Toronto, Ontario
Queen Street Viaduct: Sunset arriving earlier, after the shift back to Standard Time. Looking westward along Queen Street East, the lit windows of bank towers on Bay Street and the CN Tower are familiar orientation points. Temperature dipped, so first day for winter wear for bicycling. (Queen Street Viaduct, Toronto, Ontario) 20201103Russell Carhouse: North side of maintenance facility for streetcars has painted curves marked “no parking” and “fire route”, towards exit door #1. Tracks curve around the west side, and down Connaught Avenue to the east. Facility was rebuilt in 1924, with other part of fleet housed overnight at Roncesvalles. (Russell Carhouse, 1411 Queen Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20201105Sherbourne Common: From the north of three #JillAnholt (2011) Light Showers towers, water isn’t flowing, probably not restarted in spring 2020 before pandemic shutdowns. The original design treated storm water, to be aerated trickled down the mesh veil southbound to the lake. Unseasonable almost-summer temperatures drew teenagers to hang out arond the playground equipment. (Sherbourne Common, Merchants Wharf, Toronto, Ontario) 20201108Jennifer Kateryna Koval’s’kyj Park: Sunset view of Toronto skyline attracts photographers, couples, and friends who take selfies. Crowd lingering, I wonder what event will signal the visit is complete. Official park is a small patch of green, renamed in 1998 after a 6-year who posthumously received a citation for bravery, in trying to protect her grandmother from an attack from a schizophrenic father. (Jennifer Kateryna Koval’s’kyj Park, Polson Street, Toronto Portlands, Ontario) 20201109Hudson’s Bay Queen Street: Santa Claus still uses mainframe green screen terminals and pneumatic tube transport containers. List of names and geographic coordinates have presumably been checked twice. Animated Christmas displays in store windows have shown up by Remembrance Day. (Hudson’s Bay Queen Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20201111Ossington Laneway: Rattlesnake sculpture mounted on second-floor alley wall for @thestrumbellas 2019 album release endures. Installation was an unexpected sight while pedalling along Queen Street West, leading to explore a route northbound. Path led to a series of murals on garage doors seeing weather, dropping temperature may see snow within weeks. (Ossington Laneway, Queen Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 2020114Dundas Street West Chinatown: Huron Street Square, designed by #KenLum #PennDesign, a modern alternative to traditional arches marking gates into Chinatowns throughout the western world. Modification of the original vision persists one-way street on ordinary days, convertible into a public space on special days. Only a few local residents in the neighbourhood on a cold fall evening. (Huron Street Square, Dundas Street East, Toronto, Ontario) 20201116South Central Letter Processing Plant: Animation loop @winnietron “Interchanges” #BigArtTO inspired by seed dispersion in urban flora, and connecting with friends via tangible mail. Three large screen projectors aimed above cars in the parking lot, onto the north wall of a major Canada Post sorting station. Creative invitation to enjoy art in the evening in local neighbourhood, with minimal physical distancing issues during the pandemic. (South Central Letter Processing Plant, Eastern Avenue, Leslieville, Toronto, Ontario) 20201119Village of Yorkville Park: Clusters of red lights in the crabapple trees, and extra lights in the pergola, brighten up pedestrians walking by the dense public park. Warmer than normal temperatures have encouraged visitors to sit in twilight at the movable tables and chairs. Couple appreciate the illumination for selfies. (Village of Yorkville Park, Cumberland Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20201120Power Plant Gallery: Between two large screen animations @ThePowerPlantTO, #HowieTsui (2019) Parallax Neon (White Camel Mountain) is a transparency print in lightbox. Show #FromSwellingShadowsWeDrawOurBows mixes Chinese and Colonial cultures in disasporic animations of scrolls. Nightmarish, violent illustrations. (The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Queens Quay West, Toronto, Ontario) 20201121St. Michael’s Cemetery: Opened in 1855, and at capacity by 1900, the Catholic graveyard originally well outside the city became urbanized with the 1954 arrival of the original Toronto subway system extended one stop further north. Approached from the south, when I noticed headstones beyond a residential driveway. Office towers and apartment buildings to the north, and commercial businesses to the east, hide the sacred grounds to the general public. (St. Michael’s Cemetery, Yonge Street south of St. Clair Avenue West, Toronto, Ontario) 20201123Yonge Street at Dundas Street: Sign asks “Which side are you on?”, presuming only choices are binary. Peaceful demonstration of the Shut Down Canada Solidarity Action had police on bikes redirecting traffic one major block each direction. Pandemic shutdown means the practically no disruption, with activist serving entertainment on a sleepy early evening. (Yonge Street at Dundas Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20201126
