Natasha vita-more gazed up from a dormant volcano’s pit and felt she was inside her vagina. It was 1981, and she had just experienced an ectopic pregnancy in Japan.  Subsequently, and perhaps prematurely, accepting a role in the film Sleeping Goddess, Waking Muse, Vita-More had set off to the gorgeous Hawaiian landscapes. Inside that pit, mourning her body and her baby, she heard the universe echo. Inspiring a revelation that human enhancements could be made through emerging technologies, Vita-More published the Transhumanist Arts Statement a few years later, a manifesto championing emotional freedom as a vital cog of the transhumanist’s life.
    Transhumanism is a cultural and scientific movement embracing human augmentation via life extension, genetic engineering, architected realities, and the adoption of nano and biotechnology. Vita-More has focused her work exploring this self-propelled evolution and its inherent ethical questions. She serves as Chairman of humanity+, an organization that promotes morally conscious technological integration. Her next project involves compiling an anthology of hard-hitting transhumanist figures like Dave Criswell, Aubrey de Grey, Marvin Minsky, and Eric Drexler. Beyond the mind-blowing science and the philosophical pondering, Vita-More’s fundamental message is clear: we should embellish our aliveness. For that, she says, is love.

In a nutshell, what is it that you’re working on right now?
I’m working on my Ph.D., presenting a concept called life expansion. It’s media, so it’s dealing with the theoretical and practice-based approach to human enhancement for the explicit aim of extending life chronologically and biologically, while looking at other platforms for existence, such as computational platforms and others yet to be developed. I’m writing a framework for designers, artists, and individuals in humanities and social sciences to foster better understanding of what this whole human enhancement is—that it’s not just appending the body—it’s actually about an evolution of our species.
What will be the one major development that will change how we live in our world?The main thing that will change for us are the environments in which we exist. We have real-time virtuality today. We’ll have different types of virtuality and simulated environments. We’ll also see multiplicity of the self. One agency or one identity will have multiple environments, so we will have to learn how to develop a stronger sense of initial cybernetic approach in steering split personalities or sub-personalities. For example, I’m talking to you now, and there’s a part of me that is still thinking about a movie I was just watching called Rudy. Have you seen that movie?
You mean the football movie?
Isn’t it fabulous? It’s about a guy who was born somewhat in the wrong body. He was short and stocky, but he wanted to be tall and big. He was born in a family that was not academic, and he didn’t have the money to go to a good school like Notre Dame. But he wanted to; that was his desire. So he re-sculpted himself, he made himself fit, and he succeeded. He never became a 6’2” or 6’4” football player, but he developed the love of his teammates by his passion. And that passion is the driving force of our own ability to synthesize. In the future, we will have different sub-personas coexisting. We’ll need a whole new field of transdisciplinary psychology. 
These new platforms, or environments, where we’ll exist will initially be architected by humans: designers, engineers, and developers.  How will living in computational environments change the way that we interact?
I think that what is crucial is how we deal with each other and ourselves. I think we are learning through this world of applications—Twittering and social media—that it doesn’t look so pretty. Certainly the designs are a factor; they’re very elegant as a matter of fact, and the apps are elegant. It’s kind of wonderful to be moving with your head down. But we need to consider how we’re respecting real time, and that this level of integration with the application is creating a type of downward personage. You look down, and you’re closed in this world, which takes us around the planet and through time. But there’s something about stopping to smell the roses. There’s something about the Zen, this life that we have, that I think will become very paramount in the architecture of this phase we will go through when we have multiple selves. I think that the architects, programmers and designers of these different realities must be mindful of coexisting, stepping away from the rudeness or the lack of care that social media has promoted.
You’ve worked myriad professional roles. Who have you been?
I’ll give it to you in a snapshot. First job: I was a model; I modeled for a Kodak photographer.
How long did that last?
18 to 20. I’m not tall. I’m petite, so I was a face model.
Oh really? For some reason, I thought you were tall.
No, I’m only 5’3 1/2”. I’m petite. So that was a deterrent. Now it would not be a deterrent, but at that time I looked too exotic and I was too petite to be a model, and anyway, my love was design. I started my first business in 1971, a commercial art design firm. Then, I taught at Rocky Mountain College in Telluride. I had also had a silk-screening company and a gallery. Then I moved to Hollywood and made short films and videos and exhibited in Women In Video for the United States Film Festival. And from there, I wrote for The Hollywood Reporter. I got my legal certification, my paralegal, which then helped women who were financially struggling.
We all need a backup plan.
A backup plan, yes! Paralegal. Very stable, learned a lot about law, which is very important. I worked in Japan as a dancer, which was fun.
Well, just throw that one in the mix!
Here’s the best one, I was in the Merchant Marines.
What?!
Yes, I was in the Merchant Marines, I was the chief chef on voyage vessels. I was also a pastry chef at a French restaurant in Telluride that a friend of mine owned. I used to make croissants fresh everyday in Telluride, in my home. I don’t do that now. I’m more on the Paleo Diet these days, so it’s just basics. What I’m interested in now is lecturing. I love teaching. I love talking about ideas.
Why have women struggled to break out of the spaces that are culturally available for us?
On a global scale, I think that it’s very difficult to coexist in a time where we think about women having gone through this glass ceiling, but still, in some countries, [women’s] genitals are being mutilated or sewn up, and it’s just so frustrating.
