Tom Scholte
University of British Columbia, Theatre and Film, Faculty Member
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Presentation given by Tom Scholte at ICASP 2010 Colloquium "Sound Lines: Improvisation, Text, and Media." Scholte discusses modern theories of acting, particularly the Stanislavski system, in relation to the idea of cybernetic... more
Presentation given by Tom Scholte at ICASP 2010 Colloquium "Sound Lines: Improvisation, Text, and Media." Scholte discusses modern theories of acting, particularly the Stanislavski system, in relation to the idea of cybernetic feedback. With the help of two student actors, Scholte then illustrates how acting is, at its core, fundamentally improvisational.
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Druzhinin’s insistence that the behaviour portrayed in fictional films can be considered a “reliable source of evidence for […] experiential analysis” of the cognitive use of …
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The paper addresses the problem of (im)politeness in light of mismatches between what we/others say and what we/others mean in a multi-dialogic search for meaning where humans integrate all their competence-in-performance and co-construct... more
The paper addresses the problem of (im)politeness in light of mismatches between what we/others say and what we/others mean in a multi-dialogic search for meaning where humans integrate all their competence-in-performance and co-construct situated relationships in a more or less sustainable way. We examine how these processes occur by analyzing (im)politeness mismatches in telecinematic satire using dialogic speech act typology and methods of the Mixed Game Model to describe and explain the communicative meta-meaning of (im)politeness. We demonstrate that in satire the dialogic semantics of (im)politeness is polyvalent, interactant-relative, temporally variable, scalar and self-reflexive because it is part of integrational language-in-use engagement with the world through which humans construct multiple relational domains and relationships in them.
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Research Interests: Sociology, Computer Science, Narrative, Cybernetics, Reflexivity, and 3 moreCraft, The Arts, and Mainstream
Abstract This paper makes the case for, and calls for participants in, an interdisciplinary research program exploring the development of theatrical methods of social system modeling. It combines argumentation that synthesizes concepts... more
Abstract This paper makes the case for, and calls for participants in, an interdisciplinary research program exploring the development of theatrical methods of social system modeling. It combines argumentation that synthesizes concepts from the theatre and the system sciences with results from a pilot application of some of the modeling methods discussed. Theatrical methods of modeling facilitate surprising insights regarding the impacts of emotion and other non-trivial factors on system behaviour that are difficult to address in purely computational and diagrammatic forms of modeling. While a theoretical relationship between systems approaches and the theatrical techniques discussed has been articulated elsewhere, this paper is the first to propose a more fulsome exploration of the potentialities of this relationship for systems praxis.
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In the 1960s, environmental designer, Lawrence Halprin, in collaboration with his wife Ann, choreographer and artistic director of the San Francisco Dance Workshop, engaged in an examination of group creative processes in search of a... more
In the 1960s, environmental designer, Lawrence Halprin, in collaboration with his wife Ann, choreographer and artistic director of the San Francisco Dance Workshop, engaged in an examination of group creative processes in search of a theory outlining their main features. He formalized his findings in the 1968 book, The RSVP Cycles: Creative Processes in the Human Environment describing a recursive schema of iteration and evaluation bearing striking resemblances to the conversational conception of second-order cybernetics. Devised Theatre is one of the fields that has been most directly influenced by, and most vividly reflects, the work of the Halprins and will serve as the “research site” for this chapter. Highlighting some prevalent features of contemporary Devised Theatre practice through examples drawn from some of the field’s most influential artists, our trip around the cycle will reveal the ways in which the RSVP Cycles reinforce, in a robustly enacted fashion, Ranulph Glanville’s cybernetic conception of design in which lack of control, trans-computable complexity, and under-specification of the problems investigated all become virtues that propel us on a conversational forward search in which we must “act in order to understand” while bound by a deep ethical commitment to the autonomy of others.
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Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce the cybernetics community at large to the remarkably prescient work of nineteenth century theatrical pioneer Konstantin Stanislavski whose revolutionary System of Acting has, thus far,... more
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to introduce the cybernetics community at large to the remarkably prescient work of nineteenth century theatrical pioneer Konstantin Stanislavski whose revolutionary System of Acting has, thus far, been largely overlooked in cybernetic literature and to suggest potential paths of future research in this vein. Design/methodology/approach – Close reading, analysis, and comparison of key excerpts from Stanislavski’s corpus, the writings of later proponents of his System, the literature of early cybernetics, and contemporary scholarship in cognitive science. Also, description of current and potential future applications of the theories presented. Findings – Stanislavski’s success in formulating an approach to acting capable of generating performances of previously unrealized naturalness and believability lay in his utilization of heuristics later to be taken up, under different nomenclature, by the field of cybernetics and substantiated by contemporary cognitive science....
