{"id":400,"date":"2025-12-21T12:05:54","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T17:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/events.asc-cybernetics.org\/2026\/?page_id=400"},"modified":"2026-06-28T20:06:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T00:06:55","slug":"conference-program","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/events.asc-cybernetics.org\/2026\/conference-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Conference Program"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n Sunday, August 2, 2026 <\/h2>\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n
Time<\/th>\n Event<\/th>\n Type<\/th>\n Proponent<\/th>\n Location<\/th>\n <\/tr>\n <\/thead>\n
15:00 \u2013 18:00<\/td>\n \n Casa Gonzaga ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Workshop<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Larry Richards<\/td>\n Anexo do Museu<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Larry Richards<\/p>\n

Before the conference begins, participants are invited to a preconference session offered by Larry Richards. The session offers an introduction to some key distinctions that cybernetics highlights. These distinctions form a set of concepts. The set of concepts create a scaffolding for cybernetics as a field of inquiry. Included are two foundational concepts for all human inquiry (distinction, system), two domains of cybernetics (relations, dynamics), four pillars\/cornerstones of cybernetics, five characteristics of all systems, five stages of system evolution, and two dialectical pairs (communication\/conversation, control\/autonomy). The session will be interactive and will explore areas of special relevance \u2013 like cognition, language, conversation, design, decision-making, radical constructivism \u2013 as time permits.\r\n\r\nLarry Richards is Professor Emeritus of Management and Informatics at Indiana University East. Before retiring, he served for 32 years as an administrator in three universities. He now resides in Portland, Maine, USA. His interests include the arts, technology, and society. He is a past President of the American Society for Cybernetics (1986-88) and was recipient of the ASC Norbert Wiener Medal (2007). https:\/\/maps.app.goo.gl\/bjsQToPc1u2Wep6y7<\/p>\n More Info ↗<\/a>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n <\/tbody>\n <\/table>\n <\/section>\n

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\n Monday, August 3, 2026 <\/h2>\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n
Time<\/th>\n Event<\/th>\n Type<\/th>\n Proponent<\/th>\n Location<\/th>\n <\/tr>\n <\/thead>\n
08:30 \u2013 09:30<\/td>\n \n Event accreditation ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Opening Ceremony<\/span>\n <\/td>\n \u2013<\/td>\n Casa da \u00d3pera<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
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Event accreditation<\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

09:30 \u2013 10:00<\/td>\n \n Opening Ceremony <\/td>\n \n Opening Ceremony<\/span>\n <\/td>\n \u2013<\/td>\n Casa da \u00d3pera<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
10:00 \u2013 12:00<\/td>\n \n Confluences of voices: A history of the ASC ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Opening Ceremony<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Claudia Westermann<\/td>\n Casa da \u00d3pera<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Claudia Westermann<\/p>\n

Founded in 1964, the American Society for Cybernetics has carried cybernetics as a living conversation across six decades of shifting ideas, communities, and transformations. This session gathers ASC\\'s own history as a confluence of voices: Claudia Westermann, ASC\\'s president-elect, leads a conversation with former presidents Larry Richards and Allenna Leonard, joined remotely by current president Paul Pangaro. Together they trace the society\\'s identity, its founding impulses, and the threads connecting generations of members. Rather than a formal retrospective, the session unfolds as a recursive conversation (cybernetics reflecting on itself), inviting participants into the ASC\\'s living lineage.<\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

12:00 \u2013 14:00<\/td>\n \n Lunch (on your own account) <\/td>\n \n Lunch<\/span>\n <\/td>\n \u2013<\/td>\n \u2013<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
14:00 \u2013 18:00<\/td>\n \n Track 2: Pluriversal More-than-Human Design 2 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Track<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Annan Zuo (University of Oxford), Claudia Westermann (Curtin University), Frederick Steier (University of South Florida)<\/td>\n Anexo do Museu<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Annan Zuo (University of Oxford), Claudia Westermann (Curtin University), Frederick Steier (University of South Florida)<\/p>\n

Across many cultural worlds, designing is a collective process emerging from reciprocal relations among humans, animals, plants, landscapes, materials, and spirits. Drawing on pluriversal and more-than-human design frameworks, this track explores how cybernetics can participate in world-making processes by engaging with ontologies in which agency is distributed and more-than-human beings are co-creators of living systems. We invite contributions that demonstrate how alternative cosmologies and relational practices inform systemic and ecological design projects across scales, from artefacts and installations to architecture and landscapes.\r\n\r\nPresenters are invited to speak from, narrate, or perform the perspectives of more-than-human agents, presenting their work through the lifeworlds, sensory capacities, and communicative features of their chosen more-than-human beings. This might include articulating Amazonian forestry practices through the view of a harpy eagle or reimagining Satoyama landscape recovery through the voice of a cypress tree. Through connecting performativity, situated knowledge, and multispecies attunement, this track aims to reveal shared relational ontologies embedded in cross-cultural more-than-human design practices while celebrating their distinct cosmologies.<\/p>\n More Info ↗<\/a>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

14:00 \u2013 18:00<\/td>\n \n Track 7: Epistemology After the Algorithm: A Second-Order Cybernetic Intervention 2 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Track<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Arantzazu Saratxaga (Aix Marseille Universit\u00e9)<\/td>\n IFAC<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Arantzazu Saratxaga (Aix Marseille Universit\u00e9)<\/p>\n

This proposal outlines a collaboration within the ASC framework to create a collective working space leading to a joint publication. The project explores the emancipatory potential of second-order cybernetics as a response to the epistemological foundations of contemporary algorithmic governance.\r\nAlgorithmic governance rests on the assumption that reality is objectively given, fully modelable, and manageable through computation. This premise shifts epistemic authority to algorithmic systems, treated as neutral producers of comprehensive knowledge. The dominance of AI depends on the belief that algorithmic models generate objective truth. Consequently, power is delegated to systems that claim neutrality while concealing their selective operations. A \u201cGod\u2019s eye\u201d perspective emerges, legitimizing algorithmic authority not only through performance but through an attributed status of objectivity and omniscience. \r\nThe track challenges this logic through second-order operative epistemology. Rather than presuming objectivity, second-order cybernetics observes observation itself. It emphasizes that every observation is selective and entails blind spots. Knowledge arises not from representing reality but from reflecting on how observations are constructed. This perspective questions the promises of transparency, automation, and total control.\r\nThe track will address central epistemological tensions: observation versus representation; self-organization versus algorithmic determinism; transparency versus the blind spot of observation; communication versus control; reflexivity versus automation; and uncertainty versus the illusion of total calculability.\r\nDrawing on cybernetic operative knowledge, the track aims to critically examine the epistemological foundations of algorithmic power, expose their fragility, and open alternative spaces for thought and action, laying the groundwork for a subsequent joint publication.<\/p>\n More Info ↗<\/a>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

14:00 \u2013 18:00<\/td>\n \n Track 6: Competing Cartographies: Mapping as Practice of Recursive Becoming 2 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Track<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Art, Media, Cybernetics Working Group, American Society for Cybernetics<\/td>\n Casa Gonzaga<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Art, Media, Cybernetics Working Group, American Society for Cybernetics<\/p>\n

