Michael Garfield's Love Without End Tour Newsletter: UtopiaFest
Showing posts with label UtopiaFest. Show all posts
Showing posts with label UtopiaFest. Show all posts

21 September 2017

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.”

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.



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

05 July 2017

Martian Arts EP on Spotify // The Evolution of Surveillance // Authentic Self Expression // New Painting: Colibrí // Becca Tarnas & Mitch Altman on FF

“We could say that love is a tenacious adventure. The adventurous side is necessary, but equally so is the need for tenacity. Real love is one that triumphs lastingly, sometimes painfully, over the hurdles erected by time, space and the world.”

Greetings, friends!  A lot of gifts to share in this one – hope it finds you well!  
Enjoy and stay in touch...

– NEW PAINTING –
Colibrí (Beija Flor II)
acrylic on canvas // 18"x24"

Original piece painted at home, a commissioned remix of 2014's "Beija Flor," one of my favorite pieces. The first hummingbird painting flew to Bangkok to join the collection of Greenpeace's Director of East Asian Operations the same day international news announced that vandals had written the Greenpeace logo over the hummingbird Nazca lines in Peru, those famous ancient petroglyphs visible only from the air. 

That weird coincidence – like some globe-spanning karmic shuffle – was just one of many "winks" returning my investment in these lovely birds. I'm glad to revisit this creature with three more years of experience as a painter. To spend some time with it and learn from it.

– NEW MUSIC –
Martian Arts EP is now on Spotify and Bandcamp!

It's also the new titles music for John Lentz's The Invisible Room Podcast.  He offered up the EP's first review:

"My vibration burst into the great beyond listening to this album. I didn’t want to come back. I felt myself riding waves of the infinite, supported by the unbounded ocean of being. The rhythms, the ongoingness, departing, returning, expanding, contracting, and the many sudden very strange moments—all of this gave way to the mystery itself...This music brings me home."

Martian Arts EP is free to Patreon subscribers.  Or you can grab a print of the album cover art – a collab between myself and Tourmaline Todd – and download the tunes for free.

– NEW WRITING –

What do cameras, Pokémon, and the atomic bomb all have in common? They are reflections of the automatic and emergent evolutionary process of the universe becoming self-aware... This is the climax of my three-part memoir as a Google Glass Explorer, exploring natural history to understand how we got here and what we can expect of our bizarro Brave New World.  (Here are Parts 1 & 2.)


How can we live authentically when:

1) The systems we’ve created are opposed to human nature; and
2) We made it this way?

We’re out of touch with who we are. We grew thinking that somebody has The Answers, and those answers can be bought.

They can’t. Here’s why.

(Here also is my archive of exhumed short writing – from 2015, when I was editor of nonduality zine Globalish – on Steemit.)

– NEW PODCAST EPISODES –


– UPCOMING GIGS –

8 July – Austin, TX – Square Rüt Kava Bar
Apocalyptic Folk Singer-Songwriter Set. 8 - 10pm
Free All Ages Show

10 July – Austin, TX – Capital Factory
"The Pre- & Post-History of Surveillance, Virtual Reality, and Swarm Intelligence"
A Special Live Taping of Future Fossils Podcast at EFF-Austin with Panelists: 
Heather Barfield, Maggie Duval, Paul Toprac, & Kevin Welch


Keynote Speaker on Time, Evolution, Consciousness, & Cosmos


Playing the festival's first-ever Sunrise Set!

21 January 2016

MG on Lucid Planet Radio, New Woven Art Blankets, New Live Painting & Studio Painting, Printed Leggings & Cases


"Creativity is a consequence of action, not its motivation. Do what needs to be done and then ask whether it was possible. Orthodoxy is the enemy of invention, despair an insult to the imagination."
– Wade Davis

I hope that this first blog update of 2016 finds you well! I just turned 32, and looking back at this newsletter that I started at age 24, I'm rekindled with enthusiasm to make this year's offerings my best yet.  This year feels like the year to dream and create as big as possible – and I'm glad to tell you that two of my most overdue, ambitious projects are now underway!

Specifically: My friend Evan "Skytree" Snyder and I just started recording episodes of our new podcast, Future Fossils (join our Facebook group for some great conversations) and Evan has also volunteered to produce my next studio album (my first legitimate musical release since before I started painting!).  Expect more news on both of those endeavors here soon.

