New Coloring Book Project • The Future Is Disgusting • The End of "Reality" • Guitar Looping Video • New Apparel • Future Fossils Podcast with Ayana Young & Daniel Schmachtenberger

“If we are gaining the power of gods, then without the love and wisdom of gods, we self-destruct.”

- Daniel Schmachtenberger

Future Fossils 0051

Buckle up for yet another overstuffed update!  Given the pace at which change comes at us these days, I'm pretty much apologetic for being this productive.  But for anyone who's used to "grinding" to level up their roleplaying game characters, you understand the value of continuing to put one foot in front of the other, day after day, for years.  And I understand that it's not helpful to apologize for what we are.  Shine brightly, friends!  You free the rest of us by doing so.

So that's what I'm going for, here.  I hope this helps.  Much love and many blessings...

New Coloring Book Project & Time-Lapse Video

One month ago today I celebrated ten years of live painting.  Feels like the right time to get into digital, at long last, after holding out for basically forever...with that, here is the first quickie time-lapse video I made with my new iPad.  

I am putting together a coloring book for Patreon supporters...every single page will be released as time-lapse on my YouTube channel, if you'd like to see the whole thing come together.

New Essay:
"The Future Is Disgusting"

Read it on Medium.

Part Six of my public book-in-progress, How To Live in the Future, is now live on Medium.  For anyone who might enjoy a purée of body horror, psychedelic futurism, and dick jokes...this goes out to you.  Because the future is going to be totally awesome...and gross:

'...it all sounds overwhelming, but in practice these invasions, miracles, transgressions come to culture as seduction, as convenience, as entertainment. All of this is motivated by a pure-enough desire: the urge to merge; the drive for intimacy; longing; romance. Fiber optic cables stretch across the ocean floor like reaching tentacles, desiring a connection. Satellites spray into orbit just like coral launching sperm beneath the Full Moon, all of Earth a reef in Sagan’s “Cosmic Ocean.” Every new-model phone is faster, higher-bandwidth, because language doesn’t cut it; we would like to really “Reach Out And Touch Someone.”'

Read the whole thing here.

New Sci Fi Audiobook:
"An Oral History of the End of 'Reality'"

Free Download on Patreon

My first adult foray into the world of science fiction, this piece was inspired – nay, made necessary – by the recent news about new vocal synthesis AI that lets consumers edit audio and video and manufacture wholly new, convincing forgeries that sound and look exactly like "the real thing."

We all grew up in an age when our recordings are the evidence of something. It was certainly a step up from the hearsay that we once relied on, but it's not enough these days – and as technology gets more and more sophisticated it may be impossible for us to tell the difference between "what's really there" and what is just a digital illusion. 

Trip with me down this vertigo-inducing psychedelic tunnel to a world in which invisible and discarnate agents speak to you in lovers' voices; in which algorithmic AI pop stars outcompete real artists and our thoroughly-mapped world returns to demon-haunted wilderness; in which we all become half-monks and half-forensics-experts as the new obsession is attempting to determine if we can believe our senses...

Download the audio and PDF on Patreon.

(Cover Art by Giacomo Carmagnola, reprinted with permission.)

New Guitar Looping Video:
"Life in the Glass Age"

Watch on YouTube in HD

Here I am rocking out the live improvisation that became the title track of Life in the Glass Age, my original soundtrack to the theatrical production of P3M5 at The Vortex Repository Theater in Austin.

If you're curious about how I turn a guitar and pedals into a full-fledged electro-psychedelic orchestra, just put this video on while you're doing dishes or whatever and let this adventure in layering cyberacoustic grooves teach you the mysteries of the universe.

(A full half of my profits from the sales of Life in the Glass Age go to the Electronic Frontier Foundation to support their campaign for net neutrality and privacy rights online.)

New Sweatshirt:
"End of the World Party"

Learn More & Grab One

Rapture is imminent and the meteor is approaching. Do you run and hide or do you turn up the volume and get down? Celebrate the End of the World Party with some prehistoric pizazz I painted live at Sonic Bloom Festival 2016.

