Free Change

Modifications describe the causes and conditions of modifications in progress, not the results of a completed modification. As such, modifications are always processes, and never states. What fascinates me since my work with Black Cloud is how different people absorb information about their impact on air quality, and how they change as a result of that information. The participants interacting with Black Cloud Monitors (Pufftrons) are a members of a self-selected crowd and are quite well disposed towards environmental awareness. Nevertheless, I am observing several distinct types of modifications participants engage in. These modifications affect both the participants and their environment, following the pattern of mutual mutation. The modifications describe changes in the relations between humans and environments.

The two fundamental types of modifications are action and inaction. Both action and inaction include several subtypes, both are equally nuanced. Inaction is no less specific than action, it too has specific reasons and specific outcomes. Inaction includes, I speculate, the subtypes of suppression, misdirection, exhaustion and temporal confusion. There are surely more. Action includes, I speculate, the subtypes of anticipation, regeneration, consumption, oppression, sourcing, accumulation, sequestration and sourcing. The types are neither exclusive nor comprehensive.