One title that's been on my "must find" list for a long time is Inflatocookbook, a 1971 self-published manifesto and how-to manual for inflatable architecture by the San Francisco-based art collective known as Ant Farm. I just found a pdf version at Let's Remake, which makes me want it even more.
Three quarters of the way in, there's this hilarious drawing/proposal, labeled "Fantasy," that involves installing "electro impulse wires" into a fetus's brain to facilitate communication or something:
At first medical confirmation of pregnancy MD unties mothers umbilical cord and inserts electro impulse wires that grow into embryo's cranium during gestation. Info cassetes are programmed by parents after 9mo and total recall Mother may communicate by head phonesHuh wha? Info cassettes? Electro impulses to the embryo's cranium? Do I need to mention that this Matrix-ian futurism and utter cluelessness about the female anatomy was cooked up by hippies living in a plastic bubble? Yes, yes, I do.
Because otherwise, people might think the idea came from a huckster with a dubious PhD who got it from a UFO abductee he heard on the radio. And that'd be just crazy.
Inflatocookbook is part of The Library For Radiant Optimism Let's Re-Make The World collection [letsremake.info via thingsmagazine]
Previously: Kohoutek: The Dollhouse of the Future, by Ant Farm
For some reason I immediately have the temptation to Photoshop the black outline of a pregnant woman on a colored background with white earbuds running to where the baby's head would be...
Obviously we'd have to update the name for the 21st century... "iPod Gyno 8mb", anyone?