april 2016

We have reached unimaginable heights in our scientific and technological knowledge. But that knowledge is mostly confined to our own immediate welfare. We have a very powerful instinct to explore, we know a great deal about astrophysics, but when we look at the biological world—what the resources are and how are we going to manage our future with or without a certain number of species living with us—it’s pretty much a blank slate. In the meantime we generate multitudinous anthropogenic effects including disrupting biophysical boundaries, destruction, fragmentation and disruption of natural ecosystems , loss of genetic variability, extinction, homogenization of…

In the years and decades ahead, scientific and technological advances have created radical new ways and means of designing, producing and distributing the fabric of our cities. For example, breakthroughs in nanotechnology have enabled material scientists to replicate manifold biological mechanisms. We can anticipate lifelike materials becoming a common feature of our day-to-day surroundings. Self-repairing materials will extend the life of wide-ranging items. Passive thermoregulation in buildings reduces the need for air conditioning and heating. Amongst other things, superhydrophobicity more or less mitigates the need for cleaning some surfaces.

The Anthropocene hypothesis regards humanity as a geological force, its activities effectively altering the earth system’s metabolic structures: sediments, currents, and rays are redistributed towards unknown configurations. Thinking of the Anthropocene engages with earthly conditions and human imagination in a discursive, trans-historical experiment. Departing from a corpus of documents, scholars, theorists, scientists, I try to understand the constantly shifting qualities, energetic new positions on the textures and forms that knowledge takes on within the Anthropocene. Focusing on their respective views on the human and on the relation between the human and technology and in particular against the backdrop of the current…

Technology has been transforming our world for thousands of years. Scientific and technological revolutions have shaped the course of history. However, the pace of change today is accelerating dramatically. We have entered into an era of ‘hyper-change…on a global scale and at a speed with no precedent in human history’. Technological progress has become so rapid that it is outpacing our ability to deliberate and act prudently. Our legal system and ethicists cannot keep up new technologies. It is unclear what the world will be like at the end of this century and beyond. We are on the verge of…