In his famous axiom \u2013 \u201cthe map is not the territory\u201d \u2013 Alfred Korzybski articulates a disjunction: no representation exhausts the real. British statistician George E. P. Box\u2019s pragmatic observation that \u201call models are wrong, but some are useful\u201d redirects attention from questions of correspondence to questions of function. Cartography\u2019s utility is always situated and partial: different models illuminate different aspects of the real while excluding others. The plurality of maps and models and their usefulness gestures towards a fundamental insight: reality possesses multitudes.\r\n\r\nWhat then of mapping and modeling? Historically, cartography functioned as a practice of territorial rationalization, operating between systems of power and governance. In modernity, the model has become a vessel for scientific and technological knowledge, projected onto our understanding and experience of the world. Today, we live in hyperrealities stitched together from hyperobjects, engulfed and immersed within invisible infrastructures. While the meaning of the map has changed, its essence \u2013 that of an epistemic and ontological apparatus for re-negotiating and re-constituting our relationship with the world \u2013 has remained the same.\r\n\r\nThis track invites a cybernetic reframing of mapping and modeling of a different paradigm, grounded in intimacy rather than surveillance, in reciprocal conversation rather than unilateral observation.<\/p>\n More Info ↗<\/a>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

19:00 \u2013 21:00<\/td>\n \n 100 years of Stafford Beer ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Exhibition<\/span>\n <\/td>\n \u2013<\/td>\n Casa Gonzaga<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Oficial opening of the 100 years of Staffor Beer exibition.<\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

Aug 3 \u2013 Aug 7<\/td>\n \n ASC 2026 Participant Podcast 5 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Workshop<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Abbie Van Meter<\/td>\n \u2013<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Abbie Van Meter<\/p>\n

Join the ASC 2026 Participant Podcast!\r\n\r\nAbbie Van Meter - our resident ASC podcaster - will be available to record short conversations during the lunch hour on each day of the 2026 American Society for Cybernetics Conference in Ouro Preto, Brazil. You can sign up here for a 15 minute recording slot to share your story. Each recorded conversation will be compiled into a single podcast episode, representing the participant perspective on the ASC Conference and Cybernetics in general. Every story is worth telling and hearing; so, even if you are uncertain about what you may want to share, please still consider signing up and you can trust Abbie will guide you through the conversation. Also, if you know of someone else attending the ASC Conference who may have a story to share, please encourage them to sign up for a time as well. Recordings can be any amount of time under 15 minutes, so we hope you will share a brief period of your lunch hour to contribute to this important collection of ASC voices. \r\n\r\nWhat is Live Podcasting?\r\n\r\nLive Podcasting offers us an opportunity to capture a collectively created audio artifact of the American Society for Cybernetics 2026 Conference, as well as the opportunity to put into practice this year\\'s theme- \\"Conversational Confluences.\\" Host, Abbie VanMeter, has become a passionate advocate for the medium of podcasting as a way to engage more people- as both listeners and contributors- in emergent, exploratory conversations, which, when shared together, will reflect the diversity of ideas, perspectives, and stories that co-exist in the field of cybernetics. Using a \\\\\\'communication perspective\\\\\\' informed by the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) theory as her conversational approach, Abbie invites participants to a story-driven experience, that centers generative communication patterns in both content and process. \r\n\r\nIn our modern, mediated communication age, the accessibility of podcasting in both the discussion and modeling of important practices, is an unparalleled strength. Particularly as we seek to achieve a more expansive reach of our ideas across audiences, podcasting enables scholar-practitioners to find greater intelligibility of ideas without sacrificing complexity. Putting to work tools like curiosity, imagination, and collaboration, the podcast becomes a space for learning and growth through conversation. So, consider the possibilities when we embrace the conversational confluence in our work and join Abbie in person in Ouro Preto, Brazil to contribute to the ASC 2026 Conference Participant Podcast.\r\n\r\nSchedule a conversation: https:\/\/doodle.com\/meeting\/participate\/id\/axzJB69d.<\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n <\/tbody>\n <\/table>\n <\/section>\n

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\n Tuesday, August 4, 2026 <\/h2>\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n
Time<\/th>\n Event<\/th>\n Type<\/th>\n Proponent<\/th>\n Location<\/th>\n <\/tr>\n <\/thead>\n
09:00 \u2013 13:00<\/td>\n \n Conversational Confluences ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Plenary<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Jos\u00e9 dos Santos Cabral Filho, Ana Paula Baltazar<\/td>\n Grande Hotel de Ouro Preto<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
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Coordination:<\/strong> Jos\u00e9 dos Santos Cabral Filho, Ana Paula Baltazar<\/p>\n

Conversational Confluences brings practitioners of traditional knowledge and cyberneticians into a shared conversation, convened by Ana Paula Baltazar and Jos\u00e9 Cabral Filho. Rather than a sequence of presentations, the session unfolds as live dialogue: cybernetic concepts meet traditional practices and knowledges as guests from both fields speak for themselves, respond, and build on one another\\\\\\'s words. The session investigates points of tangency between these ways of knowing, asking how each field might be transformed by attending closely to the other.\r\n\r\nErnesto Monteiro, Amex Canavieiras, CONFREM\r\nJoelson Ferreira, Assentamento Terra Vista\/Teia dos Povos\r\nCacique Danilo Borum-Kren, Coletivo Borum-Kren Vivos e Fortes\r\nPedro Aspahan, UFMG\r\nClaudia Westermann, ASC\r\nSandro Schilindwein, UFSC<\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

13:00 \u2013 14:00<\/td>\n \n Lunch (Complimentary Light Lunch) 3 days<\/span>\n <\/td>\n \n Lunch<\/span>\n <\/td>\n \u2013<\/td>\n Grande Hotel de Ouro Preto<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
14:00 \u2013 18:00<\/td>\n \n Track 2: Pluriversal More-than-Human Design 2 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Track<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Annan Zuo (University of Oxford), Claudia Westermann (Curtin University), Frederick Steier (University of South Florida)<\/td>\n Anexo do Museu<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Annan Zuo (University of Oxford), Claudia Westermann (Curtin University), Frederick Steier (University of South Florida)<\/p>\n

Across many cultural worlds, designing is a collective process emerging from reciprocal relations among humans, animals, plants, landscapes, materials, and spirits. Drawing on pluriversal and more-than-human design frameworks, this track explores how cybernetics can participate in world-making processes by engaging with ontologies in which agency is distributed and more-than-human beings are co-creators of living systems. We invite contributions that demonstrate how alternative cosmologies and relational practices inform systemic and ecological design projects across scales, from artefacts and installations to architecture and landscapes.\r\n\r\nPresenters are invited to speak from, narrate, or perform the perspectives of more-than-human agents, presenting their work through the lifeworlds, sensory capacities, and communicative features of their chosen more-than-human beings. This might include articulating Amazonian forestry practices through the view of a harpy eagle or reimagining Satoyama landscape recovery through the voice of a cypress tree. Through connecting performativity, situated knowledge, and multispecies attunement, this track aims to reveal shared relational ontologies embedded in cross-cultural more-than-human design practices while celebrating their distinct cosmologies.<\/p>\n More Info ↗<\/a>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

14:00 \u2013 18:00<\/td>\n \n Track 7: Epistemology After the Algorithm: A Second-Order Cybernetic Intervention 2 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Track<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Arantzazu Saratxaga (Aix Marseille Universit\u00e9)<\/td>\n IFAC<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Arantzazu Saratxaga (Aix Marseille Universit\u00e9)<\/p>\n

