RHIZOME DIGEST: 9.13.03

<br />RHIZOME DIGEST: September 13, 2003<br /><br />Content:<br /><br />+announcement+ <br />1. Rob La Frenais: Extremophiles Conference<br />2. Wilfried Agricola de Cologne: INCD media release: Artists around the<br />world speak out for cultural diversity at the WTO's 5th ministerial<br />meeting in Cancun<br /><br />+opportunity+<br />3. Liza Sabater: Creative Commons Moving Image Contest<br /><br />+work+<br />4. Darrin Martin: Lesson plans: learning net<br />5. Christina McPhee: Slipstream Konza<br /><br />+feature+<br />6. Patrick Lichty, Michael Watson, Curt Cloninger: burning man ™<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />1.<br /><br />Date: 9.10.03<br />From: Rob La Frenais (roblafrenais@clara.co.uk)<br />Subject: Extremophiles Conference<br /><br />Extremophiles - surviving in space<br /><br />As well as recently being the closest to us for 6000 years, the planet<br />Mars, glowing red in the night sky, will be invaded by numerous robotic<br />probes in the next few years. Is it now time for humans to go there, and<br />if so how will they survive the long journey in zero gravity? Should we<br />?take gravity with us&#xB9;, or augment the body and become space-faring<br />cyborgs? It&#xB9;s a debate that is entering the digital world, the world of<br />art and performance as well as of course those with the principal<br />interest: the science world and the space industry.<br /><br />In a new conference at London, England's Royal Institution,<br />Extremophiles, (September 19 2003 2pm) various positions will be on<br />display. Chaired by BBC science correspondent Pallab Ghosh, the<br />conference will explore issues about the survival of the human body and<br />the surrounding technological systems journeying with it into space.<br />Space medic Kevin Fong, who worked on the John Glenn mission for NASA<br />will outline the difficulties of the long voyage, President of the Mars<br />Society Bo Maxwell will argue for artificial gravity as well as analogue<br />earth experiments to accustom us to life on Mars, while media writer,<br />medic and science fiction writer Rachel Armstrong (The Grays Anatomy-<br />Serpents Tail) will advocate the ?Stelarc Solution&#xB9;- augment and even<br />adapt the human body , possibly beyond the point of no return. A sense<br />of reality will be injected by someone who has spent a lot of time in<br />orbital space, veteran cosmonaut and ISS commander Yuri Gidzenko.<br /><br />An artist/technologist with a practical solution is Marko Peljhan, who<br />is co-founding a national space agency &#xAD; the Slovenian Space Agency.<br />Performance art historian Tracey Warr (The Artists Body - Phaidon) will<br />explore the extremes to which artists have submitted their bodies and<br />consider analogous experiences while surviving in space. Finally<br />roboticist and performer Marcel-li Antunez Roca, fresh from starring at<br />Ars Electronica in Linz, will perform Transpermia, an artwork<br />constructed during a zero gravity flight, organised by science-art<br />agency The Arts Catalyst, who also put together Extremophiles at the<br />Royal Institution.<br /><br />www.artscatalyst.org.<br /><br />extremophiles@artscatalyst.org<br />00 44 207 375 3690<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />2.<br /><br />Date: 9.11.03<br />From: Wilfried Agricola de Cologne (agricola-w@netcologne.de)<br />Subject: INCD media release: Artists around the world speak out for<br />cultural diversity at the WTO's 5th ministerial meeting in Cancun<br /><br />FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<br /><br />Artists around the world speak out for cultural diversity<br /><br />&quot;.we celebrate and encourage our cultural diversity and embrace and<br />respect our cultural differences.&quot; INCD Artists Letter<br /><br />Sept 10, 2003 - The International Network for Cultural Diversity (INCD -<br />www.incd.net) will launch the Artists Letter on Cultural Diversity<br />during the World Trade Organization's (WTO) 5th Ministerial Meeting in<br />Cancun, Mexico. Leading Mexican actress Ang&#xE9;lica Arag&#xF3;n will release the<br />letter at a Public Forum being held on September 12th.<br /><br />The INCD brings together artists and cultural organizations from 70<br />countries who are working together to counter the negative effects of<br />globalization on our cultures.