“Absolutum Obsoletum: If It Works It’s Out of Date” presented by Ossa and Rivera
Symposium:
Session Title:
- Latin American Forum III: Recent Histories of Electronic Culture in Latin America
Presentation Title:
- Absolutum Obsoletum: If It Works It’s Out of Date
Presenter(s):
Venue(s):
Abstract:
In 1970 at the beginning of Chilean socialist pacific revolution in the Allende’s government, Fernando Flores, an engineer in charge of CORFO, the office which was in charge to manage the nationalized companies, knew the work of the cybernetician Stafford Beer on Management Cybernetics, and invite him to apply his VIABLE SYSTEM MODEL. Beer accepted the invitation and the project started with the configuration of a transdisciplinary team and a branch of several Chilean and foreign institutions, like INTEC (Institute of Technology), ECOM (Computer Company of Chile), together with important theorists, scientists and designers such as Raul Espejo, Gui Bonsiepe, Humberto Maturana, Francisco Varela, among others. They developed the interface, software, technical implementation and the training of the people who will compile and transmit the data, a group compound by engineers and common workers.
