ABSTRACT
This chapter1 consists of a series of notes and remarks that offer an environmentalist perspective on globalised capitalism, which it characterises using terms such as ‘speed’ and ‘comfort’. It highlights the way in which consumerism claims to enhance, but in practice reduces, our awareness of the ‘immediate now’, or temporal present. This happens because of an increasing pace and frequency of exchange which places us in deference to an always imminent spacetime. This loss of situated presence is referred to here as ‘temporal alienation’. Ironically, this dislocation from a more fully situated and embodied experience also reduces our enchantment with the stockpile of designed products that mediate our busy lives. This outcome affects designers and consumers in similar ways. Whereas the ‘time’ of design practice is dependent on the Western idea of a confidently predictive ‘future’, the ‘time’ of nature should, I propose, be assimilated from our experiences in the situated, embodied ‘now’. This can be justified as follows: if the idea of nature were to be defined exclusively in the past tense it would eventually become inseparable from art, and thereby sentimentalised and lost. If it were to exist only in the future, it would become inseparable from our arrogant faith in technology2 and this would erode its authenticity. If we consider ourselves to be part of nature, then our ‘presence’ is part of the immanence3 of everything else. Unfortunately, whilst it would be desirable to look for the authenticity of (our) nature in the present, consumerism is increasingly tempted to offer us a virtual and unattainable ‘future presence’. In reconciling the practical and theoretical aspects of these ideas, the chapter concludes with some concepts for the design
of a series of novel wristwatches. These ideas are offered as provocations intended to highlight the predicament of designers in the age of entrepreneurship and consumption.
