Becoming Creative through Self Observation: A (Second Order) Cybernetic Learning Strategy for the Metaverse

Origins

The aim of the Groundcourse was to create an environment which would foster the rethinking of preconceptions, prejudices and fixations with regards to self, society, personal/social limitations, art and all the ensuing relationships brought about through a range of carefully thought out assignments that entailed behavioral modification and ultimately change. At the core of all learning activity was a concept of power, the will to shape and to change, this indeed being The Groundcourse's overriding educational goal. The core assignments were behavioral projects in which the learners were directly and personally engaged. One of the tasks was the acquisition of a totally new personality, which was largely the converse of what students would consider to be their normal “selves.” The students monitored their new personalities with calibrators which they designed to read off their responses to situations, materials, tools, and people within a completely new set of operant conditions. These responses were then used in the creation of mind maps which were utilized for understanding behavioral patterns dictated by changes in the limitations of space, substance, and state.

These “new” personalities were asked to form hexagonal groups which had the task of producing an ordered entity out of substances and space, embarked upon with severe limitations on individual behavior and ideas. Concluding the 6 week long assignment was the full visual documentation of a process which had demanded full engagement from its participants. Hence, throughout the behavioral exercise, a step-by-step second order cybernetic observational system was skillfully evoked and enacted, aiding the search for relationships and ideas unfamiliar to art, as well as reflecting and becoming aware “of the flexibility of their responses, their resourcefulness and ingenuity in the face of difficulties. What they assumed to be ingrained in their personalities they now tend to see as controllable. A sense of creative viability is being acquired” (Ascott, 2003).