This proposal outlines a collaboration within the ASC framework to create a collective working space leading to a joint publication. The project explores the emancipatory potential of second-order cybernetics as a response to the epistemological foundations of contemporary algorithmic governance.\r\nAlgorithmic governance rests on the assumption that reality is objectively given, fully modelable, and manageable through computation. This premise shifts epistemic authority to algorithmic systems, treated as neutral producers of comprehensive knowledge. The dominance of AI depends on the belief that algorithmic models generate objective truth. Consequently, power is delegated to systems that claim neutrality while concealing their selective operations. A \u201cGod\u2019s eye\u201d perspective emerges, legitimizing algorithmic authority not only through performance but through an attributed status of objectivity and omniscience. \r\nThe track challenges this logic through second-order operative epistemology. Rather than presuming objectivity, second-order cybernetics observes observation itself. It emphasizes that every observation is selective and entails blind spots. Knowledge arises not from representing reality but from reflecting on how observations are constructed. This perspective questions the promises of transparency, automation, and total control.\r\nThe track will address central epistemological tensions: observation versus representation; self-organization versus algorithmic determinism; transparency versus the blind spot of observation; communication versus control; reflexivity versus automation; and uncertainty versus the illusion of total calculability.\r\nDrawing on cybernetic operative knowledge, the track aims to critically examine the epistemological foundations of algorithmic power, expose their fragility, and open alternative spaces for thought and action, laying the groundwork for a subsequent joint publication.<\/p>\n More Info ↗<\/a>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

14:00 \u2013 18:00<\/td>\n \n Track 6: Competing Cartographies: Mapping as Practice of Recursive Becoming 2 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Track<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Art, Media, Cybernetics Working Group, American Society for Cybernetics<\/td>\n Casa Gonzaga<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Art, Media, Cybernetics Working Group, American Society for Cybernetics<\/p>\n

In his famous axiom \u2013 \u201cthe map is not the territory\u201d \u2013 Alfred Korzybski articulates a disjunction: no representation exhausts the real. British statistician George E. P. Box\u2019s pragmatic observation that \u201call models are wrong, but some are useful\u201d redirects attention from questions of correspondence to questions of function. Cartography\u2019s utility is always situated and partial: different models illuminate different aspects of the real while excluding others. The plurality of maps and models and their usefulness gestures towards a fundamental insight: reality possesses multitudes.\r\n\r\nWhat then of mapping and modeling? Historically, cartography functioned as a practice of territorial rationalization, operating between systems of power and governance. In modernity, the model has become a vessel for scientific and technological knowledge, projected onto our understanding and experience of the world. Today, we live in hyperrealities stitched together from hyperobjects, engulfed and immersed within invisible infrastructures. While the meaning of the map has changed, its essence \u2013 that of an epistemic and ontological apparatus for re-negotiating and re-constituting our relationship with the world \u2013 has remained the same.\r\n\r\nThis track invites a cybernetic reframing of mapping and modeling of a different paradigm, grounded in intimacy rather than surveillance, in reciprocal conversation rather than unilateral observation.<\/p>\n More Info ↗<\/a>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

14:00 \u2013 18:00<\/td>\n \n Track 4: Futuribles \u2014 \u1f08\u03ba\u03c5\u03b2\u03ad\u03c1\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 (Akyb\u00e9rn\u0113tos): Drifting Ecologies-as-Cosmologies 2 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Track<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Tania Fraga (UnB Brazil), Clarissa Ribeiro (USP Brazil)<\/td>\n Casa da \u00d3pera<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Tania Fraga (UnB Brazil), Clarissa Ribeiro (USP Brazil)<\/p>\n

Drawing on Roy Ascott\u2019s concept of \u201cfuturibles,\u201d this track explores futures emerging not from control but from drift, worlds composed through syncretic encounters, randomic events, and noisy multispecies ecologies. The Greek \u1f08\u03ba\u03c5\u03b2\u03ad\u03c1\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 (unsteered\/ungoverned) frames systemic states where steering dissolves, treating drift as fertile ground for new modes of attention and response. Through live demonstrations, installations, and an \u201cAkyb\u00e9rn\u0113tos Lab,\u201d participants will co-explore noise-based systems, chance operations, and syncretic methodologies that resonate with Indigenous cosmopolitical practices where worlds are forged relationally.<\/p>\n More Info ↗<\/a>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

14:00 \u2013 18:00<\/td>\n \n Track 2 Workshop: Co-designing Parque Horto dos Contos ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Workshop<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Annan Zuo, Claudia Westermann<\/td>\n Horto dos Contos<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Annan Zuo, Claudia Westermann<\/p>\n

The Municipality of Ouro Preto is currently revising the management plan for the Horto dos Contos Municipal Natural Park. But before any human decisions are made, the park itself convenes an assembly. In this workshop, every living and nonliving inhabitant is invited to speculate on the park\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s future. What forms of coexistence or conflict emerge when a more-than-human assemblage designs itself?\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nThis workshop invites participants, both within and beyond this track, into this collectively imagined pluriversal more-than-human world situated in the Horto dos Contos Municipal Natural Park. Following a guided visit to the park, participants will be invited to inhabit a more-than-human perspective emerging from their own research or practice, as well as from their encounters within the site. Building on the contributions presented throughout the track, participants will engage as the more-than-human beings and relations their work brings into being. Drawing on cybernetic traditions of circular causality and relational emergence, the workshop invites participants to co-design the future of the park by responding to a series of situated systemic design challenges through role-play, storytelling, and collective world-making.<\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

Aug 3 \u2013 Aug 7<\/td>\n \n ASC 2026 Participant Podcast 5 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Workshop<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Abbie Van Meter<\/td>\n \u2013<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Abbie Van Meter<\/p>\n

Join the ASC 2026 Participant Podcast!\r\n\r\nAbbie Van Meter - our resident ASC podcaster - will be available to record short conversations during the lunch hour on each day of the 2026 American Society for Cybernetics Conference in Ouro Preto, Brazil. You can sign up here for a 15 minute recording slot to share your story. Each recorded conversation will be compiled into a single podcast episode, representing the participant perspective on the ASC Conference and Cybernetics in general. Every story is worth telling and hearing; so, even if you are uncertain about what you may want to share, please still consider signing up and you can trust Abbie will guide you through the conversation. Also, if you know of someone else attending the ASC Conference who may have a story to share, please encourage them to sign up for a time as well. Recordings can be any amount of time under 15 minutes, so we hope you will share a brief period of your lunch hour to contribute to this important collection of ASC voices. \r\n\r\nWhat is Live Podcasting?\r\n\r\nLive Podcasting offers us an opportunity to capture a collectively created audio artifact of the American Society for Cybernetics 2026 Conference, as well as the opportunity to put into practice this year\\'s theme- \\"Conversational Confluences.\\" Host, Abbie VanMeter, has become a passionate advocate for the medium of podcasting as a way to engage more people- as both listeners and contributors- in emergent, exploratory conversations, which, when shared together, will reflect the diversity of ideas, perspectives, and stories that co-exist in the field of cybernetics. Using a \\\\\\'communication perspective\\\\\\' informed by the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) theory as her conversational approach, Abbie invites participants to a story-driven experience, that centers generative communication patterns in both content and process. \r\n\r\nIn our modern, mediated communication age, the accessibility of podcasting in both the discussion and modeling of important practices, is an unparalleled strength. Particularly as we seek to achieve a more expansive reach of our ideas across audiences, podcasting enables scholar-practitioners to find greater intelligibility of ideas without sacrificing complexity. Putting to work tools like curiosity, imagination, and collaboration, the podcast becomes a space for learning and growth through conversation. So, consider the possibilities when we embrace the conversational confluence in our work and join Abbie in person in Ouro Preto, Brazil to contribute to the ASC 2026 Conference Participant Podcast.\r\n\r\nSchedule a conversation: https:\/\/doodle.com\/meeting\/participate\/id\/axzJB69d.<\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n <\/tbody>\n <\/table>\n <\/section>\n