Cherry Street North Bridge: First of four bridges @WaterfrontTO arrived earlier in November, now staged west of the original bascule lift bridge built in 1968. Connection from Corktown south into Villiers Island of 2024 will be linear, straightening out the east then south current routing. Expect new parkland promenades both north and south of the Keating Channel. (Cherry Street North Bridge, Lower Don Lands, Toronto, Ontario) 20201128
Two Major Research Projects (MRPs) — they might be called master’s theses elsewhere — by Zaid Khan and David Akermanis reflect the Systemic Design agenda within the OCADU program on Strategic Foresight and Innovation (SFI). To graduate, all SFI students complete an MRP. With many subjects and techniques covered during SFI studies, only a […]
While it’s important to appreciate the systems thinking foundations laid down by the Tavistock Institute and U. Pennsylvania Social Systems Science (S3, called S-cubed) program, practically all of the original researchers are no longer with us. Luminaries who have passed include Eric L. Trist (-1993), Fred E. Emery (-1997), and Russell L. Ackoff (-2009). This […]
In order to move forward, the Systems Changes Learning Circle has taken a step backwards to appreciate the scholarly work that has come before us. This has included the Socio-Psychological Systems, Socio-Technical Systems and Socio-Ecological Systems perspective, from the postwar Tavistock Institute for Human Relations. The deep dive on “Causal texture, contextualism, contextural” takes us […]
For those who haven’t read the 1965 Emery and Trist article, its seems as though my colleague Doug McDavid was foresighted enough to blog a summary in 2016! His words have always welcomed here, as Doug was a cofounder of this web site. At the time of writing, the target audience for this piece was […]
In the famous 1965 Emery and Trist article, the terms “causal texture” and “contextual environment” haven’t been entirely clear to me. With specific meanings in the systems thinking literature, looking up definitions in the dictionary generally isn’t helpful. Diving into the history of the uses of the words provides some insight. 1. Causal texture 2. […]
Towards appreciating “action learning”, the history of open systems thinking and pioneering work in organization science, the influence of Action Learning Group — in the Faculty of Environment Studies founded in 1968 at York University (Toronto) — deserves to be resurfaced. 1. Trist in Canada 2. Environmental studies, and contextualism in organizational-change 3. Action learning, […]
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 ›
How might our society show value for the long term, over the short term? Could we think about taxation over time, asks @carlotaprzperez in an interview: 92% for 1 day; 80% within 1 month; 50%-60% tax for 1 year; zero tax for 10 years.Read more ›
For the @ArchFoundation, #TimIngold distinguishes outcome-oriented making from process-oriented growing, revisiting #MartinHeidegger “Building Dwelling Thinking”. Organisms are made; artefacts grow. The distinction seems obvious, until you stop to ask what assumptions it contains, about the inside and outside of things…Read more ›
In web conference, #HermanDaly says #EcologicalEconomics used to get attacked from the right, now it's from the left. Panel @revkin @jon_d_erickson @ktkish @sophiesanniti #TimCrowshaw #KatieHorner livestreamed #sustainwhat .Read more ›
Complementing the idea of a @longnow , @nfergus provokes the challenge of a #shortthen as the online social media platforms distract the larger perspectives on history.Read more ›
Social ecology and environmental psychology described @dstokols @Social_Ecology , interviewed by @katiepatrick . References #WilliamsJames on attention. Book on Social Ecology in the Digital Age released in 2018.Read more ›
As an irony, the 2020 book, The Innovation Delusion by #LeeVinsel @STS_News + #AndrewLRussell @RussellProf shouldn’t be seen as an innovation, but an encouragement to join @The_Maintainers where an ongoing thought network can continue. The subtitle “How Our Obsession with the New has Disrupted the Work That Matters Most” recognizes actual innovation, as distinct from […]
An online social network reproduces content partially based on algorithms, and partially based on the judgements made by human beings. Either may be viewed as positive or negative. > The trade-offs came into focus this month [November 2020], when Facebook engineers and data scientists posted the results of a series of experiments called “P(Bad for […]
Social Systems Science graduate students in 1970s-1980s with #RussellAckoff, #EricTrist + #HasanOzbehkhan at U. Pennsylvania Wharton School were assigned the Penguin paperback #SystemsThinking reader edited by #FredEEmery, with updated editions evolving contents.
Resurfacing 1968 Buckley, “Modern Systems Research for the Behavioral Scientist: A Sourcebook” for interests in #SystemsThinking #SocioCybernetics #GeneralSystemsTheory #OrganizationScience . Republication in 2017 hardcopy may be more complete.
Proponents of #SystemsThinking often espouse holism to counter over-emphasis on reductionism. Reading some definitions from an encyclopedia positions one in the context of the other (François 2004).
Saying “it doesn’t matter” or “it matters” is a common expression in everyday English. For scholarly work, I want to “keep using that word“, while ensuring it means what I want it to mean. The Oxford English Dictionary (third edition, March 2001) has three entries for “matter”. The first two entries for a noun. The […]
