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In Mary Mattingly's vision of the future, the trappings of civilization have been largely set aside, and a generation of nomadic postconsumers roam the landscape of a water-bound Eden. These "navigators," as she calls them, busy themselves creating and utilizing adaptive technology. The look of the khaki outfits that Mattingly's characters wear is based on her investigations into the anthropology of fashion and architecture. These "wearable homes," she imagines, are made of temperature-adjusting, weatherproof fabric, and incorporate microdevices that monitor the external atmosphere and the health of the wearer. Her richly imagined future also includes an online religion (The New Way), a novel method of calculating time (New Time), and an invented lexicon of words and symbols. Mattingly's images—digitally created composite photographs—are replete with gaudy sunsets, and do not entirely disguise their artifice. This attention brought to the artist's own hand mirrors the activities of her characters, whose boundless creativity is their only true survival mechanism.

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