TECHNOSHAMANISM/TECHNOMAGIC ENCOUNTER - FICTION AND NOISEOCRACY
We're organizing a new technoshamanist encounter, this time in CASA NUVEM in Beco do Rato, Rio de Janeiro. The event will take place on Tuesday June 30th and Wednesday July 1st, 2015, 14:00 to 24:00 hours.
We will take advantage of the visit of our associate Carsten Agger who organized the technoshamanism encounter in Aarhus, Denmark in 2014, to create a new event here in Rio de Janeiro.
The topic of this new encounter is FICTION AND NOISEOCRACY.
In addition to being interested in democracy of objects, animism as political theology, the anthropocene as the aging of the Earth, the spectrology of the garbage can, it's important for os to concentrate on listening. How can we listen to all signals that are emitted? Technoshamanism is a wave that constructs rituals, mixing DIY technology with deeper insights.
We have many questions: Which new languages will we learn from the electronic and shamanic technologies? Which didactics will we be able to access with the use of entheogens? What can we learn from insanity? Which kinds of fiction are we constructing in this age of paranoia, where we are always living with comprehensive State control and the threar of exhaustion of the Earth's ressources, in order to sustain our civilization's way of life? How can the ritual help os conceptualize and invent the future?
FICTION AND LISTENING are thus the baselines of our encounter, which will otherwise attempt to create a convergence of the DIY movement, free software, cryptography, free radio, hacklab and bio-hacklab, including permaculture, forest gardening, urban gardens, all of it thoroughly bathed in magic, in rituals and in ancestrofuturistic knowlgedge. This is a theoretical and practical encounter, which will be transmitted in its entirety by a free radio.
How can we stitch together a social body which is critical, practical and magic at the same time? And which bew modalities can we invent to explain these issues?
These questions are crucial in order to consider the future, remembering that the future is sometimes behind us, sometimes in the middle of things, and sometimes ahead … following associative spirals which clamp together to create new possibilities while recreating the past and delineating new territories for living in the present.
Rituals of desuffocation and re-creating awareness seem more important today than tedious training programs. Ritual, immersive events and collective intensification of conscience and horizontal dialogues all point towards the liberation of the captive outlines of the CURRENT REALITY.
If we're indeed living in the era of comprehensive control, to a large extent constructed on top of the fiction of carbon-based fuels, we're in greater need than ever of making the machine behind the collective unconscious run again, of freeing all those ghosts from the garbage cans and the prisons; we need to repopulate our imagination and make all our fears and impediments of thought take a break! We can and will continue to invent new forms of life without becoming victims, being paralyzed or dying.
Introduction: "Seminal thoughts for a possible technoshamanism"
HOW TO GET INVOLVED Mange projekter inden for fri eller open source software drives som offentlige projekter, hvor alle, der har lyst, kan bidrage. Det er imidlertid ikke altid lige let at vide, hvor du skal starte. Hvordan kommer du ind i projektet, hvordan undersøger du communityet bag, og hvor er det mest relevant for dig at bidrage? Det modsatte problem er, hvis du selv vil lancere et projekt og gerne vil involvere andre. Hvordan får du folk til at bidrage til og bruge dit program, og hvordan opbygger du selv et sundt community?
VERSIONSSTYRING OG RELEASE MANAGEMENT Versionsstyring er ikke kun et spørgsmål om at kunne vende tilbage til tidligere versioner af koden, det handler også om at kunne arbejde på mange ting samtidig og om at styre arbejdsgange som udvikling, klargøring, test, release, support og hotfixes. Foredraget vil tage udgangspunkt i git, men vil være relevant for brugere af ethvert versionsstyringssystem, hvor det er let at bruge branches.
Det koster gratis, hvis du er medlem af PROSA, ellers kr. 250.
I want to write more about the technoshamanism encounter in Aarhus on November 22-23, especially with an update about the activities on day 2, since I already wrote a lengthy comment about day 1.
In the meantime, though, I will mention that an important feature of day 2 was a concert with the noise band Gravhund. In fact, the motto of their concert was "technoshamanist noise magic" - it could hardly come closer to the spirit of the event.
After their concert, we had a very interesting discussion about music, shamanism, art, politics, inspiration, muses, entertainment and the function of noise, in technoshamanism as well as in contemporary art.
