New Painting, Music, & Enamel Pins | Message To Your Future Self | Burning Man Schedule

"Any action can be practiced as an art, as a craft, or as drudgery."

– Stephen Nachmanovitch, Free Play (p10)

"From the evidence...it seems that feeling good is not enough. People need meaning to thrive."

– Emily Esfahani Smith

I'm leaving today for Burning Man (schedule below) and will spend the next week collecting interviews and other inspirational content to share with you all...in the meantime, my tireless sharing includes:

• My live painting from Gratifly Music & Arts Festival,

• My deepest, jazziest album of cyberacoustic guitar music to date;

• A new series of crowd-sourced inspirational videos taken through Google Glass;

...as well as some very shiny enamel pins!  I think that's already more than I should try and lay on you at once, but I've always been better at making art than hustling it.  Enjoy, and have a magnificent week!

"Message To Your Future Self" Video Series

I think it's very important to have a conversation about what role Glass (and other vastly more powerful technologies just around the bend) can play in our lives - how to wield these double-edged swords constructively, how to bring the new world into being in ways that maximize its promise and minimize its peril.   I really want us to have a thoughtful conversation about this and welcome your thoughts and feedback by email or publicly on this facebook event page.

My first idea for using Glass to empower and uplift people was to take 10-second videos of everyone who wanted to share their message with the world:

Part 1: Gratifly & Unitus Festivals

Watch in HD on Youtube

Part 2: Rootwire Festival

Watch in HD on Youtube

In the last six years I have given almost all of my work away for free to people out of faith that the most important thing is to help people find meaning and purpose in their lives, not set a price on the value of my time. So please take a moment to check out what I'm doing with Glass and make a contribution to my fundraising campaign if you can.

My New Enamel Pin Collection

Buy the whole set for $50 + s/h or individually: Triceratops | Butterfly | Dragon

Like/Comment/Share on FB

Thanks to The Headspace for their help making this happen!  A little about each design:

"As Awesome As Three Unicorns" (the dinosaur) – Painted at Sonic Bloom in 2012, this piece bridges my two lives as a scientific illustrator and live artist, and ended up in the collection of Mary Jane, the youngest live painter ever, who is also totally awesome. 

"Every Day Is A New Year" (the dragon) – Painted at Rootwire and Art Outside Festivals as well as innumerable other small shows, this piece was my anticipatory portrait of 2013, an homage to the late Terence McKenna, and led to my being selected by Google for their Glass Explorer Program.

"Takes Flight" (the butterfly) – Painted at the MAPS 2010 Psychedelic Science Conference, this piece was inspired by a vision I received in a workshop with Alex & Allyson Grey the day before the event.

A New Album of Oceanic Cyber-Guitar Grooves

Stream/Download it here

Grab "Dance on the Roof" for free on Soundcloud

Share this on FB

I'm rebranding my work as an electroacoustic improvisational instrumentalist to reflect the inherent contradictions in making electronic music on an acoustic guitar – and to tap into the potent relationship I've developed with owl medicine since moving to Austin two years ago.  Here's a little bit about this release and the work to come:

If Michael Garfield can be said to collect anything, it would be great gigs in strange venues – from The Cave Without A Name to the MAPS Psychedelic Science conference, from Black Rock Desert to all four stages in the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. 

Possessed by a passion for the feeling of spaces and determined to translate "vibe" into sound, Michael's increasingly all-improvised acoustic-electronic sets wed house concert intimacy with ravetastic cyberdelia in magical performances that draw down the spirit of a place into music. 

Capturing both past and future in alchemical alloys where fingerpicking and hardware live PA join in soaring transcendental freestyles, this is music as adventurous as the stages on which it's performed. Half Zen calligrapher and half starship captain, Michael Garfield is building a cathedral of sound for our paradoxical Age of Transition. 

Album artwork by Bonnie Goodson.

New Live Painting From Gratifly Festival

Splash!

11" x 17" Prints For Sale Here

Like/Comment/Share on FB

24"x36" - paint markers on masonite

Original available - email me to inquire/offer

Painted live at Gratifly Music and Arts Festival to the music of:
Thriftworks, Gaudi, Papadosio, Kalya Scintilla, The Werks,
Eskmo, Govinda, Desert Dwellers, Akara DJ, Ployd

My Burning Man Schedule

RSVP/Share on FB

• Tuesday ("Monday Night"): Center Camp Café

12:45 - 1:30 am: Cyberacoustic Guitar Improv

• Wednesday: Center Camp Café

4:00 - 5:00 pm: "These are the Good Old Days: Reverse Nostalgia from a Citizen of the Future" (talk)