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This article was developed from a presentation given at the 2015 conference of the international society for systems science in Berlin (sweeting 2015a) in a session chaired by Peter Jones, whom i thank for his comments and encouragement.... more
This article was developed from a presentation given at the 2015 conference of the international society for systems science in Berlin (sweeting 2015a) in a session chaired by Peter Jones, whom i thank for his comments and encouragement. Thanks also to the american society for Cybernetics, who funded my attendance at that conference as part of the 2014 Heinz von Foerster award. The ideas presented here have been influenced by discussions with nick Beech, Murray Fraser, tim ivison and simon sadler at the Canadian Centre for architecture in Montreal as part of an ongoing collaborative research project funded by the andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Thanks also to tanya southcott, tilo amhoff, stuart umpleby, the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and assistance.
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> Context • Despite the best efforts of postmodern, social constructivist scholars to discredit the notion that " realistic " works of theatre and film could contain genuine onto-epistemic goods, many lay... more
> Context • Despite the best efforts of postmodern, social constructivist scholars to discredit the notion that " realistic " works of theatre and film could contain genuine onto-epistemic goods, many lay observers (i.e., audiences) continue to describe individual performances and productions as more or less " truthful " than one another. Recently, some performance scholars have pushed back against the postmodern position and turned to contemporary cognitive science to undergird their insistence that the embodied nature of reception and perception does, in fact, allow audiences of such works to access " truths " within them. The literature of cybernetics (first-or second-order) has been almost entirely absent from the debate. > Problem • While the hardcore scepticism of social constructivism may be unsatisfactory in fully accounting for the enduring power and appeal of dramatic art, a retreat to epistemic certainty in the name of cognitive science would be equally unwise. This article proposes the notion of " eigenbehavior " as a conceptual bridge that might facilitate the synthesis of the most useful insights from both perspectives and open up new avenues of study and research. > Method • The article uses synthetic argumentation to propose a theory of eigenform within the context of theatrical performance. > Results • Emerging from this argumentation is a conception of eigenform that is novel in its emphasis on the distinction between its bio-structured and socio-structured features. > Implications • The insights in this article will be of value to scholars and practitioners of the dramatic arts and can be productively extended into cognate domains across the humanities. > Constructivist content • The article draws on the works of con-structivists such as von Glasersfeld, von Foerster, Maturana, Varela, and Luhmann and is grounded in such constructiv-ist perspectives as cybersemiotics, theory of autopoiesis, and systems theory. >
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Upshot: Operational concepts underpinning a proposed cybersemiotic theatrical laboratory are further refined while questions regarding its experimental orientation remain.
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> Context • The thoroughly second-order cybernetic underpinnings of naturalist theatre have gone almost entirely unremarked in the literature of both theatre studies and cybernetics itself. As a result, rich opportunities for the... more
> Context • The thoroughly second-order cybernetic underpinnings of naturalist theatre have gone almost entirely unremarked in the literature of both theatre studies and cybernetics itself. As a result, rich opportunities for the two fields to draw mutual benefit and break new ground through both theoretical and empirical investigations of these underpinnings have, thus far, gone untapped. > Problem • The field of cybernetics continues to remain academically marginalized for, among other things, its alleged lack of experimental rigor. At the same time, the field of theatre studies finds itself at an impasse between post-structuralist semioticians and embodied cognitivists regarding key onto-epistemological issues. A program of research framing and utilizing naturalist theatre as a second-order cybernetic/cybersemiotic laboratory holds much promise in addressing both matters and lending credence to Ross Ashby's assertion that " the discovery that two fields are related leads to each branch helping in the development of the other. " > method • After establishing the nature of the onto-epistemological deadlock within theatre studies, this article examines the application of cybernetic heuristics within naturalistic theatre, leading to a second-order cybernetic analysis of its processes of production and reception and the outline of an experimental program for exploring these processes further. > results • Foundations for a model of naturalist theatre as a cybersemiotic laboratory grounded in a novel operationalization of Gordon Pask's conversation theory. > implications • The proposed laboratory could result in the generation of quantitative and qualitative research pertaining to several dimensions of second-order cybernetics; particularly cybersemiotics, which, as a result, may end up better positioned to help dissolve onto-epistemological deadlocks between constructivists and realists of all stripes across the academy and beyond. > Constructivist content • I argue that an analysis of naturalistic theatre's processes of meaning-making filtered through the constructivist ontological agnosticism of second-order cybernetics offers a productive middle way forward for those on both sides of the social constructivist/embodied cognitive realist divide, within and beyond theatre studies. The article draws upon the works of Gregory Bateson, Søren Brier, Ranulph Glanville, Heinz von Foerster, and Niklas Luhmann. >
