With our attempts to cultivate nature, humankind causes the rising of a next nature, which is wild and unpredictable as ever. Wild systems, genetic surprises, autonomous machinery and splendidly beautiful black flowers. Nature changes along with us.
by Bruce Sterling
This project is about Nature’s brand image. One might surmise that “Nature,” being 100 percent all-natural, can’t have any brand image. The facts suggest otherwise. Try it for yourself: tell a friend that something seemingly 100 percent natural is actually [...]
by Van Mensvoort
Is the evolution of the single bladed razor into an exorbitant five–bladed vibrating gizmo the outcome of human needs, or is there another force in play? Say hello to Razorius Gillettus, one of the new species emerging from our technoeconomic [...]
by Kevin Kelly
I remember the smoke the most. That pungent smell permeating the camps of tribal people. Everything they touch is infused with the lingering perfume of smoke — their food, shelter, tools, and art. Everything. Even the skin of the youngest [...]
by Van Mensvoort
At the edge of the woods along the motorway near the Dutch town of Bloemendaal, there stands a mobile telephone mast disguised as a pine tree. This mast is not nature: at best, it is a picture of nature. It [...]
by Vandana Shiva
Do humans exist merely to make money and use resources? Vandana Shiva believes humans have a higher purpose.
by Ine Gevers
The introductory essay from the Yes, Naturally book – available in our store!
by Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg discusses the promises and realities of synthetic biology.
by Van Mensvoort
Ons beeld van natuur moet worden aangepast
by Rinie van Est
Digital and genetic techniques increasingly influence life. Our belief in progress through technology stands in the way of a moral debate on this development. By Rinie van Est We keep a close watch on what voters and members of parliament [...]
by Van Mensvoort
Like we did to old nature before, we must now cultivate our technological environment.
by John Zerzan
In this essay, anti-civilization, anarchist philosopher John Zerzan critiques the concept of ‘next nature.’ He argues that rather than freeing us, our self-domestication through technology has created a disconnected, depressed and over-medicated population. Phenomena from global warming to workplace shootings [...]
by carolinenevejan
Previously, experiences of time emerged from nature as given – offering seasons, the rhythm of humans, plants and animals. Nowadays, people integrate nature-time, body-time, inner-time, clock-time, and global 24/7 systems-time. Human beings, in past, current and next natures, have to deal with emergence and design of time in order to survive.
by Van Mensvoort
Are you familiar with the affliction? Anthropomorphobia is the fear of recognizing human characteristics in non-human objects. The term is a hybrid of two Greek-derived words: ‘anthropomorphic’ means ‘of human form’ and ‘phobia’ means ‘fear’. Although anthropomorphobia was originally rare, [...]
by Bas Haring
Intentionality separates culture from nature. A dog is intentional, a fox is not; a park is intentional, a forest is not. Since trash, ruined buildings, and automated computer programs are unintentional, they are also a type of nature. Nature provides [...]
by Maartje Somers
Every time we eat a piece of food, we take a bite out of the world. All these small bites tell a dozen stories. A carton of eggs presents the story of contented hens, a bottle of olive oil the [...]
by Jos de Mul
The sublime is an aesthetic concept of ‘the exalted,’ of beauty that is grand and dangerous. Through 17th and 18th century European intellectual tradition, the sublime became intimately associated with nature. Only in the 20th century, did the technological sublime [...]
by Van Mensvoort
Traditionally, technology is seen as a force that diminishes our instincts and puts us at a distance of nature. Increasingly however, we realize technology can also energize and amplify our deepest human sensibilities – even some we had forgotten about. [...]
by Berry Eggen
Blue is a beautiful color, but its sound is simply irresistible. It is the song of the unhappy and the depressed. It is a sound that touches people. It was also the sound of a little songbird, the Serinus Canaria [...]
by Van Mensvoort
We tend to think of plastic as a cheap, inferior and ugly material used to make children’s toys, garden furniture and throwaway bottles. But as an experiment, imagine for a moment a world in which plastic was extremely rare, like [...]
by Zach Zorich
If Neanderthals ever walk the earth again, the primordial ooze from which they will rise is an emulsion of oil, water, and DNA capture beads engineered in the laboratory of 454 Life Sciences in Branford, Connecticut. Over the past 4 [...]
by Tracy Metz
Nature is an agreement. Just like the nude beach. Here you keep your breasts and your crotch covered, There you drop everything and act like it is the most ordinary thing in the world that everyone is suddenly walking around [...]
by Peter Lunenfeld
Nature demanded that we make a choice between immortality and sex, but the Next Nature of the 21st century may not. For help, we can look back to the 20th Century, which had many storytellers playing with the parameters of [...]
by Rachel Armstrong
All buildings today have something in common: They are made using Victorian technologies. This involves blueprints, industrial manufacturing and construction using teams of workers. All this effort results in an inert object, which means there is a one–way transfer of [...]
by Van Mensvoort
This translation of the essay ‘Real Nature is not Green‘ is a special treat from and for our fellow Next Nature explorers in China. We thank the people of the Microwave International New Media Festival, Hong Kong for their translation. [...]
by NextNature.net
A candid conversation with the high priest of popcult and metaphysician of media. From “The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan”, Playboy Magazine, March 1969. © Playboy In 1961, the name of Marshall McLuhan was unknown to everyone but his English students [...]