<br /><br />Signed by artists from 15 countries and all of the cultural sectors, the<br />Artists Letter calls on governments to protect cultures from the<br />infringements of trade agreements, to work to encourage more balanced<br />exchanges between cultures and to recognize the unique status of<br />cultural expression as a reflection of human identity. It is imperative<br />that culture not be reduced to its economic value as the WTO<br />negotiations threaten to do. Many governments are under pressure to<br />bargain away their cultural identity in the race to liberalize all<br />sectors of the economy.<br /><br />This is why Harry Belafonte, Ingmar Bergman, Nadine Gordimer, Danny<br />Glover, Sam Neill and 36 other artists have added their names to the<br />growing international movement to secure the right of all artists to<br />practice their craft and share the wealth of the world's cultures. The<br />artists also support the proposed new Convention on Cultural Diversity,<br />currently under consideration at UNESCO. This Convention would provide a<br />permanent legal basis for the promotion and protection of cultural<br />diversity and ensure that cultures can thrive in the era of<br />globalization.<br /><br />The Artists Letter is below with the list of the initial signatories.<br />For more information on the artists, please go to<br />www.incd.net/letter/letter.htm<br /><br />Public Forum: <br />Friday, Sept 12, 2003, 10:30-12:30<br />Hotel Best Western Plaze Caribe<br />Tulum Uxmal Lote 19, Cancun Mexico<br />www.incd.net/events/seminars.html<br /><br />Media contacts: <br />Tammy Ballantyne <br />Artists Letter Project<br />tammyb@artslink.co.za<br />cell: 27 83 440 4984<br /><br />Alexis Andrew <br />INCD Associate Coordinator<br />Tel: 1 613 238 3561 ext 17<br />incd@ccarts.ca <br /><br />In Cancun: <br />Garry Neil <br />INCD Coordinator <br />Cell: 1 416 518 1256<br /><br />Rafael Segovia <br />INCD Steering Committee/Mexico<br />Cell: 555.413.0306 <br /><br />AN OPEN LETTER FROM ARTISTS<br /><br />It is time to secure the rights of artists globally. These rights are at<br />risk because international trade courts are ruling on artistic matters.<br /><br />We are artists and citizens of the global village. We come from every<br />community and work in all artistic fields. Through our words, music,<br />films, dance, paintings and plays, in every language on earth, we<br />entertain, inform and engage our fellow citizens in the adventure of<br />being human.<br /><br />It is an exciting time to be an artist. Technologies can overcome<br />physical distance and allow our works to be shared more widely than ever<br />before. We have the potential to exchange and blend our rich diversity<br />of cultural practices in ways our ancestors could only imagine.<br /><br />It is also a dangerous time. Many human conflicts arise from a failure<br />to recognize cultural complexities or from perceived threats to cultural<br />values. The road to security and prosperity requires that we celebrate<br />and encourage our cultural diversity and embrace and respect our<br />cultural differences.<br /><br />Some believe artistic creations are no different from conventional goods<br />and services and they deny or ignore the powerful cultural importance of<br />works of the human imagination. For some of the world's largest<br />corporations, artistic works are commodities to be bought and sold like<br />any other. They seek to dominate the world's markets with homogenized<br />forms of popular culture and thus marginalize artists in many of our<br />communities.<br /><br />Our world of unequal economic relationships has created unequal cultural<br />relationships. We believe governments have a responsibility to resist<br />the economic push by implementing policies that support diverse local<br />artists and cultural producers, and ensure pluralism in the media and<br />the arts. This will create more choice and bring about a greater balance<br />in exchange between cultures. Governments must also preserve threatened<br />cultures and languages, especially those of indigenous peoples.<br /><br />An important struggle between these incompatible visions is underway in<br />trade negotiations. Trade officials negotiate rules that would hasten a<br />global monoculture and make it virtually impossible for communities to<br />support their artists. We oppose these efforts.<br /><br />At the same time, discussions have started within and outside UNESCO to<br />develop a new global Convention on Cultural Diversity to provide a legal<br />foundation for government measures that support cultural diversity and<br />to encourage governments to use that authority domestically. We support<br />this initiative.