The Human is a Cybernetic Communication System: A Historical and Ethnographic Study of Human-Technology Interactions in Japanese Wearable and Robotic Technologies

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This research project has made the following progress during the past year:1. Additional fieldwork and interviews were conducted with a small number of informants involved in virtual reality and robotics research in Japan. These interviews confirmed several conclusions reached during the earlier phase of this study related to the significance of cybernetics to Japanese research.2. A study was made of the papers of Norbert Wieners at the MIT Library Institute Archives, focusing on correspondence with collaborators in Japan and papers related to (1) early correspondence (circa 1915) related to philosophical topics predating cybernetics, and (2) later correspondence (circa 1960) pertaining to the translation of cybernetics texts into foreign languages, particularly Japanese. This study indicated the nature of the relationships between Wiener and his Japanese collaborators surrounding the spread of cybernetics and provided direction for future research.3. Several conference presentations were made related to the present research at international conferences, and collaborative relationships with international researchers were established.