This crew neck sweatshirt is a loose, comfortable, and smooth 100% polyester fabric with slight stretch. All of our exceptionally vibrant prints are achieved through the dye sublimation process. Each sweatshirt is printed and hand-crafted in the United States by local businesses. In addition, 30% of the profits from each order goes to the artist who created your design, and 5% to a charity supporting the arts in America.

(This piece is also available on paper or canvas prints of various sizes, and many, many other items.)

New Future Fossils Podcast Episodes!

Free Download & Show Notes Here

This week's episode is with one of the fiercest, most inspiring women I have met in years, Ayana Young. It's a candid, personal discussion about how awakening to our participation in nature – and living in joyous self-sacrifice to something bigger than ourselves – is the key to both our survival and our spiritual salvation…

Free Download & Show Notes Here

This week’s guest is Daniel Schmachtenberger of the Neurohacker Collective – we have an awesome conversation about how to thrive through this Age of Transition and emerge into a world that works for all, not just a few of us.

...And Other Podcast Appearances

Oh, AND...I was just on the fabulous Synchronicity Podcast with Noah Lampert, and also interviewed radical life extension biotech wizard Liz Parrish of BioViva Life Sciences for the Body Hacking Conference.  Check those out if you have any free time left in your life for listening...

Upcoming Events

Here are the gigs I can talk about so far.  Where would you like to see me play/paint/speak in 2018?

20 December - Austin, TX - Sahara Lounge
Solstice Electroacoustic Showcase (headlining!) with Umanistan & MUNN

13 January – Austin, TX – Square Rüt Kava Bar
FREE Birthday Singer-Songwriter Show

25 - 28 January – Tucson, AZ – Gem & Jam Festival
Music, Art, & Speaking

2 - 4 February – Austin, TX – Body Hacking Conference
Future Fossils Podcast Live & Panel Moderation

Mermaids, Kittens, Cyberpunk Guitar, The Black Madonna

“All things are inherently pure and it’s more like our projection onto that that is less than pure.  The Christ saw the Magdalene in her essential purity."

– Jake Kobrin on Future Fossils Podcast

Happy holidays everyone!  This is a stressful time of year, but also rich with opportunity for spiritual growth and lovingkindness.  May your days be full of light and nights be full of loving...

Here is my latest work, of which I'm very proud.  I hope it makes your life a little sweeter, smarter, more inspired and optimistic.  Enjoy and have a lovely week!

love

Michael

:: Compulsory Holiday Discount Announcement ::

I'm doing some fairly epic discounts for your holiday shopping this year.

Through 11/29 you can take 40% off all of my prints, pins, and stickers by using this link or using coupon code "GIFTING" in checkout.  

And until I decide otherwise, you can take 20% off your ENTIRE order by using this link or using coupon code "MEOWMEOW" at checkout.

I'll honor similar discounts for my original paintings – and even more (60% or more) for trades in cryptocurrency.  I cannot overstate how empowering the boom of interest in cryptoassets has been for me and my fellow artists and I'll be exploring the social implications of Bitcoin, Ethereum, IOTA, and others in the weeks and months to come.  Email me back if you're intrigued.

New Paintings!

Daughter of Neptune

(48"x24" - acrylic and oil paint on canvas)

prints here

Painted live at Convergence at Arcosanti (check out their promo trailer with my music here) and the grand opening of Austin's new visionary art mecca, Gallery Lucid.

Read the story of this piece and check out fine art reproductions here.

Cats on the Brain 

(16"x20" - acrylic and oil paint on canvas)

prints here

Painted at home as a commissioned pet portrait for my friend, voice actor Elizabeth Maxwell.

Read more about this piece and check out fine art reproductions here.

New Music!