by Van Mensvoort
We are living in the future and we find it boring. The best place to gather evidence for this claim is the supermarket. To begin with, try and have a fresh look at the word: Supermarket, it is such an [...]
by Van Mensvoort
Have you heard the buzz on virtual money in online games? Some years ago the first virtual millionaire was announced, yet there have also been reports on people being practically enslaved to farm virtual gold. The Chinese government recently announced [...]
by Van Mensvoort
Green electricity, Organic Shampoo, Jaguar convertibles, Red Bull, Bio Beef, Alligator gardening tools, Camel cigarettes and Puma sneakers. Once you develop an eye for it, it is quite astonishing to see how many products and brands – through their name [...]
by Van Mensvoort
An interviewer once asked Pablo Picasso why he paints such strange pictures instead of painting things the way they are. Picasso asks the man what he means. The man then takes out a photograph from his wallet and says, “This [...]
by NextNature.net
Marxist philosopher Slavoj Žižek discusses the ‘naturalization’ of capitalism and how ecology became a new field of capitalist investment. He also argues that the ultimate consequence of recent developments in biogenetics will be the ‘end of nature’ – anyone cares [...]
by NextNature.net
Written by Kevin Kelly, published in The Technium. I claim that technology has its own agenda. What is the evidence that technology as a whole, or the technium as I call it, is autonomous? Because without autonomy, one could argue, [...]
by NextNature.net
By ALEX WRIGHT, Published in NY Times December 2, 2007 The growing popularity of social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Second Life has thrust many of us into a new world where we make “friends” with people we barely [...]
by NextNature.net
For the Venezuelan Magazine Platanoverde, Gabriela Valdivieso y Lope Gutiarrez-Ruiz interviewed artist/scientist Koert van Mensvoort and discussed some of the idea’s behind Next Nature and their implications on art, design, sex, religion and what it means to be human. Who [...]
by Van Mensvoort
Our Environment as an Information Carrier by KOERT VAN MENSVOORT Picture this: it’s 40,000 years ago, and you are an early Homo sapiens. You are standing on the savanna. Look around you. What do you see? No billboards, no traffic [...]
by NextNature.net
from Jean Baudrillard, Selected Writings, ed. Mark Poster (Stanford; Stanford University Press, 1988), pp.166-184. The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth–it is the truth which conceals that there is none. The simulacrum is true. -Ecclesiastes If we were [...]
by NextNature.net
The history of art through the ages reveals a constancy that, by conscious or unconscious applications, provides us with an omnipresent correlation dealing with the philosophical/scientific schools of thought and their paradigmatic changes in relation with contemporary artistic movements. This [...]
by NextNature.net
Written by Joop de Boer from Studio Golfstromen – strategy, planning and design on the city. In the virtual world ‘Second Life’ everything is possible. That’s most obvious in the way how space is organized. There is no government which [...]
by NextNature.net
John Zerzan, published in Green Anarchy issue #24 – Spring/Summer 2007 The rapidly mounting toll of modern life is worse than we could have imagined. A metamorphosis rushes onward, changing the texture of living, the whole feel of things. In [...]
by NextNature.net
Die Natur verändert sich mit uns (English version: Exploring Next Nature) by Koert van Mensvoort, published in Entry Paradise, Neue Welten des Designs, Gerhard Seltman, Werner Lippert (Editors), Birkhauser, ISBN: 3764376953. Fast jeder liebt die Natur. Doch was heißt das [...]
by NextNature.net
Nature is not what it used to be. Or at least that is what we may think, when we look at the way humans and their technologies have treated nature. When we speak of “nature”, however, we are essentially talking [...]
by NextNature.net
Written by Debbie Mollenhagen PART 1: FROM LINEAR TO CIRCULAR Designer living has become designing life. I often ask myself: did it taste like the real thing? But when I open my eyes I see a world where plastic grows [...]
by NextNature.net
McKenzie Wark, published in Next Nature Paperback, 2005 There are people who think what makes a good wine comes from nature – factors like rain and soil and temperature. Then there are those who think it’s a matter of second [...]
by NextNature.net
Mark Weiser (originally written for ACM Interactions). What is the metaphor for the computer of the future? The intelligent agent? The television (multimedia)? The 3-D graphics world (virtual reality)? The StarTrek ubiquitous voice computer? The GUI desktop, honed and refined? [...]
by NextNature.net
Written by Werner Lippert & Peter Wippermann, Curators of the Entryparadise exhibition (26/8 until 3/12, 2006, at Kohlenwäsche, Zollverein) Design is about to undergo a paradigm shift – the extent to which new technologies have been intervening in the constructive, [...]
by NextNature.net
Lecture spoken by Henk Oosterling at Biggest Visual Powershow, Zollverein Essen, Germany, 23 June 2006 Damen und Herrn, Next Nature, Nächste Natur ist ein Pleonasmus, ein überflüssiger Ausdruck. Heutzutage ist Natur immer Nächst. Es gibt auch kein Gegensatz zwischen Nature [...]
by Van Mensvoort
The first essay ever written on Next Nature, published in Next Nature Pocket and in Entry Paradise, New Design Worlds. (download pdf) (German version: Erkundungen im Nächste Natur). In this article, we explore and redefine our notion of nature. We [...]