Boundless

7Mobility: Flow | Mobile Technologies | Environments

“The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.”

—Mark Weiser, CTO Xerox PARC (1991)

Given that movement is life and vice versa, movement and success go hand in hand. We describe someone who's doing well as being on the move, on their way up, moving and shaking, really going places. By contrast, those who aren't doing so well are often thought of as being stuck or bogged down, at a standstill and getting nowhere.

And it's not just metaphorical. As individuals, our relationship to movement really does help to define where we fit in the social pecking order, from least to most fortunate; at one end of the spectrum are those with little or no control over their own movement or that of anyone else. This includes those who are denied movement, such as prison inmates; those who are unable to move themselves, such as the severely disabled; and also those who, conversely, are forced to move, such as migrant workers and the victims of human trafficking. And at the other end are those who can choose to stay or to go, who can summon others to them, and who show off their control over movement through ownership and collection of its most extravagant and luxurious symbols: exotic cars, thoroughbred horses, super-yachts, and private planes. And in between are all sorts of subtle clues regarding rank provided by mode and duration ...