Produced in the collision of guitar and electronics, these compositions (including three brand new pieces and one re-imagination) form a soundtrack for our anxious age of forcibly transparent lives online – a dark-bright hour of atmospheres for our drone-shadowed landscapes and spook-haunted social media existences – a heralding of something more beyond the paranoia, some new self and sense emerging...

Stream or buy Life in the Glass Age on Bandcamp and 50% of the profit supports the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  Patreon supporters at the $5 level get this album (and ALL of my new music) for free – you can dive in here.

(And you can see the promo trailer for P3M5's production at The Vortex in Austin here.)

New Podcast Episodes!

This week’s guest is my friend Lindsay Loftin, a professional mermaid who uses her performances to raise awareness of marine conservation issues.  She also boasts 60 pushups in two minutes and the ability to transform phone-addicted schoolchildren into avid gardeners. Listen here.

This week’s guest is visionary artist Jake Kobrin, whose digital paintings explore a gorgeous, dark, evocative terrain of non-ordinary human experience and twist religious iconography into a metamorphic form well-suited to our psychedelic modern era.

We discuss his painting “Black Madonna” and the return and healing of the repressed feminine – not just women, but the body, the psychological shadow, marginalized peoples, death, and transformation…  Listen here.

Oh!  And I appeared on my friend Matt Belair's podcast, Mind & Spirit.  We talk about fractal time, futurism, and adapting to accelerated change.  Enjoy!

Happy Halloween! | Playing at Arcosanti | Alien Queen & Cello | Velociraptor & Embellishments | Magenta Ceiba on FF

“Abandon all hope of fruition but do not fail to strive.”

– Willow Pearson

Happy Halloween, everyone!  Not a lot to report just yet – except next month's gig at Arcosanti, the oasis of visionary architecture just north of Phoenix – but big things (new music, science fiction, essays, coloring book pages, and more) on the way.  For now, here is some bite-sized news.  It is my honor to do my part in the Great Work of using art to make this world a better place.  

Enjoy, and thanks for reading!

love,

Michael

New Paintings

"Queen of Swords"

24"x48" – oil, acrylic, and aerosol paint on masonite

Prints & Notes About This Painting Here

"Velociraptor & Embellishments"

2017 – acrylic and oil paint on two 18"x9" canvases

Original Available – Info Here

Magenta Ceiba on Future Fossils Podcast

iTunes | Stitcher | Google Play | Patreon

This week’s guest is master community builder, singer, and human spirit animal Magenta Ceiba of the Bloom Network.  We discuss a sweeping suite of topics, such as the adoption of regenerative culture practices, cultivating planetwide resiliency, communicating across HUGE political gaps, and the perennial question:  "How can we be good ancestors?"

Upcoming Appearances

2 November – Austin, TX – Vortex Repository Theater
Original Music & Sound Design for P3M5: Plurality of Privacy Project in 5-Minute Plays

3 November – Austin, TX – Guan Yin Tea House
Cyberacoustic Guitar Instrumental Tea Set

10 - 11 November – Mayer, AZ – Arcosanti Convergence
Cyberacoustic Guitar + Live Painting

You Might Have Missed

The Evolution of Time (My Talk From Oregon Eclipse) // MG + Singularity Bros // Future Fossils Galore // Apocalyptic Painting Sale

“I’m just some squawking monkey standing on a wooden box. I’m not going to pretend I have a handle on the situation.”

– Tony Vigorito 
(Happy Birthday, Tony!)

The Evolution of Time: Biology, Mythology, and Consciousness

- My talk from Oregon Eclipse -

Hey friends! As I settle in for a season of writing and patient, introspective work – and grapple with travel withdrawal - I'm looking forward to unpacking several of this year's best live recordings for you.

This one from the Global Eclipse Gathering in Big Summit Prairie, Oregon was for the biggest audience I've ever had. I feel like everybody's awesome energy gave me some extra focus and enthusiasm for a very all-encompassing riff, on how we can navigate time as a landscape, using our attention...