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Druzhinin’s insistence that the behaviour portrayed in fictional films can be considered a “reliable source of evidence for […] experiential analysis” of the cognitive use of …
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In the 1960s, environmental designer, Lawrence Halprin, in collaboration with his wife Ann, choreographer and artistic director of the San Francisco Dance Workshop, engaged in an examination of group creative processes in search of a... more
In the 1960s, environmental designer, Lawrence Halprin, in collaboration with his wife Ann, choreographer and artistic director of the San Francisco Dance Workshop, engaged in an examination of group creative processes in search of a theory outlining their main features. He formalized his findings in the 1968 book, The RSVP Cycles: Creative Processes in the Human Environment describing a recursive schema of iteration and evaluation bearing striking resemblances to the conversational conception of second-order cybernetics. Devised Theatre is one of the fields that has been most directly influenced by, and most vividly reflects, the work of the Halprins and will serve as the “research site” for this chapter. Highlighting some prevalent features of contemporary Devised Theatre practice through examples drawn from some of the field’s most influential artists, our trip around the cycle will reveal the ways in which the RSVP Cycles reinforce, in a robustly enacted fashion, Ranulph Glanvil...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This article was developed from a presentation given at the 2015 conference of the international society for systems science in Berlin (sweeting 2015a) in a session chaired by Peter Jones, whom i thank for his comments and encouragement.... more
This article was developed from a presentation given at the 2015 conference of the international society for systems science in Berlin (sweeting 2015a) in a session chaired by Peter Jones, whom i thank for his comments and encouragement. Thanks also to the american society for Cybernetics, who funded my attendance at that conference as part of the 2014 Heinz von Foerster award. The ideas presented here have been influenced by discussions with nick Beech, Murray Fraser, tim ivison and simon sadler at the Canadian Centre for architecture in Montreal as part of an ongoing collaborative research project funded by the andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Thanks also to tanya southcott, tilo amhoff, stuart umpleby, the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and assistance.
Research Interests:
> Context • Despite the best efforts of postmodern, social constructivist scholars to discredit the notion that " realistic " works of theatre and film could contain genuine onto-epistemic goods, many lay... more
> Context • Despite the best efforts of postmodern, social constructivist scholars to discredit the notion that " realistic " works of theatre and film could contain genuine onto-epistemic goods, many lay observers (i.e., audiences) continue to describe individual performances and productions as more or less " truthful " than one another. Recently, some performance scholars have pushed back against the postmodern position and turned to contemporary cognitive science to undergird their insistence that the embodied nature of reception and perception does, in fact, allow audiences of such works to access " truths " within them. The literature of cybernetics (first-or second-order) has been almost entirely absent from the debate. > Problem • While the hardcore scepticism of social constructivism may be unsatisfactory in fully accounting for the enduring power and appeal of dramatic art, a retreat to epistemic certainty in the name of cognitive science would be equally unwise. This article proposes the notion of " eigenbehavior " as a conceptual bridge that might facilitate the synthesis of the most useful insights from both perspectives and open up new avenues of study and research. > Method • The article uses synthetic argumentation to propose a theory of eigenform within the context of theatrical performance. > Results • Emerging from this argumentation is a conception of eigenform that is novel in its emphasis on the distinction between its bio-structured and socio-structured features. > Implications • The insights in this article will be of value to scholars and practitioners of the dramatic arts and can be productively extended into cognate domains across the humanities. > Constructivist content • The article draws on the works of con-structivists such as von Glasersfeld, von Foerster, Maturana, Varela, and Luhmann and is grounded in such constructiv-ist perspectives as cybersemiotics, theory of autopoiesis, and systems theory. >
Research Interests:
> Context • The thoroughly second-order cybernetic underpinnings of naturalist theatre have gone almost entirely unremarked in the literature of both theatre studies and cybernetics itself. As a result, rich opportunities for the... more