Below, you can see a couple of samples of their performance.
This evening, I gave a T³ (Tech Talk Tuesday) talk in our local, friendly hackerspace about the Mocambos network and their software project Baobáxia – a free software project to connect very widely distributed, often rural communities, namely the Brazilian quilombos.
Since my visit to Brazil in April, I've been involved in this project as a programmer, at least as far as my time has allowed.
Above, you can see the slides from my presentation - you can also read them in PDF format here.
As previously announced, on November 22.-23. we held an encounter or mini-festival on technoshamanism in Open Space Aarhus. Keywords were permaculture, sustainablity, free software and free technology, ancestral knowledge and the challenges of the anthropocene.
The encounter was structured as an (informal) meeting rather than a conference, and the program was very diverse thanks to the attendants and the proposals they sent us.
After an initial presentation, I spoke about the state of Danish nature. I pointed out that even though many important initiatives to restore and preserve areas of natural beauty are underway (not least documented through the painstaking work of my friend Rune Engelbreth Larsen), our country's biological diversity is still being systematically destroyed, not least due to the practices of industrial agriculture.
I proposed permaculture as a viable and well-documented alternative which would enable us to produce food while preserving nature rather than destroying it - and which can enable us as individuals to protect our freedom and economic independence by growing our own food with minimal effort. My exposition was supplemented by a vivid discussion and many illuminating facts supplied by the audience.
After that, Fabiane Borges told us about her own perception of technoshamanism and the anthropocene: The destruction of the earth as exemplified by intensive mining and how it interacts with the Yanomami Indians' vision of the end of the world.
As our society increases its pace, more and more of human nature and aspiration is cut off and thrown on the garbage heap, and finding a modern shamanism may be equivalent to becoming one of those people living in the garbage worlds surrounding the landfills of many modern cities - illustrated by the schizofrenic shaman Estamira in the eponymous Brazilian documentary (2004).
After that, Esben Hardenberg talked about afrofuturism, the quest of a people (African-Americans) whose history had been stolen and destroyed to create a new history and mythology for themselves, e.g. by using narratives about space and time travel. While permaculture and free technology could be considered to be a form of practical and technological resistance, afro-futurism can be seen as an epistemological resistance - reframing and reinventing an identity to salvage it from the dominant (in the US: white or WASP) narrative.
As always, Esben's exposition was supplemented by a vivid and interesting discussion.
After the break, Ramona August performed a maori-inspired fire dance - which for obvious reasons had to take place outside.
We were honoured by the presence of Dr. Birger Schroll, a former ship's doctor who has worked with the homeless of Denmark and Norway for many years. Schroll has developed his own system for helping homeless people in Nordic countries manage their lives. His ideal is to help them organize independently and without leaders by defining a number of roles that must be fulfilled to make a society work; a system which I will not describe here, but which he himself has named Universitas Convivencia. In Aarhus, Schroll was instrumental in the creation of Hjemløseteltet (the Homeless Tent, a tent-shaped occupation of property near the railroad by a group of homeless) and "Håbets Allé", a municipal project intended to alleviate the issues raised by Hjemløseteltet.
Finally, the Brazilian composer and performance artist Marcela Lucatelli performed a healing music ritual, a "ritual of tuning the chakras with voice intoning and open source real time audio synthesis". I think I speak for many of the participants if I describe it as a unique and harmonic experience - you can hear it for yourself in the sound recording of the day's activities, linked below.
Autodetermination, liberty and sustainability in the anthropocene
Open call
In the weekend of November 22.-23. we’re organizing an encounter with the purpose of strengthening and enhancing the networks created at the 1st International Festival for Technoshamanism, which took place on April 23-30 in Arraial d’Ajuda, Bahia, Brazil.
As in the festival in Brazil, the focus will be on solutions for the anthropocene, e.g., recycling, permaculture, conservation of nature, reactions to climate change and the possible benefits of ancestral knowledge (e.g., of South American indigenous people) in addressing our situation today.
The focus will be not only academic but also practical, noting the potential of free technology and free software, up to and including DIY space travel.
The Brazilian artist, writer and activist Fabiane Borges, who organized the festival in Brazil with George Sander, is visiting Denmark a few days in November and will be present at the event and will be able to tell us about her work with technoshamanism in South America as well as about the scene for DIY space culture.
