Toronto, Ontario; Hamilton, Ontario
Woodbine Beach: Winter Stations art installation #CemreÖnertürk #EgeÇakır (2022) “Enter Face” designed as two dark boxes, now has two lounge chairs not in the original specification. Shorter east box has three holes where participants can stick their heads in, for a common view of a textured transparent screen while physically isolated. The taller west box textured vertical screen looks inland, with lakeside metal rails despite signs discouraging climbing. (Woodbine Beach, Toronto, Ontario) 20200306Commissioners Street, east of Saulter Street: Looking west into the sunset, the Commissioners Street bridges are in place, but Don Roadway is being rebuilt at a higher elevation to protect this east bank from flooding. The westside route to the new bridge will be wider with bike paths along the north side of River Park. Construction won’t be complete until 2024. (Commissioners Street, east of Saulter Street, Port Lands, Toronto, Ontario) 20220310Cherry Street North Bridge: New bridge for crossing the Keating Channel is in place, awaiting new north-south road and LRT routes, completion not until 2024? This is one of four bridges in the Port Lands districts, viewed from the older Cherry Street Lift Bridge. The bike route north of Lakeshore Boulevard has been closed, and the detour along Villiers Street is muddy. (Cherry Street North Bridge, Keaing Channel, Toronto, Ontario) 20220316Harbourfront Artport Gallery: Esmarkbreen glacier in the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard #LauraMillard (2021) Collapse shows clear image in lightbox up top, spilling out below as impermanence into a printed fabric inspired by installations of crumpled paper. Part of the Shared Terrain group exhibition in cultural exchanges between artists and designers from Canada and the Nordics. Apparel change away from winter, as a bright spring day gives optimism for the end of snowbanks. (Artport Gallery, Harbourfront Centre, Queens Quay West, Toronto, Ontario) 20220317Jollibee Heartland: First experience @JollibeeCanada, international cultural tourism to @Seafood_City Missisauga without leaving the country. Battered fried chicken was good, gravy an added feature! Palabok rice noodles with pork and shrimp a larger departure from western norms. Walking supermarket aisles, we recognize a few Filipino brands, but Chinese supermarkets typically don’t have the variety or price points that expats might find familiar. (Jollibee, Heartland Town Centre, Boyer Boulevard, Mississauga, Ontario) 20210318
Devil’s Punchbowl: Exploring the #waterfalls of #Hamilton, wending way across the ridge of the Niagara Escarpment by Stoney Creek to find the south-facing view of a ribbon of melt water as winter turns to spring. Impressed by coloured layers of red shale, grey shale, limestone and shale dolomite from the end of the last ice age. North-facing outlook over Hamilton Harbour, with the Keeper of the Cross installation from 1966 a noticeable landmark. (Devil’s Punchbowl, Ridge Road, Stoney Creek, Ontario) 20220318
111 Elizabeth Street: On request, farewell speech by @Ryan_Ing, upon his coming departure from Toronto to NYC this coming week. Friends invited to parktake in food, a psychic reading, and a pro protographer creating a collage of faces for the evening. Guests asking parents about the move to the Big Apple, it’s not even a change in time zone away from us. (111 Elizabeth Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20210319Dim Sum King: Three tables for lunch, more than originally thought would attend at the first gathering of the Lowkong Society after the pandemic halted socializing. The house on Huron Street is now in the past, so we’ll look to a new future. Met a few cousins, an era of English-first speakers now shows much grey hair. (Dim Sum King, Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20220320Yueh Tung: After years of Wedneday night takeout dinners with three sons during the pandemic, we’ll only have two on most weeks. Taking advantage of Old Chinatown location across the street from the apartment building, before clearing out kitchen appliances and lots of the little conveniences acquired to maintain a real home. Contexts packed into two vehicles for temporary storage in vacated bedroom back at the house, on the expectation of cascading down to the last son to move out. (Yeuh Tung, Elizabeth Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20220323
Riverside neighbourhood: Arborists @TOtrees outside my window this morning, sawing at the linden tree in our front yard. Pruner in the articulated boom lift (cherry picker) with shears above, collector of branches on the ground, below. The sapling was owned by the city when we moved in so many decades ago, and has been professionally maintained mostly without our attention. (Riverside neighbourhood, Toronto, Ontario) 20220331
