I feel honoured to have been invited to come to the International Summer School at the University of Ibagué to teach a course grounded in my research in the use of cybernetics and theatrical arts in modeling and understanding the governance of post-secondary institutions. At the core of this course is the examination of the potential efficacy of a trans-disciplinary synthesisof Forum Theatre, cybernetics, and systems theory in modeling the behaviour of the university as a complex social system andsurfacing potential interventions that might steer it towards more desirable outcomes. Each of thedisciplines above has the capacity to address gaps in the other: Forum Theatre to provide greater access to theemotive, inter-personal drivers of systemic dysfunction and systems thinking and cybernetics to provide a more robust theoretical underpinning for the rationalization of potential structural interventions.

In their influential paper of 1972, design scientist, Horst WJ Rittel and city planner, Melvin M Webber,coined the term wicked to describe problems of governmental planning — and especially those of social or policyplanning that are ill defined. They considered theseproblems to be of a fundamentally different nature to “problems in the natural sciences, which are definable andseparable and may have solutions that are findable” According to Rittel and Webber, the intrinsic complexity ofsuch “wicked problems” as poverty, homelessness, and environmental degradation could not be solved but only“tamed” or “at best re-solved — over and over again.” Perhaps the single greatest consistent contributor to“wickedness” is the lack of consensus among stakeholders as to the correct description of the problem itself, let alone the nature of any possible intervention^[1]. At our current historical moment, wicked problems loom larger than ever;from global “grand challenges” around sustainable economic growth to domestic issues like Canada’s urgent need to charta path to true and honourable reconciliation between itssettler and indigenous populations.

Since their parallel emergence in the mid-20th century,cybernetics, as the trans-disciplinary science ofcommunication and control in the animal and the machine, and Systems Theory, as the trans-disciplinary search forgeneral behavioural laws governing deeply interconnected and inter-dependent sets of elements across biological,artificial, and social domains, have, through the development of such concepts as feedback, emergence, andcomplexity, as well as the identification of “systems archetypes,” provided powerful tools for modeling and grapplingwith “wicked problems”. As a result, they have developed many insightful heuristics for revealing high-leverageintervention points to deal with chronic systemic social issues.

 However, they have relied heavily on diagrammatic,dialogic, and computational forms of modelling rather than more embodied modes and, as a result, the non-trivialeffects of actual human interpersonal psycho-emotional dynamics on such bedeviling phenomena as “policyresistance” have not been sufficiently accounted for; despite the acknowledgement by systems thinkers that the“mental models” held by the participants in a system are prime drivers of that system’s behaviour.

Theatre for Living iscurrently practiced all over the world in communities facing exceedingly complex socialchallenges. For example, much of Diamond’s work has tackled such “wicked problems” as addiction, homelessness,and family violence by co-creating plays with, and for, community members with deep lived experience of the issueunder investigation.

At my home institution, the University of British Columbia(UBC), our Human Resources Department has partnered with the Department of Theatreand Film to create Conflict Theatre @ UBC; a Forum Theatre company creating work drawn from the livedexperience of its members (a diverse group of UBC employees) in order to help the wider university communityrehearse strategies to move through blockages to authentic and productive communication in situations of workplaceconflict.

The content of the course I have prepared to deliver at Unibagué is based upon insights gained through this initiative.The practice of Forum Theatre has been described as follows:

In Forum Theatre, we show the audience the play all the way through once — the play builds to a crisis, andstops, offering no solutions. The play is then performed a second time, where audience members can then stop theaction and enter the stage themselves, by replacing characters with whom they identify and by to solve problems orissues inside the story. The rest of the cast stays in character and improvises. The theatre becomes a creativelaboratory where we can try ways to transform ourselves our communities, and the world.(Theatre for living, 2016, p. 1).

Forum Theatre practitioners such as Diamond and Birgit Fitz have recently introduced key cyber-systemic concepts into their theory including Niklas Luhmann’s notion of social autopoiesis. But, while Diamond and Fitz’ useof cyber-systemic theory as a framing device is certainly illuminating, the specific and deliberate application of cybersystemic modes of analysis have not yet been employed in any fulsome manner in the actual applied methodology ofForum practitioners. As a result, Forum Theatre participants have not had the benefit of cyber-systemic insights asthey formulate their responses to the exceedingly complex problems portrayed.   

As of 2017, CT is a joint initiative of the Human Resources (HR) and Theatre and Film departments funded as a two-year pilot. This includes a robust analytical dimension in order to convert the strong anecdotal evidence of the program’s benefits into more evidence based outcomes to determine if the program is sufficiently successful to warrant funding on a more permanent basis. This process began with the Rehearsing Conflict Theatre Intensive in June of 2017 bringing together eleven staff members from a number of units across campus who engaged in two full days and four half-days of skill building and play development.  This culminated in a Forum Theatre performance of three new original short plays for a diverse audience of UBC employees. 

Examining the “learning journeys” of the intensive participants through the application of a grounded theory approach to pre and post intensive interviews, we have been able to generate quantitative data indicating that individual’s capacities for self-awareness, other awareness, self-regulation, and systemic awareness have been significantly enhanced. Our more recent intensive in June 2018 featured an even more fulsome integration of cyber-systemic exercises and tools of analysis and, subsequently, a stronger emphasis on the systemic structures and feedback loops generating certain pathologies in organizational behavior across the university. It is these tools that I hope to communicate and further develop with my exciting new colleagues at Unibagué. 

[1] Much of the text in this paragraph was originally written by me as part of the Course Description for ASTU 401G: Wicked Problems in Community Development   at the University of British Columbia.
https://orice.ubc.ca/astu-401g-wicked-problems-in-community-development-january-april-2018/