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Systems Ultra: Making Sense of Technology in a Complex World
A toolbox for comprehending and changing our networked world by writer, artist, and scholar Georgina Voss
The world today is so complex that it diminishes our understanding of it. It can be difficult to comprehend the flows of power which run through the networked technologies, global supply chains, and supranational regulations that exist all around us and influence our everyday lives.
These are systems–sets of things interconnected in such a way that they produce their own patterns and behaviours over time. Systems Ultra explores how we experience these phenomena, how to understand them more clearly, and, perhaps, how to change them.
In a series of scenarios, Georgina Voss shows us how to parse our complex world, looking at it through five themes–scale, legacy, matter, deviance, and breakage–via contemporary industrial settings of ports, air traffic control, architecture and construction, payment systems in adult entertainment, and car crash testing.
In these human-made systems, what is designed and what emerges? What does it mean for a software-dependent car to break? What does the use of design software tell us about the workplace culture of architects, and therefore the limitations of architecture? What happens to port cities and workers if container ships keep getting bigger? Systems Ultra offers a toolbox for comprehending, and changing, the world.
The world today is so complex that it diminishes our understanding of it. It can be difficult to comprehend the flows of power which run through the networked technologies, global supply chains, and supranational regulations that exist all around us and influence our everyday lives.
These are systems–sets of things interconnected in such a way that they produce their own patterns and behaviours over time. Systems Ultra explores how we experience these phenomena, how to understand them more clearly, and, perhaps, how to change them.
In a series of scenarios, Georgina Voss shows us how to parse our complex world, looking at it through five themes–scale, legacy, matter, deviance, and breakage–via contemporary industrial settings of ports, air traffic control, architecture and construction, payment systems in adult entertainment, and car crash testing.
In these human-made systems, what is designed and what emerges? What does it mean for a software-dependent car to break? What does the use of design software tell us about the workplace culture of architects, and therefore the limitations of architecture? What happens to port cities and workers if container ships keep getting bigger? Systems Ultra offers a toolbox for comprehending, and changing, the world.
224 pages, Hardcover
Published January 30, 2024
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261 people want to read
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April 2, 2024Everything happens so much.
March 13, 2024
Voss must share my fetish: supply-chain porn. I would love to sit in a park and watch a port operate. Voss did, as she was writing this bright and accessible bird's-eye view of the intersection of systems theory and ideas about how to circumvent and/or subvert it.
From a schematic of European airspace to the Volkswagen emissions scandal, Voss ties real examples of systems, and their fragility, to a balloons of the works of scholars, with a seeming focus on women philosophers.
This book is snarky but not pessimistic. In fact, it gave me actual hope. Maybe the systems that seem to be functioning like a car you know is about to expire can be righted. Voss' writing got me to take a more stratospheric view of systems, and from there I can see a few potential fixes along the way.
From a schematic of European airspace to the Volkswagen emissions scandal, Voss ties real examples of systems, and their fragility, to a balloons of the works of scholars, with a seeming focus on women philosophers.
This book is snarky but not pessimistic. In fact, it gave me actual hope. Maybe the systems that seem to be functioning like a car you know is about to expire can be righted. Voss' writing got me to take a more stratospheric view of systems, and from there I can see a few potential fixes along the way.
February 28, 2024
We are used to thinking of capitalism as a world of commodities - motor cars, dishwashers, carrots, golf clubs, etc - which, in exercising our sovereign will as consumers we accumulate in great piles all around us. Voss's argument invites us to supplement this view of the world by acknowledging that these things acquire their use value by being a part of a system that transcends their atomised state of being. Moreover, the system element of their utility has increased as capitalism has matured into its late stage.
She cites the example of an aeroplane - once just a thing constructed out of plywood and wire,was piloted by a person with no aids other than a joystick and a couple of foot pedals. Navigation was undertaken by peering over the side of the cockpit and attempting to make sense of the terrain unfolding below. At some point assistance in landing the thing might be required, but that was accomplished by low tech means - a person waving a flag on the ground to indicate where it was safe to come down.
This is no longer the case. The flight of a modern day aircraft requires a melding with a technology that maps across national and international territories, with different sets of complex rules depending on whether you are flying at 5000, 10000 or 30000 feet. This is a dynamic system, requiring the plane to be continually broadcasting information about itself to technologies which operate at ground level, and in return to adjust your journey in line with the instructions you receive. The value and utility of flight is conditioned by the extent to which your flying machine fits in with this complex system.
The same can be said of motor cars and seafaring. Voss sets this out in chapters that consider the place of road vehicles and ships in her view of the systems that set the conditions for their operation. If planes, cars and ships have something obviously in common - ie they are all modes of transport - her argument is not limited to these examples. In a chapter of the digital payments systems that have been conjured into existence in order to meet the special needs of the adult entertainment industry, she is shows how even pornography couldn't function today without a special system that enables it to rake in a profit.
All of this is intriguing and Voss sets out her take on systems with anecdotes that are frequently amusing. But her argument seems limited to an appeal that we need to be more aware of the systems in which our lives are slotted into, but is in danger of this 'awareness' becoming an end in itself: or perhaps the point of inspiration for an art installation, which is another stronger to her bow alongside being a researcher and writer. Does her analysis point to a path dependency with regard to the direction of technology, which limits what can be designed and invented to the role that is plays inside the ever-extending systems? She suggests that this is the case, and that anyone interested in creating technology that moves beyond fitting into the prevailing system, perhaps to subvert the exploitation and oppression of a hierarchical capitalist system, has to start thinking deeply about systems and how they configure our lives.
