What is it about?
This paper is about the relation of theory and practice, and particularly about how our theories of theory-and-practice are consequential in practice. Its also an accessible introduction to cybernetics, espeically for those in design.
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Why is it important?
There has recently been an increasing interest in cybernetics, particularly from practice based fields such as art, architecture and design. While there are many ideas which cybernetics offers to these fields, its relation to them is best not understood in terms of application. Rather than there being particular ways of acting which "are" cybernetic (the practice of cybernetics), I argue that cybernetics is an account of what it is to practice (the cybernetics of practice) and that this theory of theory-and-practice itself has significant consequences for how we act.
Perspectives
The argument here grew out of some of the conclusions to my PhD research at UCL, supervised by Neil Spiller and Ranulph Glanville, which explored connections between cybernetics and architecture in terms of questions about epistemology and ethics. The argument complements the special issue of Constructivist Foundations regarding the design and practice of academic conferences, guest edited by Michael Hohl and myself, which was developed simultaneously (See <http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal/11/1>).
Dr Ben Sweeting
University of Brighton
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Cybernetics of practice, Kybernetes, September 2015, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/k-11-2014-0239.
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