Ecodelic Explorations: AI Art + Arvo Pärt | Kant on Rationality | Evolutionary Adaptations I Love | Greater Than Code | Agency as Art

Hey everyone!  Lots of big moves lately on my end so here's the short of it:

1) I'm hugely expanding my offerings on Patreon, including providing access to HD images of all of my new digital art experiments to the $10 tiers and up.

2) I am, in the parlance of our times, "aping" into NFTs (at Rarible, Hic Et Nunc, Voice, and Mint Songs for starters).  Before you have a kneejerk reaction to this one way or another, it's part of my commitment to guinea pig myself with new media so I can learn their potentials and hopefully help empower other people to take the leap and/or make valid critiques.  I lost a lot of fans when I beta tested Google Glass, but it was SO important to my understanding of evolution and technology, and the role I could play in urgent discourse on these things, and I feel the same way about exploring NFTs.

(Accessibility matters and I don't want you to feel left behind, so please hit me up with questions or feel free to join the discussion we're having about this stuff in the Discord server.)

3) I'm moving the email newsletter from Substack to Revue and returning to biweekly updates, in part because it's unfair to you to keep sending out enormous entries like this one. Hopefully you agree that more bite-sized pieces are easier and more fun than dropping a six-foot sandwich once every 4-8 weeks.  

Thank you for sticking with me through these changes.  Continuing to make art, music, and writing while helping raise two new humans is insanely difficult and it means the world to me that we're on this journey together.

And now for as much new work as I feel okay to share at one time.  More music and paintings soon!

Experimenting with AI Art:  

"Future Fossils" Takes On A New Whole Meaning

It's always been my intention to fold more of what I do under the Future Fossils name, since the podcast is far from the only work that qualifies (as both a trace of present activity left to the future and a kind of presentiment or foreshadowing for later comprehension).

Lately, that's taken the form of two different styles of digital art exploration. This batch here is AI art (using VQGAN+CLIP on a pre-trained model), grown from text-based prompts using the titles of some of my favorite episodes.

This is so incredibly fun. I love collaborating with machines, feeding analog into digital into analog and back again, seeing what can be learned by taking the other's perspective on the self. This series (curated from a much larger pool of failures) are what I consider "hits" where the computer grokked the spirit of the episode, like those "intuitive" plays made by AlphaGo.

If you're interested in owning one of these as a unique (1:1) NFT, I've started minting my favorite generative art experiments on hicetnunc.xyz/futurefossils, which runs on the Tezos blockchain (which is approximately 2,000,000 times more energy efficient than Ethereum — you can read more about sustainability comparisons here and here).

More info on what you're looking at:

168 - Mikey Lion & Malena Grosz - Festival Time, Life-changing Trips, and Community in COVID

49 - Jake Kobrin - Sex, Death, and The Return of The Black Madonna
163 - Toby Kiers & Brandon Quittem - Bitcoin and Fungal Economies
69 - Tim Freke - The Evolution of The Imagination



57 - Conner Habib & Mitch Mignano - Occult Biology
171 - Eric Wargo - Precognitive Dreamwork and The Philosophy of Time Travel
100 - The Teafaerie - DMT, Transhumanism, and What To Do with All of God's Attention
176 - Richard Doyle, Sophie Strand, & Sam Gandy - Exploring Ecodelia: Myth, Magic, and Mycelium



120 - Ramin Nazer - Cave Paintings for Future People
160 - Stephen Hershey & Kynthia Brunette - His Dark Materials: Narnia, Fillory, and Coming of Age in The Multiverse
109 - Bruce Damer - The Origins and Future of Life
 91 - An Oral History of The End of "Reality"

Writing New & Old on Art, Philosophy, Evolution

Arvo Pärt’s minimalist soundscapes are a major feature of the 20th Century's musical terrain; his is a particularly windblown and barren, starkly beautiful land, with grand vistas and time-carved expanses.

Here are my nondual reflections on his work (an OLD piece from 2007, recently republished).

I also wrote a short love letter to one of my favorite turtles in Neo.Life, a magazine about synthetic biology founded by Jane Metcalfe of WIRED Magazine fame:

9 Evolutionary Adaptations We Love

And don't think I ever shared this five-minute lecture I gave at The Long Now Foundation's Ignite Talks last year, very much in the spirit of Terence McKenna:

Deepfakes and The Archaic Revival

Lastly, I recently appeared in The Santa Fe New Mexican by virtue of being the only person at the Santa Fe Institute to have ever used a Bitcoin ATM.

New Podcast Episodes (Both Home & Away Games)

I had a fabulous conversation on Greater Than Code earlier this year about the economically invisible work of true innovation and discovery...it got deep but stayed accessible.  Recommended.

