Autopoiesis
Since the emergence of computers into everyday life, programmers have been creating interfaces which easily allow the control of humans over computers. It has been a process of translation between the language of computers and the user. Nicholas Negroponte’s SEEK experiment was not intended to create a way for humans to understand computers but rather to teach computers how humans think. By placing gerbils into a confined test bed with moveable cubes, Negroponte was able to create computers, which monitored the actions of the gerbils and attempted to recreate a similar environment in which they would be comfortable. Information of the optimal arrangement of cubes is extrapolated from the information received by monitoring the actions of the gerbils. Once this information is calculated then the environment can be recreated by an operable arm. The system uses information produced by the cube arrangement and interpreted by computational equipment to reproduce the same system that has been witnessed. This design approach can be utilized to identify the unknown, invisible, or intangible needs of inhabitants within any given environment.