Definition of Feedforward

What is Feedforward?

Feedforward is a critical dynamic in creative processes where a novel element or system emerges (“epicycles”) that stands outside the cycles that produced it, yet exerts significant influence back on those originating systems without being substantially changed by them (Gary Tomlinson).

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In systems terms, feedforward represents those elements that significantly impact a system but remain largely unchanged by it. The weather changes a baseball game entirely, but the game doesn't change the weather. Mountains shape weather patterns, but aren't shaped by them in return. But uniquely in creative processes, these feedforward elements can emerge from within the very systems they come to influence.

Feedforward emerges when a novel approach or practice becomes so integrated, autonomous, and durable that it comes to exert a control-like function over the cultural cycles from which it arose. This is fundamentally different from both positive feedback (which pushes systems into new states) and negative feedback (which stabilizes systems). Feedforward introduces a transformative asymmetry where the emergent element shapes its source conditions without being equally shaped in return.

Feedforward and Creative Processes

At its core, feedforward helps us understand how truly novel forms of creative practice emerge and gain autonomy. In creative processes, we're not merely adapting existing patterns but potentially generating entirely new epicycles – new autonomous systems that can stand outside their originating conditions and reshape them.

This is not the standard ideation-first model that most innovation systems promote. Rather than seeing creativity as a linear process of idea generation followed by execution, feedforward reveals how novelty gains agency through complex, non-linear emergent processes. The epicyclic nature of feedforward helps explain why genuinely transformative innovation often appears to have a "mind of its own" – the emergent configuration itself possesses agency beyond any of its individual elements.

Another Way to Say Feedforward: 

Feedforward could also be understood as "emergent autonomy with transformative influence" of "creative epicycles." These epicycles are emergent configurations that develop their own internal coherence and begin to act as if they were controlling elements, shaping the very systems from which they arose while maintaining their distinctness.

Features of Feedforward in Creative Processes

Feedforward in creativity involves several key features:

• Emergent Autonomy: The novel element or practice develops its own internal coherence and self-sustaining dynamics.
• Asymmetric Influence: It shapes its originating systems more than it is shaped by them.
• Qualitative Difference: It represents a genuine departure from existing patterns, not merely an adaptation.
• System Causation: It demonstrates how emergent wholes can transform their constituent parts.
• Self-Organization: It stabilizes through its own internal dynamics rather than external control.

Practical Implications for Feedforward in Your Creative Practice

Understanding feedforward dramatically shifts how we approach innovation. Instead of focusing on individual "eureka" moments or ideas, we need to build ecosystemic conditions where novel approaches can emerge, gain autonomy, and potentially reshape existing systems.

This requires creating what we might call "fertile ecosystems" that support multiple parallel approaches rather than prematurely narrowing to a single path (while refusing given logics, practices, and propensities). It means resisting the urge to "find the winner" and instead fostering cross-pollination, sideways movement, and productive failures that can contribute to emerging epicycles.

In practical terms, creative processes benefit from:

1. Building ecosystems rather than focusing exclusively on singular solutions
2. Encouraging transversal connections across different domains
3. Supporting emergent approaches with enough autonomy to develop their own internal coherence
4. Recognizing and nurturing potential epicycles when they begin to show signs of autonomous agency
5. Allowing these emergent epicycles to reshape existing practices rather than forcing them to conform

Examples of Feedforward

The Wright Brothers provide an illustrative example not of individual genius but of ecosystemic innovation that produced feedforward epicycles. The emergence of controlled flight wasn't simply about building a flying machine but about the emergence of an entire aviation ecosystem. As this new system stabilized through airports, companies, business models, and infrastructure, it began to function as a feedforward epicycle, reshaping transportation systems more broadly.

Similarly, the internal combustion engine moved transversally across different domains, from early experiments to automobiles to aviation. As these applications stabilized into their own autonomous systems, they began to exert feedforward influences, reshaping everything from urban development to manufacturing processes.

In our daily creative practices, feedforward might manifest as novel approaches that initially emerge from experimentation but eventually gain enough coherence to reshape our entire way of working. These could be small – new drawing techniques that transform an artist's entire practice – or large, like emergent digital technologies that reshape entire industries.

Understanding feedforward reminds us that creativity is not about individual moments of insight but about participating in and nurturing emergent processes that might develop their own autonomous agency. The most profound innovations aren't simply solutions to existing problems -- they're emergent epicycles that reshape how we understand what problems and solutions are in the first place. Ultimately this approach of Feedforward Epicycles gives us a radically new theory of change and emergent innovation.

Sources & Connections to Explore: A Million Years of Music Culture and the Course of Human Evolution Gary Tomlinson, Extending the Explanatory Scope Wagner & Tomlinson, Power/Knowledge Michel Foucault, Political Affect Life War Earth John Protevi, Seeing Like a State James C. Scott

See: Epicycles, Emergence, Apparatus/Dispositif