<br /><br />As artists, we come from different disciplines; as citizens, we come<br />from different countries. But, we are united in our call to the world's<br />leaders: &#xB7; don't bargain away culture in trade talks &#xB7; implement a<br />legally binding Convention on Cultural Diversity &#xB7; use your powers to<br />support diverse local artists and cultural producers &#xB7; help those<br />countries that don't yet have the capacity to bring their stories, music<br />and other artistic expressions to audiences everywhere.<br /><br />&quot;I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to<br />be stuffed. I want the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house<br />as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.&quot;<br />Mahatma Gandhi, from the wall of his ashram at Ahmedabad.<br /><br />SIGNATORIES <br />Eugenio Aguirre (Mexico, writer)<br />Bibi Andersson (Sweden, actress)<br />Ang&#xE9;lica Arag&#xF3;n (Mexico, actress)<br />Homero Aridjis (Mexcio, writer)<br />Gillian Armstrong A.M. (Australia, Film Director)<br />Margaret Atwood (Canada, writer)<br />Ingmar Bergman (Sweden, film maker)<br />Harry Belafonte (USA, actor/ musician)<br />Michael Boyd (UK, Head, Royal Shakespeare Company)<br />Agricola de Cologne (Germany, New Media artist)<br />Bec Dean (Australia, Exhibition Coordinator/Visual arts)<br />Salvador Elizondo (Mexico, writer)<br />Karel Glastra van Loon (Netherlands, writer)<br />Danny Glover (USA, Actor)<br />Nadine Gordimer (South Africa, writer)<br />Sin Cha Hong (Korea, Dancer/writer)<br />Byungki Hwang (Korea, Composer/Musician)<br />Kwon Taek Im (Korea, Film director)<br />Jung Rae Jo (Korea, Writer)<br />Sumi Jo (Korea, Vocalist - Opera)<br />Tom Keneally (Australia, writer)<br />Chiha Kim (Korea, Poet/Writer)<br />Pierre Larauza (France, Architect videographer)<br />Youn Taek Lee (Korea, Drama producer)<br />Robert Lepage (Canada, Film/theatre director)<br />Igor Marinkovic (Serbia, Visual artist)<br />Carlos Monsivais (Mexico, writer)<br />Carlos Montemayor (Mexico, writer)<br />Sam Neill (New Zealand, Actor)<br />Abraham Oceranski (Mexico, theatre director)<br />Michael Ondaatje (Canada, writer)<br />Victor Hugo Rasc&#xF3;n (Mexico, writer)<br />Mar&#xED;a Rojo (Mexico, actress)<br />Volker Schl&#xF6;ndorff (Germany, Film director)<br />Tom&#xE1;s Segovia (Mexico, writer)<br />Tang Shu-wing (Hong Kong, Theatre director)<br />Danis Tanovic (Croatia, film director )<br />RH Thomson (Canada, Actor)<br />Antonio Traverso (Australia, Academic, media and video artist)<br />Roger Von Gunten (Mexico, painter)<br /><br />ends <br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />3.<br /><br />Date: 9.11.03<br />From: Liza Sabater (liza@culturekitchen.com)<br />Subject: Creative Commons Moving Image Contest<br /> <br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://creativecommons.org/contest/">http://creativecommons.org/contest/</a><br /><br />Creative Commons Moving Image Contest<br /><br />A contest to create a 2-minute moving image that describes Creative<br />Commons' mission.<br /><br />With &quot; Get Creative &quot;, our Flash movie, we took a shot at explaining<br />Creative Commons' mission. We're fond of it, but we think you could do<br />an even better job. We now invite you to enter the Creative Commons<br />Moving Image Contest , a competition to create a 2-minute moving image<br />that articulates the Creative Commons mission.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />4.<br /><br />Date: 9.08.2003 <br />From: Darrin Martin (martind@alfred.edu)<br />Subject: Lesson plans: learning net<br /> <br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.eai.org/lessons">http://www.eai.org/lessons</a><br /><br />In Burns and Martin's recent organic-exchange workshops, the psychic has<br />moved onto the realm of the corporeal, opening the potentially new field<br />of paraphysiology. Exhausting the performative possibilities of<br />psychological inquiry via media therapy, electroshock treatments and<br />paranormal intervention, their hybrid methods guided by other worldly<br />beings have evolved into promising new treatments via physicality<br />amalgamation and post-sexual fission. Begun in underwater think tanks<br />and laid out on plasma screen syllabi, the professors of dynamic group<br />learning are preparing to open mobility schools where willing<br />participants free themselves from the conventions of everyday bodily<br />activities as part of an alternative learning process. However, due to<br />the popularity of airport and wireless communication these new corporeal<br />identities of psychic phenomena may in fact become entangled within net<br />manifestation. Through on-line resources, participants are guided<br />through therapeutic conversions developed to dissolve psi-plasmic<br />blockage in order to reap the harvest of accelerated information<br />exchange.