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

Inner Space

“Inner Space”1 is a term proposed by John McHale in his 1967 article “The Future of the Future: Inner Space” to describe the spaces within the Earth’s planetary edge. Opposite of “Outer Space” and distinct from the more commonly inhabited spaces of the Earth’s surface, Inner Space explorations would include undersea explorations, spelunking (caving), or excavatory explorations underground. The Earth’s Inner Space is often hostile to human life, and the term also suggests the occupiable (architectural) spaces within the protective and life-sustaining hardware2 usually needed for humans to safely explore or inhabit such spaces, such as the interior space of a submarine, or the interiors of Jacques Cousteau’s undersea work stations Conshelf One, Two & Three. “Inner Space” explorations of the Earth’s seas and oceans McHale calls “The Future” of scientific and societal development and “our manner of living”, due to what he believes to be the vast, yet untapped potential of undersea resources. “In terms of space, resources, and exploratory challenge”, McHale writes, “it is rather like having another world at our disposal”, wording that is, probably inadvertently, rather alarming. The same attitude of indiscriminate resource plunder that led to the large-scale disposal of much of our finite terrestrial resources brought into the oceans would surely dispose of this Inner Space as well.

1. John McHale, “The Future of the Future: Inner Space.” Architectural Design 37 (February, 1967), p. 78.
2. Ibid.