She cites the example of an aeroplane - once just a thing constructed out of plywood and wire,was piloted by a person with no aids other than a joystick and a couple of foot pedals. Navigation was undertaken by peering over the side of the cockpit and attempting to make sense of the terrain unfolding below. At some point assistance in landing the thing might be required, but that was accomplished by low tech means - a person waving a flag on the ground to indicate where it was safe to come down.
This is no longer the case. The flight of a modern day aircraft requires a melding with a technology that maps across national and international territories, with different sets of complex rules depending on whether you are flying at 5000, 10000 or 30000 feet. This is a dynamic system, requiring the plane to be continually broadcasting information about itself to technologies which operate at ground level, and in return to adjust your journey in line with the instructions you receive. The value and utility of flight is conditioned by the extent to which your flying machine fits in with this complex system.
The same can be said of motor cars and seafaring. Voss sets this out in chapters that consider the place of road vehicles and ships in her view of the systems that set the conditions for their operation. If planes, cars and ships have something obviously in common - ie they are all modes of transport - her argument is not limited to these examples. In a chapter of the digital payments systems that have been conjured into existence in order to meet the special needs of the adult entertainment industry, she is shows how even pornography couldn't function today without a special system that enables it to rake in a profit.
All of this is intriguing and Voss sets out her take on systems with anecdotes that are frequently amusing. But her argument seems limited to an appeal that we need to be more aware of the systems in which our lives are slotted into, but is in danger of this 'awareness' becoming an end in itself: or perhaps the point of inspiration for an art installation, which is another stronger to her bow alongside being a researcher and writer. Does her analysis point to a path dependency with regard to the direction of technology, which limits what can be designed and invented to the role that is plays inside the ever-extending systems? She suggests that this is the case, and that anyone interested in creating technology that moves beyond fitting into the prevailing system, perhaps to subvert the exploitation and oppression of a hierarchical capitalist system, has to start thinking deeply about systems and how they configure our lives.
March 28, 2024
A look into the world of the invisible mechanics behind nearly every industry that governs the modern world. From payment processing, to shipbuilding, to airplanes, and sex work. Each chapter dives into a specific field with a level of deep introspection and technical langauge that it is easy for the eyes to start glazing over if the field dosent immediately interest you. This lead me to very fluctuating opinions by the chapter, with some hooking my full attention, and some pulling me along with little enthusiasm.
However, those chapters that had me grabbed were greatly interesting, and with a full read done I intend to begin a re-read soon, with an attempt to connect with some of the chapters I didn't at first.
That being said, the underlying themes behind what makes a system, who it benefits, why they exist, and when they can be seen is an endlessly interesting topic that every chapter touched upon.
I'd recommend this book for those with a curious mind who want a little more introspection into how the most basic qualities of the modern world work, and how they got to be that way. However, to be warned that your enjoyment of a chapter will vary depending on your connection to the topic at hand.
(Sidenote; the humour was well written and added a great deal of wanted comedy to the almost farsical nature of some decisions involving human life the book highlights.)
However, those chapters that had me grabbed were greatly interesting, and with a full read done I intend to begin a re-read soon, with an attempt to connect with some of the chapters I didn't at first.
That being said, the underlying themes behind what makes a system, who it benefits, why they exist, and when they can be seen is an endlessly interesting topic that every chapter touched upon.
I'd recommend this book for those with a curious mind who want a little more introspection into how the most basic qualities of the modern world work, and how they got to be that way. However, to be warned that your enjoyment of a chapter will vary depending on your connection to the topic at hand.
(Sidenote; the humour was well written and added a great deal of wanted comedy to the almost farsical nature of some decisions involving human life the book highlights.)
February 27, 2024
I enjoyed this book.
The first chapter, "Systems" was hard: too many concepts from too many realms; and getting used to the author's style. My second read of it wasn't any easier.
The other five chapters are a blast, fun, and provocative. Our author was on the ground or in the air with her eyes open observing; questioning Scale, Legacy, Matter, Deviance, and Breakage.
Having worked at IBM in the eighties and nineties, even now as one of its pensioners, I can appreciate multiple megalithic systems. So the subtitle "Making Sense of Technology in a Complex World" says what Voss intended to do; mostly it works for me.
The first chapter, "Systems" was hard: too many concepts from too many realms; and getting used to the author's style. My second read of it wasn't any easier.
The other five chapters are a blast, fun, and provocative. Our author was on the ground or in the air with her eyes open observing; questioning Scale, Legacy, Matter, Deviance, and Breakage.
Having worked at IBM in the eighties and nineties, even now as one of its pensioners, I can appreciate multiple megalithic systems. So the subtitle "Making Sense of Technology in a Complex World" says what Voss intended to do; mostly it works for me.
May 1, 2024
This is the kind of Verso book that I find really helpful. Short, accessible, and topical, with lots to think about and a good dose of experiential anchoring to keep the text from becoming utterly abstract and theoretical.
June 15, 2024
would have better with some pictures
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