Cristina Iuli, “Information, Communication, Systems: Cybernetic Aesthetics in 1960's Cultures"

Adopting a comparative perspective focused on cultural and aesthetic transformations in the U.S., Britain and Italy between the late 50s and the early 70's, this essay reassesses the cybernetic paradigm as a powerfully transformative conceptual shift which contributed to generating radical changes in how disciplianry subjects were studied and how knowledge was produced and disseminated within isntitutions of knowledge and in societies at large. The metaphorical potential of this paradigm shift was fully explored in experimental literature, art installations and performances, in radical architectures, critical pedagogies and in anthropology and family therapy. From this vantage point, a fresh look at some key fictional and theoretical literature from the 1960s in the U.S. and in Europe will reveal the transnational and transatlantic dimension of the cybernetic pradigm and contribute to draft a more accurate map of the field of forces shaping the literary and cultural tensions of the decade.