\n

\n Wednesday, August 5, 2026 <\/h2>\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n
Time<\/th>\n Event<\/th>\n Type<\/th>\n Proponent<\/th>\n Location<\/th>\n <\/tr>\n <\/thead>\n
09:00 \u2013 13:00<\/td>\n \n 100 years of Stafford Beer ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Plenary<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Allenna Leonard, Carlos Senna, Juliana Mariano Alves<\/td>\n Grande Hotel de Ouro Preto<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Allenna Leonard, Carlos Senna, Juliana Mariano Alves<\/p>\n

In celebration of Stafford Beer\\\\\\'s birth centenary, this special session brings together Allenna Leonard and Carlos Senna, a participant in Project Cybersyn, to revisit Beer\\\\\\'s engagement with Latin America. Beyond Chile, Beer worked on cybernetic projects in Mexico with Javier Livas, in Uruguay\\\\\\'s Projecto Urucib under President Sanguinetti, in Venezuela with Raul Espejo during Carlos Andres Perez\\\\\\'s government, and in Colombia on second order auditing with Angela Espinosa. The session explores this often overlooked regional legacy and its relevance to systemic thinking today.<\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

13:00 \u2013 14:00<\/td>\n \n Lunch (Complimentary Light Lunch) 3 days<\/span>\n <\/td>\n \n Lunch<\/span>\n <\/td>\n \u2013<\/td>\n Grande Hotel de Ouro Preto<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
14:00 \u2013 18:00<\/td>\n \n Track 4: Futuribles \u2014 \u1f08\u03ba\u03c5\u03b2\u03ad\u03c1\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 (Akyb\u00e9rn\u0113tos): Drifting Ecologies-as-Cosmologies 2 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Track<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Tania Fraga (UnB Brazil), Clarissa Ribeiro (USP Brazil)<\/td>\n Casa da \u00d3pera<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Tania Fraga (UnB Brazil), Clarissa Ribeiro (USP Brazil)<\/p>\n

Drawing on Roy Ascott\u2019s concept of \u201cfuturibles,\u201d this track explores futures emerging not from control but from drift, worlds composed through syncretic encounters, randomic events, and noisy multispecies ecologies. The Greek \u1f08\u03ba\u03c5\u03b2\u03ad\u03c1\u03bd\u03b7\u03c4\u03bf\u03c2 (unsteered\/ungoverned) frames systemic states where steering dissolves, treating drift as fertile ground for new modes of attention and response. Through live demonstrations, installations, and an \u201cAkyb\u00e9rn\u0113tos Lab,\u201d participants will co-explore noise-based systems, chance operations, and syncretic methodologies that resonate with Indigenous cosmopolitical practices where worlds are forged relationally.<\/p>\n More Info ↗<\/a>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

14:00 \u2013 18:00<\/td>\n \n Track 1: Viable Confluences \u2014 100 Years of Stafford Beer in Conversation with Latin America 2 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Track<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Allenna Leonard, Jon Walker, Angela Espinosa, Pedro Pablo Cardoso, Camilo Osejo, Ayham Fattoum, Stephen Harwood, Juliana Mariano Alves<\/td>\n Grande Hotel de Ouro Preto<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Allenna Leonard, Jon Walker, Angela Espinosa, Pedro Pablo Cardoso, Camilo Osejo, Ayham Fattoum, Stephen Harwood, Juliana Mariano Alves<\/p>\n

Celebrating the centenary of Stafford Beer\u2019s birth, this track explores how his vision of freedom, viability, and autonomy continues to resonate within Latin American experiences of social, ecological, and institutional transformation. The track invites participants to examine how Beer\u2019s cybernetics aligns with confluence as mutual amplification, where diverse currents strengthen each other without assimilation. Through poster presentations, participatory marketplace discussions, and a Syntegration demonstration, participants will explore governance, complexity, and the design of viable institutions across different cultural and territorial contexts. Selected abstracts from this track will be invited for publication in a special issue in a cyber-systemic journal.<\/p>\n More Info ↗<\/a>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

14:00 \u2013 18:00<\/td>\n \n Track 8: Cyber-Systemic Confluences \u2014 Gathering the Dispersed, Refocusing the Distracted 2 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Track<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Jos\u00e9 dos Santos Cabral Filho, Sandro Luis Schlindwein, Mateus van Stralen<\/td>\n Anexo do Museu<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Jos\u00e9 dos Santos Cabral Filho, Sandro Luis Schlindwein, Mateus van Stralen<\/p>\n

Drawing on Vil\u00e9m Flusser\u2019s insight that the challenge of contemporary technological culture is bringing together the dispersed and refocusing the distracted, this track proposes an inquiry into traditions of cyber-systemic thinking. It seeks confluences understood as processes of refining attention, cultivating unexpected encounters, exploring modelling possibilities, and moving toward action under conditions of uncertainty and complexity.\r\n\r\nRather than approaching technology as an apparatus of restrictive control or strict problem-solving, it invites participants to engage cyber-systemic practices as a way of touching the unknown: welcoming problems before attempting to resolve them through modes of attunement that remain with what resists immediate comprehension. Central to the track is the cultivation of reflexive dialogues: encounters with others, human and other-than-human, in which mutual perturbations become opportunities for learning and transformation.\r\n\r\nUnderstanding may emerge through subtle and provisional modelling of intricacies rather than closed and unambiguous representation. Action is approached through the logic of doing and undoing knots: engaging constraints topologically rather than instrumentally, without reinstating totalising control, and recognising when undoing\u2014or even not acting\u2014may itself constitute a cybernetic response.\r\n\r\nContributions are encouraged to engage cyber-systemic confluences as living processes that gather attention and refocus distracted agencies, while keeping uncertainty, plurality, and reflexivity in play. The track welcomes proposals that may take the form of papers, artistic works, performative experiments, or speculative practices operating across disciplines and scales, as well as contributions more closely aligned with traditions of systems thinking.<\/p>\n More Info ↗<\/a>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

14:00 \u2013 18:00<\/td>\n \n Track 5: Entangled Confluences \u2014 Designing Relational Futures through Indigenous Wisdom, Quantum Theory, and AI Reflexivity ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Track<\/span>\n <\/td>\n R. Eva King and Frederick Steier (Fielding Graduate University)<\/td>\n IFAC<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> R. Eva King and Frederick Steier (Fielding Graduate University)<\/p>\n

Track 5 sessions will now take place within Track 7, coordinated by Arantzazu Saratxaga. The track fosters a living dialogue among three domains: Indigenous land-based relationality, quantum systems thinking, and AI reflexivity, treating them as tributaries of a single river of systemic meaning-making. Through provocative talks and interactive workshops (including \u201cThe Shadow Conversations Lab,\u201d which explores AI and observer-dependence, and \u201cConfluence Mapping,\u201d which visualizes plural ontologies), participants will explore how distinct ways of knowing can coexist without collapsing into sameness. The track centers on mutual amplification, examining how system designers can work with emergent meaning, relational accountability, and non-binary logic.<\/p>\n More Info ↗<\/a>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

