9.1.1 Thence evolved a mathematics based on the proportion of reciprocal forces, complements, and functions of a mobile, non-static TIME-world. Thus the scientist-philosopher-artist, by the teleogical mechanism of mathematics which contains in its infinite ramifications all the secrets personally contacted by the Yogi, made possible continuity of the expression of the truth beyond "the great wall" of the body and of personal death. (Fuller, 1938, pg. 105)

9.1.2 Past, present, and future have no actual fixed time locus. As discussed in chapter 6, we have assumed a linear model of time for various social, historical, or religious reasons. So pervasive is this linear mode of thinking about time that it is close to impossible to relate a sequence of events in any other way. Complying with this convention for practical reasons, I will address some ideas that may materialise in the future and diverge a bit from the linearity by offering the possible many future projects. Just as I move away from "the body" to Bodies, from "the persona" to Personae, so I move from "the future" to Futures. As McHale states in the opening of The Future of the Future: "Even if Eddington's arrow is constant and the future emerges from the present, the future of that future is also in our present and in those successive presents that in the process of emergence." (McHale, 1969, pg. 19).

9.1.3 This chapter is a summation of all those chapters which precede it, forming a triangle of its own. First, I begin with a microcosmic view, once again with the help of the Phantom Captain, Buckmister Fuller. I discuss how his legacy not only lives on, but that the carbon molecule discovered shortly after his death and named after him, the buckminsterfullerene, is responsible for ushering in an entire new nano-technological era. Second, I put forward that the Information Personae is conceptualised as an agent that will survive the death of computer hardware and thrive in ubiquitous, non-centralised, distributed networks. I briefly describe beta-projects that are planning to use the IP engine: Proxy by Robert Nideffer and the Camillo Memory Theatre by Bruce Robertson and Mark Meadow. The third and final section of this chapter is a brief overview of three future projects I plan to spend the next few years developing: Data Mining People; Community of People With No Time; and Networked Art Marketplace (NAM). These projects are a direct outcome of the research conducted for this thesis and very much inspired by Fuller's long-term vision.

9.1.4 When I was first planning the outline of this thesis, I thought I would end the inclusion of Fuller's work with his death in 1983. But to my surprise I discovered that Fuller's story continues to unfold in the most amazing ways beyond death, and what I have discovered through this continuation has helped inspire a long-term vision of how the Information Personae may continue to live beyond the present computer networks. [top]