Author Archive | klintron

This Weekend in Portland, OR: 5th Annual EsoZone Alternative Culture and Thought Festival

By klintron on November 17, 2011 in News 0

The fifth annual EsoZone Portland event will be held this weekend at p:ear, Friday evening November 18th and Saturday November 19th (see the website for schedule and location information).

EsoZone is festival celebrating alternative culture and thought. It follows a hybrid unconference/conference model, meaning that in addition to pre-programmed content, participants can propose their own sessions to share their own ideas, projects and skills with the group.

This years presentations include:

Tom Henderson, author of the forthcoming book Punk Rock Mathematics, on illusory nature of self.
Eric Schiller of Beyond Growth on “digital hipsterism” and the rise of anti-intellectualism in social media.
Yoga for Slackers lead by Loren mccRory.
Grant Writing for Artists and Other Alien Beings lead by Amanda Sledz.
Anarcho-Sewing lead by Jillian Ordes-Finley.

Plus music and performances, and whatever sessions are proposed by this year’s participants.… Read the rest

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Joe Knucklehead on the Occupy Movement, Faux-Populism and More

By klintron on October 28, 2011 in News, Podcasts 2

Via Technoccult:

Joe Knucklehead, the host of the podcast American Knucklehead, is just your average American bowling alley technician. But he has a few things to say about the state of the USA. I recently interviewed him on the Occupy Movement, the 53% and more:

You’ve been talking a bit lately about the Occupy movement. There’s this online counter-movement of conservatives called the “53%” who claim to be subsidizing the Occupy movement via taxes. They say that the protesters need to “stop whining.” What do you think about this — is it a real populist sentiment, or just more divisiveness?

Naw, it’s a total PR ploy. The guy that dreamed it up, Erick Erickson, is a woofer blogger, CNN talking head, and radio talk show host. I’d say he’s been amazingly effective at providing a pointless distraction.

I talked to one of the organizers of Occupy Portland in the last show.

… Read the rest

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Douglas Rushkoff On Kicking The Consensus Reality Habit

By klintron on June 24, 2011 in News 4

Doug Rushkoff. Photo by Paul May (CC)

An interview with Douglas Rushkoff via Technoccult:

“When Video Toaster for the Amiga came out everyone was really excited,” he Rushkoff said. “We believed that we could use it to create deeply alternative states of consciousness using lights and colors and things.”

“Today, those technologies are used by companies like Fox News to make you pay attention to what they want you to pay attention to, or to make your eye fall on a particular ad. Stuff like that.”

But he says if you know how the program works, you’re less likely to be hypnotized by it. “There’s two ways to experience magic,” he says. “And I don’t mean stage magic.” You can either experience it as a spectator, watching a priest or guru. Or you can participate. “Having a guru will only take you so far,” he said. “You have to become the guru.”

But it’s not easy.… Read the rest

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Interview with ‘Selections From the Dream Manual’ Artist Michael Skrtic

By klintron on February 17, 2011 in News 0

Dream Manual: Try This Experiment at Home

Via Technoccult:

Klint Finley: What possessed you to undertake this process of creating a collage painting for every line of Bill’s original Dream Manual?

Michael Skrtic: The Dream Manual appeared first in 1984 or 1985 in a magazine called The Negentropy Express, which was an APA (an amateur press association) by the Society for Creative Thought. I was one of the founding members of the Society for Creative Thought and I was immediately taken with Bill’s original text and the original short little collage things that he did to accompany the text. It sort of followed me around since then. In the early 90s, I had just moved to Stockholm and I was looking for a project. I thought, ah, I know what I’ll do, I’ll colorize Bill’s original collages, so I blew them up and I colorized a couple of pages, and then I got involved with something else.

… Read the rest

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Erik Davis on ‘Nomad Codes’

By klintron on November 23, 2010 in News 0

From Technoccult:

Erik Davis has been covering fringe spiritual movements, underground music and subcultures for magazines like Wired, Arthur and Spin for the past two decades. He’s probably best known for books his books TechGnosis and Visionary State. He’s currently a contributor to several publications, including Reality Sandwich and HiLobrow. His web site is here and you can follow him on Twitter.

Erik’s latest book, Nomad Codes, is a collection of several of his articles and essays. I talked with Erik about the new book, the changing American spiritual landscape, and why he’s now pursuing academia.

Klint Finley: Over the last few years, while writing the essays that comprise this book, have you seen any significant shift in American spirituality? Has much changed since the publication of TechGnosis?

Erik Davis: Spirituality is always changing, because “spirituality” itself is almost defined by its informality, at least in contrast to those more organized movements we call “religion.” And even religions are always changing.