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />5.<br /><br />Date: 9.12.03<br />From: Christina McPhee (christina112@earthlink.net)<br />Subject: Slipstream Konza<br /><br />:SLIPSTREAM KONZA: Digital Prints in a Data Landscape<br /><br />Slipstream Konza is an art/science collaborative project that addresses<br />aesthetics of digital data expression of land as a breathing ecosystem.<br />Slipstream Konza uses the time based data stream of carbon flux as a<br />basis for a generative, rhythmic, virtual expression of sound and image<br />in net based and spatial installation.<br /><br />(<a rel="nofollow" href="http://christinamcphee.net">http://christinamcphee.net</a>)<br /><br />(<a rel="nofollow" href="http://christinamcphee.net/texts/konzasuite.asp">http://christinamcphee.net/texts/konzasuite.asp</a>)<br /><br />Slipstream Konza is complemented by a group of digital prints based on<br />medium format photography shot on location at the Konza Prairie<br />Biological Field Station, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The digital<br />prints of the KONZA series are created from photographs shot at sites of<br />scientific experimentation and instrumentation on the prairie.<br /><br />Remnants of tallgrass prairie in North America are concentrated in an<br />area east of the Rockies where the dry, prevailing winds from the<br />Pacific over the Rockies collides with the moist, warmer air rising<br />north from the Gulf of Mexico. Annual rainfall is around 35 to 40 inches<br />in an area immediately east of the arid high plains (about 10 -15 inches<br />per year). Thanks to the frequent lightening storms as well as human<br />intervention, the tallgrass prairie is a fire based ecosystem: its<br />grasslands are created and perpetuated by frequent intervals of fire,<br />much like the chaparral of California. Without fire, the grassland<br />reverts to a cedar and oak savannah. Intensive biological study of<br />tallgrass prairie has characterized the last thirty years as its range<br />has receded. The prairie is of global interest for research on immediate<br />and long-term climate change.<br /><br />Konza is the Osage term for &#xBD;south wind.? Like breath on a mirror, konza<br />is an evanescent imprint of an invisible dynamic. Prairies worldwide<br />capture and release carbon in a waveform breath. At the threshold of the<br />exchange between atmosphere and surface is the life of the planet; the<br />Konza prairie suggests the layered digital metaphor available in the<br />digital print medium. The KONZA series takes its point of origin from<br />this allegory of the digital as a form of landscape data expression.<br /><br />The overall thrust of the research surrounding Slipstream Konza is to<br />measure carbon flux between the atmosphere and the surface of the<br />grassland ecosystem, on a continuous basis, both in terms of diurnal and<br />annual patterns. Photosynthesis, during the daylight hours, takes carbon<br />from the atmosphere, and at night, the prairie respires carbon from the<br />surface into the atmosphere. There are sites around the globe measuring<br />carbon flux in a variety of ecosystems. The only grassland ecosystem in<br />North America under study in this global research occurs at 4 sites on<br />or near the Konza Prairie Biological Field Station, a UNESCO World<br />Heritage site in northeastern Kansas. The research is funded by the<br />Department of Energy and other federal agencies. Data implementation<br />goals include implications for biological, environmental and land<br />management.<br /><br />Global warming, implicates the increasing atmospheric level of carbon as<br />a primary agent. Nonetheless, the total worldwide carbon budget, which<br />takes into account all known petrochemical usage on an annual basis,<br />shows that terrestrial systems must be absorbing more carbon than we<br />realize. According to the carbon budget mathematical models, carbon<br />concentrations should be increasing faster than they actually are. The<br />hypothesis is that the carbon flux patterns of selected microsystems<br />worldwide may reveal conditions under which more carbon is been absorbed<br />than is being released. On and near Konza Prairie, since 1997, diurnal<br />and annual data are collected as &quot;eddy correlation&quot; or &quot;eddy covariant&quot;<br />flux measurements. From two of the sites, a located on the Rannels Ranch<br />next to the Konza field station, wireless net carries the live data<br />online for collection and analysis.<br /><br />Slipstream Konza does not engage in the conventions of data emulation,<br />or scientific visualization, in order to better understand the data.