5:30 - 6:00 pm: Cyberacoustic Guitar for the Aerial Dance Showcase

• Thursday: Fractal Planet Speaker Series

2:30 - 3:45 pm: Taking A Cosmic Perspective (talk)

7:30 - 8:15 pm: Musical Break - Cyberacoustic Guitar 

• Friday: Palenque Norte Speaker Series

2:00 - 3:00 pm: "The Age of Aquarius & The End of the Cargo Cult" (talk)

• Saturday: Sacred Spaces Village

5:00 - 6:00 pm: Cyberacoustic Guitar in the Grand Hall 

Crowdfunding my Google Glass | Reflections on a Shift | New SCI Pin | New GRC Flatbill

NOTE:  If you subscribe to this blog by GMail, please note that they just changed their settings and even though you signed up for it, you are likely to miss future updates from me unless you drag this email from the "promotional" to "primary" folder in their new tab format.  (Sheesh.)

"Art is the opposite of war. Artists wage peace with their creations."

– Alex Grey

"When everyone realizes they are an artist, we will have world peace."

– Roman Villagrana

The big news continues.  Here's the best of what I've been up to for the last few weeks:

Help Support My Google Glass Video & Essay Series!

Google selected me on the basis of this tweet to be one of the first 2000 people with access to their game-changing new smart glasses, which allow me to share my work more fluidly than ever before.  Even though the opportunity is kind of overwhelming, I feel a profound responsibility to take it up so that I can continue my work to inspire and empower as many people as possible by making my life a work of art.

My plan for Glass is to share as much as I can about my own creative process and the amazing community of artists with whom I work through a video record of my transformational festival tour and an ongoing video time capsule project for people to leave messages to their future selves.  You'll be funding an ongoing series of intimate views into the work I do as an acoustic-electronic musician, live painter, public speaker, writer, and awestruck traveler – with plenty of windows into the work of other artists, inventors, and inspiring people.

I am also going to write a series of short essays on the promise and risk inherent in this new technology, and others like it.  It's a Golden Ticket to the Chocolate Factory...but most of those kids got eaten by machines.  It's a Lightsaber...but with great power comes great responsibility.  Hopefully these writings will help a generation of digital natives navigate their world with more care, discernment, wonder, and respect.

Please support this project however you can – in small ways or large – by donating to this campaign and sharing it with your friends, family, and anyone who is interested to see what Glass can do to empower someone in service to the creative commons and the evolution of our planet.

Here are pics of the brass pin and vinyl stickers I'm offering as perks:

The World's First POV Video Projection Onto Stage! (?)

Watch in HD

Huge thanks to Morphis Art for taking these four short videos of my set at Gratifly Festival, where I streamed live video from my face back onto the stage, where members of the audience could see themselves up there with me – as well as the fire dancers and live flower arrangement by the legendary Anthony Ward – and get an up-close look at what I'm doing with all of those guitar pedals.

My talk from Om Vibrations 2013: Reflections on a Shift

Free Download Here

New Live Album: This Never Happened

Stream for free on Bandcamp

For real, guys.  I don't know what you're talking about.  ;)  But Magnetic Eye Records does.  They made this album #007 in their catalog; given all the spy talk surrounding my appointment as a Glass Explorer, I'm tickled.

Official SCI Hornings Hideout Pin [Sold Out]

After years of flirting with The String Cheese Incident to make some official merchandise for them, I was approached by Sales & Shenanigans to make this pin for their Hornings Hideout shows this year.  The limited series of 220 sold out in ten minutes.  D'oh!  We should have made more.  I suspect we will be working together again soon...

The New MG x Herbivore Designs x GRC Flatbill

The SE Festival Tour Continues

Michael Goes To Burning Man, Part Five

This time as a Glass Explorer.  A big part of the work I'm hoping you'll support with my Indiegogo campaign is to get out there to record as much awesome and inspiring work as possible – both my own and other people's. My full Burning Man speaking and music schedule is here (on the left sidebar).

Speaker Series Lineup on FB

Fractal Planet is also taking a quantum leap and powering their camp with a RevAir vertical mag-lev wind turbine – clean, quiet energy that will turn the desert winds into the electrical life of celebration. Support their crowdfunding campaign and help usher in a new era for transformational festivals...

Palenque Norte Speaker Series Lineup on FB

You might already know as the "TED Talks for Psychedelics," but it's a lot more than that – over the years it has featured such luminaries as Alex & Allyson Grey, Alexander & Ann Shulgin, John Perry Barlow, Bruce Damer, and more.  They're running yet another donation-worthy campaign, which you can read about and donate to by clicking the pic above.

That's "all" for now!  Deep gratitude from me to you for your time and attention.  I'm always available to respond to your questions and feedback.  Stay in touch and have a beautiful weekend!