Creative Overflow Before Summer Tour

[If you're reading this in an email, I promise you'll enjoy it more on my website.]


"It is the vice of a vulgar mind to be thrilled by bigness, to think that a thousand square miles are a thousand times more wonderful than one square mile.  That is not imagination.  No, it kills it..."

– E.M. Forster, Howards End

A good thing to keep in mind as I load up the Windhorse, my beloved 1995 Subaru station wagon, to embark on an ambitious eight-week summer festival tour.  My new Texas driver's license in my pocket, I'm bittersweet about leaving my new home to embark on another shoestring adventure...but this is 2012, the year to either do it or forever hold your peace.  So here we go...!

Below is a list of all the festivals I'll be attending this summer – most of them as both a musical and visual performer, as well as a speaker on mind-bending topics like this.  But first, here is a smattering of creative offerings that fell in the cracks between bigger projects over the last few weeks:

"We Are Machines In The Ghost"

Watch on Youtube / Discuss on Facebook

The next in my series of spontaneous rants about the collision between human-technology co-evolution and mystical spirituality.  This four-minute video examines how hard it is to draw the line between our minds and our tools – and it's only getting harder, as those tools become increasingly lifelike...

Custom-Painted Hats

Even with a busy summer looming ahead, I'm still open to talk with you about your own custom lid...because we all have a freak flag that needs flying, and I'm totally excited about helping you trigger sympathetic peak experiences in strangers as you walk by.  Here's the whole gallery of my hats so far.  I'm open to all kinds of suggestions for new work...

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A few customers asked me to personalize the already-too-cool embroidered signature series hats I made in collaboration with Grassroots California.  I still have plenty left, although not in every size – if you'd like one before they're gone, drop me a line as soon as you can!  (And, obviously, I'll gladly accept a tip to make your 1-of-420 lid a one-of-a-kind.)

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"The Crowd From Above"

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2012 03 26 Ruta Maya (Esoteric Mondays)

16"x20" – paint markers on masonite panel

11"x17" signed poster prints: 1/$20, 2/$30, 3/$40 – email me

A quickie, after the last two epic dragon paintings...short and sweet and to the point.  For some reason this reminds me of an x-ray aerial image of everybody's dog stuck alone in the house all day – a metaphor for how so many of us are stranded in the lonely cubicles of our suburban modern hearts.  It doesn't have to be like this!  It won't always be like this.  And from above, we are just as much a sea of rippling grain...

Getting Into The Meme Game

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Like a true friend, I turned my buddy Jeremy McDonough (aka Space Panda)'s least flattering photo ever into a web meme.  And it blew up!  Click that link above to share it on facebook, because Lord knows you have a friend who needs to see this.  (Here's a link to "Festival Keyboard Guy" on quickmeme if you want to browse other people's captions or make your own.)

...And this one's little too heady, maybe, to ever go viral.  Nonetheless, the resemblance is uncanny:

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For The Readers...

• Spirit of Spider recently republished my awesome conversation with fellow live painter and geometry-head Kris Davidson – the guy who originally inspired me to start painting in the first place – in which we rap at length on what "realism" means in art, and exactly what kind of reality our art describes.  I still go back to this chat every once in a while for inspiration, and am super glad to see it's still getting mileage.

• My latest album, Golden Hour, got a lovely short review from the new avant-guitar website, New Wave of Acoustic Guitar, where I now stand alongside such incredible talents as Adrian Belew and Jon Gomm:

"I found myself getting lost in the music a lot, often forgetting I was listening to one guy!  Definitely a unique voice in the world of solo acoustic guitar."

Free copies of the album are available for anyone who'd like to blog about it.  Get ahold of me if you're interested, or have friends who are looking to feature something fresh...

Let's Meet Up This Summer!

...my second year as live art director means more artists and better gallery placement.  Come hang with us!

...my first main stage set at a festival is also my first sunrise set!  Luxuriously sacred, that's what this'll be.

...my first time on stage in Georgia, for a first-year event shaping up to be really great!

...my fourth year as live art director at Sonic Bloom, now graced with an amazing gallery by Tribe 13!

...one of my favorite places on this entire continent is Northern Arizona; I can't wait to be a part of this.

...resort accommodations will make this the plushest festival all summer.  Looking great for a first-year!

...absolutely my favorite small festival in the Midwest, this one balances art, music, and learning superbly.

Two Paintings-In-Progress, Going Away Concerts, & More Cyborg Philosophy

"As if snapping out of a trance, I found myself not out of my mind, in the sense that I was crazy, but rather, inside of my mind, which was now discovered to be everywhere, in that I was beginning to realize that I was dreaming."

- Paul Levy

"Everything is funny as long as it is happening to Somebody Else."

- Will Rogers

As summer turns to autumn and my impending move from Boulder to Austin looms ever-nearer, change is in the air.  Appropriate to the season, it's a time of closing accounts and kisses goodbye.  But I won't wear black to my own funeral – so the next couple of weeks are going to be full of parties!

