In Cybernetic Revolutionaries, Eden Medina tells the
history of two intersecting utopian visions, one
political and one technological. The first was Chile's
experiment with peaceful socialist change under Salvador
Allende; the second was the simultaneous attempt to
build a computer system that would manage Chile's
economy. Neither vision was fully realized--Allende's
government ended with a violent military coup; the
system, known as Project Cybersyn, was never completely
implemented--but they hold lessons for today about the
relationship between technology and politics. Drawing on
extensive archival material and interviews, Medina
examines the cybernetic system envisioned by the Chilean
government--which was to feature holistic system design,
decentralized management, human-computer interaction, a
national telex network, near real-time control of the
growing industrial sector, and modeling the behavior of
dynamic systems. She also describes, and documents with
photographs, the network's Star Trek-like operations
room, which featured swivel chairs with armrest control
panels, a wall of screens displaying data, and flashing
red lights to indicate economic emergencies.Studying
project Cybersyn today helps us understand not only the
technological ambitions of a government in the midst of
political change but also the limitations of the Chilean
revolution. This history further shows how human
attempts to combine the political and the technological
with the goal of creating a more just society can open
new technological, intellectual, and political
possibilities. Technologies, Medina writes, are
historical texts; when we read them we are reading
history. |
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