> Context • The thoroughly second-order cybernetic underpinnings of naturalist theatre have gone almost entirely unremarked in the literature of both theatre studies and cybernetics itself. As a result, rich opportunities for the two fields to draw mutual benefit and break new ground through both theoretical and empirical investigations of these underpinnings have, thus far, gone untapped. > Problem • The field of cybernetics continues to remain academically marginalized for, among other things, its alleged lack of experimental rigor. At the same time, the field of theatre studies finds itself at an impasse between post-structuralist semioticians and embodied cognitivists regarding key onto-epistemological issues. A program of research framing and utilizing naturalist theatre as a second-order cybernetic/cybersemiotic laboratory holds much promise in addressing both matters and lending credence to Ross Ashby's assertion that " the discovery that two fields are related leads to each branch helping in the development of the other. " > method • After establishing the nature of the onto-epistemological deadlock within theatre studies, this article examines the application of cybernetic heuristics within naturalistic theatre, leading to a second-order cybernetic analysis of its processes of production and reception and the outline of an experimental program for exploring these processes further. > results • Foundations for a model of naturalist theatre as a cybersemiotic laboratory grounded in a novel operationalization of Gordon Pask's conversation theory. > implications • The proposed laboratory could result in the generation of quantitative and qualitative research pertaining to several dimensions of second-order cybernetics; particularly cybersemiotics, which, as a result, may end up better positioned to help dissolve onto-epistemological deadlocks between constructivists and realists of all stripes across the academy and beyond. > Constructivist content • I argue that an analysis of naturalistic theatre's processes of meaning-making filtered through the constructivist ontological agnosticism of second-order cybernetics offers a productive middle way forward for those on both sides of the social constructivist/embodied cognitive realist divide, within and beyond theatre studies. The article draws upon the works of Gregory Bateson, Søren Brier, Ranulph Glanville, Heinz von Foerster, and Niklas Luhmann. >
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Research Interests: Sociology and Cybernetics
Applying systemic analysis to examples of the author’s practice, this paper presents evidence for the efficacy of a theatre-based mode of systems modeling.
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to suggest a more central role for reflexive artistic practices in a clarified research agenda for second-order cybernetics (SOC). This is offered as a way to assist the field in the further... more
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to suggest a more central role for reflexive artistic practices in a clarified research agenda for second-order cybernetics (SOC). This is offered as a way to assist the field in the further development of its theoretical/methodological “core” and, subsequently, enhance its impact on the world. Design/methodology/approach The argument begins by reviewing Karl Müller’s account of the failure of SOC to emerge as a mainstream endeavor. Then, Müller’s account is recontextualized within recent developments in SOC that are traced through the Design Cybernetics movement inspired by Ranulph Glanville.” This alternate narrative frames a supposedly moribund period as a phase of continuing refinement of the field’s focus upon its “proper object of study,” namely, the observer’s mentation of/about their mentation. The implications of this renewed focus are then positioned within Larry Richard’s vision of the cybernetician, not as “scientist” per se but rathe...
Purpose This paper aims to demonstrate the value of forum theatre as a means to promote second-order awareness of workplace conflict and to further pragmatise cyber-systemic awareness to a wider public. Design/methodology/approach A... more
Purpose This paper aims to demonstrate the value of forum theatre as a means to promote second-order awareness of workplace conflict and to further pragmatise cyber-systemic awareness to a wider public. Design/methodology/approach A blended methodology rooted in grounded theory and action research is used to assess the individual learning of participants in a forum theatre intensive studying workplace conflict. The results are then briefly theorised through the lens of second-order cybernetics. Findings Data indicate significant growth in self, other and context awareness among participants. All three of these competencies can reasonably be considered components of second-order observation. Research limitations/implications The sample size thus far is, because of the time and resource constraints of the project, quite small, but the results strongly suggest a “proof of concept” that invites further study. Practical implications Institutions of various types that experience workplace...
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explicate the ways in which the practice of the dramatic arts has evolved to facilitate second-order observation of social systems and can be used to “pragmatize” systems thinking for a wider... more
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explicate the ways in which the practice of the dramatic arts has evolved to facilitate second-order observation of social systems and can be used to “pragmatize” systems thinking for a wider audience. Design/methodology/approach Survey of selected dramatic theory and practice from the nineteenth century to the present framed within the cyber-systemic theories of Niklas Luhmann, Werner Ulrich and Oswaldo Garcia de la Cerda and Maria Saavedra Ulloa. Findings Beginning with Naturalism in the late nineteenth century, theatrical practitioners have increasingly revealed the structure of social systems through their work, largely without any explicit adoption or deployment of systems theory. Current methods of theatrical presentation are highly compatible with cyber-systemic heuristics and could be used to make this body of theory known to a wider public. Research limitations/implications Work involving the direct application of systems theory to th...
