<html>
<body>
<blockquote type=cite class=cite cite=""><div align="center"><font size=4>
<b><u>STS Brown Bag Talk - Tuesday, November 18th<br><br>
</u></font><font size=4 color="#0000FF">Soviet Cybernetics, Design, and
Control-Rooms<br><br>
Margareta Tillberg<br>
</font><font size=4> </font>Humboldt University; visiting
researcher, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science,
Berlin<br><br>
<font size=4>12:00 noon - 1:30 pm, MIT, E51-275<br><br>
<br>
<i>Feel free to bring your lunch</i><br><br>
</b></font></div>
Abstract: <br>
The All-Union Scientific Research Institute for Technical Aesthetics was
founded in Moscow in 1962 to invent new design methods by exploring the
relationships<br>
among science, technology, and art. Artists, engineers, architects,
mathematicians, physiologists and economists participated in
multi-disciplinary research groups at the Institute. Among the projects
carried out at the Institute was the design of control rooms for various
Soviet enterprises, including nuclear power plants. The visual and
organizational design of these spaces involved complex studies by
specialists in ergonomics, engineering psychology, cybernetics, and art.
This paper will discuss specific examples of control room design in a
wider context of Soviet attitudes toward industrial design.<br><br>
Bio:<br>
Dr. Margareta Tillberg is a research associate in the Department of
History of Science and Technology, Royal Institute of Technology,
Stockholm, and a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the
History of Science in Berlin. She is the author of <i>Coloured Universe
and the Russian Avant-Garde. Matiushin on Colour Vision in Stalin's
Russia</i> (Stockholm, 2003). Her current project at the MPI,
"Observer and Observed in Soviet State Design Institutes,
1960s-1990s," is part of the MPI program, "The History of
Scientific Observation" (see
<a href="http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/en/research/projects/DeptII_Tillberg-ObservationSovietStateDesign/index_html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/en/research/projects/DeptII_Tillberg-ObservationSovietStateDesign/index_html</a>
).<br><br>
<br>
<b>Note: a schedule of events for the upcoming week is posted on
the STS website:
<a href="http://web.mit.edu/sts" eudora="autourl">
http://web.mit.edu/sts</a><br>
</b></blockquote></body>
</html>