Lexicon

Abject
Accretion
Actant
Aeration
Aerobic
Algae-boosted
Animal
Anthropomorphism
Anti-Continuous Construction
Apocalypse
Aquaculture
Aquanaut
Ark
Artificial Intelligence
Autopoiesis
Assemblages
Asymmetry
Atrophy
Attraction
Autarchy
Automata
Automation
Autosymbiosis
Bambassador
Bathyscaphe
Bioconurbation
Biomedia
Bionics
Biosphere
Biotechnique
By-product
Capacity
Actant
Coisolation
Composting
Conservative Surgery
Consumer Envelope
Consumption
Continuous Construction
Conurbation
Correalism
Cultural_Memory
Cybernetics
Cybertecture
Cyborg
Dispositif
Diving Saucer
Dross
Earthship
Ecocatastrophe
Effluvium
Egosphere
End-use
Entanglement
Eutopia
Feedback
Foam
Folk
Gadget
Garbage House
Green Cyborg
Heuristic
Hoard
Holism
Homogenization of Desire
Hostile
Human Affect
Hybridized Folk
Hydroponic
Hyper-Materialism
Information Economy
Inner Space
Interama
Intra-Uterine
Maque
Megalopolis
Min-use
Mobility
Monorail
Multi-Hinge
Non-Design
Oceanaut
Oppositional Consciousness
Organic
Ouroboros
Panarchy
Parasite
Perceived Continuation
Permanence
Place
Prototype
Post-Animal
Reclamation
RI: Data Farms
RI: Garbage and Animals
RI:Shipbreaking
RI: Toxic Sublime
Sampling
Scale
Sensing Structure
Simulacrum
Simulation
Soft Energy
Spaceship Earth
Submersible
Superwindow
Symbiosis
Synthetic Environment
Technocratic
Technological Heredity
Technological Sublime
Telechirics
The Sublime
Thermal Panel
Actant
Thing-Power
Thinking Machines
Tool
Toxic Withdrawal
Turbulence
UV-Transparent Film
Vibrant Matter
Waste
Work

Atrophy

Takis Zenetos discusses the network of the future city and the highly machine integrated lifestyle of its inhabitants in his article City of the Future. Zenetos proposes the usage of posture chairs, which carry out the essential processes for human survival while the body becomes secondary to the mind. Zenetos hypothesizes that every person will be outfitted with a device at birth and their bodies will slowly degenerate or fail to develop but their brains will remain the control center for every bodily function performed by the chair. He also suggests that the increasingly sedentary lifestyle will develop an increasingly leisure lifestyle with increased brain activity. People will actually gain more control over their environment through simulation and endless possibilities in social engagement. Thoughts dreams and aspirations can be materialized in an artificial environment, which imitate even the simplest of experiences. As humans increasingly lose control of their bodies by failing to use them independently of their posture chairs, activities like walking will become leisure activity rather than necessity. There is great fear that the loss of human control over one’s body will result in the diminishment of individual thought as humans float around in their chairs and processes are carried out for them. Their bodies will begin to run in an auto-piloted state giving up freedom to the chair and embracing the hierarchy of the mind over body. The Farallones Institute explains that many suburban individuals are currently losing much of the control over their environment by living in a rural setting but with a lifestyle similar to that of many urbanites. They maintain little control over their natural resources and fail to reach a level of autonomy that is certainly possible when living in such a setting with nature.

1. Takis Ch. Zenetos, “Myths of Low-Density Living” in Architectural Design (April, 1973), pp.247-248.
2. Takis Ch. Zenetos, “Town Planning and Electronics” in Architecture in Greece,Annual Review, No.8 (Athens: 1974) pp. 122.136.
3. Farallones Institute, The Integral Urban House (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1979), pp.1-41.