librarinth

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start [020240112 204438] – [presentations and publications] jooststart [020240205 185506] (current) – [this librarinth] joost
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 In my reading and writing I am trying to articulate the sources of what can be perceived as an agency of machines and look at how a dialogue with machines can be a form of collaboration in which new representations appear. My approach is to focus on the question of what humans have hoped to learn from building physical, electronic models. My planned thesis will consist of four parts, the first of which is a detailed media-archeological study of the history of analog electronic computing and the history of the philosophical motivations behind the use of electronic and electrical analogies in physics and engineering. The second part enlarges the question of electronic modeling to cybernetics and the practice of making electronic models inspired by living organisms. I approach the role of material agency in such models by giving an overview of historical philosophical discussions around the concepts of function, modularity (related to completeness) and shielding (related to situatedness). Armed with these three concepts I articulate a critique of a number of utopian electro-chemical experiments done by the British cyberneticians Gordon Pask and Stafford Beer around 1961. They tried to tap into physical processes of self-organization in a series of early artificial intelligence experiments that triggered very interesting philosophical, artistic and technical responses. In the conclusion I try to draw conclusions from these utopian experiments by developing a view on materiality, media-archeology and the relation between humans and their technology, centered on the notion of 'liberating the machines'.\\ In my reading and writing I am trying to articulate the sources of what can be perceived as an agency of machines and look at how a dialogue with machines can be a form of collaboration in which new representations appear. My approach is to focus on the question of what humans have hoped to learn from building physical, electronic models. My planned thesis will consist of four parts, the first of which is a detailed media-archeological study of the history of analog electronic computing and the history of the philosophical motivations behind the use of electronic and electrical analogies in physics and engineering. The second part enlarges the question of electronic modeling to cybernetics and the practice of making electronic models inspired by living organisms. I approach the role of material agency in such models by giving an overview of historical philosophical discussions around the concepts of function, modularity (related to completeness) and shielding (related to situatedness). Armed with these three concepts I articulate a critique of a number of utopian electro-chemical experiments done by the British cyberneticians Gordon Pask and Stafford Beer around 1961. They tried to tap into physical processes of self-organization in a series of early artificial intelligence experiments that triggered very interesting philosophical, artistic and technical responses. In the conclusion I try to draw conclusions from these utopian experiments by developing a view on materiality, media-archeology and the relation between humans and their technology, centered on the notion of 'liberating the machines'.\\
-For this I am primarily leaning on the work of Isabelle Stengers, Alfred North Whitehead and Gilbert Simondon, with frequent appearances by Katherine Hayles, Georges Canguilhem, Bernard Stiegler and Andrew Pickering. An important element in these reflections is the notion of abstraction as articulated by Whitehead: abstractions are not objects but decisions to focus on certain aspects of a situation and relegate other aspects to the background. This is a view on abstractions as performative, inherently ecological and non-anthropocentric, and the fundament of my thesis will be to look at machines in these terms. +For this I am primarily leaning on the work of Isabelle Stengers, Andrew Pickering and Gilbert Simondon, with frequent appearances by Katherine Hayles, Georges Canguilhem and Bernard Stiegler. An important element in these reflections is the notion of abstraction as articulated by Whitehead: abstractions are not objects but decisions to focus on certain aspects of a situation and relegate other aspects to the background. This is a view on abstractions as performative, inherently ecological and non-anthropocentric, and the fundament of my thesis will be to look at machines in these terms. 
  
  
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 The idea and form of this librarinth are inspired by [[http://www.fo.am|FoAm]]s [[https://libarynth.org/|libarynth]]. They describe it as: "a hybrid between a library and a labyrinth, a maze of pages in various stages of completion. It is a deeply intertwingled collection of documents, notes and randomness". The idea and form of this librarinth are inspired by [[http://www.fo.am|FoAm]]s [[https://libarynth.org/|libarynth]]. They describe it as: "a hybrid between a library and a labyrinth, a maze of pages in various stages of completion. It is a deeply intertwingled collection of documents, notes and randomness".
  
-After five years, I am still navigating the question of how to reconcile my desire for openness and sharing with the need for a walled garden where ideas are allowed to be fragile. Over time the issue has also arisen that the pages on this site contain the material for several potential articles or other publications, so sharing before writing and publishing those has become a less obvious thing to do. So far, the path of least effort and resistance has been to just keep everything private, but not without regrets. The idea is that parts of this garden will open up and be listed below, other things will find their way to my [[http://www.joostrekveld.net|blog]]. Eventually, all that is here will become public. If you are really interested, you can try asking for guest access, which will open [[guest start|this door]] for you.\\+After five years, I am still navigating the question of how to reconcile my desire for openness and sharing with the need for a walled garden where ideas are allowed to be fragile. Over time the issue has also arisen that the pages on this site contain the material for several potential articles or other publications, so sharing before writing and publishing those has become a less obvious thing to do. So far, the path of least effort and resistance has been to just keep everything private, but not without regrets. The idea is that parts of this garden will open up and be listed below, other things will find their way to my [[http://www.joostrekveld.net|blog]]. Eventually, all that is here will become public.\\ 
 +If you are one of those with guest access, your password will open [[guest start|this door]] for you.\\
 You can always contact me [[http://www.joostrekveld.net/?page_id=1243|here]]. You can always contact me [[http://www.joostrekveld.net/?page_id=1243|here]].
start.txt · Last modified: 020240205 185506 by joost
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