Much has been written about our dualistic conceptions that image ‘nature’ and ‘culture’ and the ‘designed’ and the ‘natural’ as separate, opposites. Whilst the penetration of human designed technologies into every aspect of life has further collapsed these divisions we still attempt to embody them.

Our enduring inability to let go of such anthropocentric blindnesses prevents us from truly living with and in the world, rather than being alienated from it. What we face today is a deep ontological dilemma that we have to urgently understand in order to ‘re-design’. This necessitates us to develop new images of ourselves – images of what it means to be human that are culturally and socially appropriate, built upon a commitment to the global commons.