Concerning Stephen Willats and the Social Function of Art: Experiments in Cybernetics and Society

Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Illustrations
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction: New Functions for Art Practice in Society
	A Cybernetics Primer
	Cybernetics Goes Social
	A Social Practice Primer
	Chapter Overview
Chapter 1: The Omnidirectional Artist
	Heuristic Tools on the Move
	Homeostat Diagrams
	Cooperative Decision-Making: Visual Meta Language Simulation
	Pedagogical Processes
	Man from the Twenty-First Century
Chapter 2: Modeling the Social
	Cognition Control
	Centre for Behavioural Art
	Constructing Social Resources and Social Models
	Art and Social Function
Chapter 3: Mutually Bound
	Of Concept Frames
	From a Coded World
	A “New Reality”?
	Willats in East London
Chapter 4: The Art of Sociotechnical Systems
	Toward a “Depleted, Disillusioned New Reality”
	“Art Creating Society”: Curating the Oxford Symposium and the Mosaic Series
	Responsive-Ability in East London
Chapter 5: Creativity in Self-Organization
	Participatory Reception
	Defined Context, Social Practice, and the Multi-Homeostat Problem
	Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Aesthetics
	“Objects of Creative Release”
	Back to the Wasteland
Chapter 6: Open-Ended Urban Systems
	Middlesbrough and The Transformer
	Marble Arch to Oxford Circus, London: Freezone
	Simulation in Sheffield
	South London: Changing Everything
	A Pivot in Scale: Data Streams
Conclusion: On Giving Up and Compromise
	Feedback and Multiple Futures
	Open Systems and Participation
	Thinking with Cybernetics
	Compromise Not Compliance
Notes
Bibliography
Index