Feedback Machines. Cybernetics and Interaction

My PhD thesis has been published as an open access book by KHM, Academy of Media Arts Cologne: Lasse Scherffig (2017): Feedbackmaschinen. Kybernetik und Interaktion, Dissertation, KHM, Köln › PDF (17 MB)

The (German-language) thesis is titled “Feedback Machines. Cybernetics and Interaction” and was supervised by Georg Trogemann and Frieder Nake. It deals with cybernetics and human-computer interaction, reconstructing the history of interactivity as the history of cybernetics while using cybernetic thought for understanding interaction. In an argument that incorporates discussions of direct manipulation and tangible interaction, cybernetic and action-centric models of perception, and the enactivism/enaction debate in cognitive science, it ultimately argues that interaction creates interfaces.

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Print is not dead/The post-digital condition at Künstlerhaus Dortmund

How does design look in times of the gig economy, template culture, scripted layouts, and the standardized interaction and aesthetics of the responsive web? What is the design potential of last year’s tools and devices we already have forgotten? How can we show work and projects while our audience is immersed in their own smartphones? In a collaboration with FH Dortmund, a group of KISD students exhibits work dealing with questions like these under the title “Print is not dead/The post-digital condition.”

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Artificial Intelligence in Art and Design

A one-week workshop about applying artificial intelligence and machine learning in art and design. The workshop takes place in a remote location in Ramberg and gathers students and teachers of KISD, KHM, Academy of Media Arts Cologne (Prof. Dr. Georg Trogemann, Experimental Computer Science), and Bauhaus University Weimar (Prof. Ursula Damm, Media Environments). For one week, we will work on and discuss practical projects that use, abuse, criticize or embrace artificial intelligence and machine learning.