[future shock] ‘a new body-mind relationship’

From anthropologist Michael Taussig, the following paragraph has been lingering; floating on the surface on my consciousness as cognitive duckweed. Once tangled up in the pond pump, it has proved all-but-impossible to remove.

‘For the question arises as to whether a new body will be formed as that other body we call planet earth heats up? Certainly changes are already happening down to the genetic level with insects and plants. As regards us humans equipped with a body whose thermostat will be reset together with other basic adjustments, might we not come to possess a new body-mind relationship such that our body’s understanding of itself shall change? Even more important in changing the old-fashioned mind-body setup will be the cultural changes — that foreboding sense of cliff-hanging insecurity in a world ever more engaged with security in a climate gone terrorist.’

– Michael Taussig, 2009, What Color is the Sacred?, p. 14

photo credit: effekt!

Some other artifacts. First, a concept video from Dunne & Raby‘s design project, ‘Foragers’:

Johanna Agerman Ross, pummeling the above into plain english for the benefit of Icon‘s readers:

‘Foragers looks at how humans could extract nutritional value from non-human foods by using a combination of synthetic biology and new digestive devices inspired by other mammals, birds, fish and insects. (…) Dunne & Raby’s foragers are genetically reconfigured human beings that go at nature with full force, trying to process trees, cellulose and plant matter as nutrition. Rather than a line of products for sale, the project imagines people coming up with DIY self-modifications.’

– Joanna Agerman Ross, ‘Future foragers’, Icon 090, p. 125

Arch-futurist Jamais Cascio‘s vision of one of our possible (?) ‘bright green’ futures:

And, for something with a touch more immediacy — Google Earth Engine …

… and the first of these mini-scenarios from IBM‘s ‘Five in Five’ 2010:

Embodiment, prostheses, hive-minds, and the posthuman. Mobile sensors. But is this simply technology-as-fetish? What of appropriate technology; resilience? Geoengineering as cyborgism at the planetary scale. Either way, plenty more decaying leaf matter for the ol’ ‘bright green’ compost heap …