Gregory Bateson

In this course

Bateson was a polymath anthropologist and cybernetician whose work bridged biological systems, information theory, and creative processes—making him a key figure for understanding feedback loops and self-organization across natural and cultural domains. The course invokes him as a foundational voice at mid-century modernism's intersection with systems thinking, particularly through his participation in the Western Round Table discussions that gathered artists and scientists to theorize creativity and communication beyond disciplinary silos. His anthropological insights into organizational diversity and recursive patterns of meaning-making provide conceptual scaffolding for how the readings think about intelligence, adaptation, and the aesthetic dimensions of cybernetic systems.

Mentioned in 6 readings