“Every now and then a man's mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes
THERE’S no time like the present. Equally, there’s no space like presence. Human presence and absence are the alpha and omega of time on earth, and being in abstentia is the general condition of human beings faced with distant opportunities. If there’s a land of opportunity, we’re generally not in it already. If agriculture settled our hunting and gathering natures, industry removed us from our settlements and gave rise to a new kind of urban nomadism. We followed the opportunity. The only problem is, today’s opportunities are truly global. There is no way your place of residence can supply you with all of these opportunities, no matter how connected you are. In the late twentieth century we developed jet travel and intensive business tripping to trawl the global trade winds. As we head towards the middle of a new century, such manic movement seems out of touch with environmental principles.
“Spatializing ourselves is becoming a technical possibility, and not just for politicians or pop stars.”