Walking rather than bicycling in a colder winter this year, travel out of the neighbourhood by car.
Toronto, Ontario
Riverdale Park East: The young at heart enjoying the bright winter day, riding sleds west of Broadview Avenue, down into the Don Valley ravine. No manmade aids to return to the top, lots of parents pulling young children back uphill. Completely natural snow, unlike the Winter Olympics in progress a continent away. (Riverdale Park East, Broadview Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20220205401 Richmond Street West: Centre courtyard in arts-and-culture hub is a quiet spot in the Queen Street West district, slightly barren during the winter cold. Industrial structure originally dating back to 1899 is in contrast to the condo apartment tower to the east built in 2000. Travel crosstown took especially long on a Saturday afternoon, with police routing traffic around the Queens Park siege. (401 Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20220212Abbozzo Gallery: Oxygen-producing bioart, @VladimirKanic (2021) Book of Waves, Part 6 is about a foot square, mounted on the wall alongside others in the series. Sculpture is made from biodegradable bioplastics, algae lives with the carbon dioxide in the air expelled by visitors. The show lights up the front window of the gallery, slight pump sounds are audible inside when close to the piece. (Abbozzo Gallery, 401 Richmond Street West, Toronto, Ontario) 20220212Waterfront Trail: Urban mural by @flipsbsc (2020) #torontoswirls on hoarding series @StART_Toronto Honouring Our Water endures second winter. Single day temperature swing encouraged first bike ride in many weeks. Snowbanks not completely melted, asphalt pavement shows heaving. (Waterfront Trail, Lakeshore Boulevard East, west of Coxwell Avenue, Toronto, Ontario) 20220216Marina Quay West: Couples stroll along water’s edge, from Bathurst Street past HTO Park to Harbourfront Centre. Surface between slips in the marina iced over, with mysterious melted gaps in rectilinear intervals. Further east, ducks paddling around in open water. (Marina Quay West, Central Waterfront, Toronto, Ontario) 20220219
The Power Plant Gallery: Exhibition “You Name It” #SashaHuber (2009) Strange Fruit Bowl inspired by poem by Abel Meenopol, later recorded by Billie Holiday. Three balls made of hemp ropes as used to make nooses, in a bowl covered with staples. In background Huber and #PetriSaarikko (2015) Prototype, a scaled geometric outline of Agassizhorn, fronting large screen projection of video (2008) Rentyhorn, protesting scientific racism of #LouisAgassiz, in favour or renaming Congolese-born Renty who was enslaved on a plantation in early 1800s South Carolina. (The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Queen’s Quay West, Toronto, Ontario) 20220219
Day shortening and temperatures dropping meant bundling up for bicycling.
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
Digging into philosophies underlying the systems sciences, pragmatism seems to have been a strong historical foundation for some research streams. In ongoing discussions, Gary Metcalf and I have been approaching pragmatism from two directions. Gary has been tracking from mid-1800s forward, listening to the audiobook The Metaphysical Club, with a history of figures living through […]
The ties between systems thinking and pragmatism are apparently strong, but the breadth in the philosophy of pragmatism can be confusing. Within the tradition, one of the threads is called nonrelativistic pragmatism, proposed by systems luminaries C. West Churchman with Russell L. Ackoff, descending from the work of philosopher Edgar A. Singer, Jr. A concise […]
A luminary in the systems movement, C. West Churchman, showed some respect for Chinese philosophy, with the I Ching (Yi Jing) in particular. Deborah Hammond was encouraged by West Churchman into joining and becoming a historian of the systems movement. In her 2003 book, Hammond wrote of her conversations with Churchman, back into his days […]
The 1969 publication of Systems Thinking: Selected Readings, edited by Fred E. Emery as a Penguin Modern Management paperback, can be regarded as a milestone. The articles date from the 1940s to the 1960s, when the first wave of systems thinking was on the rise. For the June session of Systems Thinking Ontario, we stepped […]
Within the Systems Thinking Ontario community, we were fortunate to have Nenad Rava step up to explain how the Sustainable Development Goals came to be, and relate them to systems change. This May session of Systems Thinking Ontario was a quick follow-on for the March edition on Ecological Limits to Development: Living with the SDGs. […]
The book Ecological Limits to Development: Living with the Sustainable Development Goals, published in 2002 by Routledge, was released as open access in 2023 by Taylor-Francis for readers who don’t have access to a university library. For the March edition of Systems Thinking Ontario, we were honoured to celebrate the release with editor-coauthors Kaitlin Kish […]
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 ›
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 ›
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 […]
In a recording of the debate between Michael Quinn Patton and Michael C. Jackson on “Systems Concepts in Evaluation”, Patton referenced four concepts published in the “Principles for effective use of systems thinking in evaluation” (2018) by the Systems in Evaluation Topical Interest Group (SETIG) of the American Evaluation Society. The four concepts are: (i) […]
How might the quality of an action research initiative be evaluated? — begin paste — We have linked our five validity criteria (outcome, process, democratic, catalytic, and dialogic) to the goals of action research. Most traditions of action research agree on the following goals: (a) the generation of new knowledge, (b) the achievement of action-oriented […]
After 90 minutes on phone and online chat with WesternUnion, the existence of the canton of Ticino in Switzerland is denied, so I can’t send money from Canada. TicinoTurismo should be unhappy. The IT developers at Western Union should be dissatisfied that customer support agents aren’t sending them legitimate bug reports I initially tried the […]
