Created at the Köln International School of Design (short-term project – 2 weeks) and supervised by Prof. Andreas Muxel, Feedback Machines is a group student project that explores the concept of feedback loops – one of the main principles in the control and regulation of autonomous machines. It is both an attempt to introduce students to physical computing as well as provide a perspective on the complex topic through experimental explorations.

The theory of control and regulation through feedback loops has its roots in cybernetics. Here information of the output and environment is feed back into the system to take control. In the project the students were asked to develop simple feedback systems, by (mis-)using existing technologies in combination with analog material to create non-linear behaving systems. In a hands-on approach various autonomous explorations were designed.