Dispatch from A One-Man Singularity / Entirely Too Many Pretty Things

Hey friends!  Quick Note:  

I know most of you signed on for art, but chances are that means you're smart and curious and have one eye and ear turned toward the transcendental – and lately, it feels like my art is mostly here to get you to stay still for long enough so we can have a deeper exchange.

I know that we're all overwhelmed and it's impossible for us to catch up on it all, but hopefully the work I do beyond the easel can inspire you in the moments when you're driving, working, listening to podcasts, looking for new things to read...the new podcasts and live solo acoustic sets I published this month are better than anything I was making a few years ago and I hope that they creep into whatever part of your life is lame right now and improve it for you suddenly and radically. 

Last thing:  I'm writing science fiction now.  Here is a preview of the piece I'm working on: a dispatch from the world in which AI has made it hard to tell what's real, and what's a forgery.  I made this sample audio recording in part as the first of a series of micro-casts as this story writes itself, and in part as an audition to be an Audible audiobook reader.  (Maybe I'm trolling Audible by sending them sci-fi about the day in which we can't be sure of anything we hear...?)

And now, the new stuff!  Consider supporting me on Patreon if you appreciate these emails – I'll be putting out more special work exclusive to subscribers, soon.  I love you and I'm grateful for you always!

blessings

Michael

Music Video for "VALIS" with Dance Artist Donna Zakura

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Donna's FB Page

Here's my first music video since dinosaurs, featuring amazing dancer Donna Zakura and her equally amazing videographer Anthony Dempsey.  They weren't the only great discoveries I made while in Australia last (Southern) summer – here for you are new recordings of my talks & singer-songwriter performances at Mycelium Studios in Melbourne and Backyard Network in Sydney.  The storyteller/fireside chat format was a delightful change of pace and drew new insights and stories out of me – plus, you get to hear some new songs.  :)

"My Dark Companion"

48"x30" – acrylic & oil paint pen on canvas

fine art reproductions

other printed merch

Labradorite peacock demiurge unfolding limbs in interstellar darkness, iridescent living music stirring from its slumber, wave on wave of scintillating eyeless self-awareness, blossoming serrated rainbows spooling out from glistening wet froth of possibility, potential into actual, a lucid dream that eats your waking life...

Original piece painted with oil and acrylic paint on canvas – begun at Llano Earth Arts Fest (Llano, Texas) on 11 March 2017, continued at Euphoria Fest (Austin, Texas) in April 2017, and completed over countless late nights in the studio through 18 July 2017.

My most successful instagram post ever and, perhaps for the same reason, maybe the most time-intensive painting I have ever made.  Dedicated to Ali McGhee.

"Beija Flor III"

18"x24" – oil and acrylic paint on canvas

fine art reproductions

other printed merch

Beija Flor (Portuguese for "flower kisser") visits some San Pedro cacti on a flight through the imagination. The hummingbird brings joy and love...but it's also a fiercely territorial relative of the Velociraptor!  Never Forget.

Australia Tour Live Recordings Now Online!

 

Melbourne, Australia at Mycelium Studios • Sydney, Australia at Backyard Network

Two of the better shows I've ever played, now yours for free or what you can afford to offer.  Each of these recordings captured a full hour-long talk and a full singer-songwriter performance in an intimate live setting with attentive audiences, and you definitely hear and feel the difference.  I am glad I finally had the time to mix these down and share them with you!  (If you're reading this on my blog instead of email, here are some preview tracks:)

New Future Fossils Podcast Episodes

  

0034: Tara Djokic, astrobiologist

0033:  Jon Lebkowsky, co-founder of EFF-Austin

0032: Mark Henson, visionary painter

Three episodes of Future Fossils with three awesome people, covering the bases of art, science, and spirituality with stories about the early days of the World Wide Web, the first life on Earth, and the future of art as a tool of political provocation.

More Writing at Steemit

Exhumed from the ruins of my old writing job and made available again for the first time in years:

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

The Overflowing Void: On Shabazz Palaces & Burrough's Naked Lunch

Upcoming Events

28 July – Austin, TX – Cherrywood Studios
Decentralized Art Shows – Cryptocurrency Art Opening

30 July – San Marcos, TX – KIVA Bar & Lounge
Cyberguitar set with Hello Crescendo, Bull Moose & Bonnie, laissez faire cassette

1 August – Austin, TX – Sidewinder Bar
Cyberguitar set with HoneySon, AlexAlco, Mode Dodeca

17 - 23 August – Big Summit Prairie, OR – Oregon Eclipse Festival
Speaking & Playing live music for yoga (with Emelie Rose)

27 August - 4 September – Black Rock City, NV – Burning Man Festival
Speaking & Playing Cyberguitar at Palenque Norte & Burners Without Borders
Details TBA

7 September – Austin, TX – Crux Climbing Gym
Cyberguitar (Floating Islands) set with Funkotron, The Mismatch, Gasoline Boots, Skymomma, DJ Lefty

22 - 24 September – Utopia, TX – UtopiaFest
The festival's first-ever sunrise set!

