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 Kevin Kelly
I remember the smoke the most. That pungent smell permeating the camps of tribal people. [...]
by Koert van Mensvoort
At the edge of the woods along the motorway near the Dutch town of Bloemendaal, [...]
by NextNature.net
Lecture spoken by Henk Oosterling at Biggest Visual Powershow, Zollverein Essen, Germany, 23 June 2006
Damen [...]
by NextNature.net
Written by Koert van Mensvoort, published in Next Nature Pocket, 2005 and in Entry Paradise, [...]
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 Koert van Mensvoort
My first razor I got when I was fifteen. It consisted of two blades on a simple metal stick and I remember it gave me a really close and comfortable shave. In the twenty years that have passed since my [...]
by Koert 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 at [...]
by Koert 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 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 Koert 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 [...]
by Koert 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 Koert 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 is my wife!”
Picasso looks [...]
by NextNature.net
In this essay 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 [...]
by Koert van Mensvoort
Fakeness has long been associated with inferiority. Fake Rolexes that break in two weeks, plastic Christmas trees, leaky silicone breasts that cause cancer, imitation caviar. Even the ancient Greeks talked about the phenomenon of fakeness. In the Allegory of the [...]
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 are [...]
by Koert 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 signs, no [...]
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 able to [...]
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 regulates, [...]
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 the [...]
by Koert 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 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 eigentlich? Für [...]
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 nature [...]
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)
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 und [...]
by NextNature.net
Written by Koert van Mensvoort, published in Next Nature Pocket, 2005 and in Entry Paradise, New Design Worlds, 2006. (German version: Erkundungen im Nächste Natur)
(download pdf)
ABSTRACT
In this article, we explore and redefine our notion of nature. We will argue that [...]