14:00 \u2013 18:00<\/td>\n \n Track 3: Hybrid Matters 2 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Track<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Graziele Lautenschlaeger (USTP Austria), Merve Keskin (University of Salzburg), Thibaud Chassin (University of Graz)<\/td>\n Casa Gonzaga<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Graziele Lautenschlaeger (USTP Austria), Merve Keskin (University of Salzburg), Thibaud Chassin (University of Graz)<\/p>\n

With the track Hybrid Matters, we aim to juxtapose the cybernetic principles with the contemporary theoretical frameworks of posthumanism and new materialism, unfolding and articulating material-discursive practices that address, for instance, Donna Haraway\u00b4s (1944-) natureculture concept (2003) and Karen Barad\u00b4s (1956-) agential realism (2012). The guided conversations and activities envision the deconstruction of dichotomies that impoverish discussions and simplify our understanding of the world; envisioning a circular, continuous, and mutual influence between organic and machinic elements. Throughout hybrid gardening as a meeting point for discussing biodigital convergence, the garden operates as both an experiential laboratory and a metaphor for exploring hybrid systems that integrate biological, digital, and cultural dimensions. Participants are invited to engage in participatory mapping, co-design of a hybrid garden, prototyping with plants and sensors, and collective documentation, materializing conversations through making and exploring how hybrid materialities shape new models of coexistence and cybernetic exchange.<\/p>\n More Info ↗<\/a>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

19:00 \u2013 22:00<\/td>\n \n ASC Awards Dinner <\/td>\n \n Dinner<\/span>\n <\/td>\n \u2013<\/td>\n Ben\u00e9 da Flauta<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
Aug 3 \u2013 Aug 7<\/td>\n \n ASC 2026 Participant Podcast 5 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Workshop<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Abbie Van Meter<\/td>\n \u2013<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Abbie Van Meter<\/p>\n

Join the ASC 2026 Participant Podcast!\r\n\r\nAbbie Van Meter - our resident ASC podcaster - will be available to record short conversations during the lunch hour on each day of the 2026 American Society for Cybernetics Conference in Ouro Preto, Brazil. You can sign up here for a 15 minute recording slot to share your story. Each recorded conversation will be compiled into a single podcast episode, representing the participant perspective on the ASC Conference and Cybernetics in general. Every story is worth telling and hearing; so, even if you are uncertain about what you may want to share, please still consider signing up and you can trust Abbie will guide you through the conversation. Also, if you know of someone else attending the ASC Conference who may have a story to share, please encourage them to sign up for a time as well. Recordings can be any amount of time under 15 minutes, so we hope you will share a brief period of your lunch hour to contribute to this important collection of ASC voices. \r\n\r\nWhat is Live Podcasting?\r\n\r\nLive Podcasting offers us an opportunity to capture a collectively created audio artifact of the American Society for Cybernetics 2026 Conference, as well as the opportunity to put into practice this year\\'s theme- \\"Conversational Confluences.\\" Host, Abbie VanMeter, has become a passionate advocate for the medium of podcasting as a way to engage more people- as both listeners and contributors- in emergent, exploratory conversations, which, when shared together, will reflect the diversity of ideas, perspectives, and stories that co-exist in the field of cybernetics. Using a \\\\\\'communication perspective\\\\\\' informed by the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) theory as her conversational approach, Abbie invites participants to a story-driven experience, that centers generative communication patterns in both content and process. \r\n\r\nIn our modern, mediated communication age, the accessibility of podcasting in both the discussion and modeling of important practices, is an unparalleled strength. Particularly as we seek to achieve a more expansive reach of our ideas across audiences, podcasting enables scholar-practitioners to find greater intelligibility of ideas without sacrificing complexity. Putting to work tools like curiosity, imagination, and collaboration, the podcast becomes a space for learning and growth through conversation. So, consider the possibilities when we embrace the conversational confluence in our work and join Abbie in person in Ouro Preto, Brazil to contribute to the ASC 2026 Conference Participant Podcast.\r\n\r\nSchedule a conversation: https:\/\/doodle.com\/meeting\/participate\/id\/axzJB69d.<\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n <\/tbody>\n <\/table>\n <\/section>\n

\n

\n Thursday, August 6, 2026 <\/h2>\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n
Time<\/th>\n Event<\/th>\n Type<\/th>\n Proponent<\/th>\n Location<\/th>\n <\/tr>\n <\/thead>\n
09:00 \u2013 10:50<\/td>\n \n #NewMacy Caf\u00e9: Conversations on Four Potentially Controversial Issues in Modern Cybernetics ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Workshop<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Larry Richards<\/td>\n Grande Hotel de Ouro Preto<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Larry Richards<\/p>\n

After some introductory comments, and depending on the number of attendees, this #NewMacy caf\u00e9-style session will divide into smaller salon-style groups to discuss one or more of four potentially controversial issues in current cybernetics. These are conceptual issues, conversations on which could contribute to a confluence of new ideas in, approaches to, or perspectives on our joint field of inquiry. The four issues proposed for conversation include: (1) treating desires as constraints and intention as an awareness of those constraints as an alternative to desires as goals and intention as a planned trajectory toward those goals (as an approach to the cybernetics of design and the design of society); (2) treating the domains of relations and dynamics (explanations\/descriptions and experience\/action) as non-intersecting (i.e., of different logical type) as an alternative to the search for a grand theory of everything (as a cybernetic approach to knowledge, understanding and wisdom); (3) treating a consciousness of presence as an alternative to a consciousness of purpose (as an approach to self, democracy and time); and (4) treating the cybernetician as a craftsperson in and with time as an alternative to the cybernetician as a scientist, with time as given, external and unchangeable (as an approach to cybernetics as a process involving science, art and craft). After about a half an hour, the groups will reconvene to explore implications.\r\nLarry Richards, Professor Emeritus of Management and Informatics, Indiana University East, with other #NewMacy participants<\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

11:00 \u2013 13:00<\/td>\n \n Brain: An Interactive Table Read ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Workshop<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Justin Hunt<\/td>\n Anexo do Museu<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Justin Hunt<\/p>\n

In this workshop, we will stage an interactive table read of Lionel Britton\u2019s 1930 play, Brain: A play of the whole earth. In Brain, humans participate in a collective knowledge project that is global, collaborative, and targeted at what one might call \u201csocial good.\u201d Social good encompasses physical and mental health, relational and social wellbeing, economic justice and the resolution of broader environmental concerns. \r\n\r\nFor us, Brain functions in multiple ways. It connects to our wider interests in computing, technology, and social science more generally in times of rising fascism. Brain is a resistance narrative that explores how people might otherwise engage in a collective knowledge system based on other imperatives than capitalism. Brain, in our formulation, is a playground for dialogue between humans and the technologies they create. \r\n\r\nBrain will feature as a key focus in the next iteration of our collaborate research project, exploring the text as a tool for AI education more broadly. In staging this table read we are asking the attendees at the conference to perform with us a crucial \u201cpre-production\u201d stage in our research development. In a table read all members of a production read through the core text and begin to understand the world they will create together. We aim to perform a theory of Brain and consider what such a performance enables.<\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