… Read the rest

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EsoZone Portland 2010 Starts This Weekend

By klintron on October 7, 2010 in News 0

EsoZone Portland is back for another year! Once it again, the event is an unconference — an event in which the schedule is set by the participants on the fly at the event. Anything can happen, but some of the possible subjects include:

Outsider Art • Discordia • SubGenius
The Occult • Satanism • Conspiracy Analysis
Life Extension • Intelligence Enhancement
Space Migration • Psychedelic Futurism
Consciousness Expansion • R/evolutionary Living
Renegade Metaphysics • Radical Psychotherapy
Aliens • Neo-Shamanism • Temporary Autonomous Zones
Body Modification • Alternative Sexuality • Fringe Culture
Human-Dolphin Communication • DIY Media
Cybernetics and Systems Theory • Pranks
Atheism • Zen • Martial Arts • Recession Hacking

There will also be performances by artists such as Cult of Zir and Ogo Eion and Psychetect in the evenings.… Read the rest

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Interview With ‘The American Book of the Dead’ Author Henry Baum

By klintron on September 23, 2010 in News 0

Via Technoccult:

How much do you buy the fringe ideas that have influenced the The American Book of the Dead novels? For example, do you really think the world is in need of a mass die-off to curb over population?

Baum: It’s a disturbing concept and one I’m still exploring. I look at the recent mosque controversy and wonder, for instance, what would happen if there was UFO disclosure. If people think Obama’s a socialist Hitler terrorist now, they might be turned into David Ickean conspiracy theorists at that point – he’s a reptilian. There’s just so much volatility that seems like it could end in violence. People are crazy – how do we introduce new radical ideas into the culture if a centrist like Obama is seen as a radical? I’m not advocating genocide…

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Why the Web Isn’t Dead – A Few More Points

By klintron on August 23, 2010 in News 0

Last week Wired’s incendiary cover story The Web Is Dead. Long Live the Internet stirred up quite a bit of debate. Wired ran a debate between its editor-in-chief Chris Anderson, FM Media founder John Battelle, and O’Reilly Media founder Tim O’Reilly that was particularly illuminating. I made a few points here, and have a few more to make at Mediapunk:

First it was getting listed by Yahoo!, then it was getting a good ranking in Google, now it’s getting into the Apple App Store. In each case, the platform owner benefited more than the person trying to get listed. This is not new. That certain sites – like Facebook at YouTube – have become large platforms is certainly interesting. That Apple, Facebook and Google have a disproportionate say over what gets seen on the Internet is problematic, definitely. But there was never any golden age when the Net was truly open.

… Read the rest

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Indie Game Designers Talk About Their Transhumanist RPG FreeMarket

By klintron on August 4, 2010 in News 8

Luke Crane and Jared Sorensen talk about their new science fiction role playing game FreeMarket. Via Technoccult:

It also sounds like it’s a more intellectual game than most – you’ve said you can, for instance, play the role of a philosopher and have that be meaningful within the game.

Luke: Yeah, but don’t think you can’t play Soulshitter Killfuck and have fun, too. But, unlike many other games that I’ve played, you can play an artist and have serious conflict about what you do. It’s impossible to just make a piece of art in this game and have it sit there, inert. Art is controversial.

Jared: And conflicts (especially philosophical, critical and artistic) are both internal and external and can have wide-reaching and unplanned repercussions.

Right. So you could do a more typical hack and slash scenario, or you could do something where you’re dealing with post-scarcity speculation. Or maybe both.

… Read the rest

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Binaural Beats with SbaGen Developer Jim Peters

By klintron on July 22, 2010 in News 3

Bavsa: binaural beat visual analysis tool

An interview with Jim Peters, developer of SbaGen, who’s source code was used without permission for the notorious I-Doser. Via Technoccult:

Technoccult: Do you believe that I-Doser can actually deliver on their promise of providing a variety of discrete recreational psychoactive experiences? My own experience working with SbaGen, Brainwave Generator, and sound and light machines is that it does feel like “something happens,” but I haven’t found that the specific experience each one is aiming for (“relaxation,” “creativity,” “stimulation,” etc.) In fact, I actually conducted some controlled experiments with classmates as a research project in college. We investigated whether the “intelligence enhancement” setting of a particular sound and light machine was effective at improving MENSA test exam scores. We didn’t get statistically significant results.

Peters: No, I don’t believe that I-Doser can deliver on their promise. If I hit you over the head with a mallet you will see stars, but that doesn’t mean that you’ve had a marvellous journey through the universe.

… Read the rest

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