They walked down the stairs of the tubestation. Paul discreetly produced a laminated travel pass from an inner jacket pocket. "The human condition is over. Nature is over. Art is over. Consciousness is ductile. Science is an infinite powder keg. We confront a new reality formerly obscured by the inbuilt limits of mammalian primates. We must create work which brings this new reality to the surface, a sequence of seemingly gratuitous gestures which will form in their aggregate the consciousness of posthumanity." Paul’s limpid gaze grew more intense. "At the same time, politically, we must not shatter the fragile surface tension of an aging human civilization which pretends to Utopian tranquility but is secretly traumatized beyond all possibility of healing. Beneath the repellent husk of the dying humanist agenda, we must systematically alter the physiological basis of cognition and the state of culture, and bear an honest, objective, and unpretentious witness to the results. That is the basic nature of our program as artificers."