Cybernetics invites us to approach systems with attentiveness to the relationships between the technical, ecological, and social. These dynamic relationships are relevant to futures because they inform how we got here; what we choose to be attentive to, build and maintain in the 21st century; the questions we ask; the choices we conceive, enact, and their consequences; and what comes next.
Cybernetic Futures recognises that the linear chronological sequencing of past/present/future, where the past precedes the present, and the present precedes the future, is a cultural construct. We also acknowledge, and have much to learn from First Nations people who assert a very different through and thought line.
This paper offers a contextual perspective of the relationship between cybernetics and futures. We then argue that approaching futures as a system reframes the here and now - taking space from master narratives and dominant voices and creating room so that other forms of possibility can be considered, heard, and come into being.