Supposing that
“ (…)The thing is an outlined imposition we make on specific regions of the world so that these regions become comprehensible and facilitate our purposes and projects(…)” [1]
SPACE SUIT should be undoubtedly classified as ‘the thing’, both in its literal-technological and metaphorical-sociological dimension. Worn to allow humans exploring cosmic regions, protects them from solar radiation and micro-meteoroids. Space suit is equipped with helmet with circulating oxygen preventing from fogging, water in the inner layer of the suit cools or warms up the astronaut’s body, backpack provides oxygen and removes carbon dioxide. In the post-human landscape set up in “Seksmisja” sci-fi polish movie, this situation is reversed. Women living underground in their artificial, technologically controlled environment use space suits when they walk out on the Earth surface. Space uniforms let them learn to understand what by humans is taken for granted but what for post human women feels alien, not legible and nerve-racking. Such a ‘space suit’ could be very powerful design feminist tool.
Having perfectly ‘technologically-sociologically’ developed second skin preventing from being harmed by any external circumstances would ease individuals to break their subconscious limits, release from phobias and misconceptions, resulting in the great exploration of human mind and soul. Insurmountable barriers would stop to exist, instead humans would come closer to the pure world of true desires, ideas, dreams. And this would be the design tool boosting the confidence and power to act. Hence, these not familiar regions: lands, people, jobs, projects could be more easily domesticated thanks to the tool that would give a courage to deal with issues that could appear too overwhelming at the first glance, but feasible, fascinating and educating in the final confrontation.
KB
[1] Elizabeth Grosz, ‘The Thing’, in Architecture from the Outside: Essays on Virtual and Real Space, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.
archandphil 
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