Fanfares for Effective Freedom
The “Cybersyn Operations Room”is builtin 1971 in Chile–after the marxist democrat Salvador Allende wins the presidential elections in 1970. The “Opsroom” ought to become the control center of a computerized concept of state planned economy called the Cybersyn Project.It is developed by the British management consultance and cybernetician Stafford Beer.
Cybersyn is based on Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM). It is grounded on his analysis of the viability of the human body.Stafford Beer abstracts this model from the human organism and defines it as the basis of all viable and stable forms of organization.This is a drawing of the VSM applied to the Chilean economy.Here you see its visualization in the Cybersyn Opsroom.The Viable System Modelis translated from the human body of the single worker to a concept of national management and by 12 levels of recursion to all dimensions of management in between.Cybersyn is based on Cybernet – a countrywide communication networkof telex machinesconnecting the socialized companies with the government in Santiago.Electronically collected information flows into the central computer IBM System 360, is processed and evaluated and than visualizedin the Opsroom.Here, the elected ministers are to discuss the politics of economy while operating different information terminalsby simple button combinations on their armrest panels.
The group for product developmentaround information designer Gui Bonsiepe from the Chilean Institute of Investigation INTECdevelops a general standardized designof all graphic interface elements.The aim is to create an intuitively understandablevisual displayof complex data informationto effectuate decision-making.Stafford Beer consciously rejects the use of cathode ray screens directly linked to the central computer. His impression is that images of iconic representations on TV screens are not lucid and bright enough.Instead he decides for a rather labor intensive and slower procedure. A team of graphic-designers produce handmade images, photographs them and sorts them into a complex slide archive. These slides are then available as backside projections from inside of the Opsroom.
The image language of the Opsroom stands in tradition of “ISOTYPE”,the “International System of Typographic Picture Education.”It is developed in 1928 by Austrian social-philosopher Otto Neurath and German artist Gerd Arntz.Their aim is to make social conditions visible and understandablefor all levels of the population.As comparable to the visualizations of the Opsroom in Chile, this project should produce knowledge understandable for everyone.In the 1950s and 1960s, the German design university HfG Ulm develops the rational information graphic (in German: the “Sachliche Ulmer Informationsgrafik”) inspired by ISOTYPE. Gui Bonsiepe was a teacher at this university and brings these influences and the knowledge of visual grammar to socialist Chile and its Operations Room.
Another part of the Cybersyn Project is the People Project.It is based on the idea of installing real time connections between people's homesand governmental decision-making groups.The People Project should organize all political decision-makings over a feedback chanal installed in every home television.Thereby the desired value of all decisions is a happy public.
The People Project is never realized. On September 11th 1973 the Chilean military general Pinochetexecutes a military coup against the Allende-Government – causing the destruction of the Cybersyn data system and the Opsroom.Stafford Beer experiences these events as a personal tragedy. He retreats to Cwarel Isaf, a cottage in West Whales where he expects the center of a number of magnetic ley lines to give positive energy for his writings, meditations and paintings:Requiem I, Requiem II, Requiem III, Requiem IV, Requiem V, Requiem VI, Requiem VII, Requiem VIII, Requiem IX. After the military coup in Chile Stafford Beer is not willing to give up on convincing the world of his management concepts.He continues his scientific research and publishes books like: Designing Freedom; Platform For Change; The Heart of Enterprise; Brain of the Firm; Beyond Dispute; and How Many Grapes Went into the Wine: the Art and Science of Holisitic Management.
In ancient Greek philosophy the word “Kybernetike” describes the Art of Navigation – referring to the profession of steering a ship as well as of governing a community.Later, in the 1st century BC poet Virgil writes the imperial epic on the prehistory of the roman empire.The book is called Aeneid.It tells the mythology of the Trojan nobleman Aeneaswho escapes from devastated Troy to become the ancestor of Rome.Palinurus is the steersman, the Kybernetes, of Aeneas.On their dangerous journey gods throw Palinurus over board to ensure Aeneas destiny. Palinurus the cybernetician had to be removed so Aeneas, founder of a city that would later become Rome, can reach his destination unharmed.The story makes clear that when history is managed by a council of gods,human artists of navigation may be eliminated in order not to disturb the divine course of development.Vergils epic refers to the divine foundation of the roman empire as well as to ancient history of technology. It is the trireme warship that makes possible for ancient Greeks to establish supremacy in the eastern mediterranean in the 4th century BC.The tactical use of the trireme requires the helmsman's attention to many variables: adjusted to the actions of an intelligent enemy and to the capability of the own ship, the goal is to hit the enemy with the battering ram at bow.Thus the two eyes painted on the front of the ship present the trireme together with its Kybernetes as one intelligent projectile steering into the target.
