Toronto, Ontario; Markham, Ontario
Ignite Gallery: Coinciding with #GradEx108 opening, #HarmonyMcNish (2023) Nomadic Homestead is recognized as a Sculpture & Innovation outstanding talent for a month. Trailer with single bed was constructed with a no-blueprint approach similar to settler-built architecture, including salvaged materials such as a washing machine door and hydro pole arms. Second floor venue buzzing with visitors. (Ignite Gallery, OCADU,l Mc;Caul Street, Toronto) 20220503OCAD University: Amongst the many #GradEx108 works, #emmyytranpaints (2023) Across the Way acrylic on canvas caught my eye. Landscape of a ferry ride out west, recollection of ocean, mountain and sky, with wind blowing on the top deck. Overwhelmed by the flood of art and design in a wide variety of techniques and materials across 6 floors, plus the party outside in the park to the south. (OCADU, McCaul Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20230503Milliken Square: Burst of greenery in interior hallway of strip mall with difficult-to-find entry door. Focused entirely on Chinese clientele, many units still vacant from failed businesses during the pandemic shutdown. Signage outside suggested taking a peek, a brief exploration after my father’s appointment across the parking lot. (Milliken Square Shopping centre, Milliken Boulevard, Scarborough, Ontario) 20230509Costco Scarborough: Not a trip to outer space, but an assessment in a soundproof chamber in a hearing centre. Tympanometry test found eardrums moving as normal. Speech discrimination excellent in right ear and good in left, but tone testing showed moderate to severe slope in hearing loss. A hearing aid would mostly increase volume to make listening easier, but the patient declined for now. (Costco Hearing Centre, Warden Avenue, Scarborough, Ontario) 20230510Waterfront Innovation Centre: Open house @WaterfrontTO featuring model of Play Garden planned as a desetination venue on Villiers Island, west of Cherry Street where Commissioners Street ends. Scheduled to start construction February 2024 and open in spring 2026, foreground shows Fireboat Splash Zone, Black Bear Campsite, and Learning Centre. Arrived late to see panel with seated audience, I took the liberty of wandering around displays while listening. (Waterfront Innovation Centre, Queen Quay’s East, Toronto, Ontario) 20230512
Varley Art Gallery of Markham: Lion dance at opening of Longing Belonging & 100 Years exhibition extending the #LongTimeNoSee community works from Spadina Chinatown downtown in 2021. Recognition of 100th anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act in Canada, and the Williams Treaties (1923) surrendering lands by seven First Nations in Southern Ontario. Photographic installations inside extended participation to Scarborough and Markham ethnic Chinese Canadians, and newer immigrants. (Varley Art Gallery of Markham, Main Street, Unionville, Ontario) 20220513
Varley Art Gallery of Markham: Kwoi Gin (2023) Finding Beauty Among Ashes of Ancestors Pain and Sorrow, reflecting the effects of the Chinese Exclusion Act on family history. In the middle of the room, person items within a caged bed, evoking claustrophic isolation experienced by Chinese sojourners. Three walls with images of elderly mother’ preparing food, head tax snapsots, and poetry etched into walls of the Canadian Immigration Detainment building. (Varley Art Gallery of Markham, Main Street, Unionville, Ontario) 20231513Dim Sum King: Spring Festival dinner with the Lowkong Society started with karaoke before the meal was served. During dinner, more karaoke was invited from the audience, drawing a variety of Cantoneese and English lanugage selections. Our family joined in, both with less-than-harmonious vocals and hiphop dancing. (Dim Sum King, Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20220513Cherry Street South Bridge: Touring southbound on bike lane on new Port Lands bridge, got a friendly wave from a three-wheel cyclist northbound. At late afternoon, the two-wheeled vehicles are almost as popular as four-wheeled over the divider. Construction still has temporary winding route north and south of the bridge. (Cherry Street South Bridge, Port Lands, Toronto, Ontario) 20230516Lambert Lounge: After first round with #DesignWithDialogue question, @redesign suggested getting up to stretch. Led to @playthink capturing proceedings on wall poster sheet, while participants wandered around room thinking about questions related to question by #HumbertoMaturana about How We Live Together. First in-person meeting since January 2020, next month may schedule not on Wednesdays, anticipating some other past regular