Beyond hosting a flexible-price sale on all of my original paintings to raise money for the move, here is how I'm celebrating the end of four years in Colorado and the leap into a new adventure:

• 14, 15 October, Denver CO - Cervantes Masterpiece Ballroom

8 pm - 2 am: live painting & body art by donation at SONIC BLOSSOM

with Ott, Random Rab, Kraddy, Janover & Karsh Kale, Octopus Nebula, Project Aspect,

Phadroid, Govinda, The Human Experience, Bird of Prey, and more

- last scheduled live art gig in CO -

• 21 October, Denver CO - Jake's Denver

8 - 11 pm: three full songbird & cyberacoustic guitar sets (FREE)

• 25 October, Denver CO - Cervantes' Other Side

9 - 10 pm: cyberacoustic songbird set w/ Three-Legged Fox ($7)

• 28 October, Estes Park CO - Aspen Lodge

6:30 - 9 pm: balladry & cyberacoustic guitar sets (FREE)

- last scheduled concert in CO -

...and now on to the juice.  We got new artwork, new writing, and new music in this one.  But first, here are pictures from last weekend's live painting fiesta at Art Outside – an absolute gem of a festival, positively overflowing with amazing undiscovered artists and musicians.  Click through to the gallery, and feel free to comment!

Photos: Art Outside 2011

As part of my emphasis on process, I've always tried to find ways to make this blog more immediate and immersive – to bring the people who can't be at every show into the experience of live art and music.  (Hence the photo album above.)

But I'm spending more time on each piece these days, which means a longer lag between when you saw me at the show working on the painting and when it finally spreads its feathers and does a mating dance for your brain.  So here are snapshots of two paintings-in-progress that I started over the last month, caught in their awkward pimply adolescence.  Click to view full-size:

Many Worlds (tentative)

2011 09 01, 02 Burning Man Festival - Fractal Nation Village

(Left Coast, Heyoka, Mimosa, Dov, FreQ Nasty, Ill Gates, An-Ten-Nae)

& 2011 09 10 Red Rocks Amphitheatre (STS9, Savoy)

paint markers on stretched canvas - 24"x36"

A minor homage to the worlds-within-worlds paintings of my friend Melissa Leigh...minus the worlds, of course!  So that's where this piece is headed:  a unique terrarium ecology for each of those floating orbs.  If something goes horribly wrong, I might just paint a big Brontosaurus on top.

Mobius Brain (tentative)

2011 10 07, 08, 09 Art Outside Festival

(Psymbionic, David Starfire, Bird of Prey, Riders Against The Storm, Sorne, Ricochet, Dolomites, Soundfounder, Butcher Bear, Kinder Lo Phi, Ntropy, Nicoluminous, Happy Happy James)

paint markers on canvas panel - 24"x30"

As many paradoxes as I can fit into a single painting...it's like the Impossible Fork times a million.  Painted myself into a corner with this one, and eager to see how I paint myself out of it.

Recent Philosophy Riffs

For those of you who enjoy heady ideas (and that's hopefully all of you), here are two recent articles I wrote for transhumanism website Acceler8or about 1) our evolving relationship with emotional machines, and 2) the implications of CERN's recent superluminal neutrino research...some of the more interesting topics, I think, here at the edge of the future:

"Coevolution & The Technology of Desire"
A few years ago, the first emotional robot pet hit the market. Designed by the co-inventor of Furby, Pleo the Dinosaur is an adorable little beast, big eyes and feet, curious and playful and a little awkward...just like a baby dinosaur, except it comes in a box and is full of electronic innards.  Pleo — as well as earlier incarnations like Furby, Teddy Ruxpin, and even the Pet Rock — speak to a deep-seated human desire to relate with the world around us. It only makes sense that as the machine world becomes more and more a part of daily life, our technology’s rocket trajectory out of the spirited and sentient world of our ancestors would plunge right back into an age of cute computers. (read more)

"And Now, Faster-Than-Light Culture"
Last week’s discovery at CERN of neutrinos traveling faster than light has physics forums buzzing about the possibility that this is “solid” evidence of long-hypothesized additional dimensions. This is big news. For the first time in the modern world, the existence of invisible spatial dimensions is in the public discourse. Science is the closest thing much of the literate planet has to religion these days, and this is far closer to the otherworldly transcendent mythos of early cities than the heady, highly existential relativity physics delivered to us from on high by Einstein. (read more)

New Cyber-Acoustic Guitar Videos From Burning Man

I was honored to play the Center Camp 2011 Aerial Dance Showcase at this year's Burning Man.  Unfortunately, dust got into my digital audio recorder and the only surviving record of that performance is here, captured in these two short videos...a glimpse of dust and light, love and survival:

Much more music video on its way as I gear up for the 11/11/11 release of Rites of Passage: Live At Burning Man – in the meantime, all of my music is (as always) free or pay-what-you-like at MichaelGarfield.net.  If you haven't already, take my latest live album, Alive in the Zone of the Rose, for a spin...it's a transporting hour of my signature blend between acoustic songwriter fare and electronic guitar looping psychedelia, the musical version of my visual art.

HUGE thanks to everyone for supporting my tireless efforts by buying music, introducing your friends to my work, offering your thoughtful feedback, and inspiring people with your own creative lives.  Don't hesitate to write if you have something to say, and have a beautiful day!

