The past is always present. What about the future? History is not an unambiguous harmonic progression, but rather a murmur of juxtaposed, interacting states of the past, present and future. 

 

Atavisms are traits of the past that reappear after skipping intervening generations. If we extend this with characteristics from the future that manifest themselves in the present, we can speak of ‘proto-atavisms’.

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LongNow wants to shape this unstable state between past, present and future by looking for places or objects that contain multitemporality.