11:00 \u2013 13:00<\/td>\n \n Doing Conversational Confluence \u2013 in Practice ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Workshop<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Johannes Herwig-Lempp<\/td>\n IFAC<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Johannes Herwig-Lempp<\/p>\n

Let\\\\\\'s think together about what \u201cbiointeraction\u201d and \u201c(conversational) confluences\u201d could mean for us in our everyday lives in practical terms \u2013 and how we can use our cybernetic concepts, methods, and experiences to achieve this. We will consider where we may already be doing quite well in this regard, and where we would like to improve. And which of our cybernetic and constructivist concepts can be helpful in this endeavor.\r\n\r\nAs a scientist, I am interested in theoretical concepts; as a social worker, I am concerned with putting them into practice; as a citizen, I am interested in constructively contributing to political processes. So, in my own actions and in the actions of the people around me, it is about how we can tolerate and even use the coexistence of different worldviews, political beliefs, practices, and epistemologies\u2014and how we can still live together constructively with people who think and act differently from us, or precisely because of this: How can we put this into practice, how can we behave, what can we ourselves contribute to successful conversational confluences?\r\n\r\nConversational confluences are undoubtedly possible for each of us. In the workshop, we will find this out for ourselves by working on the following questions, among others:\r\n\r\nIn which situations do confluences already emerge for us, and how do we enact them?\r\nWhen do they remain difficult\u2014and still succeed?\r\nIn which areas of our life would we like to become more capable of confluence?\r\nIf we had a well-developed concept or \u201cpractice guide\u201d for conversational confluence, where would we apply it?\r\nHow might such a guide look?\r\nHow does cybernetics help us articulate it?<\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

11:00 \u2013 13:00<\/td>\n \n Communication, Co-Creation, Coordination: Conversations Beyond Words ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Workshop<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Abbie VanMeter & Eve C. Pinsker<\/td>\n Casa Gonzaga<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Abbie VanMeter & Eve C. Pinsker<\/p>\n

Before meaningful change can occur in our social worlds, we must ask whether individuals understand themselves as active participants with real choices about how they communicate. Without a sense of agency, people perceive themselves as powerless in a random or unjust world.\r\nThis workshop intervenes at that root story of inefficacy. Drawing on Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM), second-order cybernetics, and improvisational practice, it equips participants to see communication not as transmission but as co-creation. CMM holds that persons-in-conversation co-construct their social realities and are simultaneously shaped by the worlds they create, a claim resonant with Bateson, Pask, and Nachmanovitch\\'s cybernetic attention to embodiment, reflexivity, and play.\r\nBeyond verbal exchange, this workshop engages multiple modalities: movement, sound, and embodied non-verbal communication as vehicles for generating \\"differences that make a difference.\\" Through exercises drawn from Interplay and Spolin theater games, participants will experience and reflect on the critical moments of uncertainty and possibility within communication.\r\nPlayful, participatory, and theoretically grounded, this workshop explores how improvisation and coordination open new ways of human-being-in-the-world.<\/p>\n More Info ↗<\/a>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

13:00 \u2013 14:00<\/td>\n \n Lunch (Complimentary Light Lunch) 3 days<\/span>\n <\/td>\n \n Lunch<\/span>\n <\/td>\n \u2013<\/td>\n Grande Hotel de Ouro Preto<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
14:00 \u2013 18:00<\/td>\n \n Track 1: Viable Confluences \u2014 100 Years of Stafford Beer in Conversation with Latin America 2 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Track<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Allenna Leonard, Jon Walker, Angela Espinosa, Pedro Pablo Cardoso, Camilo Osejo, Ayham Fattoum, Stephen Harwood, Juliana Mariano Alves<\/td>\n Grande Hotel de Ouro Preto<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Allenna Leonard, Jon Walker, Angela Espinosa, Pedro Pablo Cardoso, Camilo Osejo, Ayham Fattoum, Stephen Harwood, Juliana Mariano Alves<\/p>\n

Celebrating the centenary of Stafford Beer\u2019s birth, this track explores how his vision of freedom, viability, and autonomy continues to resonate within Latin American experiences of social, ecological, and institutional transformation. The track invites participants to examine how Beer\u2019s cybernetics aligns with confluence as mutual amplification, where diverse currents strengthen each other without assimilation. Through poster presentations, participatory marketplace discussions, and a Syntegration demonstration, participants will explore governance, complexity, and the design of viable institutions across different cultural and territorial contexts. Selected abstracts from this track will be invited for publication in a special issue in a cyber-systemic journal.<\/p>\n More Info ↗<\/a>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

14:00 \u2013 18:00<\/td>\n \n Track 8: Cyber-Systemic Confluences \u2014 Gathering the Dispersed, Refocusing the Distracted 2 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Track<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Jos\u00e9 dos Santos Cabral Filho, Sandro Luis Schlindwein, Mateus van Stralen<\/td>\n Anexo do Museu<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Jos\u00e9 dos Santos Cabral Filho, Sandro Luis Schlindwein, Mateus van Stralen<\/p>\n

Drawing on Vil\u00e9m Flusser\u2019s insight that the challenge of contemporary technological culture is bringing together the dispersed and refocusing the distracted, this track proposes an inquiry into traditions of cyber-systemic thinking. It seeks confluences understood as processes of refining attention, cultivating unexpected encounters, exploring modelling possibilities, and moving toward action under conditions of uncertainty and complexity.\r\n\r\nRather than approaching technology as an apparatus of restrictive control or strict problem-solving, it invites participants to engage cyber-systemic practices as a way of touching the unknown: welcoming problems before attempting to resolve them through modes of attunement that remain with what resists immediate comprehension. Central to the track is the cultivation of reflexive dialogues: encounters with others, human and other-than-human, in which mutual perturbations become opportunities for learning and transformation.\r\n\r\nUnderstanding may emerge through subtle and provisional modelling of intricacies rather than closed and unambiguous representation. Action is approached through the logic of doing and undoing knots: engaging constraints topologically rather than instrumentally, without reinstating totalising control, and recognising when undoing\u2014or even not acting\u2014may itself constitute a cybernetic response.\r\n\r\nContributions are encouraged to engage cyber-systemic confluences as living processes that gather attention and refocus distracted agencies, while keeping uncertainty, plurality, and reflexivity in play. The track welcomes proposals that may take the form of papers, artistic works, performative experiments, or speculative practices operating across disciplines and scales, as well as contributions more closely aligned with traditions of systems thinking.<\/p>\n More Info ↗<\/a>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

14:00 \u2013 18:00<\/td>\n \n Track 3: Hybrid Matters 2 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Track<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Graziele Lautenschlaeger (USTP Austria), Merve Keskin (University of Salzburg), Thibaud Chassin (University of Graz)<\/td>\n Casa Gonzaga<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Graziele Lautenschlaeger (USTP Austria), Merve Keskin (University of Salzburg), Thibaud Chassin (University of Graz)<\/p>\n

