The Other Ministry of Fun

What is This Thing?

Good question. We're still finding out ourselves.

The Other Ministry of Fun is an experiment in playful cybernetics—a living conversation space where serious fun meets fun seriousness. We're interested in Gordon Pask's notion that intelligence emerges through conversation, that learning is play, and that the best way to understand complex systems is to build delightful ones.

Think of it as a confluence of curiosity, creativity, and cybernetic tomfoolery spanning organizations, nations, and quite possibly dimensions (though we make no promises about the dimensional part).

What We're Up To

Currently percolating and occasionally fully brewing:

Cybernetic Fringe Festivals – Online events channeling the Edinburgh Fringe spirit with cyberformances, AI theatre, emergent collaborations, and spontaneous acts of creative systems thinking
Confluencing Conversations – Monthly gatherings where ideas flow together without predetermined outcomes
Video Series – Ministers of Fun from various communities sharing experiments, provocations, and delightfully serious nonsense
Repository of Fun Experiments – The Colloquy of Mobiles, playful AI interactions, and other cybernetic adventures
Research That Plays – Academic work that doesn't forget how to have a good time
Whatever Emerges – The best stuff we haven't thought of yet

Who's Invited?

You are. Obviously.

We're looking for folks who think systems thinking should involve actual thinking, who believe emergence is better demonstrated than explained, and who understand that "serious play" isn't an oxymoron—it's a methodology.

All levels of preparation and participation are not just accepted—they are celebrated! Whether you want to perform, experiment, co-create, observe, lurk, or occasionally shout something profound from the back, you're welcome here.

The Spirit of the Thing

We're inspired by:

Gordon Pask's Fun Palace and Colloquy of Mobiles, where architecture conversed and environments learned. The Monty Python sensibility that serious topics deserve unserious treatment. The Edinburgh Fringe principle that the best performances often emerge from the edges. Stafford Beer's conviction that viable systems must be able to adapt, learn, and—dare we say it—have fun doing so.

We're not here to tell you what fun is. We're here to create conditions where fun can emerge, be recognized, and propagate itself through the system in delightfully unexpected ways.