Place: MIT-huset, MC 413

This seminar, is one more of the promised further follow-up seminars on the issue of systems design later, as announced in the autumn's seminars of October 10th and November 14th (please see the latest call at http://www.informatik.umu.se/seminarier/2001/1005740100-1005746400.mit-huset.mc413).

In this seminar, a sort of partial professorial "testament" in view of my coming retirement, I will assume that the documentation of the latter seminar, i.e. mainly "Ethics and Politics in Design and Systems Cultures (http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/DesSysCulture.html)

has been read. This assumption is made in humorous analogy to the biblical spirit of Matthew 13:4-13, Mark 8:18, and Rom 11:8 (cf. the standard edition of The New Jerusalem Bible in our department's library, pp. 1630, 1670, 1883)!

This additional seminar will be dedicated to connecting the previous ones to an interpretation of technology, or more specifically information technology (IT/ICT), and to dialectical social systems theory as in C.W. Churchman's The Design of Inquiring Systems (DIS). With the purpose of furthering my ongoing research as related to my colleagues' I will share some preliminary thoughts about the meaning of webs of meaning and action, and networks of actors, as they are affected by or related to IT. Insofar time allows I will also try to illustrate what it to be understood as a dialectics of innovation and exploration, as "infrastructure", and "change" vs. "bricolage" in terms of the involved decision theory. I will express my understanding of the possible essence of IT that entices, lures, attracts or stimulates the senses or the "body", as a way of unveiling truth in a sort of Heideggerian spirit. This will be done also by referring to Aristotelian phronesis and Kantian aesthetics, and will point to the second part of my above mentioned document on ethics and politics of design and systems cultures (§§ 23-35). In other words: what could or should we pay more attention to in our research?

Please see also:
http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/SysTechn.html and
http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/SysTechnBodyMind.html

Plats: MIT-huset, MC 413

Seminariet är en version av den föreläsning jag fick tillfälle att hålla när jag installerades som professor. Ämnet för föreläsningen är teknikens roll i forskning och samhälle. Syftet är utreda det som jag ser som teknikens lockelse, men ockå den destruktivitet som all teknikutveckling och teknikanvändning leder till. Den grundläggande fråga som jag diskuterar är om och hur det är möjligt att betrakta teknik så att vi kan hantera dess utveckling och forma den till något vi vill leva med. I grunden är det en teknikfilosofisk fråga som, för mig, är fundamental för ämnet informatik. /Erik Stolterman

Plats: MIT-huset, MC 413

This seminar, as some possible further follow-up seminars on the same issue of systems design later on, takes advantage of the opportunity afforded by our colleague Erik Stolterman's invitation to comment his and Harold Nelson's manuscript (version July 2001:v2) of a book on "Creating a design culture". I will highlight some political and ethical problems that are implicit in certain design-conceptions. The seminar will thus center on how the dialectical systems approach may (yes!) approach the attempt of "creating a design culture" (design of wholes).

THIS SEMINAR PRESUPPOSES THE PARTICIPANTS' PRIOR READING OF THE MANUSCRIPT OR AT LEAST §§ 1-22 OF THE DOCUMENTATION DISTRIBUTED DURING THE SEMINAR THE PAST WEEK, OCTOBER 10TH, available now at:

The seminar follows the introduction given in the previous seminar of

October 10th, according to the announcement at

and a background for my comments and problematizations will be my own papers on some cores ideas of later years' emphasis on design, that I recently summarized, to begin with, in the extended word-index to "The Design of Inquiring Systems":

Plats: MIT-huset, MC 413

This seminar, and a possible follow-up seminar later on, takes advantage of the opportunity afforded by Erik Stolterman's request for comments to his and Harold Nelson's manuscript of a book on "Creating a design culture", in order to highlight some political ethical problems that are implicit in certain design-conceptions.

A background and basis for my comments and problematizations will be my own papers on some cores ideas of later years' emphasis on design, that I recently summarized in http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/Chu-SysAppDes.html (reprints available in the stands in front of our lunch room) on the basis of the following earlier partial essays http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/page6.html http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/chinese.html http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/PerspSem2000.html (especially items 6.12 and 7, but also 5.7, 6.2, 6.4, 6.9, 6.12, and 8.4.13 on eclecticism).

Selected pieces of text from the manuscript will be related to dialectical systems theory as exemplified in my extended word-index to West Churchman's book "The design of inquiring system", at http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/chuindex.html or http://www.informatik.umu.se/~kivanov/chuindex.pdf by the keywords "design-designer", "change", "teleology-purposes", "implementation", "action", "ethics", "guarantor", "politics-power", "romanticism", and "aesthetics".

The participants to the seminar, especially those who are following ongoing course on "Creating a design culture" which is based on the manuscript are encouraged to complete its reading prior to the seminar. It is recommended that everyone has the manuscript available during the seminar: see Erik's invitation to furnish copies, in his collective e-mail the the department's alias on September 6th. The seminar will he held preferably without overheads but, rather, with verbal references and reading from selected pages of the manuscript which, then, are necessary for following the argument.