In #GradEx110, Sohyn Yoon (2024-2025) Remnant Project has 7 channels of video on vintage monitors, with 2 audio tracks. Objects decayed or rusted that might be otherwise discarded, now fulfill a new purpose. Recognized as recipient of OCAD University Medal (2024-2025) in Integrated Media. (OCADU, McCaul Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20250509
In #GradEx110, Bita Ebnesheyki (2025) The Light of Hormuz installation brings together hand-dyed fabric and video projection in a memories of place. Soil brought back from Hormuz Island, Iran, were crushed, cooked and stained as reds into fabric. Moving images of the same soil are projected onto the dyed surface. (OCADU, McCaul Street, Toronto, Ontario) […]
In #GradEx110, Niki Sutherland (2025) Cartography: Mapping a Matriarch sculpture is carved offcut from a spalted (discoloured fungus) maple. Reductive process of chiselling, carving and sanding layers, to reveal black lines of decay. Living narrative of prior living organism that had activated surrounding land. (OCAD University, McCaul Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20250509
In #GradEx110, Cherie Leung (2025) Are You Warm Enough? stacks cotton quilts on top of mattress and bed frame. Concerns with 3 children, mothering turning into smothering. Recognized with OCADU University Medal 2024-2025 in Drawing and Painting. (OCAD University, McCaul Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20250509
In #GradEx110 , Adnan AlMouselli (2025) Perfect Storm of disconnected stools and sand. Installation represents journey from university in Syria that was bombed in 2011, to studies restarted in Canada. Part of the Play subtheme in Industrial Design. (OCAD University, McCaul Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20250509
In-person #SystemsThinking Ontario session on Wisdom Studies, led by @psywisdom Igor Grossman and @zaid___khan . First time post-pandemic that we've reverted to sitting in a a circle. Conversation flowed naturally amongst all participants, little need for moderation. (OCADU Graduate Programs, Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20250508
Southbound Canada Line rises in height to cross over Fraser River via the North Arm Bridge, with a gradual turn west towards a shorter Middle Arm Bridge. Rafts of log booms see bundles of timber floated downstream on the way to processing. Scenic exit from the city on the way to YVR. (Canada Line Skytrain, […]
In morning shade, Kim Adams (2001) Squid Head is two rear ends of cargo load delivery vans. Without cabs or steering wheels, the lack of human driver foreshadowed vehicles 25 years later. Initially noticed the lack of license plates on the complementary blue GMC rear end, along our journey from city centre to YVR. (Vancouver […]
Photorealistic machine feel at centre of Ewan McNeil (2023) Roller Ball acrylic on canvas. Incongruous with floral patterns in background. Part of the Pattern Language exhibition also showing Dana Cromie. (Pendulum Gallery, RBC Place, West Georgia Street, Vancouver, British Columbia) 20250505
Leisurely lunch with @chris_wiesinger discussing Language Action Perspective, Heidegger and life histories. Previous connection via @chaunceybell, followed through on idea that we should meet when in town. Offshoot threads to others we haven't met in person. (Nuba in Gastown, West Hastings Street, Vancouver, British Columbia) 20250505
Two years after submitting an academic manuscript and responding to double-blind reviews, “Rethinking work, with the pandemic disruption” has now been published in the International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior (IJOTB) as earlycite. The article has a DOI (Document Object Identifier), and should be streamed with an official volume and issue number soon. The […]
The 128th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario was convened in person. The classroom was filled with current students, alumni, our regular participants, and a few curious newcomers. Moderated by Zaid Khan, the conversation was sparked by Stephen Davies and myself (David Ing) on the evolving styles in learning systems thinking. Stephen has been leading SFIN-6011 […]
The “Understanding Systems” SFIN-6011 course is a requirement in the master’s program in Strategic Foresight and Innovation at OCADU. For winter 2025, the class is now led by Stephen Davies, breaking the incremental evolving of content since 2008. While still on faculty at OCADU, the original course designer Peter H. Jones is now a Distinguished […]