In the meantime, this year's off to a great start.  Enjoy, stay in touch, and have a beautiful day!

MG on Lucid Planet Radio with Dr. Kelly:
"The Psychedelic Imagination and the Future of Humanity"


Nothing like kicking off your birthday week with a live radio appearance.  How we managed to have such a deep and far-ranging conversation while getting interrupted every fifteen minutes for commercials, I will never know – but we did!

Kelly and I talked about anxiety management and the wisdom of insecurity; asked if it's really possible to put a price on art (or happiness); gave our practical suggestions for how to be creative; and discussed my crazy thought that psychedelics might offer us the best metaphor for understanding how the Internet is changing humankind.  Read her show notes and stream/download our chat here.


Yay! I finally received the sample of these new gorgeous jacquard loom visionary art blankets – scientifically designed to trap heat and attract synchronous encounters.

This is the same company that manufactures blankets for some of my favorite artists, including Alex Grey – and they don't mess around.  These are big ol' throws for full-on hiding: 77" long by 51" wide. (Observe the difficulty I endure to hold it fully open!) Super soft 100% cotten grown and woven in the USA (with 60% recycled material, because Nature).


Turnaround is just over a month right now, so the sooner you can put in your order the better!  I want to make sure you've got plenty of cold weather left this year in which to benefit from this.  :)


Painted live with oil & acrylic markers and aerosol paint on masonite (32"x24") at:

• 2016-01-06 – Vulcan Gas Company for Solstice Live Presents: 
CAPYAC, Henry + The Invisibles, Food Group, Blanc, Pyrograph

• 2016-01-09 – Fair Market for Utopiafest & Black Fret Present: 
Holiday Mountain, Shinyribs, The Midnight Stroll, Calliope Musicals, Mobley

Talk about some New Moon manifestation! I finished this painting on a Saturday night, deciding it looks like a space salad and naming it "Share What You Have." None of this was especially intentional. Then on Sunday, the next morning, I went to sing at the Hope Farmer's Market here in Austin, slinking back into my singer-songwriter chops and unwittingly putting the painting's title into practice. I got paid in vegetables from Johnson Backyard Garden: fennel, bok choy, kale, collard greens, cabbage, cilantro, beets, sweet potato, dill, salad greens, and carrots! How is that for painting your own future? I do not believe that time is linear.


New Studio Painting: "Dogfight"
Painted at home with oil and acrylic paint markers (12"x12")

Just a small commission for a friend based on the Norse myth of twin wolves, Skoll and Hati. The sons of monster wolf Fenrir (who it is foretold will kill Odin at the end of time), Skoll is the black wolf who chases the sun, and Hati is the white wolf who chases the moon. At Ragnarok (Norse Judgment Day), they will both succeed, hastening the end of the world. Daaaaaaamn! This piece is irreverently titled "Dogfight" and was made with oil and acrylic paint pens on a 12" square canvas.



Loopers' Night celebrates its first birthday (thirteen straight months!) at Strange Brew Lounge in Austin this February 4th.  Come if you can!  We have an absurd lineup of amazing musical guests, which you can read more about by clicking the banner above.

(And if you'd like to learn more about live looping music, join our Loopers' Night Facebook group!)


My first Gem & Jam Festival was in 2009, and MY how it has grown!  Since Firefly Gathering is taking this year off, this may be my only festival in Arizona for the year.  I'm bringing lots of art on this trip – if you are going to be there and see anything in my gallery of available originals that you would like, please let me know and I'll make sure to bring it.



A totally beautiful homegrown event in Central Texas, dedicated to the beauty of this planet and its natural elements.  I will be playing two sets and live painting and enjoying gorgeous open skies and worldclass rock art talent at this free event.  So fun!  More details if you click the banner.

...And A Last Word From Your Under-Ornamented Life

Until I have my Patreon campaign online, there are a precious few ways you can show the world that you believe in what I'm doing (or that you just like to decorate yourself intelligently).  Here are some options from my Hall of Magical Things over at Society6:


"The most important things that we know fifty years from now will be things we have no idea about right now.”
– Lawrence Krauss