Ranulph Glanville

Ranulph Glanville (13 June 1946 – 20 December 2014) was an Anglo-Irish cybernetician, design researcher, theorist, educator and multi-platform artist/designer/performer, who was professor of research in Innovation Design Engineering at the Royal College of Art, London, professor of research design in the Faculty of Architecture Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, and adjunct professor of design research at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Melbourne. He was known for his contributions in the field of design research, and cybernetics.

Glanville maintained a small art practice including music, video, architecture, publishing, writing and installation/land art as well as design and architecture. He has organised international conferences, exhibitions and performances, as well as taking part in them. He was internationally regarded as a lecturer, keynote speaker and consultant. He held several other professorial posts in a variety of specialisms, at universities around the world. He was Vice-President of the American Society for Cybernetics for one term, from 2006 to 2009, and President of the American Society for Cybernetics for two terms, from 2009 to 2014 inclusive.

He was the PhD advisor of Leon van Schaik, Ted Krueger, and Ben Sweeting.

Glanville's father, George Grosvenor Glanville (who died when Glanville was 8), was a mechanical, civil and electrical engineer, soldier, barrister-at-law, patent officer and inventor. His mother, Cecil Tindall, was a musician, teacher, gardener and home maker, who later married John Rodie Peters, a school music director, another significant personal influence.

Glanville's education was persistently liberal, as was the education he offered others. He was particularly influenced by the individuality and assumed personal responsibility in Froebel's kindergarten movement and the great British liberal school, Bryanston. He attending the radical Architectural Association School in London from 1964 to 1967 and 1969 to 1971, where he gained a diploma.

In his final year, cybernetician Professor Gordon Pask arranged a fellowship so Glanville could study for a doctorate (PhD) in cybernetics at Brunel University with Professor Heinz von Foerster as examiner in 1975. He followed this with another PhD, also at Brunel, in human learning under Professor Laurie Thomas and Professor Gerard de Zeeuw as examiner in 1987. Brunel awarded him an examined higher doctorate (DSc) in cybernetics and design in 2006.

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