Metaphorum 2026 · Barefoot Cybernetics

Gamifying the VSM

Purpose: Stafford Beer’s Viable System Model is among the most powerful instruments for diagnosing and designing organisational viability — yet its reach into practice is limited by a high entry threshold: its cybernetic vocabulary and circuit-like notation deter the very people who could benefit most. This project aims to make that dormant potential usable — for civil society, commons, non-profit and for-profit organisations alike — by turning the VSM into a serious game. Methods: It begins with a rearrangement of the five systems, complemented by Angela Espinosa’s Self-Transformation Methodology, into a game design that is built into a digital prototype. Players map their own organisation as connected hexagons, setting them in motion with one minigame per system (1–5), learning the recursive grammar through play rather than instruction. The prototype is tested iteratively with real groups. The pivotal question is how well it helps players become healthier, operationalised through Antonovsky’s Sense of Coherence: comprehensibility, manageability, and meaning. Findings: Expected: whether the VSM, turned into a game, lowers its threshold of entry, and whether playing it strengthens players’ coherence and their organisations’ health. Implications: At its core, Hextech is a new tool for making the VSM applicable — one that finally makes barefoot cybernetics viable in practice, putting self-governance into the hands of those who most need viability yet can least afford its jargon. And it keeps sight of the larger potential dormant in the idea: a polycentric, recursively interwoven network of organisations carrying the seed of a global, recursive consciousness. Speaker: Sascha Kullak

Schedule to be confirmed