Concerning Stephen Willats and the Social Function of Art

List of figures Preface Acknowledgements Introduction: new functions for art practice in society A cybernetics primer Cybernetics goes social A social practice primer Chapter overview 1. The Omni-Directional Artist Heuristic tools on the move < Control Magazine Homeostat diagrams Cooperative decision-making: Visual Meta Language Simulation Pedagogical processes Man from the Twenty-First Century 2. Modelling the Social Cognition Control Centre for Behavioural Art Constructing social resources and social models West London Social Resource Project Social modelling in Edinburgh Meta Filter Art and social function 3. Mutually Bound Of concept frames From a Coded World A ‘new reality’? Willats in east London Sorting Out Other People’s Lives Inside an Ocean Art for Whom? 4. The Art of Sociotechnical Systems Toward a ‘depleted, disillusioned new reality’ The Ideological Tower Vertical Living Brentford Towers Art creating society: curating the Oxford Symposium and the Mosaic Series Personal Islands 5. Creativity in Self-Organization Participatory reception Working within a defined context Defined context, social practice, and the multi-homeostat problem Living with practical realities Do-It-Yourself (DIY) aesthetics ‘Objects of Creative Release’ Back to the Wasteland 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 Oxford community data stream Data stream portrait of London Conclusion: On Giving Up and Compromise Feedback and multiple futures Open systems and participation Thinking with cybernetics Compromise not compliance Notes Select Bibliography Index