<br />Yet, the encounter between the human response and the landscape's self<br />expression as data, is of prime importance. The KONZA prints live at<br />that digital intersection. I am interested in the relationship, or<br />dynamic, between the data and the human imagination. The carbon flux on<br />the prairie is a kind of breathing, and it is both useful and powerful<br />to realize that the prairie ecosystem is in itself a living<br />organization.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />6.<br /><br />Date: 9.03.03-9.09.03<br />From: Patrick Lichty (voyd@voyd.com), Michael Watson<br />(michaelw@eleanorrigby.net), Curt Cloninger (curt@lab404.com)<br />Subject: burning man ™<br /><br />Patrick Lichty (voyd@voyd.com) posted:<br /><br />Yes! <br />Let's brand the Burning Man experience!<br />Let's have Burning Man Do-It-Yourself kits!<br />Let's have Burning Man stores in the malls!<br />Let's have a Burning Man line of hiking shoes and survival gear!<br />Burning Man regional film fests!<br />Burning Man Clif Bars!<br /><br />Burning Man-&gt; shark -&gt; jump.<br /><br />I, for one am more than a little disgusted.<br />Sorry for being an old-school purist.<br /><br />&quot;Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Burning Man counterculture seeks social,<br />political influence<br /><br />) Two full-time employees of Black Rock City LLC are helping develop<br />) regional spinoffs beyond those already growing in places like New<br />) York, Seattle, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Austin, Tex., – and making<br />) sure they adhere to the philosophy of the original.<br /><br />)Black Rock Arts Foundation, meanwhile, has been set up to raise<br />)money and to bring radical art to communities nationwide.<br />)Organizers also just distributed what they call a &quot;Burning Man film<br />)festival in a box,&quot; a do-it-yourself kit that they expect will<br />)promote avant-garde cinematography.<br /> <br />) &quot;Many people will have the Burning Man experience and feel a part<br />) of Burning Man without ever coming here,&quot; said Harvey, serially<br />) smoking cigarettes and sipping iced coffee as his aviator<br />) sunglasses turned opaque in the swirling dust. &quot;We are growing at<br />) an exponential rate – just not here.&quot;<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Michael Watson (michaelw@eleanorrigby.net) replied:<br /><br />This was my first time. It was a very multi-faceted/multi-channeled<br />experiece. I guess it depends on which channels you tune into. Most<br />media and about half the attendees seem to focus on the sex, drugs, rock<br />n' roll, and the danger of falling off an art car and getting run over<br />(not suprisingly, these people express concern that the fair is not<br />organized and regulated enough – missing the point completely.) I<br />notice a lot of old timers longing for the good old days (meaningless to<br />me, but good for them.)<br /><br />I choose to tune into the art, the caring and giving community, the idea<br />of living creatively instead of passively, and the possibility of<br />bringing all to a wider audience (why not?)<br /><br />Here are my unpolished descriptions of the projects I saw, mostly with<br />lasers shooting over my head under the waxing moon while mars receded<br />from earth. This thread can be found at<br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://eplaya.burningman.com/viewtopic.php?t=97">http://eplaya.burningman.com/viewtopic.php?t=97</a>. I am waiting for more<br />information on these projects. Maybe I found it more impressive because<br />I went alone, camped away from the crowds, took only water and energy<br />bars, did not have adequate shelter and did not take mind alterning<br />chemicals; it was a sort of desert vision quest for me. After 4 days of<br />sun, dust, and dehydration I was in an altered state.<br /><br />#1) I can not adequately describe this project but will try: a 15 foot<br />high plate steel sculpture, carved with welders tools, with various arms<br />and other projections. Inside is a small gas turbine jet engine which<br />powers flames out the top and through the arm projections. There are<br />many high pressure air valves controlled by computer. Also controlled by<br />computer are various nozzles to inject chemicals into the jet turbine<br />exhaust at various points to produce multi-colored flames. The sound is<br />deafening up close and can be heard from a mile away. It is not pure<br />sound of a jet engine, but a pulsing stacatto sound driven by turning<br />high pressure air and flamable liqued injection valves on and off. What<br />you see is a steel sculpture with intense flames and sound pouring out<br />in a ever-changing pattern, musical in its quality. At one point it<br />looks like the thing goes haywire and flamable liqued pours onto the<br />desert floor and catches fire.