....so how is 'this', my immediate acts and electronic circumstances, going to change?

Firstly: to accept the changes, and resistances to change, that are evident in the whole of nature and afternature (taken as the present version of what Benedictus de Spinoza called god or nature) as the basis of what is happening or not happening spontaneously, and generally.... and to learn from his thinking and his action, and his refusals of action.... in the seventeenth century.... which still have profound effects

(does this mean no more designing - in the sense I intended in design methods - or perhaps a new kind of designing (in the sense of 'designing without a product' as an end in itself, or as a way of living) as came to me in the writing of designing designing?)

....probably yes, and yes,

so what to do now?

to cease such efforts as 'traffic automation (in 'the future of breathing') and in 'experimental city' (version one) and in 'the future of ergonomics (and everything!)'.... and cease supposing that everyone is going to adopt these ideas (and they don't)

for example: the list of wished-for changes in experimental city (1980):

UNESCO: What specific proposals have you discussed?

NUMEROSO: Many. Here are a few. Not in any special order but just as I remember them. Education: very largely without books, perhaps without literacy, even. The paperless office. No jobs. Everything to be produced automatically, without workers or managements, or else it is made by hand by those who need it. At first all structures will be temporary - mobile homes and the like. Public access to all information, personal files included, no copyrights, no privacy of information, public or private. Each profession is given the task of translating its specialised services into a mixture of computer aids and do-it-yourself. Private cars and buses to be replaced by automated minicars and minibuses accessible to everyone by credit card, and free of accidents, congestion, and parking problems, being computer controlled. Walking and cycling facilities to have top priority in city design. Private ownership of space to be limited to the times when the persons concerned are actually present, each person's territory being a mobile entity in law. Law-making, and law-changing, being a public responsibility to which everyone has to give a lot of time. Referenda, by TV viewdata systems, every day... Have I said enough to let you see what we have in mind?... Obviously it's going to call for very different motivations, and ways of living, than those we are used to. To discover those is, I imagine, the main question...*

and to begin, at last, my long-promised newform of 'designing as living', without plan or ulterior motive, without instrumentality, not using other people as tools... (more to follow... much more, and it will be new to me, I hope)

p a u s e

f o r _ a _ n e w _ f i c t i o n _ t o _ b e g i n

journeys without end if not purpose (or purposive drift**)

insoftopia:

**with thanks to Richard Oliver, the internet and everyone,ellipsis, London 2000, pages 325-330, mail order

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