Page:Knight (1975) Past, Future and the Problem of Communication in the Work of V V Khlebnikov.djvu/102

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94

Let air—sailing be one foot, and the gift of spark—speech the other foot of humanity. What next: we'll see.

Introduce monkeys into the family of man and give them certain rights of citizenship.

Establish a special empty island (Iceland, for example), as a place for uninterrupted war between those of all countries who want it. (Splendid death).

Introduce as such order and system into the business of giving birth as now prevails in the business of killing; birth-armies, in limited numbers.

Replace the concept of space everywhere with the concept of time—for example, were between the generations of the terrestrial sphere, wars of time-entrenchments.

It would be impossible to avoid destroying trains, if their movements were limited only to within space...

A re-organizstion of housing rights. The right to rooms in any town, and the right to change one's dwelling-place continually (the right to a home independently of the dimensions of space). Airborne mankind does not let private space restrict his property.

Construct houses in the form of iron lattice—work, so that little mobile dwellings of glass can be inserted anywhere.

Demand that armed groups of people with weapons in their hands refute the opinion of the Futurists—that the entire Terrestrial Globe belongs to them.

Arouse in factory chimney pipes the desire to sing morning praise to the rising sun——whether over the Seine, or in Tokyo, or over the Nile, or in Delhi.

Introduce radio for the transmission of lectures from the Central University to village schools. Any school at the foot of a green hill will receive scientific news, and the teacher will be the ear-trumpet of the attentive village. The language of lightnings as conductor of scientific truth.

Accomplish the transfer of power gradually to the starry sky...

Treat the Earth as a resonant plate, and its capital cities as dust nodules gathered in still waves.

The world may be understood as a light—ray. You are a construction of spaces. We are a construction of time.[1]


  1. SP v pp 158—162.