Lexicon

Abject
Accretion
Actant
Aeration
Aerobic
Algae-boosted
Animal
Anthropomorphism
Anti-Continuous Construction
Apocalypse
Aquaculture
Aquanaut
Ark
Artificial Intelligence
Autopoiesis
Assemblages
Asymmetry
Atrophy
Attraction
Autarchy
Automata
Automation
Autosymbiosis
Bambassador
Bathyscaphe
Bioconurbation
Biomedia
Bionics
Biosphere
Biotechnique
By-product
Capacity
Actant
Coisolation
Composting
Conservative Surgery
Consumer Envelope
Consumption
Continuous Construction
Conurbation
Correalism
Cultural_Memory
Cybernetics
Cybertecture
Cyborg
Dispositif
Diving Saucer
Dross
Earthship
Ecocatastrophe
Effluvium
Egosphere
End-use
Entanglement
Eutopia
Feedback
Foam
Folk
Gadget
Garbage House
Green Cyborg
Heuristic
Hoard
Holism
Homogenization of Desire
Hostile
Human Affect
Hybridized Folk
Hydroponic
Hyper-Materialism
Information Economy
Inner Space
Interama
Intra-Uterine
Maque
Megalopolis
Min-use
Mobility
Monorail
Multi-Hinge
Non-Design
Oceanaut
Oppositional Consciousness
Organic
Ouroboros
Panarchy
Parasite
Perceived Continuation
Permanence
Place
Prototype
Post-Animal
Reclamation
RI: Data Farms
RI: Garbage and Animals
RI:Shipbreaking
RI: Toxic Sublime
Sampling
Scale
Sensing Structure
Simulacrum
Simulation
Soft Energy
Spaceship Earth
Submersible
Superwindow
Symbiosis
Synthetic Environment
Technocratic
Technological Heredity
Technological Sublime
Telechirics
The Sublime
Thermal Panel
Actant
Thing-Power
Thinking Machines
Tool
Toxic Withdrawal
Turbulence
UV-Transparent Film
Vibrant Matter
Waste
Work

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.

1. Nicholas Negroponte, Soft Architecture Machines (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1975), pp.32-51.
2. F.G. Varela,H.R. Maturana, R. Uribe, “Autopoiesis: The organization of living systems, its characterization and a model” in Biosystems, Volume 5, Issue 4 (May 1974), pp. 187–196.