{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "content": "---\ntitle: \"Cybernetic Studio Launch @ SXSW Sydney\"\ndescription: \"Launching the Cybernetic Studio at SXSW Sydney with human-scale AI artefacts:\n  a wooden neural network table and a pen-and-paper language model.\"\ntags:\n  - ai\n---\n\nI'm launching the\n[**Cybernetic Studio**](https://cybernetics.anu.edu.au/cybernetic-studio/) next\nweek (Oct 15) at [SXSW Sydney](https://www.sxswsydney.com). If you're attending,\ncome to Chippendale on Wednesday afternoon (search for\n[_Cybernetic Studio Launch_ in the SXSW app](https://www.sxswsydney.com/lineup?date=2025-10-15&showSession=781823)\nfor details) and see what we've been building.\n\nThe Cybernetic Studio is a lab-style initiative exploring responsible innovation\nthrough creative, embodied approaches to technology. Which is a fancy way of\nsaying: we build things to think with[^making-to-think], and we try to do it in\nways that don't just reproduce the surveillance capitalism playbook. Nam Jun\nPaik used technology in order to hate it properly; the Studio aims to carry on\nthat noble tradition.\n\n[^making-to-think]:\n    This is the core of research-through-practice---you can't think your way to\n    understanding complex sociotechnical systems, you have to build them and\n    watch how they fail.\n\nThe launch project is \"Human Scale AI\"---an attempt to slow computations down\nand blow them up so we can actually see them at work. Two artefacts I'll be\nshowing:\n\n- **Perceptron Apparatus**: a 1.2 metre diameter wooden table that functions as\n  an \"Abacus for AI\". Is it an abacus? Is it an ouija board? No, it's a physical\n  device capable of performing the Artificial Neural Network calculations that\n  underpin all of modern AI. The apparatus can actually perform real AI tasks\n  (e.g. image recognition, data classification) if you have a _lot_ of time and\n  a willingness to multiply numbers using concentric wooden rings. It's part\n  séance, part computational theatre, part \"explainable AI\", and asks where the\n  \"intelligence\" lives when the computation is distributed across human\n  operators and a wooden table.\n\n- **My First LM**: a hands-on activity where you build and use a language model\n  with paper grids, dice, and children's books. You manually create word\n  co-occurrence grids (the training phase), then use dice to sample from those\n  distributions to generate new text (the prediction phase). It's remarkably\n  effective at teaching the train-predict-sample cycle---people get it in a way\n  that no amount of explaining \"transformers\" or \"attention mechanisms\" ever\n  achieves. The activity scales up through different ideas in Large Language\n  Models---bigram/trigram models, embedding vectors, alternative sampling\n  procedures, even LoRAs---to show how the same model can behave differently\n  depending on how you use it.[^demystification]\n\n[^demystification]:\n    There's a particular kind of technical literacy I'm after here. Not\n    \"everyone should learn to code\", but rather \"everyone should have access to\n    mental models that aren't just anthropomorphic vibes about what AI wants or\n    thinks.\"\n\nBoth pieces are about materiality and scale. Can you understand something\ndifferently when you can touch it, when it operates at human perception speed,\nwhen you can see all the moving parts at once? I suspect yes, but that's what\nthe studio is for---figuring out what actually works.\n\nThe event is hosted with Dr. Cath Ball, who always brings the juice. Should be\ngood conversations.\n\nIt's ticketed, but if you're a SXSW badge-holder you can register via the app.\nCome along, have a few drinks on us, see some interesting human-scale AI\nartefacts, and have some interesting conversations about where this is all\nheading.\n",
  "createdAt": "2026-05-13T23:14:43.497Z",
  "description": "Launching the Cybernetic Studio at SXSW Sydney with human-scale AI artefacts: a wooden neural network table and a pen-and-paper language model.",
  "path": "/blog/2025/10/08/cybernetic-studio-launch-sxsw-sydney",
  "publishedAt": "2025-10-08T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:tevykrhi4kibtsipzci76d76/site.standard.publication/self",
  "tags": [
    "ai"
  ],
  "textContent": "Launching the Cybernetic Studio at SXSW Sydney with human-scale AI artefacts: a wooden neural network table and a pen-and-paper language model.",
  "title": "Cybernetic Studio Launch @ SXSW Sydney"
}