And then more recently I joined my friend Michael Phillip on his show Third Eye Drops to discuss Immanuel Kant's ideas about rational enlightenment, and ask whether we're living in an age of False Enlightenment (spoiler: both of us think the answer is yes).

Lastly, I've had some AMAZING conversations on Future Fossils, recently:

Lastly: Prints & Original Paintings for Giving Season

Here's my print shop and here's my list of available original works.  Happy to offer unique arrangements to interested collectors — I would far rather you have one of these than for me to keep them hoarded in my studio!

"The dangers of life are infinite, and among them is safety."

—Goethe

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 Hummingbird Live Painting | William Irwin Thompson Interview | More Sublimation Tees & Tanks

“I carry a torch that is as old as the human spirit, and as I journey forth I seek a broader vision and support to help me communicate as purely and uninhibitedly as possible. This is a statement and a prayer…”
– Amanda Sage

This week I'm giving you a lot to chew on, some work that I'm especially proud of.  So I'll skip the preamble and let the content do the talking.  Enjoy!  And hopefully I'll see you at Holy Mountain in Austin opening for Taylor McFerrin this Saturday, or at Gratifly Festival, or Arise Festival...

Beija Flor

11"x17" Poster Prints | Full-Size Giclée Prints

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"Note that the flower – with its multiple and layered invocation, a figure-ground dissolution of inside/outside that works as a snare for insect attraction – the (now self-referential) book, and the jewel share a vocation: organized, and thoroughly seductive, fluctuation."

– Richard Doyle, Darwin's Pharmacy pp.64-65

16"x24" – paint pens on canvas, created live at:

2014 06 13 – 16 Firefly Gathering (Flagstaff, Arizona) during

Kokopelli, Jahmontee, Nico Luminous, Nanda, Quanta, Akasha, Digital Rust, Love & Light, Mr. Rogers, Sixis, Johnny Swoope, Pumpkin, Random Rab, Kaminanda, Whitebear, Itom Lab

2014 06 19 – 22 Sonic Bloom Festival (South Park, Colorado) during

Soulacybin, DJedi, Kyrstyn Pixton, Cualli, OTT, Tipper, Nominus, Future Simple Project, Merkaba, Amani, Treavor Moontribe, Ayla Nereo, Saqi, Wildlight, Bird of Prey, Dopapod, Birds of Paradise, Mr. Bill, Random Rab

"Beija Flor" means "flower kisser" in Portugeuse. This summer has been full of visits from hummingbird energy in various ways and it only seemed appropriate to honor these beautiful creatures with a portrait that recognizes their sublime and joyous spirit. After nearly a year at home in Texas, this is how I felt to get back out on the road and join my friends for festival season...

(What flower is he kissing?  Why, the 1000-petaled lotus connecting us to God, of course – the "glass chrysanthemum" or Sahasrara chakra that mediates our soul's descent to matter, and through which various spiritual traditions direct attention at the time of death.  What better place to plant a kiss?)

Browse Buttons, Cards, & More on Zazzle

On The Horizons of Planetary Culture: 

Cyborgs, Psychedelics, & Spiritual Evolution

Listen/Watch at Reality Sandwich

One of the of the best – and most controversial – conversations I’ve ever had is now live at Reality Sandwich: My second rap (here is the first) with poet-philosopher William Irwin Thompson, former MIT professor and founder of the legendary Lindisfarne Association, on the transformations of self and society in the collapse of civilization and the emergence of a planetary culture – cyborgs, surveillance, and psychedelics in an age of paranoid apocalypticism and inspired new visions for our species.  Get ready for a wild one, folks…comments welcome!

Full notes on the two-hour conversation – including mentions of Douglas Rushkoff, Erik Davis, Buddhist Geeks, Mindful Cyborgs, Richard Doyle, Philip K. Dick, Jan Irvin, Buckminster Fuller, Marshall McLuhan,Terence McKenna, Burning Man, Bitcoin, Google Glass, DADARA, Joan Halifax, Wendell Berry, and more – at the link above.

New Dye-Sublimation Shirts at Infinite Bit

I still have several cool shirt & dress designs for sale at Ravenectar.  Here are a few more in production with another great apparel startup, Infinite Bit.  Being able to my print art on clothes like this almost makes up for the no-hoverboard thing, in my opinion...

T-Shirts | Tees

T-Shirts | Tees

T-Shirts | Tees

Upcoming Appearances

Now Accepting Commissions!

LostInSound Compilation | Minds.com Panel Discussion | My Talk From Gratifly Festival | New Mind Folds

"When the evolutionary process shifts from biology to software technology the body becomes the old hardware environment. The human body is now a probe, a laboratory for experiments." 

