Hello, beloveds. It takes almost no effort at all to double down on the spookiness of this time of year, so let's at least have some fun with it, zoom out, and let me help remind you of the deeper currents in which we're all swimming with some of the best work I have ever produced.
I am honored to share with you, in this edition of the newsletter:
— a new psychedelic folk song it took me over twelve years to write and produce;
— a new electronic guitar improvisation I made as part of a peer-reviewed archaeology paper;
— the final (?) installment of my essay series on augmented reality and evolutionary arms races;
— my presentation on deepfakes for The Long Now Foundation's Ignite Talks;
— my logo design mockups for the South West Science Writers' Association;
— two excellent Future Fossils episodes on the pro-social and anti-social applications of deepfakes;
— my guest appearance on the delightful Talk of Today podcast; and
— my guest appearance on the equally delightful Plutopia News Happy Hour.
Lastly, as a pure and unadulterated offering, check out the extensive Future Fossils Wavescapes Spotify Playlist I've been secretly brewing for you good people over the last couple months. It's excellent.
I suggest optimizing for synergy by listening to my new tunes while you read the new pieces and then listening to the podcasts while you do whatever urgent work you assuredly have to do right now...
Let these be not bids for your attention but gifts to help lift you into a better state of mind, an invitation to enjoy some highly-polished and substantial treats — nourishment for your mind, heart, and soul.
Thank you and wishing you the best through all the turbulence.
love,
Michael
PS — Here's the jack-o-lantern that I carved this year, because how could I not:
My Crowning Musical Accomplishment:"You Don't Have To Move" Finally Gets Studio Treatment
Twelve years ago I wrote a song on a trampoline at Burning Man inspired by UFO sightings and apocalyptic dreams I had after getting out of college and watching the plans I'd had for my entire life fall to pieces.
Since then I've carried that song with me and cultivated it across a 30-stop national tour, dozens of festivals on three continents, and half a dozen interstate moves...and it's grown ferns and gemstones, doubled in length, and continued to fold in all of the new guitar techniques I learned along the way to stand as a living record of everything I know about the instrument and how to plug it into electronics and transform it into other things entirely.
Until this year, though, it had no definitive recording. Never made it to the studio — my life just moved too fast. It was the flagship of an album I'd been promising the world for years but then I got a job and had a kid and had to stop the touring, and the timeline kept receding. Seemed like I would never get this done.
And then we all got quarantined for months and suddenly I was back in the saddle with recording — and NEW songs started coming faster than they ever have, and it's now all that I can do to get the old ones finished and the new ones down before the next batch tumble in and add another album to the FOUR that I'm now planning...
It turns out that this song had wisdom in it that I never heeded and I never understood until it came true in my life: that you don't have to go out there to see the world, but if you stay in one place long enough the whole world comes to you. You truly, truly do not have to move.
And so it's with immense excitement I announce today's the day that "You Don't Have To Move" is now complete and published on TIMEWHEEL, an awesome group that I've been eager to contribute to since 2012! With everything else that's been going on this year it's almost hard to savor this accomplishment but this weird autumn flower is a consummation of a lifelong process and a deep delight.
Löwenmensch: The Lion ManA Cyberacoustic Deep-Time Sojourn
(including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram)
The associated video is the best-yet showcase of my "cyberguitar" technique, using the acoustic guitar and hardware pedalboards in a kind of home-brewed modular digital synthesis to dream up a full electroacoustic orchestra with minimal equipment. You can read more about it at Guitar Moderne.
New Essays & Talks on Psychedelic Futurism
Beta-testing Google Glass was only the beginning. Uninstalling AR dinosaurs taught me no man’s an island…and that we must be far more careful about who gets administrative access to our minds.
I sit down for a real barnstormer with host Sam Barton to discuss:
• Coronavirus and the epistemic crisis;
• Community and fragmentation;
• Evolution as a multi-billion year remix project;
• Psychedelics as training wheels for transhumanism;
• Restoring democracy, and regenerative communities;
• Rewilding the future; and
• The power of ideas.
Vote for My Designs!
South West Science Writers' Association Logo Contest
Vote for me in the Southwest Science Writers Association (SWSWA) Logo Contest! I cherish every opportunity to return to my roots as a scientific illustrator and while the (international) competition is fierce, you can vote as many times as you want. So please do vote more than once, and share this post.
Thank You Burning Man
for Including Future Fossils in Your Official Newsletter!
