environment transformation via technology:
– indoor beaches (Seagaia, also known as Ocean Dome)
– ski slopes (SSAWS, acronym for Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter: Snow) of Japan.
– high-tech casinos and artificial nature of Las Vegas, American shopping malls and theme parks
– SimCity (Maxis)
– CAD (Computer Animated Design) Institute in Phoenix (the first educational institution to offer a degree in Virtual Reality)
– Virtual World, a virtual arcade facility
= no seasons, no danger, no discomfort, no travel; world as a package; selfenclosed, manmade worlds; abandoning nature for synthetic version; virtual as ultimate synthetic
human body transformation via genetic engineering, plastic surgery, biotechnology:
– Orlan: “I am attracted to plastic surgery because it is a fight against nature, the idea of God, the programmed, the DNA which is in charge of representation. I believe the body is not sacred as religion taught us, it is just a costume that can be changed.”
– Robert Ettinger, President of the Cryonics Institute, who is attempting to achieve immortality through the freezing of human bodies
– Max More, President of the Extropy Institute (a society of progressive futurists), looks forward to a future where mankind will have transcended the limitations of nature through the advancement of nanotechnology (molecular robotics) and the creation of cyborgs (human-machines): “I don’t think robots are going to replace human beings. I think that what we are going to see is more of a merger of human beings and robots, to become some kind of combined organism…there will be a whole spectrum.”
– transsexual cyberpunks, Limelight Club in New York City.
– body piercing
moods / personality / consciousness transformation by cosmetic pharmacology:
– prozac
– smart drugs, psychedelics
– RU Sirius: “Our culture is starting to view drugs as information. You take a particular combination of chemicals to create a particular response in your brain and in your nervous system, and you find that response useful in getting a different view of reality, a different photo- graph from a different angle, and you use that for whatever you need to create.”
= we are able to change subjective experience to suit our needs and desires
– Steve Roberts (editor of High-Tech Nomadness) proposes the possibility of nomadic (yet connected) lifestyles in the digital age. We see him cruising natural landscapes on his Behemoth, a computerized, 105-speed bicycle which he designed himself. The on-board monitor displays a map, a virtual landscape, pin-pointed with blips representing his virtual friends spread out across the Internet/terrain.