Things we’d already like to discuss during the encounter are
The status of nature conservation in Denmark (and other places)
Permaculture as a real alternative to the agricultural industry and an efficient strategy against climate change
Hardware workshops, e.g. in controlling the ambience in a greenhouse or a dwelling to save and manage energy
The use of free software and free culture in general to further independent cultures and thus enhance cultural diversity
Discussions around ontology, mythology, philosophy, animism, biodiversity and the role of ancestral knowledge
Self-maintained infrastructures – DIY in general, free software, space culture
More artistic performances, music, dance, etc., as per your proposal, including an improvised musical ritual in the hackerspace
Your own proposal
The encounter will take place in Open Space Aarhus, Katrinebjergvej 105, 8200 Aarhus N on the 22.-23. of november at 17:00-21:00 hours.
Please come and bring a friend! If you wish to propose an activity, please send your proposal by email toagger@modspil.dk
International LibreOffice konference kommer til Aarhus i 2015
PRESSEMEDDELELSE
Den årlige internationale LibreOffice konference afholdes i Aarhus i 2015. Aarhus Kommune bliver vært for konferencen, der planlægges i samarbejde med lokale græsrodsforeninger og fællesskabet omkring LibreOffice i Danmark.
LibreOffice er en open source programpakke med de mest almindelige og anvendte kontorprogrammer. LibreOffice er fri software, som man gratis kan downloade, anvende og distribuere. Hvert år afholdes en konference, hvor udviklere, programmører og supportere samles for at diskutere muligheder og forbedringer til den gratis software-pakke.
I september 2015 skal det nye superbibliotek Dokk1 danne ramme om konferencen.
”I Aarhus Kommune ønsker vi at øge anvendelsen af OpenSource software. Det handler naturligvis om at spare penge, men det handler i høj grad også om at tage ejerskab til de systemer der understøtter vores medarbejdere og vores borgere. LibreOffice er som produkt og community bestemt et koncept vi ønsker at støtte. Vi er altid glade for at tage imod gæster udefra, og vi ser frem til nogle spændende dage, hvor deltagerne også får mulighed for at se vores dejlige by,” siger Bo Fristed, chef for ITK (Innovation, Teknologi, Kreativitet), som er en del af Aarhus Kommune, Kultur og Borgerservice.
Byens hackerspace Open Space Aarhus (OSAA) vil lægge lokaler til det kodesprint, der altid indgår som en del af konferencen. Blandt de foreninger, der bakker op om konferencen, finder vi endvidere Free Software Foundation Europe og Ubuntu Aarhus, der begge har brugt Open Space Aarhus som mødested.
Den internationale LibreOffice konference bliver afholdt i perioden 23. til 25. september. LibreOfiice har sit eget danske fællesskab, og her vækker placeringen af konferencen begejstring.
“Først og fremmest er vi meget glade og taknemmelige over at Aarhus Kommune bakker op om konference. At konferencen i 2015 kommer til Aarhus har stor betydning for det danske fællesskab, og vi ser det bestemt som en anerkendelse af vores hidtidige indsats, og vi håber, at konferencen kan tiltrække nye friske hænder. Specielt håber vi på, at danske udviklere, blandt andet studerende, får lyst til at blive en del af et internationalt udviklermiljø,”siger Leif Lodahl, som er talsmand for LibreOffice i Danmark.
LibreOffice i Danmark påpeger, at placeringen af konferencen skal ses som en anerkendelse af, at danske brugere - både private, virksomheder og offentlige myndigheder - i større og større udstrækning, tager LibreOffice i anvendelse.
I går holdt jeg så foredrag om permakultur til Open Space Aarhus' månedlige Tech Talk Tuesday, og du kan se noget af resultatet herover. Du kan også downloade disse slides i PDF-format, hvis du foretrækker.
Overordnet set kan jeg sige, at permakultur er en designstrategi, der tillader os at producere fødevarer i balance med naturen, ikke alene uden at drive rovdrift på den, men uden at tage ressourcer fra den. En omlægning til permakultur nu kunne standse ødelæggelsen af naturen på en måde, som indførelse af rent økologisk landbrug ikke ville kunne, fordi man her mangler de overordnede principper, der sikrer, at naturens ressourcer ikke udpines. Men læs mere herover, og led selv efter endnu mere på nettet.
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