Resilient Futures: Cybernetics, Environment, and Economy in our Present
Orit Halpern
the Lighthouse Professor and Chair of Digital Cultures and Social Change
TU Dresden
Today, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, geo-political conflict, and the climate crisis the term “new normal” circulates ad nauseum throughout news outlets and social networks. This new normal is largely defined by a naturalization of precarity for some, the dramatic elevation of profit for others, and a demand for increased computation and automation to secure territory, population, and resources. Endless curves and data visualizations show us these “truths”.
As any mention of "normal" might imply, there is a history of actuarial practices involving populations behind our latest AI, economic instruments, and political strategies. It is also surprising how tenacious the ideology of the normal is, and how reluctant we are to cease using it. The idea of the normal curve was an invention of 19th century human sciences underpinning contemporary understandings of economies, populations and “race”. Our adherence to the language of the normal is, therefore, also about nature. But what form of nature is this? My intent is to briefly historically situate this “new” nature by tracing a history of the merged engagements between economics, artificial intelligence, cybernetics, and population management in ecology and finance between the 1950’s- 1970’s. I will examine the concepts of resilience, adaptation and evolution within these fields to trace a genealogy of our contemporary “new normal” and what I label “the smartness mandate” that assumes ubiquitous computing and speculative financial practices are the routes to environmental and population security and risk management at a planetary scale.
Orit Halpern is a historian of science and a media studies scholar. Her work focuses on how new technologies impact society and how media infrastructures produce worlds. She has written extensively about cybernetics, architecture and design, artificial intelligence, finance, and big data. She is currently working on two projects. The first is a history of automation, intelligence, and freedom; the second project examines extreme infrastructures and the history of experimentation at planetary scales in design, science, and engineering. Her first book Beautiful Date: A History of Vision and Reason (Duke UP 2015) investigates histories of big data, design, and politics. Her new book The Smartness Mandate w/Robert Mitchell (MIT 2023) critiques and re-imagines our contemporary obsession with "smartness" and AI. She also directs two design history and practice research platforms Governing Through Design and Against Catastrophe.
She is the Lighthouse Professor and Chair of Digital Cultures and Social Change at TU Dresden.
Resilient Futures: Cybernetics, Environment, and Economy in our Present
Orit Halpern
the Lighthouse Professor and Chair of Digital Cultures and Social Change
TU Dresden
Today, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, geo-political conflict, and the climate crisis the term “new normal” circulates ad nauseum throughout news outlets and social networks. This new normal is largely defined by a naturalization of precarity for some, the dramatic elevation of profit for others, and a demand for increased computation and automation to secure territory, population, and resources. Endless curves and data visualizations show us these “truths”.
As any mention of "normal" might imply, there is a history of actuarial practices involving populations behind our latest AI, economic instruments, and political strategies. It is also surprising how tenacious the ideology of the normal is, and how reluctant we are to cease using it. The idea of the normal curve was an invention of 19th century human sciences underpinning contemporary understandings of economies, populations and “race”. Our adherence to the language of the normal is, therefore, also about nature. But what form of nature is this? My intent is to briefly historically situate this “new” nature by tracing a history of the merged engagements between economics, artificial intelligence, cybernetics, and population management in ecology and finance between the 1950’s- 1970’s. I will examine the concepts of resilience, adaptation and evolution within these fields to trace a genealogy of our contemporary “new normal” and what I label “the smartness mandate” that assumes ubiquitous computing and speculative financial practices are the routes to environmental and population security and risk management at a planetary scale.
Orit Halpern is a historian of science and a media studies scholar. Her work focuses on how new technologies impact society and how media infrastructures produce worlds. She has written extensively about cybernetics, architecture and design, artificial intelligence, finance, and big data. She is currently working on two projects. The first is a history of automation, intelligence, and freedom; the second project examines extreme infrastructures and the history of experimentation at planetary scales in design, science, and engineering. Her first book Beautiful Date: A History of Vision and Reason (Duke UP 2015) investigates histories of big data, design, and politics. Her new book The Smartness Mandate w/Robert Mitchell (MIT 2023) critiques and re-imagines our contemporary obsession with "smartness" and AI. She also directs two design history and practice research platforms Governing Through Design and Against Catastrophe.
She is the Lighthouse Professor and Chair of Digital Cultures and Social Change at TU Dresden.
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