In the 1970s, five ways of knowing were established by C. West Churchman in The Design of Inquiring Systtems. In the 1990s, his student Ian Mitroff carried on the tradition and extended that work in The Unbounded Mind. Now in the 2020s, the technology of Generative AI opens up opportunties to query or request responses […]
For readers with an interest deeper than the 15-minute presentation given in August, the Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Socio-Technical Perspectives in Information Systems (STPIS 2024) have now been formally publishied. The invited paper on “Reifying Socio-Technical and Socio-Ecological Perspectives for Systems Changes: From rearranging objects to repacing rhythms” was reviewed by the […]
The 125th meeting of Systems Thinking Ontario coincided with the closing day for the RSD13-RSDX online program. As a regular systems convening group, we’ve had monthly meetings since January 2013. Zaid Khan moderated a discussion including me (David Ing), Tim Lloyd, Allenna Leonard, and Kelly Okamura. We recollected starting as a spinoff from Design with […]
Rhythm and pitch are primordial to language. Susan Rogers, after a career becoming Prince's recording engineer, turned to complete a PhD in psychology focused on music cognition and psychoacoustics.Read more ›
David L. Hawk (American management theorist, architect, and systems scientist) has been hosting a weekly television show broadcast on Bold Brave Tv from the New York area on Wednesdays 6pm ET, remotely from his home in Iowa. Live, callers can join…Read more ›
Following the first day lecture on Philosophy of Chinese Medicine 1 for the Global University for Sustainability, Keekok Lee continued on a second day on some topics: * Anatomy as structure; physiology as function (and process); * Process ontology, and thing ontology; * Qi ju as qi-in-concentrating mode, and qi san as qi-in-dissipsating mode; and […]
The philosophy of science underlying Classical Chinese Medicine, in this lecture by Keekok Lee, provides insights into ways in which systems change may be approached, in a process ontology in contrast to the thing ontology underlying Western BioMedicine. Read more ›
In conversation, @zeynep with @ezraklein reveal authentic #SystemsThinking in (i) appreciating that “science” is constructed by human collectives, (ii) the west orients towards individual outcomes rather than population levels; and (iii) there’s an over-emphasis on problems of the moment, and…Read more ›
In the question-answer period after the lecture, #TimIngold proposes art as a discipline of inquiry, rather than ethnography. This refers to his thinking On Human Correspondence. — begin paste — [75m26s question] I am curious to know what art, or…Read more ›
Timothy F.H. Allen, president of International Society for the Systems Sciences 2008-2009, passed away peacefully in his home, surrounded by his family, on May 1, 2025. With his work on ecosystem ecology, I learned more about living systems than anyone else in the systems community. After his retirement, he was proud of putting together a […]
In 2024, WordPress Studio was released, making installation on a local computer simpler. The instructions were modified from MacOS to Ubuntu Linux, by Daniel Kossmann, “How to install WordPress Studio in Ubuntu Linux” | Jun 15, 2024 at https://www.danielkossmann.com/how-to-install-wordpress-studio-ubuntu-linux/ I already had NVM installed, but in Terminal, with the result “command not found”. In the […]
The appreciation of change is different in Western philosophy than in classical Chinese philosophy. JeeLoo Lin published a concise contrast on differences. Let me parse the Introduction to the journal article, that is so clearly written. The Chinese theory of time is built into a language that is tenseless. The Yijing (Book of Changes) there […]
In trying to place the World Hypotheses work of Stephen C. Pepper (with multiple root metaphors), Nicholas Rescher provides a helpful positioning. — begin paste — Philosophical perspectivism maintains that substantive philosophical positions can be maintained only from a “perspective” of some sort. But what sort? Clearly different sorts of perspectives can be conceived of, […]
Finding proper words to express system(s) change(s) can be a challenge. One alternative could be diachrony. The Oxford English dictionary provides two definitions for diachronic, the first one most generally related to time. (The second is linguistic method) diachronic ADJECTIVE Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. “diachronic (adj.), sense 1,” July 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/3691792233. For completeness, prochronic relates “to […]