With the track Hybrid Matters, we aim to juxtapose the cybernetic principles with the contemporary theoretical frameworks of posthumanism and new materialism, unfolding and articulating material-discursive practices that address, for instance, Donna Haraway\u00b4s (1944-) natureculture concept (2003) and Karen Barad\u00b4s (1956-) agential realism (2012). The guided conversations and activities envision the deconstruction of dichotomies that impoverish discussions and simplify our understanding of the world; envisioning a circular, continuous, and mutual influence between organic and machinic elements. Throughout hybrid gardening as a meeting point for discussing biodigital convergence, the garden operates as both an experiential laboratory and a metaphor for exploring hybrid systems that integrate biological, digital, and cultural dimensions. Participants are invited to engage in participatory mapping, co-design of a hybrid garden, prototyping with plants and sensors, and collective documentation, materializing conversations through making and exploring how hybrid materialities shape new models of coexistence and cybernetic exchange.<\/p>\n More Info ↗<\/a>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

14:00 \u2013 15:50<\/td>\n \n The Emotional Ground of Living Together: An Inquiry into the Interweaving of Languaging and Emotioning ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Workshop<\/span>\n <\/td>\n K\u00e1ritas de Toledo Ribas<\/td>\n IFAC<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> K\u00e1ritas de Toledo Ribas<\/p>\n

In this practice, we propose a conceptual-experiential inquiry inspired by the understanding that the central question of human living is not that of progress, technology, or information in themselves, but rather what we wish to conserve in our manner of living together, and whether or not we are willing to take responsibility for its consequences. In dialogue with Humberto Maturana, we understand that we do not act from an abstract rationality separated from living, but within emotional configurations that open and close the domains in which acting, thinking, listening, and living together become possible. From this perspective, emotions are not a private addition to action; they specify the relational domain in which an action arises as possible, legitimate, and intelligible.\r\n\r\nThe proposal relates to the conference theme, Conversational Confluences, by arguing that conversations do not take place in a vacuum. Every conversation arises from the interweaving of language and emotion, and it is this interweaving that configures worlds of action and coexistence. If distinct conversations can come into confluence without losing their singularity, this also depends on the emotional dispositions that make possible the presence of the other as a legitimate other in coexistence. To investigate the emotional configurations of a group is therefore also to investigate the conditions of possibility for conversational confluence. This formulation resonates with Maturana\u2019s understanding that we human beings live in conversations, and that the worlds we live in arise as particular domains of coordinations of actions and emotions conserved in living.\r\n\r\nIn this sense, the workshop engages directly with Track 8 by proposing a device for attending to the relational present, for reflective observation, and for the provisional formulation of hypotheses about complex processes of coexistence. The central contribution of this proposal lies in understanding emotions as the relational ground of action and reason. We seek to make visible that what we call reason, action, and coexistence does not exist outside emotioning, but arises with it and, with it, is either conserved or transformed. As Maturana states, it is emotions that guide our actions at every moment and determine the rational domain in which we operate.\r\n\r\nWorkshop content and structure\r\n\r\nIn a single 2.5-hour session, the workshop will be organized into four articulated moments. First, we will offer a brief conceptual opening to situate the central question and make explicit the relation between emotion, action, language, conversation, and coexistence, without anticipating causal explanations. Next, participants will observe, in a circle, the group\u2019s unfolding in the present, attending to gestures, silences, rhythms of speech, movements of closeness and distance, and shifts in listening, with minimal facilitation intervention. In the third moment, the group will formulate provisional hypotheses about how different emotional dispositions orient possible actions and reconfigure participation, trust, defensiveness, collaboration, or withdrawal. Finally, we will revisit the main insights and gather brief formulations of what became visible in the experience, in the encounter shared by all participants. The workshop thus proposes a reflective space for observing conversation and coexistence as living processes in which emotioning participates in the constitution and transformation of the relational worlds we inhabit.<\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

16:10 \u2013 18:00<\/td>\n \n Meta-reflex\u00e3o e Meta-design: uma pr\u00e1tica sist\u00eamica recursiva ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Workshop<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Ignacio Mu\u00f1oz Cristi<\/td>\n IFAC<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Ignacio Mu\u00f1oz Cristi<\/p>\n

Em contextos de alta complexidade social, ecol\u00f3gica e tecnol\u00f3gica, a capacidade de refletir sobre nossos pr\u00f3prios modos de observar e agir torna-se uma compet\u00eancia fundamental. No entanto, a reflex\u00e3o frequentemente \u00e9 compreendida de maneira limitada, como introspec\u00e7\u00e3o individual ou como an\u00e1lise conceitual abstrata. Este workshop prop\u00f5e explorar uma abordagem diferente: a reflex\u00e3o como pr\u00e1tica recursiva que permite examinar os modos pelos quais produzimos mundos de conviv\u00eancia.\r\n\r\nA proposta, fundada no Pensamento Ontol\u00f3gico-Constitutivo de Humberto Maturana[1], parte da ideia de que processos de design \u2014 seja no campo tecnol\u00f3gico, organizacional, pedag\u00f3gico ou terap\u00eautico \u2014 nunca ocorrem em um vazio conceitual. Todo design opera dentro de marcos impl\u00edcitos de distin\u00e7\u00e3o: modos de definir problemas, crit\u00e9rios de sucesso, concep\u00e7\u00f5es de mudan\u00e7a e formas de validar conhecimento. Quando esses marcos permanecem invis\u00edveis, o design tende a reproduzir automaticamente as mesmas ontologias instrumentais que estruturam a cultura tecnol\u00f3gica contempor\u00e2nea.\r\n\r\nPara lidar com essa situa\u00e7\u00e3o, o workshop introduz uma arquitetura recursiva de reflex\u00e3o e design, composta por seis n\u00edveis interligados:\r\n\r\n- reflex\u00e3o\r\n- meta-reflex\u00e3o\r\n- meta-meta-reflex\u00e3o\r\n- design\r\n- meta-design\r\n- meta-meta-design\r\n\r\nNos tr\u00eas primeiros n\u00edveis, os participantes exploram progressivamente diferentes camadas de observa\u00e7\u00e3o. A reflex\u00e3o consiste em distinguir as coer\u00eancias do pr\u00f3prio operar: que perguntas fazemos, que distin\u00e7\u00f5es utilizamos e que mundos aparecem a partir dessas distin\u00e7\u00f5es. A meta-reflex\u00e3o desloca a aten\u00e7\u00e3o para os crit\u00e9rios que orientam essas observa\u00e7\u00f5es, revelando pressupostos frequentemente invis\u00edveis. A meta-meta-reflex\u00e3o examina o risco de que esses crit\u00e9rios se rigidizem e se transformem em novas ortodoxias.\r\n\r\nNos tr\u00eas n\u00edveis seguintes, o foco se desloca para o design. Primeiro, os participantes exploram poss\u00edveis configura\u00e7\u00f5es de condi\u00e7\u00f5es relacionais que poderiam sustentar formas alternativas de conviv\u00eancia. Em seguida, o meta-design examina os marcos desde os quais essas propostas s\u00e3o elaboradas: como definimos problemas, como avaliamos mudan\u00e7as e que \u00e9tica orienta nossas interven\u00e7\u00f5es. Finalmente, o meta-meta-design introduz uma dimens\u00e3o de cust\u00f3dia reflexiva, examinando como evitar que os pr\u00f3prios marcos de design se tornem r\u00edgidos ou dogm\u00e1ticos.\r\n\r\nA din\u00e2mica do workshop ser\u00e1 organizada em conversa\u00e7\u00f5es estruturadas em pequenos grupos, alternadas com momentos de compartilhamento coletivo. O objetivo n\u00e3o \u00e9 produzir solu\u00e7\u00f5es t\u00e9cnicas imediatas, mas permitir que os participantes experimentem diretamente como mudan\u00e7as nas perguntas que orientam uma conversa podem transformar os mundos que se tornam poss\u00edveis.\r\n\r\nEssa pr\u00e1tica Ontol\u00f3gico-Constitutiva, dialoga com tradi\u00e7\u00f5es do pensamento cibersist\u00eamico que enfatizam reflexividade, observa\u00e7\u00e3o de segunda ordem e aprendizagem em contextos de complexidade. Ao mesmo tempo, busca oferecer uma ferramenta pr\u00e1tica para pesquisadores, designers e profissionais interessados em explorar formas mais respons\u00e1veis e conscientes de interven\u00e7\u00e3o em sistemas humanos.\r\n\r\nAo final da sess\u00e3o, os participantes ter\u00e3o experimentado um processo recursivo de reflex\u00e3o e design que pode ser aplicado em diversos contextos \u2014 desde projetos tecnol\u00f3gicos at\u00e9 pr\u00e1ticas pedag\u00f3gicas e processos organizacionais \u2014 ampliando a capacidade coletiva de imaginar e sustentar futuros mais vi\u00e1veis.<\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

