Imagination is our greatest natural resource.
Paleontologist turned "performance philosopher," Michael Garfield's multimedia explorations of the evolutionary landscape and our place in it are an attempt to demonstrate that everything is equally art, music, and spiritual practice. Follow him on twitter: @michaelgarfield
• MUSIC •
(fb music page - stream & download)
Paleontologist turned "performance philosopher," Michael Garfield's multimedia explorations of the evolutionary landscape and our place in it are an attempt to demonstrate that everything is equally art, music, and spiritual practice. Follow him on twitter: @michaelgarfield
• MUSIC •
(fb music page - stream & download)
Between the personal warmth of songwriting tradition and the whirling electronics of festival culture, Michael Garfield is making music for which new words must be invented – intimate and heady, focused and raw. Not content to merely push the boundaries of acoustic fingerstyle technique, Michael weaves guitar, voice, effects, sound system, and audience into a greater instrument ecstatically playing itself. These guitar tapping etudes, cyberacoustic loopscapes, and passionate lovesongs are the performance of a world on its way: an age of reunion when dualisms fade in the glare of a love beyond opposites, and old categories no longer apply.
"Astonishing...insane guitar talent."
"Intoxicating, rejuvenating, and unapologetically spiritual work...instantly memorable and utterly magnetic tunes whose authenticity and sweetness is boundary breaking."
- Michael Richardson, The Renaissance Project
- Michael Richardson, The Renaissance Project
Michael has gigged with an eclectic array of artists, including Tim Reynolds (Dave Matthews Band), Zuvuya (with Michael Travis of SCI – who declared him "the perfect opening act"), Papadosio, Zach Deputy, That 1 Guy, The Nadis Warriors, Jamie Janover, Willy Porter, Andreas Kapsalis Trio, Lunar Fire, Random Rab, Sidecar Tommy of Beats Antique, Heyoka, Ana Sia, D.V.S*, Stuart Davis, Whitewater Ramble, Spoonfed Tribe, Cecil "P'Nut" Daniels, Delta Nove, Cohen, The Floozies, Interstellar Transmissions, and Fresh2Death...and garnered invitations to jam with the likes of Fareed Haque, Entheogenic, and Bird of Prey. His music has moved festival audiences at Wakarusa, Rootwire, The Manifestation Celebration, Motion Notion, Art Outside, Geoparadise, McDowell Mountain, Dreamtime, and Burning Man; kindled house concerts across the US; and provided a live, improvised score for the MAPS Conference on Psychedelic Science in the 21st Century.
Michael is endorsed by LR Baggs Guitar Pickups.
Trained as a paleontologist and scientific illustrator before launching into festival culture, Michael Garfield is the Indiana Jones of live art. Since November 2007, he has set up his easel in a legendary range of situations, from underground caves and raging basement clubs to NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Airfield to New Year's raves in the Costa Rican rainforest. He has painted, displayed, and spoken on panels alongside internationally renowned visionary artists Alex & Allyson Grey, Robert Venosa, Martina Hoffmann, Mark Henson, Android Jones, Amanda Sage, Oliver Vernon, Mars-1, Kris D, and J Garcia. His festival appearances include Burning Man (Entheon 2009 & 2010, FractalNation 2011), Wakarusa, Electric Forest, Sonic Bloom, Rothbury, Rootwire, Trinumeral, Bear Creek, Motion Notion, Gem & Jam, Global Sound Conference, and Geoparadise...and he has held live art residencies for the Trilogy Lounge in Boulder (2008), the Mondrian Hotel's Pere La Chaise Lounge in Scottsdale (2009), and ActionPacker Pro Productions in New Orleans (2010). He also plays as organizer and journalist for the growing live art community, leading festival performance and gallery teams and showcasing colleagues with the ongoing interview series,
The Field Guide To Live Artists.
"Super intense and completely focused...his attention to detail consistently raised the quality bar."
"[Michael's] illustrating, as Huxley would say, the 'antipodes' of the Divine Imagination."
- Alex Grey, visionary artist
Michael's live paintings are a field guide to the boundary-living electric winged spirits that crash into being through a dancing throng while he is a seismograph and portraitist, swaying to their breath. Improvised freehand with paint markers, each work emerges organically from the throb of the house and the crowd into cross-sections of fireworks and undersea faeries, closed-eye tessellations and luminous fossils…vivid scenes of unabashed intensity, verdant and exultant imagery written in the natural language of dreams.
• WRITING & SPEAKING •
(lecture & interview archive)
(lecture & interview archive)
If you aren't awestruck by the vast mystery in which we participate – or you are, and are looking for the words – Michael would like to help. Speaking and writing on the fertile intersections of evolutionary science, spirituality, technology, culture, and creativity, Michael is equally comfortable in both festival and academic cultures. A researcher at the Hybrid Reality Institute, he has presented at both Burning Man's Entheon and Red Lightning Villages and John F. Kennedy University's Integral Theory Conference – and written featured articles by RU Sirius' transhumanism quarterly H+ Magazine, Daniel Pinchbeck's archaic revival nexus Reality Sandwich, integral theory blog KenWilber.com, and D.C. futurist think-tank The Arlington Institute's internationally-syndicated newsletter, FUTUREdition. He also works as a music and culture blogger, editor (including a stint with Christiana Wyly's blog at The Huffington Post), and creativity consultant. Author Paul Lonely called Michael's afterword to his experimental novel, Suicide Dictionary, "better than the book itself." He is currently at work on a body of essays exploring evolution and selfhood for The Renaissance Project.
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