In 1947 American mathematician Norbert Wiener initiates the attempt to establish the universal studies of “Cybernetics”.Before this, he works on control units for anti-aircraft guns to effectively target intelligent enemies of high mobility in the battles of World War II. Norbert Wiener develops automated units that are able to calculate the flight path of intelligent targets and fired projectiles by processing real time radar information.As comparable to the kybernetes of an ancient trireme who adjusts his steering to the evasive maneuvers of an enemy ship the goal is to hit the target effectively.These investigations and experiments on automated targeting-intelligence become a basic fundament for post-WWII Cybernetics. During the “Macy-Conferences” between 1946 and 1953 Norbert Wiener and his colleagues agree upon Cybernetics to be applied on where ever information is absorbed, transmitted and processed.Cybernetics is celebrated as the universal art of navigation, regulation and control regarding living organismsas well as machinesand psychic, educational, scientific, artistic, economicaland political fields.Cybernetics connect the most different categories of knowledge. These propositions of universal similarities are often communicated as diagrammatic modellings and control cycles.Those visualizations ought to proclaim comparable set ups for breathing, space travel and cooking.
Interaction with digital machines becomes the basis for cybernetics.Therefore the use of imagery becomes indispensable in order to develop high-tech machines as interactive media rather than simple number crunchers. Technical models and circuitry have to be visualized on displays. Interfaces have to be designed.
In 1966 the non-profit organization E.A.T. (short for ‘Experiments in Art and Technology’) is founded.Its ambitious agenda is to team up every artist in the world with a suitable engineer or scientist.E.A.T.s opening project is a show called “9 Evenings” taking place at the Armory in New York- an event of collaborative happenings involving ten artists and more than forty engineers and scientists from Bell Telephone Laboratories.By 1969 E.A.T. consists of over 2000 artist members as well as 2000 engineer members willing to work with artists. And in the early 1970s E.A.T. comprises more than 6000 individuals. Expressions of interest and requests for collaborations come from all over the world and fifteen to twenty local E.A.T. groups are formed.Within a few years E.A.T not only initiates the production of hundreds of artworks –mostly interactiveand kinetic installations and multimedia performances.The organization also arranges various educational programs,like “Children and Communication” in 1969,to inform the public about the possibilities of new technologies.E.A.T members like many other media-artists at that time define their practice as artistic humanization of technology.
Cybernetic pedagogics conceptualize the replacement of conventional hierachies by feedback concepts in the name of effectivity. From this perspective the display of self-will is not any longer understood as a troublesome restraint but as a basic strategy of effectivation.In the mid 1970s many of those who had considered themselves to be artists working with technology find themselves working in the media or computer industry.Yet at another level cybernetic art successfully achieved its agenda, though the results are neither termed as "cybernetics" nor as "art". With developments such as the personal computer in the 1980s,and the civil implementation of the internet in the 1990s, cybernetic principles are increasingly influencing the computerized everyday life.
In 2001, the Swiss “Malik Management Centre” in St. Gallen starts the development project “Operations Room” –explicitly adopting the standards of Stafford Beers “Viable System Model”.In May 2005 the first prototype is ready for further tests and developments.34 years after the development of the Chilean experiment,the VSM Opsroom equipped with state-of-the-art communication and media technologyis presented to be used as a controlling toolin the fields of entrepreneurial business management.
At the same time, large scale database systems, like the European Schengen Information System (SIS), are developed as governmental management tools.The SIS is introduced in 1995 covering 15 Schengen-Member-Statesfor the purpose of maintaining and distributing information related to border security and law enforcement. This includes the biometrical data registration of all Schengen-State-Citizens and Visa-applicants into the databank of SIS.HP Open View management software should provide the interfaceto operate within the system infrastructure. Already in 2003 the SIS is confronted with data overload.Fully implemented in 2013, the next generation of the Schengen Information System SIS2 promises citizen identity management based on effective visibility.The central computer is located in Strasbourg, France,in Rue de la Faisandrie, district Neuhof.Yet the art of navigation reveals no steersmen in charge,but miraculous hands governing worldly widgets.
Jeronimo Voss
Thanks to Gui Bonsiepe, Sabine Flick, Sebastian Hetzler, Chus Martinez, Martina Sehring, Martin Stiehl, Sebastian Vehlken
