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A complex system is neither chaotic nor ordered—it is both at once. How do complex systems shape our attention? What kinds of attention help us sense, navigate, and participate in them?
This seminar explores complexity as a lens with which to look at a world caught between the “chaos” of AI slop, polarized discourse, and narrative collapse, and the “order” of authoritarian politics, corporate conformity, and techno-optimized efficiency. What “third way” can one savvy in complexity find through this impossible forest?
Through readings, discussion, and hands-on experiments—and guided by thinkers like Neil Theise, Nora Bateson, and James P. Carse—we’ll address these questions as we give close attention to complex systems. We will see how concepts like emergence, feedback, and interdependence are all key to understanding our experience of this (often overwhelmingly) complex moment. Along the way, we’ll consider how a lens of complexity, as Cybernetician Norbert Wiener put it, can help us “pursue the uphill battle against the prevailing tendency towards the commonplace and banal.”
Led by writer and media theorist Anna Beth Lane.
Thursdays, 6:45 - 9:15pm EST
March 12th-26th
Our courses cost $250, with an Advanced rate for students with an income above 100k. We also offer a Discounted rate for students with constraining circumstances.
Please see our Refund Policy HERE.
Additionally, we offer three tuition-waiver scholarships per course. To apply for a scholarship, click HERE.
A complex system is neither chaotic nor ordered—it is both at once. How do complex systems shape our attention? What kinds of attention help us sense, navigate, and participate in them?
This seminar explores complexity as a lens with which to look at a world caught between the “chaos” of AI slop, polarized discourse, and narrative collapse, and the “order” of authoritarian politics, corporate conformity, and techno-optimized efficiency. What “third way” can one savvy in complexity find through this impossible forest?
Through readings, discussion, and hands-on experiments—and guided by thinkers like Neil Theise, Nora Bateson, and James P. Carse—we’ll address these questions as we give close attention to complex systems. We will see how concepts like emergence, feedback, and interdependence are all key to understanding our experience of this (often overwhelmingly) complex moment. Along the way, we’ll consider how a lens of complexity, as Cybernetician Norbert Wiener put it, can help us “pursue the uphill battle against the prevailing tendency towards the commonplace and banal.”
Led by writer and media theorist Anna Beth Lane.
Thursdays, 6:45 - 9:15pm EST
March 12th-26th
Our courses cost $250, with an Advanced rate for students with an income above 100k. We also offer a Discounted rate for students with constraining circumstances.
Please see our Refund Policy HERE.
Additionally, we offer three tuition-waiver scholarships per course. To apply for a scholarship, click HERE.