Playing The Body Electric, Part One

I believe that we as a species are currently witnessing the evolution of a new relationship between the inner and outer worlds, renegotiating that tricky self/other boundary...and in the process we might ultimately reach a new platform of musical development at which the individual has internalized not just the other players, but the instruments themselves.

But first, a bit of necessary exposition in the field of developmental psychology, so bear with me, here...

I went to grad school for Integral Theory, which meant studying the intricacies of human mind/body development. One of the recurring themes of "growing up" (which of course extends into ongoing adult development, although most adults seem unwilling to admit that such a thing exists – as if someone with their own job and car has reached the goal posts of maturity) is that we all rely on our environment to take care of things we eventually learn to do ourselves. As we grow more accustomed to assuming personal responsibility for some psychological or physiological function, we go from not even noticing that we're being taken care of, to seeking sources in the external world that will satisfy that need, to satisfying it ourselves.

One example would be how newborns don't even know they need to eat; but eventually learn to inform their parents when they're hungry, and finally manage to feed themselves. Again: young children are unaware of "the rules;" older kids learn to follow them (but don't know how or why they are in place); and adults can not only obey or disobey, but explain why certain rules are necessary for a functioning society.

(Quick check: If you think that the statement "Murder is wrong" is true "because God said so," I love you but you don't qualify as an adult in the modern world. You're still relying on external support for your moral system. If this concerns you, go read Robert Kegan's book In Over Our Heads and then find a few more literate friends.)

So what does this all mean for music? Well, it means we were born right in the middle of a revolution.

Archeologically speaking, instruments appeared first as more or less extensions of the natural environment...hollow reeds, rocks, sticks, and animal gut strung across a bent frame. The earliest instruments emerged from human experimentation with accidental noises and animal calls...what po-mo sophisticates such as you and I would call "found sounds." Ethnomusicologists observe a trend from these earlier instruments, capable of a limited expressive range (typically only a handful of notes, and only one at a time) toward more intricate devices capable of producing complex polyphony. (Think about the difference between relatively ancient intruments like a shaker or hand drum and relatively contemporary instruments like a guitar or piano...or even more contemporary instruments like the laptop.) In other words, the history of human musical instrumentation follows that same developmental curve: first, a symphony of natural sounds; then, a symphony of humans playing simple instruments; then, one human playing an entire array of chords, with remarkable tonal variety, on one instrument. Like so:

These trends seem likely to continue even further as we continue to deepen our relationship with technology. Groundbreaking child psychologist Lev Vygotsky built his developmental model on observations that use of tools within a cultural substrate are often the means to new levels of development (that a child learns to write letters exactly as taught before developing his own handwriting, for example...take it one step further and eventually the child learns to write with any marking object or create his own). From a different field, but with a similar understanding of the flow of things, technology writer Kevin Kelly says that we don't really live in "The Age" of something until it's so much a part of the background of our experience that we don't even notice it until it breaks. We don't live in The Age of Computers...yet. But we will, as soon as computers shrink to invisibility and are embedded in everything.

Likewise, I think we don't live in an Age of Instruments...but we're about to. We're coming up on a new world in which playing music by crude manipulation of some boxy device will be left to the retro-ers and traditionalists. An era when we can speak symphonies as easily as we can form sentences.

This may sound somewhat akin to claiming that soon we'll be able to give up scissors and cut paper with our bare hands. But what I mean is that we may learn to exercise not only conscious control over our hands and voices, but over the subtler biological circuitry of our bodies - those systems responsible for our breath, heartbeats, and brainwaves - in order to make music that is directly translated from tiny electrical potentials through novel electronic interfaces into sound. Not only are people already rigging electroencephalograms to synthesizers, but some are developing full-body suits that communicate musical dimensions of dance in a much more intricate and expressive way than any keyboard-and-pedal control surface ever could.

As a compulsive futurist, I have little doubt that this would bring the evolution of instrumentation to the logical conclusion of a trajectory along which the means of music are increasingly internalized. And of course, music itself grows in complexity at every step along this path - of course, the music made by a group of people all playing polyphonic instruments is potentially much more complex than one guy trying to imitate bird calls by blowing across a blade of grass. There isn't an end point; each new development opens up an entirely new realm of musical expressive possibility, in which each person becomes the entire orchestra of the previous realm. So what will this mean when we have polyphonic synths hooked up to each of a person's once-autonomous bodily functions, have trained that person to operate each "instrument" independently of the others, and throw him in a room with forty other people similarly prepared?

What kind of music can we expect to grow out of early experiments, such as these...

Phil Stearns has bent circuit boards through a biofeedback unit and uses his body as a variable-resistance conductor to make experimental noise music.

Daito Manabe has attached myoelectric sensors that turn the electrical impulses of his muscles into sampling, trigger, and loop controls.

And THIS guy is processing an EEG (electroencephalogram) signal through mediating algorithms to turn raw brainwave data into an intelligible composition (although the guy with the helmet is certainly able to use his info of the device to "compose Beethoven-like music, and make it fast and loud!"

(Written for Colorado Music Board.)