360º Video Playlist | Free MP3 Download

I mention plenty of this year's pet topics: flowers as a planet-wide catastrophe; how everything's a remix (and has always been a remix); how mastery is not enough and we can set our sights beyond, on transformation.

But some really marvelous NEW stuff came up in this one, also – just a testament to how inspiring it can be to share some space-time with you, up there, and how I'm convinced original ideas emerge through GROUPS of people (even if one person does most of the talking).

Anyway, here is the whole thing in a 360º video playlist I shot from stage, or the unedited audio from that video for listening while operating heavy machinery or performing surgery or what-have-you.

If you get something out of this talk, share it with a friend!  I'd love to help as many people as I can with navigating these insane-o rushing waters in between one age and the next...

360º Video Playlist | Free MP3 Download

- Apocalyptic Painting Sale -

Available Paintings | More Info at FB Event Page

Speaking of transitioning from one age to the next:

I'm selling all of my original artwork! It's time for me to write my debut book on evolution and psychedelic futurism, "How To Live In The Future" – and to do that I need to take a long break from painting and hustling my art.

(Not a FOREVER break...I'm still taking commissions for new work, I just won't be painting live at shows for some time.)

Here are some of the paintings still available – head over to this page for a complete list and ignore the listed prices!  Discounts of 50% are totally fair game and I'll be willing to consider more. We can set up monthly payments if you like, and I'll still ship the piece to you before it's fully paid.

I also accept cryptocurrency payments, if that's your thing.  Thanks for taking the time to check out my work and I hope your next adventure is a good one!

- New Podcast Episodes -

Future Fossils is on a roll right now!  Starting with a special two-part interview with one of my greatest inspirations, the historian and mythographer William Irwin Thompson – and then moving on to explore the relationship of time, art, and the body with tattoo artist Christopher Sheehan – and then indulging in an electric dialogue with astrologer Adam Sommer about the dance of Mars and Venus, masculine and feminine, iron and copper, over history and through our lives...

Subscribe on iTunes (iOS) or Stitcher or Google Play (Android)

 

 

I also recently appeared on The Singularity Bros Podcast, which I assure you is as cheekily self-aware and wonderful as the name might have you think.  We talked about how technology is empowering us all to become superheroes – OR supervillains – and what it's going to take from each of us to level up responsibly and enter this intense new world with grace, humility, and love.

That means a frank discussion about the dark side of decentralization, the critiques of Universal Basic Income, and other, sillier topics glimmering on the horizon of "the Broosphere" (yes, we went there.)

Stream/Download Singularity Bros Episode 111

- Stuff You Might Have Missed -

This “masterclass” I taught at Moogfest 2016 covers my occult philosophy of loop-based music, walks listeners through the construction of layered live compositions, and drills into some tech specifics for performance.  Dig it here.

Something magical occurred that night. A portal opened. Call it what you will. All this music's just an overture to what came next. We never saw it coming. Now it's all that I can do to not grab onto what remains of that extraordinary mystery...

Unfold into the atmospheric grooves on Bandcamp or Spotify.

- UPCOMING SHOWS - 

14 October – Austin, TX – SquareRüt Kava Bar

Cosmic Americana & Cyberballadry Singer-Songwriter Set

Free All Ages Show

2 - 5 November – Austin, TX – Vortex Repository Theater

Original Music & Sound Design for P3M5:

Plurality of Privacy Project in 5-Minute Plays

3 November – Austin, TX – Guan Yin Tea House

Cyberacoustic Guitar Instrumental Set

2 1/2 hours of live music for Gong Fu Tea Service

Breaking The Narrative Barrier // Applied Technoshamanism // Keyhistoric Life // Apocalyptic Art Sale

“Human culture has broken the narrative barrier as change driven by technological transformation creates conditions that change faster than our ability to narrate them. There is an essential mismatch between our stories about the world and the world, the ideas we have of ourselves and ourselves – this mismatch is now unavoidable. Good News: This evolutionary shift will be easy to survive and flourish through. Quite simply, we must cease depending upon something that isn’t there: a coherent narrative that stitches together our social world.”