Aug 3 \u2013 Aug 7<\/td>\n \n ASC 2026 Participant Podcast 5 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Workshop<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Abbie Van Meter<\/td>\n \u2013<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Abbie Van Meter<\/p>\n

Join the ASC 2026 Participant Podcast!\r\n\r\nAbbie Van Meter - our resident ASC podcaster - will be available to record short conversations during the lunch hour on each day of the 2026 American Society for Cybernetics Conference in Ouro Preto, Brazil. You can sign up here for a 15 minute recording slot to share your story. Each recorded conversation will be compiled into a single podcast episode, representing the participant perspective on the ASC Conference and Cybernetics in general. Every story is worth telling and hearing; so, even if you are uncertain about what you may want to share, please still consider signing up and you can trust Abbie will guide you through the conversation. Also, if you know of someone else attending the ASC Conference who may have a story to share, please encourage them to sign up for a time as well. Recordings can be any amount of time under 15 minutes, so we hope you will share a brief period of your lunch hour to contribute to this important collection of ASC voices. \r\n\r\nWhat is Live Podcasting?\r\n\r\nLive Podcasting offers us an opportunity to capture a collectively created audio artifact of the American Society for Cybernetics 2026 Conference, as well as the opportunity to put into practice this year\\'s theme- \\"Conversational Confluences.\\" Host, Abbie VanMeter, has become a passionate advocate for the medium of podcasting as a way to engage more people- as both listeners and contributors- in emergent, exploratory conversations, which, when shared together, will reflect the diversity of ideas, perspectives, and stories that co-exist in the field of cybernetics. Using a \\\\\\'communication perspective\\\\\\' informed by the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) theory as her conversational approach, Abbie invites participants to a story-driven experience, that centers generative communication patterns in both content and process. \r\n\r\nIn our modern, mediated communication age, the accessibility of podcasting in both the discussion and modeling of important practices, is an unparalleled strength. Particularly as we seek to achieve a more expansive reach of our ideas across audiences, podcasting enables scholar-practitioners to find greater intelligibility of ideas without sacrificing complexity. Putting to work tools like curiosity, imagination, and collaboration, the podcast becomes a space for learning and growth through conversation. So, consider the possibilities when we embrace the conversational confluence in our work and join Abbie in person in Ouro Preto, Brazil to contribute to the ASC 2026 Conference Participant Podcast.\r\n\r\nSchedule a conversation: https:\/\/doodle.com\/meeting\/participate\/id\/axzJB69d.<\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n <\/tbody>\n <\/table>\n <\/section>\n

\n

\n Friday, August 7, 2026 <\/h2>\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n
Time<\/th>\n Event<\/th>\n Type<\/th>\n Proponent<\/th>\n Location<\/th>\n <\/tr>\n <\/thead>\n
09:00 \u2013 11:30<\/td>\n \n The Confluence Soundscape: A World Caf\u00e9 on the Cybernetics of Emergence ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Plenary<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Fl\u00e1vio Mesquita da Silva<\/td>\n Grande Hotel de Ouro Preto<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Fl\u00e1vio Mesquita da Silva<\/p>\n

The final session of the conference brings together participants from all eight tracks in a World Caf\u00e9 format. The aim is to articulate the conversations developed throughout the week and begin the process of converging the week\\'s dialogues toward publication.\r\nIn successive rounds of small groups, participants move between thematic tables, bringing the questions raised in their respective tracks. The structure favors the cross pollination of perspectives across areas, allowing ideas from one track to resonate in another.<\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n

Aug 3 \u2013 Aug 7<\/td>\n \n ASC 2026 Participant Podcast 5 days<\/span>\n ›<\/span> <\/td>\n \n Workshop<\/span>\n <\/td>\n Abbie Van Meter<\/td>\n \u2013<\/td>\n <\/tr>\n
\n

Coordination:<\/strong> Abbie Van Meter<\/p>\n

Join the ASC 2026 Participant Podcast!\r\n\r\nAbbie Van Meter - our resident ASC podcaster - will be available to record short conversations during the lunch hour on each day of the 2026 American Society for Cybernetics Conference in Ouro Preto, Brazil. You can sign up here for a 15 minute recording slot to share your story. Each recorded conversation will be compiled into a single podcast episode, representing the participant perspective on the ASC Conference and Cybernetics in general. Every story is worth telling and hearing; so, even if you are uncertain about what you may want to share, please still consider signing up and you can trust Abbie will guide you through the conversation. Also, if you know of someone else attending the ASC Conference who may have a story to share, please encourage them to sign up for a time as well. Recordings can be any amount of time under 15 minutes, so we hope you will share a brief period of your lunch hour to contribute to this important collection of ASC voices. \r\n\r\nWhat is Live Podcasting?\r\n\r\nLive Podcasting offers us an opportunity to capture a collectively created audio artifact of the American Society for Cybernetics 2026 Conference, as well as the opportunity to put into practice this year\\'s theme- \\"Conversational Confluences.\\" Host, Abbie VanMeter, has become a passionate advocate for the medium of podcasting as a way to engage more people- as both listeners and contributors- in emergent, exploratory conversations, which, when shared together, will reflect the diversity of ideas, perspectives, and stories that co-exist in the field of cybernetics. Using a \\\\\\'communication perspective\\\\\\' informed by the Coordinated Management of Meaning (CMM) theory as her conversational approach, Abbie invites participants to a story-driven experience, that centers generative communication patterns in both content and process. \r\n\r\nIn our modern, mediated communication age, the accessibility of podcasting in both the discussion and modeling of important practices, is an unparalleled strength. Particularly as we seek to achieve a more expansive reach of our ideas across audiences, podcasting enables scholar-practitioners to find greater intelligibility of ideas without sacrificing complexity. Putting to work tools like curiosity, imagination, and collaboration, the podcast becomes a space for learning and growth through conversation. So, consider the possibilities when we embrace the conversational confluence in our work and join Abbie in person in Ouro Preto, Brazil to contribute to the ASC 2026 Conference Participant Podcast.\r\n\r\nSchedule a conversation: https:\/\/doodle.com\/meeting\/participate\/id\/axzJB69d.<\/p>\n <\/td>\n <\/tr>\n <\/tbody>\n <\/table>\n <\/section>\n <\/div>\n \n\n\n\n

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