Abstract

This research seeks to unravel the techno-epistemological principles underlying Project Cybersyn. By reconstructing its technological archive, this study presents for the first time a detailed account of the technological events that set this project in motion. As an effort to control Chile's industrial economy under the theories of management cybernetics, Project Cybersyn is considered one of the most innovative technological undertakings of the early 1970s. Developed in the context of the Allende government and the socialist revolution in Chile, the project has usually been understood as a product of such a process. This research asks, however, whether such an understanding may hinder a more comprehensive assessment of the project and its scope. Accordingly, this dissertation examines the technological archive of Project Cybersyn in order to elucidate whether this case may have been an early concretization of a techno-episteme that, in turn, signaled an epochal shift in which our present is still inscribed. With attention to Wolfgang Ernst’s notion of the agency of the machine, this research shows that in the operational configuration of Project Cybersyn, clear technological principles can be discerned; principles that prescribe not only new modes for the configuration and circulation of information, but also for the organization and interaction between machine and human agencies. In this sense, this dissertation demonstrates that the technological archive of Project Cybersyn signals the emergence of both a techno-episteme and a techno-politics. Finally, this research shows that in the implementation of Project Cybersyn, a series of technological events gave way to a general process of collective becoming. In other words, this study of Project Cybersyn shows that this case operates as a forecast of the present.