> Context • Despite the best efforts of postmodern, social constructivist scholars to discredit the notion that " realistic " works of theatre and film could contain genuine onto-epistemic goods, many lay observers (i.e., audiences)... more
> Context • Despite the best efforts of postmodern, social constructivist scholars to discredit the notion that " realistic " works of theatre and film could contain genuine onto-epistemic goods, many lay observers (i.e., audiences) continue to describe individual performances and productions as more or less " truthful " than one another. Recently, some performance scholars have pushed back against the postmodern position and turned to contemporary cognitive science to undergird their insistence that the embodied nature of reception and perception does, in fact, allow audiences of such works to access " truths " within them. The literature of cybernetics (first-or second-order) has been almost entirely absent from the debate. > Problem • While the hardcore scepticism of social constructivism may be unsatisfactory in fully accounting for the enduring power and appeal of dramatic art, a retreat to epistemic certainty in the name of cognitive science would be equally unwise. This article proposes the notion of " eigenbehavior " as a conceptual bridge that might facilitate the synthesis of the most useful insights from both perspectives and open up new avenues of study and research. > Method • The article uses synthetic argumentation to propose a theory of eigenform within the context of theatrical performance. > Results • Emerging from this argumentation is a conception of eigenform that is novel in its emphasis on the distinction between its bio-structured and socio-structured features. > Implications • The insights in this article will be of value to scholars and practitioners of the dramatic arts and can be productively extended into cognate domains across the humanities. > Constructivist content • The article draws on the works of con-structivists such as von Glasersfeld, von Foerster, Maturana, Varela, and Luhmann and is grounded in such constructiv-ist perspectives as cybersemiotics, theory of autopoiesis, and systems theory. >
> Context • The thoroughly second-order cybernetic underpinnings of naturalist theatre have gone almost entirely unremarked in the literature of both theatre studies and cybernetics itself. As a result, rich opportunities for the two... more
> Context • The thoroughly second-order cybernetic underpinnings of naturalist theatre have gone almost entirely unremarked in the literature of both theatre studies and cybernetics itself. As a result, rich opportunities for the two fields to draw mutual benefit and break new ground through both theoretical and empirical investigations of these underpinnings have, thus far, gone untapped. > Problem • The field of cybernetics continues to remain academically marginalized for, among other things, its alleged lack of experimental rigor. At the same time, the field of theatre studies finds itself at an impasse between post-structuralist semioticians and embodied cognitivists regarding key onto-epistemological issues. A program of research framing and utilizing naturalist theatre as a second-order cybernetic/cybersemiotic laboratory holds much promise in addressing both matters and lending credence to Ross Ashby's assertion that " the discovery that two fields are related leads to each branch helping in the development of the other. " > method • After establishing the nature of the onto-epistemological deadlock within theatre studies, this article examines the application of cybernetic heuristics within naturalistic theatre, leading to a second-order cybernetic analysis of its processes of production and reception and the outline of an experimental program for exploring these processes further. > results • Foundations for a model of naturalist theatre as a cybersemiotic laboratory grounded in a novel operationalization of Gordon Pask's conversation theory. > implications • The proposed laboratory could result in the generation of quantitative and qualitative research pertaining to several dimensions of second-order cybernetics; particularly cybersemiotics, which, as a result, may end up better positioned to help dissolve onto-epistemological deadlocks between constructivists and realists of all stripes across the academy and beyond. > Constructivist content • I argue that an analysis of naturalistic theatre's processes of meaning-making filtered through the constructivist ontological agnosticism of second-order cybernetics offers a productive middle way forward for those on both sides of the social constructivist/embodied cognitive realist divide, within and beyond theatre studies. The article draws upon the works of Gregory Bateson, Søren Brier, Ranulph Glanville, Heinz von Foerster, and Niklas Luhmann. >
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... of the actual Woyzeck case, and the exhibits to a clemency petition filed in the late 1990s with then California Governor, Gray Davis, on behalf of a Vietnam veteran and survivor of the bloodybattle of Khe Sahn (referred to in our... more
... of the actual Woyzeck case, and the exhibits to a clemency petition filed in the late 1990s with then California Governor, Gray Davis, on behalf of a Vietnam veteran and survivor of the bloodybattle of Khe Sahn (referred to in our production by the pseudonym Lenny Barrett) who ...
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... Here he discusses the Given Circumstanc-es of a scene from Chekov's Three Sisters ... Bruder, Melissa, Lee Michael Cohn, Madeline Olnek, Nathaniel Pollack, Robert Previto, and Scott Zigler. ... lr) play The Stanisavski Game... more
... Here he discusses the Given Circumstanc-es of a scene from Chekov's Three Sisters ... Bruder, Melissa, Lee Michael Cohn, Madeline Olnek, Nathaniel Pollack, Robert Previto, and Scott Zigler. ... lr) play The Stanisavski Game in a scene from Act Three of Chekhov's Three Sisters ...