The Cold War and random processes

Abstract

The conversion of dynamic systems from impediments to strategic advantages played a substantial role in the U.S. military’s technological research and development during the Cold War. From signal interpretation with remote sensing systems to telecommunications to algorithms, media and information theory, harmonic systems, and even the weather, the unintended consequences of both dynamic systems in nature and technological attempts to control the same led to innovations and accidents, aesthetic developments and prediction advances that furnish large swaths of our current global sensorial domain. The role of randomness within complex dynamic systems accounts for the opportunities and impediments these systems offer. This article looks at a range of unlikely and seemingly disparate sites of technological development by the Department of Defense and national governmental propaganda projects during the Cold War, including electronic music, avant-garde composition, information theory and weather. The constant drive for superiority in C3I (command, control, communications and information) within the episteme that constituted Cold War thinking, discourse and institutions emerged in failed attempts at control, especially full-domain control, that provided unforeseen opportunities for aesthetic production and complex prediction modelling of natural forces.

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