FM-2030 (b. Fereidoun M. Esfandiary) pioneered the concept of the Transhuman (transitory human) while teaching at The New School in the mid 1960s. Born in Belgium as the son of a diplomat, FM-2030 lived in 17 countries in the first 11 years of his life–an experience that led him to see himself as a global citizen in a world plagued with irrelevant borders. FM argued that signs of transhumans included physical and mental augmentations including prostheses, reconstructive surgery, intensive use of telecommunications, a cosmopolitan outlook and a globetrotting lifestyle, androgyny (FM predicted gender to be a non-issue by the year 2000), mediated reproduction (such as in vitro fertilisation), absence of religious beliefs, and a rejection of traditional family values. FM emphasized that transhumans are not a movement. Esfandiary legally changed his name in the mid 70s to reinforce his posthuman philosophy:
“conventional names define a person’s past: ancestry, ethnicity, nationality, religion. I am not who I was ten years ago and certainly not who I will be in twenty years. The name 2030 reflects my conviction that the years around 2030 will be a magical time…In 2030 we will be ageless and everyone will have an excellent chance to live forever. 2030 is a dream and a goal.”
FM competed for Iran in the 1948 Olympics in basketball and wrestling. He authored three novels and three futurist books including ”Optimism One,” ”Telespheres” and ”Are You Transhuman?”.
FMs ideas about “nostalgia for the future” are said to have been the inspiration for the stop-motion music video for Ryuichi Sakamoto and Iggy Pop’s song Risky in which director Meiert Avis imagines a love affair between a robot and one of Man Ray’s models in Paris in the late 1930s…
FM-2030 passed away from cancer in 2000, his body was placed in cryonic suspension at the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Scottsdale, Arizona, where it remains today.
A libretto of daily polemics, reflections, and musings on the very defeatist approach to time so dear to S&T, A Thirteenth Month Against Time runs thirty-two days (or pages) in length and acts as an addendum to one’s everyday calendar or diary.
2008 — 32 pages, mimeograph print, offset hand-pasted color stickers, stitched binding, in black case with white foiled print, 21 x 28 cm. Edition of 100.
I Still See Communism Everywhere is a series of short essays and musings on Sharifi’s travels in Iran spanning a range of cultural topics from hashish and uni-brows to self-colonization and westoxication.
2005. 24 Pages, offset with inserted photographs, staple-bound, 24cmx19cm. Designed by Stephane Delgado and Alexandra Ruiz. Edition of 500.
Nader Khalili was a California based humanitarian architect best known for his development of the Geltaftan Earth-and-Fire System known as Ceramic Houses and the Earthbag Construction technique called Super Adobe. In 1991 he founded the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture (Cal-Earth) and was a U.N. consultant for Earth Architecture. Khalili published numerous books on his architectural philosophy & techniques as well as translations of poetry from Rumi, whom he considered instrumental in his design theories. Khalili was a pioneer and leader in the realm of of ethically and socially based architecture.
