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THE PARADOX PROJECT
The Cosanti Foundation is planning to start construction of the Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Complex on the south slopes of Arcosanti. The complex is mainly intended to be the eventual residence and work place for participants in the Paradox Program, those digital "insiders" who are at home on the Internet, working in digital media, developing their nexus with Cyberspace.The Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Complex:
- Loggia
- Greenhouses
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin Cloister
The complex is named after the Jesuit priest and paleontologist who in the 1940s presented the idea of the Noosphere, an anticipation of the Internet and Cyberspace.
"The experience will not be in the domain of hyper-consumption encouraged by our culture and by Cyberspace, but in the domain of frugality. We choose frugality in view of its hold on interiorization and its coherence with the limitations and the glories of the planet.
Since Arcosanti is a place in search of the miniaturized by way of complexity, and since cyberspace is a non-place in search of the complex by way of miniaturization, I am proposing an internship for insider-outsider interaction via the practice of building and living in a non-virtual environment frugally imprinted, a habitat dedicated to urbanization."
--- Paolo Soleri
NEO-MONASTIC INTERNSHIP
The Paradox Project's neo-monastic internship program will offer participants the chance to live, study and work at Arcosanti, with a primary focus on the construction of the Teilhard de Chardin complex. Study and discourse will be encouraged, though Soleri has observed that "we are offering not a contemplative Buddhahood, but an active and less narcissistic 'cement mixer-hood.'" Complete internet connectivity will be offered for personal work and activities, which will be combined with the 5 hour per day, 5 day per week construction schedule.
[ Paolo Soleri's Paradox Paper ]