– Richard Doyle

Hi friends.  :)  It's been a crazy summer, full of revelations and initiations, difficult as hell, and dotted with surprise reprieves and glorious fulfillments.  Hopefully it's been as powerfully good for you as it has been for me...I think...shit's still in motion.  Hard to say for sure.  Uncertainty's the lesson, maybe.

Anyway, I'm sure about SOME things – foremost among them that I am "supposed to" help relieve our species of narrative and share techniques I've learned to play more fully in the magical rotating gem of all perspectives.  To navigate time-as-a-landscape with attention poured into the outcomes we agree we want.  To ease the pain of everybody growing up too fast at once.

And urgency abounds: we're in the process of transforming evolution, from a thing we didn't even know we do, to a technology we'll use to totally reshape the planet.  Kind of a big deal.  It's time for all of us to level up as wizards, witches, or whatever so we're IN IT and engaged with, not resistant to, a world in which ideas become shared (virtual) realities more rapidly than ever.  We must rise to the occasion so that we don't accidentally create more monsters than we absolutely must.  We must raise whatever comes next right.

AND SO!  

I'm writing a collection of short pieces (some of which are here on Medium) that ties science fiction and creative non-fiction together, then sets them on fire with mystic poetry.  I'm selling all the paintings that I've kept around to fund the writing of this book.  It's time.  It's going to TAKE time – time that I will take away from travel and commissions, limiting what little "flow" I've surfed on for the last few years.

If you would like a 50% discount on my art, it's yours.  Here is the link to all of my available originals.  Here is the event page with more info.

   

(And since of course we're mostly skating by, perhaps the sacred economics of our mutualist gifting might appeal to you more, anyway.  That's why I use Patreon: for people who GET what I'm trying to say on everyone's behalf, and want to help me weave more people into it, ground and expand it, make it relevant and real.)

So anyway.  I love you.  Thank you.  Here are things.

Live Looping As Applied Technoshamanism at Moogfest 2016

Download Here

This masterclass I taught at Moogfest 2016 covers my occult philosophy of loop-based music and drills into my tech specifics for performance. Drawing from twelve years of looping at festivals and concerts worldwide, there's plenty here to fascinate you – whether you're a looping artist or just interested in the intersection between the esoteric and technology.

FREE to my silver-level Patreon supporters or available for a one-time donation of $5 (which also grants you access to extensive archives of my music).

Also included in the download is a transcript of my full pedalboard teardown and looping process.  As Reggie Watts said, "Don't 'tech-no' from a shaman for an answer..."

Topics covered include:
• How to be your own whole "Citadel of Ricks"
• Recursion, reiteration, and live looping as the Crucifixion of what is and what could be
• The emergence of order from chaos – inviting randomness into the matrix
• An alchemy of elemental energies in improvised live composition
• Technical considerations and gear suggestions
• Hacking the audience’s attention
• Multichannel live production as the blending of different sonic spaces
• Pedalboard vs. Ableton Live for Looping - opinions

For more direct and personal instruction, I’m available for private lessons over Skype – just write me if you’re interested!

New Future Fossils Episodes!

Hunter Maats – host of the Mixed Mental Arts Podcast and co-author of The Straight-A Conspiracy. We talk about the future of education and human collaboration – moving past a world of routine factory-worker indoctrination and the “insane cargo cult” of the academic system, and into a new model for the transmission of knowledge that suits a truly planetary culture.

Andrew J. O’Keefe II – documentarian, archivist for Singularity University, devoted recordist of the emergent planetary culture, and a dear old friend I met back in the Dawn of Time when he was working as the personal assistant to Android Jones. We talk about the motivations for preserving and reliving the significant (AND insignificant) moments of our lives.

Hannah Yata – visionary painter whose riotous, ecstatic work explores and celebrates natural biodiversity, and exalts the repressed feminine – the beautiful and the grotesque, death and life in vivid color all at once.

