Next Nature: Nature caused by human culture
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Do we still have genuine experiences of nature or are we living in a picture of it? Real nature is wild, unpredictable, inaccessible, overwhelming, terrifying, infinite and primitive. The average Western person is more concerned about the mortgage interest deduction than about hurricanes or floods.
The average child knows more logos and brands than bird or tree species. Is this our next nature? Do we control the world economy? Do you control the viruses and spyware on your computer? Hypoallergenic design cats are already on the market. Prehistoric woods are being laid out at locations designated by politicians; our image of Nature is being carefully constructed as a recreational simulation. It’s set-building for Sunday afternoon, Disneyland for grown-ups. In order to avoid spoiling of the landscape, mobile telephone antenna masts are disguised as a pine trees. This isn’t nature. At best, it is a picture of nature. It is an illustration, like a landscape painting hanging above the sofa. Greener grass: you get used to it.
A new image of Nature is arising. What does it look like, and how can we see it? Is it a picture of old-fashioned nature, or a practically functioning new form? Now that motorways, airports, websites and supermarkets have become natural environments for us, they are being more and more systematically produced and copied. Recognizability ensures an image that is true to nature. Bureaucratic structures, surveillance models, and strategies to promote a thriving economy are becoming visible.
More and more, trees, plants, animals, atoms and the climate are determined by human beings. At the same time, our systems are outgrowing us: we’re seeing genetic surprises, wild systems, autonomous machines and beautiful black flowers.
Ambient intelligence, tissue engineering, nanotechnology, augmented reality, and biotechnology are a few of the new disciplines with which we are entering our future. All these disciplines are radically encroaching on our concept of ‘what is natural’. They come together in the category of ‘Next Nature’. Next nature is the nature caused by human culture. Next nature is real nature. It is not a picture or a simulation of a long-lost phenomenon: nature changes along with us.
We are entering a mysterious magic garden which surprises us, amazes us, sometimes crushes us and is sometimes favorably disposed toward us. We must give things new meanings in order to define our place: we must resymbolize. We are wading around like newborn children in what we have created. We will have to fight our battle with ‘Nature’ anew. Natural disasters become cultural disasters. We will get the nature we deserve.