– Marshall McLuhan, 1970

How is 2014 treating you guys?  Me:  superconducting creativity like graphene, transparent to my own motives and desires like glass, but under a lot of pressure like diamond.  The Year of the Horse is already off to a gallop, with some amazing new gigs – including tonight's show at The Scottish Rite Theater in Austin, doing a special A/V performance with Topher Sipes after the screening of my friend Rak Razam's ayahuasca documentary.  Here are a few more to look forward to in the next month:

7 February 2014 - Austin, TX - Mindzai Printing
Third Coast Visions Art Collective Show – Live Collaborative Mural
Cyberacoustic Guitar w/ Live Visuals by Topher Sipes

8 February 2014 - Austin, TX - The Parish
Live Painting for Desert Dwellers, Futexture, Cactus Bath

15 February 2014 - Austin, TX - Cenote
Love Songs For Solo Percussive Guitar, 7 - 9 pm, Free All Ages Show

15 February 2014 - San Marcos, TX - Tantra Coffeehouse
Cyberacoustic Guitar set w/ ARTheism, Hair Farmers, Grace Park, & Violinda

(Texas Wild Rice Festival Fundraiser Show)

6 - 8 March 2014 - Kerrville, TX - Head For The Hills Festival
Cyberacoustic Guitar, Live Painting & more, Details TBA

I will of course record as much as possible to share with all of you who can't make it there in person.  And now on to all of the goodies I have for you this week!  Enjoy, and stay in touch...

"Complexity, Culture, & Consciousness"

A Minds.com Panel Discussion

Watch & Read the Companion Chat on Google+

One of the most awesome conversations I've ever had!  My friend Bill Ottman at Minds.com invited me to help him curate an all-star panel discussion with stem cell researcher and complexity theorist Neil Theis, information scientist and sci-fi professor Richard Doyle, religious scholar and culture critic Erik Davis, and historian and all-around badass Mitch Mignano.

Our 110-minute conversation ranged from whether the universe is alive to the implications of open-source software in government, the consciousness of subatomic particles to the the spiritual consequences of Fukushima.  If you want to blow your mind, make some time to watch this.

LostInSound Winter Compilation 2014

Download it Here & Support Disaster Relief in the Philippines

I was honored to participate in this amazing benefit compilation.  From my friends at LostinSound:

LostinSound.org is happy to announce our V/A Winter Compilation of 2014. This collection features an eclectic track list from 21 of today's most talented and relevant producers. Our winter edition brings something completely new and different to the table, so wash your hands, and get ready to feast on a royal banquet of unreleased material.

We’d like to thank each and everyone of these artists for their tremendous contribution towards this compilation, and their continued support of Lost in Sound as a collective. A special mention goes out to Jacob Unmess for designing the unbelievable cover art for this season’s compilation. 25 limited edition 11x17 prints are available in the "Merch" section of this page.

For the first time ever, we are encouraging but not requiring donations. 100% of these donations will be given to an incredible organization entitled “Transform Relief.” After the most severe typhoon in recorded history hit the Philippines last November, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced from their homes and lack access to food or fresh water. Transform Relief is not only bringing radical aid but empowering people to grow their own food using sustainable practices, and non-GMO, fast growth seeds. We will publish a full feature tomorrow when the compilation is released.

We feel obligated to use our skills and our large networks of activated youth to help our brothers and sisters who are in great need. We’ve been given a chance as a collective to unify and aid in a way that transcends what any one individual could accomplish alone. So, if you feel moved, please donate when you download the compilation, be sure to get to know our ally's at Transform Relief.

My Talk From Gratifly Festival 2013

Stream & Download it Here for Free
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Excerpts from the epic three-hour-plus, still-going-from-an-all-nighter rant I gave at Gratifly Festival in Avalon, South Carolina, 27 July 2013.

This talk is a map of the problematique - the tragedy and blessing of the human condition as it specifically manifests in an age of metamorphosis. Old worlds are dying and new worlds are being born. How do we navigate the change? By taking a cosmic perspective.

I wish I had the whole three hours for you...but due to the fact that this was recorded on my pocket digital camera, I was limited by the lifespan of my lithium batteries. Consequently the audio is also substandard, but I am nonetheless happy to share it. There's something magical about what came through in that place and time – exhausted and in love...

New Mind Folds

"Author & Inventor" (as it says euphemistically on the packaging) Alex Grey invented these modified blindfolds to let people experience total darkness with their eyes open.  Perfect for simulating blindness or going on mental journeys in the daytime, Mind Folds are also a fun surface for me to practice my oil painting technique.  Email me with your budget if you'd like one!

