Thinking inside out: Cybernetics and Viable Utopias

In the joint lecture series »thinking inside out« by ZKM and HfG, we invite international guests from the fields of philosophy, literature, and art to an open exchange with university members, ZKM staff and the people of Karlsruhe.

This talk by José-Carlos Mariátegui explores British cybernetician Stafford Beer's lesser-known journeys and collaborations in Latin America beyond the famous Cybersyn project in Chile. Beer's work traversed a complex managerial and political terrain that began in the 1960s through his company SIGMA and its projects with Chile's steel industry.  His ideas on real-time enterprise information and control systems also influenced a relatively unknown project in the 1970s, the Centre for the Study of People's Participation (CENTRO), founded in Peru by the Brazilian anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro.  

The talk will also explore Beer's involvement in various projects across Latin America in the 1980s and 1990s as the region gradually returned to democracy, including experiences in Mexico, Uruguay (URUCIB), Venezuela (Cybervenez) and Colombia, and how cybernetics became a language of 'viable utopias' - somewhat challenging technocratic views on the use of technology that prevail in state-run projects. 

More than a technical history, this is a story of how computational thinking can become a radical act of creative liberation.