I wonder how it, within the idea of transhumanism, might open up a world of possibility when we remove chronological time and reset the biological clock?
Yes, transhumanism will redefine the issues of life or death, and not just the process of death, but what it means to us in a philosophical and psychological way. We’ll start thinking more in quantum time, looking forward and looking back. I think the dream state does that quite beautifully. What will matter more than anything is the passion and desire you have at a particular time in life. I didn’t want children until I was in my late 40s, and at that time I couldn’t get pregnant. I was pregnant at 30, and the baby died, and I almost died, too. Why can’t you bring up children when you are best suited? Not everyone thinks alike, and not everyone wants to achieve certain things in this very classified life.
How will society’s perception change as our outward appearances aren’t determined by age?
Everything has been determined by our biological clock, hasn’t it? We take up these roles. If you’ve got grey hair and a belly, you’re a grandfather. You think, ‘Oh, he must be a really sweet guy.’ Well, he could be a pervert. It’s so funny, our outward appearance does not mirror our inside consciousness, awareness, and psychology, so I think it’s going to be really interesting. I mean, a whole spectrum of ways that we deal with each other will change! It might be commonplace for someone who is 200 to marry someone who is 21.
How will the metabrain look, if your brain runs not just via biologics, but also via mechanics?
The brain currently looks like an electrical circuitry. Ideas are just messages. What would we look like from the outside? Who is an upload? It could be designed to look very interesting. I could look exactly like I do now in my wet meat body. I could look very human, or I could be invisible. We already have these different airwaves that are invisible, so a personal identity could be seemingly invisible. If you go into Second Life, you can see a number of different types of avatars. Some look like shapes, forms, symbols, animals, people… There’s no limitation on what we might look like.
Before we make that leap, what about wearable technologies? I feel like we’re almost there with smartphones…
Most wearable technology designers are into fashion, and some of their designs are absolutely stunning. We’re designing these sub-bodies, these other types of bodies. It’ll be like designing clothes: you’d have your Versace or Tom Ford. And listen, you can’t get any better than Tom Ford. And Donna Karan is excellent, Calvin Klein, et cetera. We’ll have magnificent designs.
How do we deal with the haves and the have-nots of information, those who are fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time?
This issue is historical throughout human civilization. There have been those who have had access to water, and housing, and agriculture and resources predating Homo sapiens. Today, the right place at the right time may not be America, mind you; it could be Africa in 10 years from now. No one knows. The U.S. was just taken off the high end of the stock market, so we have to consider that things do change. Now we have technology and simulating nanotechnology, re-assemblers, and molecular manufacturing, so the adoption times could be minutes instead of centuries, like with older technology. If that does come about, the issue of the haves and the have-nots will be a thing of the past.
    The one area here that’s very important when considering future politics is a phrase called ‘morphological freedom.’ Morphological freedom is going to sing really loud as a movement. If there are drugs that help people not die, people will demand that they have them, or make them themselves in open bio labs.
How do we face the problems of overpopulation as we continue to live longer?
If everyone alive today did not die and kept on reproducing eventually we would hit a threshold. And things break when you hit a threshold, so what does that mean? I think it means something very glorious and wonderful: space exploration. We have not been out in space for so long. I did the pre-astronauts training for space camp in the 1980s. I loved it. I earned my wings because I went through space camp and manned two simulated missions. In one I had to build a hologram. Of course, they give you instructions. It was great.
How do you build a hologram?
You have to use a laser, and you have all the tools there. It’s not that difficult.
We’ve really moved away from space exploration in the last few decades. Except China. They seem to be moving into it.
I think that when we’re looking at the financial situation across the planet, looking at Greece, looking at, oh everywhere, it’s horrible. We need a new industry, something to be excited about! We also need to be mining space, the asteroids and the asteroid belt. To me it’s like, ‘Duh.’ Okay, yes, it’s very expensive, but there are a lot of very wealthy people on this planet, and if they knew that they could develop the industry of space, space education, space entertainment, space Olympics, space agriculture, mining… I’m quite sure within a hundred years we will definitely be inhabiting near Earth’s orbit, and certainly mining the asteroids, and there will be a Hilton on the moon. I have no doubt about it.
If I told you I wanted to live more, not because I think I deserve more than others, but because I still have experiences and lives left to live, what would you tell me?
That’s a darn good reason; that’s my reason. Because I’m an explorer at heart, and there’s so much I want to do. And I will write a book about my life at some point, but not quite yet. I feel like I’ve lived so many different lives, and not half-assed. I’ve lived them passionately and deeply and completely. And in order to do that, I had to have the freedom to know that it wasn’t forever, that I could be in the Merchant Marines for a few years and totally do it. I could be in the film industry as an actress and really do it. I could be a model or I could be a teacher. I could be… Well, I haven’t been an astronaut yet. But I can be a landscape architect and plant 29 trees in my yard and do it passionately.
What’s your philosophy on living life, as opposed to evading death?
I think it’s your responsibility to invest in your own life. That’s where self-efficacy comes in. You’re given this gift of life, of being alive. Think of all the babies that don’t make it, all the children that die, and you are alive. I mean, I think that we need to start embellishing the fact that we are alive. And who knows if there is a heaven or hell? Who knows anything other than you are alive now? And for goodness’ sake, love it, embrace it, enjoy it. And that, to me, is love.