Feathery Fedoras, Cyberacoustic Jams, & My First Foray Into Graffiti

"I have an abiding interest in the UFO mythos, that sense of longing people have as they watch the skies and hope to see something truly different and startling. We never imagine that aliens will be boring."

– Jon Lebkowsky

"We are part of a symbiotic relationship with something which disguises itself as an extra-terrestrial invasion so as not to alarm us."

– Terence McKenna

Well, we are all now definitely in the thick of it, aren't we?  I've had four conversations in the last 24 hours about the importance of learning to interpret the symbolism of waking life as if we are actually dreaming...clearly something new is emerging through us, as us, and this new reality is making itself known through the now-commonplace occurrence of synchronicities and the instantaneous manifestation of our thoughts and feelings in the world at large.  (If you don't believe me, let's talk about it.)

In related news, I just reviewed my friend's evocative documentary on the evolution of cyberspace, Internet Rising.  The review is up on Reality Sandwich, where you can also stream the entire film:

We may not agree on the nature or potential of cyberspace, but we all recognize its intrinsic value as a medium of (transnational and transpersonal) connection – and maybe that is the first idea that seven billion egoic agendas can get behind.  “What’s good for cyberspace?” might be the question that saves the human species. (Read the whole review.)

Meanwhile, my live art interview series, The Field Guide To Live Artists, picks back up after a long sabbatical with a spotlight on the work of Jon Blake, aka Crazy Redbeard:

"People seem to like what I do. I enjoy making people happy. So if I can increase the joy in the world from pushing some paint around, then it's really a no brainer, I guess." (Read the whole interview.)

Live in Austin, NYE 2011

Watch & Share in HD on Youtube / Vimeo

The climax to one of my favorite improvisations so far.  Thanks to Interstellar Transmissions for letting me set an appropriately trippy tribal tone for their initiatory prayerformance on the eve of this most-anticipated year.  Nine Inch Nails' The Fragile remains one of my favorite albums of all time and this is the closest I've ever come to reproducing that sound on solo acoustic guitar.  Download the entire 10-minute track for free from my Soundcloud page...

Feathery Fedoras!

Positive vibrations, negative space.  Wear these hats above your face.  And if you'd like one for your head, just email me and that doesn't rhyme.  (But if you have time and are inclined, then here's the full line of my designs.)

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Comment / Purchase on FB

Adventures In Graffiti

Back in the misty collegiate dawn-age of 2003, my friend and classmate Andrew Giessel wrote an essay called "Graffiti and Public Memetics."  A fan of hip hop culture and DIY, Andrew (now a postdoc neuroscientist at Harvard) introduced me to the rhetoric that graffiti isn't mere "vandalism," but the reclamation of public spaces, a celebration of the commons by stealing it back from the corporate entities that sold it off from under our noses.  Why do we accept without argument the idea that public spaces are not actually public?  Why not beautify our creative commons with common creativity?

Luckily I live in Austin, where there are many places that public wall art is encouraged rather than criminalized.  I couldn't get away with this kind of thing on the walls of the suspiciously owlish Frost Bank, but most of this place still remembers what it's like to have an inclusive culture, and gladly invites people to contribute to their rainforest-esque abundance of bohemian atmosphere.  It's an easy city to step out of your shell and scrawl:

Wall Art @ Spider House Café

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I'm not sure what this is, exactly, but I loved making it:  standing on the bench in a booth in the back room, working on it for about half an hour, while everyone around is absorbed in their homework...

Wall Art @ Ruta Maya International Headquarters

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This takes up the whole wall over the toilet in the men's rest room, about four feet across.  It's one of the few pieces in a very busy bathroom that hasn't yet evoked any contrary replies.  Who's going to argue with this?  No, really.

"Vandalized" Valentine's Card: "Whooo Loves You?"

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This was a Valentine's Day card I picked up at the post office because I am on an owl kick right now...but it needed someone to take it up a notch, so I did.  Maybe this is what the card originally looked like, before the US postal service decided it was too intense to be cute.  I disagree.  Thanks again to Louis Wain for the inspiration...

In the next newsletter, I'll have pictures of the most time-intensive painting I've ever made, as well as more recent live concert footage and plenty of other goodies.  I also have a super huge announcement that will forever reshape the face of my career (!).

Thank you so much for your time and attention!  Feel free to write me any time.  And keep participating...