attendees. (Lambert Lounge, OCADU, McCaul Street, Toronto) 20230517Mount Pleasant Cemetery: First of four stops across two cemeteries for family qingming tomb sweeping on Victoria Day. Plants from previous years in good shape, we added three flowers, and dug an extra hole for an found potted plant left by another unidentified extended family member. We noticed that grandmother’s final date was finally chiselled into the tombstone, Uncle had said he would handle that. (Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Mount Pleasant Road, Toronto, Ontario) 20220522Mount Pleasant Cemetery: Time pressure on family qingming tomb sweeping, with only one of four sons in town on holiday weekend. To burn hell money, we forgot to bring a lighter, and were fortunate that another Chinese family leaving nearby were generous in lending us a box of matches. Dad completed pouring out three cups of spirits, we took the picture, and then remembered to bring out the BBQ meat from the car for a quick lunch. (Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Mount Pleasant Road, Toronto, Ontario) 20220522Mount Pleasant Cemetery: Added a plant to the gravesite for the Lee side of the family, tomb doesn’t look to have been visited by anyone this year. Lit incense and burned hell money. In the rush to leave, DY singed her finger on the hot can, before it cooled. (Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Mount Pleasant Road, Toronto, Ontario) 20220522
Pine Hills Cemetery: By the monument on high ground at the north end of the cemetery, the elders of the Lowkong Society gathered to remember ancestors. Planted flowers, read a proclamation, distributed oranges. Our family has been regular attendees since our sons were children, we noticed new directional signs added by grounds management. (Pine Hills Cemetery, Birchmount Road, Scarborough, Ontario) 20230522
Mount Pleasant Cemetery: Reading honoring ancestors by the clan elders of the Lowkong Society, on Victoria Day. Briefer ceremony this year, with flowers planted and oranges distributed. Good turnout with favourable weather. (Pine Hills Cemetery, Birchmount Road, Scarborough, Ontario) 20220522Pine Hills Cemetery: As the clan ceremonies wound down just east of mom’s plot, we started digging a hole to put in new plants for this year. The large number of worms in the earth suggests a fertile ecosystem. More leisurely grazing on lunch, as the last of four stops for qingming tomb sweeping day. (Pine Hills Cemetery, Birchmount Road, Scarborough, Ontario) 20230522Thorncliffe Park Community Hub: After getting booster Covid-19 shots, DY strikes the manner legs pose popular in Korea, to lower herself into the frame of childrens’ illustrations that must have been completed to pass the time up to the 15-minute wait for release. She mentioned to the nurse that her last shot hurt, and was given an ice pack to relieve symptoms. Late afternoon weekday visit, yet no wait, and the patient’s option for either Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. (Thornecliffe Park Community Hub, Overlea Boulevard, East York, Ontario) 20230523Chinatown Centre: Looking through window into second floor exhibition space, @badasscrybb solo exhibition including couch in front of old television reminds me of growing up in a 1970s pre-digital era with optimism. Opening reception of from:future to:past saw hallway busy with visitors, entry into the small unit beyond a welcome mat surrounded with shoes removed, following Asian manners inside. Arts bringing grassroots community together in Spadina Chinatown. (Chinatown Centre, Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20230525Bosnian Islamic Association: Nikah Islamic wedding ceremony conducted following afternoon prayers. Gathering included some familiar faces in the local systems thinking community, including an individual who wasn’t specifically invited, but happened to come to his local mosque to pray. Honoured to be included in the traditions of another culture. (Bosnian Islamic Association, N. Queen Street, Etobicoke, Ontario) 20230527
Beaches Lodge: For @Doors_OpenTO, official meeting of #Freemasons are not in progress, so visitors were permitted to view the large chambers. Cabinet with three doors shows the tools of the craft: (i) entered apprentice, of 24-inch gauge, common gavel and chisel; (ii) fellowcraft of square, level and plumb; and (iii) master mason of skirret, pencil and compasses. Spoke with a member with 4 years experience, this lodge has about 90 members, with 30 regularly attending meetings. (Beaches Lodge, Millwood Road, East York, Ontario) 20230528
Back to school, teaching and learning at 2 universities.
