5.3.1 In 1907, Buckminster Fuller began a chronological record of his life, and in 1917, at the age of twenty two, he named it "Chronofile." Fuller conceived of Chronofile during his participation in World War I, when he served in the Navy as a secret aide to the admiral in command of cruiser transports that carried troops across the Atlantic. After the war, he was charged with amassing a record of the secret records of all movements of the ships and the people on them. He was impressed by the fact that the Navy kept records chronologically rather than by separate categories such as names, dates, or topics. Inspired by the Navy's cataloguing system, Fuller decided to make himself the "special case guinea pig study" in a lifelong research project of an individual born at the end of the nineteenth century, in 1895, the year "the automobiles were introduced, the wireless telegraph and automatic screw machine were invented, and X-rays discovered." (Fuller, 1981, pg.128) Along with his own documentation, Fuller was keenly interested in keeping a record of all technological and scientific inventions of the time. He thought it would be interesting not to cull just attractive sides of his life, but to attempt to keep everything: "I decided to make myself a good case history of such a human being and it meant that I could not be judge of what was valid to put in or not. I must put everything in, so I started a very rigorous record." (Fuller, 1962, pg. 324). He dubbed himself "Guinea Pig B."

5.3.2 In 1927, Fuller became even more ambitious. He decided to commit his entire professional output to dealing with planet Earth in its entirety, its resources and cumulative know-how, rather than harnessing his output for personal advantage; he undertook, in his own words, "to comprehensively protect, support, and advantage all humanity instead of committing my efforts to exclusive advantages of my dependants, myself, my country, my team." (Fuller, 1981, pg. 25)

5.3.3 Fuller knew few, perhaps none, would understand his professional commitment to be a practical one, but since he firmly believed that it was, he worked to leave proof behind affirming this belief, and he proceeded to do so in a scientific fashion. At the end of his life, in addition to the Chronofile, which is considered to be the heart of his archives, he left behind the Dymaxion Index, blueprints, photos, patents, manuscripts and a large amount of random elements. He saved all his correspondences, sketches, doodles made during his meetings, backs of envelopes and newspaper-edged notes-everything possible that was a record of his thought. He saved all films, videos, wire and tape recordings, posters announcing his lectures, awards, mementoes, relevant books, all he published at various stages, all indexes, drafting tools, typewriters, computers furniture, file cabinets, paintings, photos, diplomas, and cartoons. He also kept an inventory of World Resources, Human Trends and Needs, and all the World Game records. The World Game was one of the first computer game concepts whose goal was to educate global thinking. Collection of data of World Resources, Human Trends and Needs was to be used for this purpose. He assures his readers that the files includes many unflattering items such as notices from the sheriff and letters from those who considered him a crank, crook, and charlatan. (McLuhan, ed., 1967, pg. 75)

5.3.4 The output during Fuller's lifetime documented in the Chronofile is astounding: three hundred thousand geodesic domes built around the world, five million Dymaxion World maps, not to mention twenty six published books and twenty eight patents. It is important to note that he did not believe in hiring professional public relations agents or agencies, publishing bureaus, sales people, or promotional workers of any kind. Yet, towards end of his life, he did have a type of a non-profit cottage-industry operation with many working on the Chronofile. Ironically, this operation is not well documented or recorded, but there are enough people who have survived it to tell the story. [2]

5.3.5 Collecting and archiving for Fuller did not stop with himself, but extended out to data collection of world resources as well, which became a more ambitious project with the introduction of computer technologies:

5.3.6 I proposed that, on this stretched out reliably accurate, world map of our Spaceship Earth, a great world logistics game be played by introducing into the computers al the known inventory and whereabouts of the various metaphysical and physical resources of the Earth. This inventory, which has taken forty years to develop to high perfection, is now housed at my Southern Illinois University headquarters. (Fuller, 1969, pg. 112)

5.3.7 The Geoscope, envisioned to disseminate information about the status of the Spaceship Earth, never materialised, but the World Game did, and it continues to be played today. Fuller is a great example of someone who progressively gets more and more ambitious to document not only himself but the world around him in the form of a database. With the advent of the computer he had plans to document all of Earth's data, and although he did not succeed during his lifetime, Fuller would be pleased to see that there is a massive collective effort to document every aspect of our lives today, from our molecular and cellular structure to all of our acquired knowledge throughout history. [top]