Socioplastics 11833 When Failure Travels Backwards
A repaired streetlight can work again while the procurement rule behind its repeated failure remains in force. RepairFeedback [9021] follows the return of knowledge from a breakdown to the decisions that shape design, purchasing, governance or training. Its central concern is whether evidence gathered at the point of failure changes an upstream choice and whether the effects of that change can be observed. Norbert Wiener’s cybernetics explains how information about performance can regulate later action. Gregory Bateson distinguishes correction within a rule from changes to the context of learning. Ludwig von Bertalanffy directs attention to relations across a system, while Heinz von Foerster includes the observer in the organisation of observation. Together, these approaches show why more data or faster repair can leave institutional priorities unchanged. They also clarify how categories, contracts and reporting procedures determine which failures become legible. A comparative study could follow recurring overheating in two municipal buildings. It would trace the first observation, immediate repair, report to an authority and any change to specifications or maintenance practice. Work orders, procurement records, resident complaints, drawings and follow-up inspections would establish the sequence. Interviews would explain how evidence travelled and who could act on it. The study would record both improvements and new burdens, including cases where reporting becomes a tool for worker surveillance. RepairFeedback makes institutional learning assessable through a documented circuit: observation, interpretation, decision, alteration and renewed observation. Its political question concerns authority—who can make failure-derived knowledge change the arrangement that produced the fault? The same test applies to editorial practice when errors or gaps lead to revised classification and verification rules.
REFERENCES
Bateson, G. (1972) Steps to an Ecology of Mind. San Francisco: Chandler Publishing.
Bertalanffy, L. von (1968) General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications. New York: George Braziller.
Foerster, H. von (1981) Observing Systems. Seaside, CA: Intersystems Publications.
Wiener, N. (1948) Cybernetics: Or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Wiener, N. (1950) The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
CITE AS
Lloveras, A. (2026) Socioplastics, LAPIEZA-LAB, Madrid.
https://antolloveras.blogspot.com/p/socioplastics-project-index.html