Toronto, Ontario
Scrap Metal Gallery: Installation @ernatmack (2019) Wither, billow, waist? hanging at #ScrapMetalGallery has a feeling of lightness, with translucent fabrics. Some other pieces in the show are made of heavy moving blankets. Dark, rainy day outside, art lovers come as individuals or duos for a destination visit. (Scrap Metal Gallery, Dublin Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20190111OCADU Graduate Programs: Overview of #SystemicDesign toolkit by @redesign @OCADU_SFI class. Second lecture of term started with current thinking from the #SystemsChanges Learning Circle http://coevolving.com/commons/20200115-ocadu-systems-changes-different-from . Immersive approach to recasting language and reifying #SystemsThinking leads students to get more comfortable with ambiguity. Group had collectively decided to reschedule evening class to afternoon, so weeks following shouldn’t be dark outside. (OCADU Graduate Programs, 205 Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20200115OCADU Graduate Programs: Friday morning class on #SystemsThinking @OCADU_SFI runs in parallel with late Wednesday session. Presented same slides http://coevolving.com/commons/20200115-ocadu-systems-changes-different-from , pacing content in synch. Larger group, larger room, interactions with part-time graduate students is a little different from full-time colleagues. These students have a long day, likely before homework over the weekend. (OCADU Graduate Programs, Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20200117Systems Thinking Ontario: Topic of “Inferring Systems Thinking” at the 75th monthly meeting of #SystemsThinking Ontario, reviewing and reflecting on the titles, readings and discussions beginning in 2013. https://wiki.st-on.org/2020-01-20 If we’ve met that many times, what could we surmise that we’ve discussed, and what might be missing? Not everyone attended every session, but we shared collective wisdom. Some input gathered for future sessions. (Systems Thinking Ontario, Strategic Innovation Lab, OCADU, Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20200120Climate Ventures: Tight queuing for podium for 16 Earth Tech companies @ClimateCSI inauguration social. Accelerator https://climateventures.org/earthtech/ have an intensive 6 months. #BarnabeGeis posed if the darkness currently perceived is a womb, where there’s light in the birth ahead. Not-yet-elevator stories about each startup, introducing to partners, advisors and allies. (Climate Ventures, Centre for Social Innovation, Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20190121Koffler Centre of the Arts: Exhibiting “the chrysanthemum has opened twelve times”, @artkarentam, conversing with #ShellieZhang @KofflerArts. Talk began with inspiration of formal photograph of grandfather, leading to exploration of history of staged images sent back to families in Toisan. In addition to photos, installation of portrait studio settings and backgrounds.constructed in collaboration with father and mother. (Koffler Centre of the Arts, Shaw Street, Toronto, Ontario) 20190126
PyData PyLadies Toronto: Joint @PyDataTO @PyLadiesToronto meeting including @sereprz on Improving Law Interpretability with NLP. Unsupervised Machine Learning, using spaCy on Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act data. Extract burdens (obligations), identify subjects, cluster subject (looking for homogenous groups in vector space. Used GLoVe (global vectors for word representation), with dimensionality reduction for sparse data. K-means clustering and evaluation through TD-IDF. Understood presentation, as a result of taking Big Data classes at Ryerson Chang School. (PyData Toronto, PyLadies Toronto, Intelliware, Adelaide Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20200129
The International Society for General Systems Research formed circa 1956 became the International Society for the Systems Sciences in 1988. In 1985, Bela H. Banathy organized the annual meeting on the theme of “Systems Inquiring”. Proceedings normally are published in the year following. In 1987, John A. Dillon summarized Banathy’s perspective in the yearbook, General […]
For five immersive days, a team of six researchers had the opporunity to collaborate on ideas on rhythmic shifts (mostly based on Systems Changes Learning) and anticipatory systems (in the legacy of Robert Rosen). The 2024 Banathy Conversation was organized by the Creative Systemic Research Platform Institute, facilitated by Susu Nousala, Gary S. Metcalf, and […]
Systems Processes Theory has been under development for many decades, led by Len Troncale, a past president of the International Society for the Ssytems Sciences. Many have found getting a grip on the science to be a demanding task, both in scope and in depth. Over many decades, Lynn Rasmussen was a collaborator, refining and […]
The Socio-Technical Systems (STS) perspective, dating back to the studies of Eric L. Trist and Fred E. Emery, was on the reading list of organizational behaviour classes in my undergraduate and master’s degree programs. It wasn’t until 15 years later, when I got involved with the systems sciences and David L. Hawk, that the Socio-Ecological […]
Civic Tech can be described as projects using technology “for the public good“. Civic Tech may be related to, but different from Gov Tech. For the May 2024 Systems Thinking Onrtario, we had two knowledgeable guests in conversation. Dorothy Eng, executive director of Code for Canada since 2021, related her professional journey from engineering to […]
On my May trip through the UK, I accepted an offer to lead an Expert-Led Session at the University of Hull. I had previously been a Research Fellow of the Centre for Systems Studies, but haven’t travelled to the Hull for some years. As we worked out the arrangements, I found out that the seminar […]
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 ›
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 ›
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 […]
The selection of readings in the “Introduction” to Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, volume 2, Penguin (1981), edited by Fred E. Emery, reflects a turn from 1969 when a general systems theory was more fully entertained, towards an urgency towards changes in the world that were present in 1981. Systems thinking was again emphasized in contrast […]
In reviewing the original introduction for Systems Thinking: Selected Readings in the 1969 Penguin paperback, there’s a few threads that I only recognize, many years later. The tables of contents (disambiguating various editions) were previously listed as 1969, 1981 Emery, System Thinking: Selected Readings. — begin paste — Introduction In the selection of papers for this […]