<br /><br />#2) In the desert stood a teacher's podium. In front of the podium were<br />arrayed 10 students benches. I came upon this installation at night so<br />it was quiet and dark and I was the only one looking at it. On the<br />teacher's podium was a large TV. The student benches were filled with<br />small TVs facing the large TV. A continuous video loop was playing of<br />Scrooge McDuck, reveling in a large pile of gold, talking about all the<br />things he was going to do for himself with this large amount of money.<br />The McDuck kids were jumping with joy as well in an orgy of greed. This<br />video was also playing on the small TVs, the large TV teaching the small<br />TVs.<br /><br />#3) a video camera and video projection system that turned my live image<br />into an impressionistic painting. Then as I flapped my arms I became<br />covered with feathers, then my whole body became built out of rotating<br />gears.<br /><br />#4) Mona Lisa – A 6 foot high pole with a single row of RGB LED's<br />representing one scan line of a video output. An image of the Mona Lisa<br />is output to the pole one scan line at a time. I didn't see anything<br />except white until I turned my head. The motion of my eyes across the<br />pole paints a picture of the Mona Lisa on back of my eyes very briefly.<br />When I first approached the project I thought I might be hallucinating<br />the subliminal image of the Mona Lisa.<br /><br />#5) The Irrational Geographic Society <a rel="nofollow" href="http://superdeluxe.com/igs/">http://superdeluxe.com/igs/</a> did<br />the amazing wall of LEDs. The wall of 12 by 12 RGB LED panels, about 28<br />across and 20 panels high, is about 10 ft wide and 6 ft high. The<br />patterns and light from the wall move with music through flowing,<br />sometimes sharply angular, or strobing patterns color patterns. One<br />effect was to make all the red LEDs light up, really bright, as I stood<br />about 6 ft away, then suddenly strobe all. The effect put me in a slight<br />trance. My favorite moment came just after sunrise when I stood in front<br />of the wall dancing listening to X.Press 2 featuring David Bryne in<br />&quot;Lazy,&quot; all of us early risers swaying in the new sun and LED flow.<br /><br />#6) A series of doors in frames only, lined up in the middle of the<br />expanse of the desert. Each door was labeled &quot;Trust,&quot; &quot;Doubt,&quot; &quot;Love,&quot;<br />etc. Start at Doubt and walk through each door. The Love door was wired<br />shut and said &quot;Under Development&quot;, no doubt intentionally.<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Patrick Lichty replied:<br /><br />Sure, I understand the desire for taking the Burning Man philosophy and<br />spreading it across the world. That's definitely not the point I make.<br />It's as if City Lights opened up a chain of alternative bookstores and<br />coffeeshops designed to give the 'beat' experience.<br /><br />Make no bones about it; CL has made its dime, for sure. But is the<br />logical progression to the success of a project to franchise/brand it? I<br />think that there are times in which the iconic nature of an experience<br />of a place or event lies in the singular nature of it, either<br />geographically, temporally, or otherwise. Woodstock proved this - it<br />couldn't work out of the context of its time.<br /><br />What you wind up with is an exhaustion of the symbol. WIth the<br />propagation of the signal it loses strength. Perhaps Burning Man can<br />become a movement, but I think that so much of it is tied to the<br />experience of the place that this is unlikely. Having been there a few<br />years ago, I feel this quite strongly.<br /><br />For instance, there's a New Orleans BM correspondant who I believe is<br />trying to transfer it to Mardi Gras, which to me is really strange.<br /><br />IMO, if you have BM outside of Black Rock, it isn't really Burning Man,<br />it's something else. BM can't exist as they want it (I believe) outside<br />of its locational context.<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Michael Watson replied:<br /><br />It seems to me we are both asking if it is possible to influence<br />mainstream society itself or if Burning Man should be kept to ourselves,<br />lest it get further corrupted.