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A DECISION MACHINE SUITE
Interactive Electronic Sculpture
Homage to Norbert Wiener by Roman VerostkoThese electronic machines pay "homage" to Norbert Wiener (1894-1964), the scientist and humanist considered to be the father of cybernetics. With the press of a button the machine's circuit allows only one side to remain lit yielding a decision. These web page simulations approximate the way the physical machines work. Click an image for a machine simulation..
The Vatican
Right or Wrong?
1994 ©
42 cm. by 23 cmWall Street
Buy or Sell?
1995 ©
47 cm. by 30 cmThe White House
Yeah or Neah?
1995 ©
46 cm by 25 cmHamlet
To Be or Not To Be?
1995 ©
43 cm. by 18 cmRATIONALE
These works relate directly to Norbert Wiener's interest in the "human use of machines". They provide a playful cybernetic exercise that touches the very heart of the "human - machine" dialectic. Each work consists of an electronic circuit that elects only one of two possible paths at the split moment when the user presses the machine's decision button. The circuit "decision" cannot be predetermined by the user so each machine is an excellent randomizer.
lamp detail, generic deciderMy first decision machines, dating from 1982-83 were conceived as "generic deciders". This 1983 version with its "green (yes)" and "red (no)", was a playful approach to ordinary daily decisions such as whether to listen to this or that music album.
Generic Decision Machine I, Red or Green?
1993 ©
23 cm by 15 cm
"Reasoning" works wonders for us when we have sufficient information and the time to make an "intelligent" decision. But what of those situations when reason fails and we can't make up our mind, one way or the other? This Decision Machine Suite provides a playful approach for several of the most difficult decisions we humans have to make, decisions for which we often have no clear rational basis for confidently taking this or that path. These include:
VOTING as in The White House, Yeah or Neah?
INVESTING as in Wall Street, Buy or Sell?
MORAL DECISIONS as in The Vatican, Right or Wrong?
These machines provide an electronic "flip of the coin" when reason fails.
Norbert Wiener recognized the "fundamental element of chance in the texture of the universe itself". Computers simulate this "element of chance" through the use of pseudo-randomizers which are algorithms (mathematical formulas). Computer simulations generated with pseudo-randomizers can only approximate a random sequence whereas the sequence of coin flips is not.
The next outcome in a random event, such as in the toss of a coin, can never be predicted. It cannot be computed; we can only compute the probability of such an outcome. Such random events from the microscopic to the macroscopic permeate the texture of our universe.
UNCERTAINTY
The "Decision Machines" provide a playful electronic trigger that yields a random "one bit" event symbolizing "yes" or "no". This is appropriate playfulness AS homage to Wiener who observed that "The functional part of physics cannot escape considering uncertainty and the contingency of events." (See The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society, NY, 1967 Edition, p.15)
Cybernetics is the study of the guidance and control systems we design for our machines. The successful use of machines is correlative to the ease and degree of "human" control. Even our most sophisticated guidance and control systems intermittently fail - they crash, self destruct or even turn on us. So we have reason to fear the machine "out of control".
Here we have a whole suite of machines "out of control". We enter one bit of information which alters the flow of current in such a way that we can never know (or control) which path it will elect. Is this phenomenon fearsome?
This leads us to the Decision Machine I built only for play or for theater: To Be or Not To Be?
To be or not to be: that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? . . .Credit note: Tamara Temple assisted me with the code for simulating the physical switching procedure on these web pages. See her blog at: www.tamaratemple.com
DOCUMENTATION
Technical materials:The circuit, for each work, is crafted with diodes, transistors, capacitors, neon lamps, copper wire, solder, and one 'single pole' input switch. Power supply is 120 AC household current.
Detail of wiring on "The White House, yeah or nay". The wood on which the circuit is mounted was salvaged from the 1940 "White House" renovation. Preserved by my wife's uncle Henry Barr it still has its original gray paint. I drilled the small holes to serve as conduits. RV
The circuit is mounted symbolically within the context of a structure designed to evoke meanings associated with each specialized machine. Materials used include: wood, metal, plastic, paint, and glue. "The Vatican" has gold leafed lamp reflectors. "The Whitehouse" includes black and white balloting marbles and a piece of wood salvaged from the 1940's Whitehouse renovation.
The colored wires in these machines were chosen for evocative artistic effects. They are functioning live circuits based on the wiring diagram shown below. My diagram mimes the circuit of an over-the-counter electronics desktop item given to me around 1980. An electronics parts store advisor helped me locate which capacitors and transistors would work on this application.
Here is the diagram I made n 1982 as a guide for wiring the pieces shown here.
This diagram was based on a circuit in an electronic desktop "decision machine" that I bought in an electronics shop around 1980-82. Such electronic devices were popular In the late 1970's and early 1980's. Electronic stores proliferated with "off the shelf" electronics parts, calculators and adding machines. Experimentation with circuit boards and the first "build it yourself" computer components were sold in these stores.
HONORING THE PIONEERS:
These works honoring Norbert Wiener were the first of my projects honoring pioneers who contributed to the 20th Century information revolution. The development of electronic circuit logic and the human control of digital machines has a very deep history that reaches back to early counting systems. In this series I pay tribute to several pioneers familiar to me in modern history. RV 1998
Norbert Wiener (1894-1964), founder of the science of cybernetics, worked towards an understanding of the principles governing the relationship between computing machines and the human nervous system. He saw the paradox between the relief of human drudgery through the use of robots and the dehumanization of life that came with it. His work, The Human Use of Human Beings (1954), was a revised and edited version of his Cybernetics (1948). Note 2. Other projects celebrating pioneers:
George Boole (1815-1864) An illustrated limited edition of Chapter II from George Boole's Investigation of the Laws of thought. He is considered to be the Father of symbolic logic necessary for information age circuit logic. The code generated illustrations, achieved with Boolean Logic, are visual expressions of "Boole on Boole".
Alan Turing (1912-1954) Alan Turing Projects:
(a) 1995 & 1998. Series of pen plotted drawings in memory of Alan Turing, The Manchester Illuminated Universal Turing Machine. Alan Turing's classic 1936 thesis outlined the algorithmic procedure that underlies the circuit logic of today's general computers.(b) c.1994. A cyberspace presence on this web site in memory of Alan Turing: A Universal Turing Machine