Sketchbook:  "Keyhistoric Life"

Just for fun.  This is how my brain works.  Get a better look on Instagram.

Coming Up: UTOPiAfest!

I'm playing the festival's first-ever sunrise set (and last ever at Four Sisters Ranch, where it has been held for the last nine years).  Come if you're in Texas – I hear that it's the best-in-class!

Just a reminder that I have a ton of work on Spotify for all your playlist pleasures – and also on Bandcamp for free download (or paid, if you are feeling frisky).  Go listen to it now and reap the sweetness!

"Yes, this planet is a terrible mess. But it has always been a mess. 

 There have never been any 'Good Old Days,' there have just been days."

– Kurt Vonnegut

New Art & Conversations From The Road To The Eclipse & Burning Man

Spotify • Bandcamp • Facebook • Instagram • YouTube • Twitter • iTunes • Available Paintings

Hey friends!  I'm on the road to the Global Eclipse Gathering in Oregon this week, then Burning Man, to speak and play music at both events – so I'm keeping this short and sweet.  If you'll be at either of those, check my full performance schedule here and come say hi!  I have both hugs and stickers for you.  :)

And now onto some fun things:

News & Interviews

I just gave an exclusive interview about my music, art, life, mission, work, etc. to Keyframe Entertainment on Reality Sandwich.  It's a solid piece, especially if you're new to my work:

"...perhaps the world’s only paleontologist-futurist, a psychedelic poet-artist whose work in every medium communicates a vision of emergent planetary renaissance, and celebrates the curiosity and play required of us if we are to make it through this age of transformation."

And a very different, short-form podcast interview on Austin's WizWarp Artist Spotlight about the intersection of my songwriting and my motivation for creating an archive of vital conversations with Future Fossils Podcast.

Those of you who like some meat on the bones of their conversations will dig my second guest appearance on Cory Allen's The Astral Hustle Podcast, in which we discuss how meditation's only growing more relevant as we walk half-blind into a world of AI-assisted forgeries and automated economies.  Cory's smart as hell, hilarious, and full of liberating insights.  Highly recommended.

Lastly, two art projects deserving of attention:

I donated 20 prints of my frog painting, Zabka, to help fund the conservation of the Sonoran River Toad, threatened by overharvesting for its potent toxins, which contain the so-called "God Molecule" 5-MeO DMT.  A beautiful and sacred creature.  Help out if you can at the Terra Incognita Project.

And my work will be joining the art of dozens of other visionary painters from around the world in a massive group show this winter, Seeds of the Anaconda in Sierra Nevada, Colombia.  It's a celebration of the prophesied reunion of the five indigenous tribes of the Sierra, and a gathering in the name and spirit of global peace and unity.  Learn more about it here.

New Paintings

"Space Pastry"

18"x24" – available

painted live at Cherry Cola Dog (Austin) & at home

prints available here

"Martian Arts"
collaboration with William Allan Ross

16"x20" – taken

painted live by Will during my set at Martian Arts Festival & finished at home by me

prints available here

FOUR New Future Fossils Episodes

Newly Exhumed Short Writing

Pieces from my old gig as the editor of Globalish – where we investigated timeless spiritual themes as they arise in modern culture – these pieces have been unavailable to anyone for two years, until recently republished on my Steemit profile.  

The New Scarlet Letter: Hong Kong Uses DNA Tests To Publicly Shame Litterers

Diriye Osman's Queer Somali Storytelling Helps Us See Beyond The Story

Sex, Drugs, and Evolution: Are We Smart Enough To See Through Separation?

Experiencing Edgelessness in the Floating City of Kompong Khleang

How New York's "Projection Napping" Turns The City Inside-Out

See You Out There...

Parting Thoughts...

"If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh…well, there it is. Life finds a way."

– Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

Saddhu: “Master, I can walk across the water.”

Buddha: “But the ferry’s only a nickel!”