The fascinating recurrence of the cyclical, and the investigations which aim systematically to bring to light the ‘internal clock' in the succession of technological artefacts, of ideas or of art objects, and to specify the proper time of populations and systems – all of these do not exempt a society from facing up to the question of the orchestration of these cycles. On the contrary. The problem of waste makes it all too obvious that in every society the relative speeds at which innovation, repetition and obliteration, i.e. destruction, occur have to be counterbalanced against one another. It is not just a question of making relative weightings. With the abolition of the category of the open future, which predominated in the machine age under the notion of the linearity of time, all three processes crowd into the extended present. The denser the rate of innovation in the present, the more waste in the material and metaphorical sense is to be expected, and the more problems with waste disposal will have to be solved – likewise in the present. With the rediscovery of the cyclical and the extension of the present, attempts at a social solution have been set in motion to produce mechanisms in time for a new balance between the processes of invention, repetition and throwing away. Inventions, that is technological innovations, are desirable precisely in their unpredictability, but their positive and negative repercussions have to be recognized and controlled as early as possible. In temporal terms, the capacity for prognostication of this early recognition is compressed into a period of technological genesis in which the possibilities already reveal themselves, but can still be worked on and shaped: the time of becoming in the extended present. The problems of waste press for early recognition and prevention, for pre-emption before waste becomes such. But can waste be recognized and disposed of right at the beginning of a curve of innovation? Innovation has to be translated from uncontrolled technological and social growth into planned and rationalized reform. The problem of waste is even harder to handle if it has to be solved at the very beginning of the process of innovation by techniques of avoidance or disposal. From a certain order of magnitude on, the cost of waste disposal can no longer be externalized. More order and control, more management of processes, are on the agenda here too, where everything presses for early recognition, prevention and pre-emption. But what selectivity is required here, and who determines the criteria to be employed? And who will guarantee that with the weeds inherent in the uncontrolled growth the roots of creativity are not removed as well?
From the Future to the Extended Present
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