Week 5. Cyborgs and Cybernetics
We've talked a little bit about cyborgs and we've definitely seen "ghost in the Shell" so let's talk about cybernetics
Share the longread
The word "cybernetics" originates from the Greek word "κυβερνητική", which has several meanings:
-
"steersman" - the person who sits in the back of a boat and runs it with a tiller -
"governor" - the person who manages people and countries, also some sort of a steersman -
a technical word for a component inside of the machine that governs the rhythm of its operation
Tilda Publishing
Cybernetics is a communication theory based on the ideas of command and control. You give a command, something happens, something changes. And then there's also feedback.Did the command work? Did you get the intended outcome? and you start to think about this system in terms of circuits
Tilda Publishing
Cybernetics is a communication theory based on the ideas of command and control. You give a command, something happens, something changes. And then there's also feedback.Did the command work? Did you get the intended outcome? and you start to think about this system in terms of circuits
Ghost in the Shell: Innocence
It is nice to see the children from this film doing cybernetics. The children are sending out a command signal and they're trying to control the detectives to find them and get them out. Every murder is another attempt to communicate. And they get feedback and then they do another murder eventually resulting in Batou and Togusa setting them free.
basic cybernetic process diagram was developed by Nobert Wiener who is considered the father of scientific articulation of cybernetics. You can see there are inputs, process, outputs. And then there is feedback, which compares outputs to your initial purpose.
more complex cybernetic process diagram is modelling sales effectiveness at a major department store. this is showing an example of real use of cybernetics for humans controlling humans:
Cyborg figurations are both material and semiotic. They are shaping physical forms as well as interpretations and expressions
Cyborg figurations are both material and semiotic. They are shaping physical forms as well as interpretations and expressions
So, we can imagine such an idea that real people as well as cyborgs are conditioned by loops and feedbacks, things like environment, ecological relations, family, biomedicine, language, media, discursive institutions, schools, jobs. The idea that our ecological awareness, mind and body are being shaped in a cybernetic way by the world around us
- In The international handbook of virtual learning environments, pp. 117-158. Springer, Dordrecht, 2006
- Wiener, Norbert No. 320. Perseus Books Group, 1988.
-
JOIN THE COURSE CHAT!