where in London could you take a hippy, a computer programmer, a ten-
year-old schoolboy and guarantee that each would be perfectly happy for an
hour without you having to lift a finger to entertain them?" [7] The Guardian
agreed that it "lured into Nash House people who would never have dreamed
of attending an ICA exhibition before" [8]. Cybernetic Serendipity promised fun for
the whole family, not just an elite of art connoisseurs. “Children, scientists and the
simply curious could spend fascinated hours in this world of computer
art" [9]. The press celebrated the exhibition as an event that "guaranteed to
fascinate anyone from toddling age to the grave" [10]. Even the writer in The
Lady felt compelled to urge that "one must go to the present exhibition at the
INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS ... not to understand in the least what
is going on but to experience that particular tingle which is inherent in an act
of threshold-crossing” [11]. Art critic Jonathan Benthall declared that Cybernetic
Serendipity would be remembered as a "landmark," not least due to its "breeziness
and catholicity” [12]. Others agreed: "For breaking new ground, revealing new
fields of experiment, seminal importance, sheer hard work and enormous
organization, the exhibition Cybernetic Serendipity… is arguably the most
important exhibition in the world at the moment” [13]. According to Brent
McGregor, “the status of the event was such that Umberto Eco came from
Italy to view its wonders” [14]

32. • (…) to make chance discoveries in the course of
using cybernetic devices, or, as the Daily Mirror put
it at the time, to use computers “to find unexpected
joys in life and art”.

33. transformation of expression / 表現行為の変容
• Evolution of authorship
作者性の変化
• massively online multiple authorship &
derivative creation
作者の集団化と派生創作
• => OpenSourceSoftware, Wiki, Git/GitHub, CC, SNS
• computational creation using big data
ビッグデータを利用した計算機による創作

36. https://stateof.creativecommons.org/

37. Git
http://git-scm.com/

38. 分散バージョン管理
Distributed version control diagram

39. Data is the medium,
and History is recorded
by, and within the network

42. œuvre X
œuvre
D œuvre
K
œuvre
L
œuvre
M
œuvre
J
œuvre
N
œuvre
Q
œuvre
P
œuvre A
œuvre
H
œuvre
I
œuvre
E
œuvre
F
œuvre
G
œuvre
B
œuvre
C
“coopération entre les cerveaux”
“脳の協働”
(Gabriel Tarde)

43. Présent
現在
consommation
消費
Auteurs
作者
Lecteurs
読者

44. Auteurs
作者
Lecteurs
読者
Future
未来
coopération
協働

45. Auteurs
作者
Lecteurs=Editeurs
読者=編集者
Future
未来
coopération
協働

46. Lecteurs=Editeurs
読者=編集者
Lecteurs=Editeurs
読者=編集者
Future
未来
coopération
協働

47. Créateurs
クリエイター
Créateurs
クリエイター
Future
未来
coopération
協働

48. Créateurs
クリエイター
Créateurs
クリエイター
Future
未来
conversation
会話

52. Man=Machine System

55. “Bio is the New Digital”
Nicholas Negroponte
cited in: Joi Ito (ed) (2015)
Before/After Internet: Human Evolution on the Net

56. “A being that never had to face these
biological inconveniences, whether it was
a technologically enhanced human or an
AI, would lack the basis for truly
understanding human suffering. ”
Murray Shanahan
The Technological Singularity (2015)

57. “Is there a compromise position between
conservative anthropocentrism and
posthuman fundamentalism? ”
Murray Shanahan
The Technological Singularity (2015)

58. Cybernetics is a tool to actively observe
and construct human essences
サイバネティクスは能動的に人間の本質を観察し、
かつ構築する方法

59. Perspective for a Happier Cybernetic Serendipity
より幸福なサイバネティック・セレンディピティへの展望
• Cybernetics as Philosophy of the Information Era
情報時代の哲学としてのサイバネティクス
• Digital Literacy : how to increase our autopoietic aspect
(i.e. creativity) of each psychic system (read: “human”)
デジタル・リテラシー：個別の心的システム（人間）の自己創出性（創造
性）をどう増幅するか
• create means of Creative Communication, not
mechanical communication
機械的なコミュニケーションではなく、創造的なコミュニケーションの方法
を作ること

61. Fear leads to obscurantism , precaution
does not. And enthusiasm leads to
creation.

62. Happy Cybernetic Serendipity!

63. Before/After Internet: Human Evolution on the Net
ネットで進化する人類：ビフォア／アフター・インターネット（KADOKAWA）
Joi Ito, Kevin Slavin, Dominique Chen, Sputniko!, Hiroya Tanaka, Naotaka Fujii (2015)
10/28(水)
刊行予定

64. The Technological Singularity
シンギュラリティ
Murray Shanahan (MIT Press, 2015)
2016年1月
邦訳版刊行予定

65. Cybernetic Serendipity, reloaded
2015.10.25 NACT International Symposium
Dominique Chen (Dividual Inc. / NPO Commonsphere)