<br /><br />On the other hand, I wonder if that is really what my goal is. I have<br />been tuning into the artist channels during the last two years, coming<br />from a programming/engineering background, and this has been really<br />eye-opening for me.<br /><br />No, I am not really interested in the mainstream, but connecting with<br />more people on the fringe outside I am interested in how the new<br />communications technolgies are allowing the fringe have a greater idea<br />exchanges and cross-pollination effects.<br /><br />It is appropriate that you bring up the beatnik experiment since we are<br />living in similar times of conservative extremism, fear, and paranoia.<br />It is appropriate to revist that movement and ask where they went wrong.<br />My own opinion is that the beatnik/hippie movement was destroyed by hard<br />drugs and alcohol, but that is just my opinion.<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Patrick Lichty replied:<br /><br />) It seems to me we are both asking if it is possible to influence<br />) mainstream society itself or if Burning Man should be kept to<br />) ourselves, lest it get further corrupted.<br /><br />No, not at all. Burning Man was never 'pure', ever. It was what it was.<br /><br />The problem as I see it is that Burning Man out of its context isn't<br />really Burning Man, to export it diminishes the power of the originating<br />source, and franchising is is just so cheesy. Why go to Black Rock when<br />you can go to Austin? Hell of a lot easier. I'd go to Austin and have<br />dinner at Jovita's after romping in Circleville for a while.<br /><br />Forgive my harshness here, but it just seems sort of stupid. I could see<br />having one in Eastern Colorado…<br /><br />) It is appropriate that you bring up the beatnik experiment since we<br />) are living in similar times of conservative extremism, fear, and<br />) paranoia. <br /><br />On the surface - but the times now are totally different, and IMO, much<br />less innocent.<br /><br />) It is appropriate to revist that movement and ask where they went<br /> wrong. <br />) My own opinion is that the beatnik/hippie movement was<br />) destroyed by hard drugs and alcohol, but that is just my<br />&gt; opinion. <br /><br />Much more than that, but that's another conversation.<br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Curt Cloninger (curt@lab404.com) added:<br /><br />&quot;I was organizing this boss techno-art project called 'Off The Grid.'<br />We were going to set up computer terminals in various parts of the<br />playa and have people use them. Then we'd feed the binary data from<br />those terminals into this fractals program that [Silver Lake, CA<br />software designer] Ricky [Thomas-Slater] wrote. Those fractals would<br />be sent, on the fly, to a group of exiled Buddhist monks I befriended<br />online. The monks would transform the fractals into a temporal sand<br />painting, the making of which we would webcast live to everyone on<br />the playa. But I had to stop working on the monk thing to finish up<br />this 'Pam's Country Crafts' web site I'm working on. I really need<br />the money.&quot; <br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.theonion.com/previous_top_story.html">http://www.theonion.com/previous_top_story.html</a><br /><br />+ + +<br /><br />Michael Watson replied:<br /><br />Curt, your idea sounds interesting and I may want to talk to you about.<br />It's a bummer that you had to put it off for Pam but I am sure it was<br />worth it. I took a quick look at The Onion story but frankly, I think<br />they make things up, because I was there and there were 30,000<br />attendees! They have must have a few Jason Blairs on their staff calling<br />stories in and having a good laugh at our expense. The Weekly World News<br />rarely makes these kinds of gross errors. I spoke to the officer<br />involved in this story after I was pulled over for doing 15 in a 70 mph<br />zone on the way out of Burning Man, and he told me that not only was the<br />alien drunk, he wasn't even wearing pants!<br /><br />www.weeklyworldnews.com/features/aliens_story.cfm?instanceid=59134<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Rhizome.org is a 501©(3) nonprofit organization.<br /><br />Rhizome Digest is supported by grants from The Charles Engelhard<br />Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for<br />the Visual Arts, and with public funds from the New York State Council<br />on the Arts, a state agency.<br /><br />+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +<br /><br />Rhizome Digest is filtered by Rachel Greene (rachel@rhizome.org). ISSN:<br />1525-9110. Volume 8, number 37. Article submissions to list@rhizome.org<br />are encouraged. 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