Check it out on FB

Check it out on FB

Merchandise

I do pretty much all of my work as a gift to the commons (that's you!) and am supported by people's donations – I'm now accepting Bitcoin as well as monthly subscriptions through Paypal on my homepage – but if you want to help me stay afloat as an artist and get something cool out of the deal, here are some options for you:

Thanks for reading!  Stay in touch and have a beautiful day...

Live at Burning Man 2013 | Interview w/ Rich Doyle | New GRC Embroidered Flatbill | New Pins & Custom Hats | Life In The Glass Age

“The zen tradition has this great saying, ‘Here comes the hearth god, looking for the fire.’ You’re looking everywhere for the fire, and it’s in you. and when you start to find it in yourself, others find you.”

– Richard Doyle

I turned 30 this year on January 8th – sharing a birthday with Elvis Presley, David Bowie, and Stephen Hawking, among others.  Big shoes to fill – which is why this year I'm focused on bigger and more meaningful projects than ever before.

Here are the first preliminary echoes of those great works to come.  Thanks for reading, and enjoy!

I Miss You And It's Okay: Live at Burning Man 2013

Free/Pay-What-You-Like Digital Download

55 minutes of dreamy, compelling electronic guitar improvisations inspired by and infused with playa magic. Recorded at Burning Man's Center Camp Café and Fractal Planet Village , this hour of multi-channel looping improvisations on guitar, voice, and hardware effects is the alchemical transmutation of enthusiasm, playa dust, and sheer PATHOS into the angelic psychofluid captured here as a trace fossil for your appreciation.

Recommended listening environment: sprawled out on carpet, couch, or bare earth while making love or waiting for inspiration to strike.  Dedicated to the dream woman for whom I spent long years searching, a fantasy I finally released by fire in this year's Temple.

Download it here and enjoy the ride...

My Chat with Sci-Fi Professor Richard Doyle

Stream/Download Here

Richard Doyle is now Professor of Information Science, Rhetoric, and Science Fiction at Penn State and author of a trilogy on emergent forms of knowledge, the latest and most acclaimed of which is the epic treatise, Darwin’s Pharmacy: Sex, Plants, and the Evolution of the Noösphere – probably the finest example yet of 21st Century “psychedelic” writing.

The latest in my SolPurpose.com series of visionary-yet-personal dialogues with various inspirational thinkers, we focused on how human exploration is turning once again to the inner frontiers of consciousness.  Doyle's love for language shone through for our whole conversation.  Here are a few clips:

“Our brains have been the frontier of capitalism for the last twenty years, of which the internet is just one manifestation, and the pharmaceuticalization of everything is the other. It’s like we’re on the border of Oklahoma in the 19th century and the gunshot goes, and everybody goes to stake their claim – it’s like the inner realm is that space, now.”

“We don’t need to create another identity politics around evolving consciousness. Because that’s how we won’t evolve consciousness. But we do need other like-minded souls…to help us by verifying, and debugging, and debunking all the stuff we’re working through as all this stuff continues to unfold.”

Read more & listen at SolPurpose.

"Compass Mandala" Pins by MG x KolorSpun

Order yours here | View/Share on FB

1.8", gold-plated, double-posted enamel pins based on my live painting, "Compass Mandala #1" – each colorway (warm and cool) is laser-engraved in a numbered series of 250.  Preorders ship by January 24th.

MG x Herbivore x GRC Embroidered Flatbill

I think my new Grassroots California signature flatbill for Herbivore Designs must be the coolest hat I've ever made – and it damn well better be, because it took almost an entire year to get this most-complicated-design-ever prototyped and ready for sale!  I'm sure you can tell how much work went into this, from the original painted concept to the fully embroidered and sublimation-printed final product (which you can order here):

View on Instagram

View on Instagram

Limited series of 420 – grab yours while supplies last at Herbivore Designs.

I'm also still going strong with the custom painted hats.  Here are the latest – email me if you'd like details on getting one of your own:

View/Share on FB

View/Share on FB

Join The Discussion: Technology, Art, & Consciousness

I also want you to join me in one of the most important conversations of our times.  Join Life in the Glass Age: Technology, Art, & Consciousness, my new social bookmarking club and discussion group:

We live in an age of accelerating change - not just of our technologies, but of our selves and societies. We define ourselves in relationship to our tools and each other – and as one of us changes, so do we all.  This group is for the exploration of the new worlds coming into being as powerful new knowledge technologies are born and we experience new permutations of old struggles: between privacy and accountability; freedom and security; access and permission.

Encouraged: Posts about the personal and social dimensions of sur- and sous-veillance, Big Data, augmented reality, wearable computing, the Internet of Things, etc. How are we changing - and how are we staying the same? How are we learning to make art out of our increasingly intelligent and responsive environments?  Critical perspectives welcome.

Everyone into the pool!  And thanks again for your support.