Investigating the shifting boundaries between seeing and spying, the private act and the public image, Exposed challenges us to consider how the camera has transformed the very nature of looking. Bringing together historical and contemporary photographs, films, and video works by both unknown photographers and internationally renowned artists, this provocative exhibition examines some of the camera's most unsettling uses, including pornography, surveillance, stalking celebrity, and witnessing violence. Exposed poses compelling and urgent questions about who is looking at whom, and why.
see: http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/408
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Friday, November 26, 2010
My name is Anthony Gonsalves (Portraits of Majorda's music genius)
Mr Anthony Gonsalves the musical genius from the Village of Majorda in Goa.
In Naresh Fernandes article Remembering Anthony Gonsalves from his website Taj Mahal Foxtrot; he talks of "Why Amithab Bachan jumped out of a giant Easter egg claiming to be the old man from Majorda".
The above photograph was the inspiration for my portraits of the maestro. As Naresh describes him "His speech was slow and his thoughts sometimes incoherent,...".
Unlike my usual portraits, where I coax the expression and pose out of my sitter within a few minutes, I had to be very patient to capture him in his right moods.
In Naresh Fernandes article Remembering Anthony Gonsalves from his website Taj Mahal Foxtrot; he talks of "Why Amithab Bachan jumped out of a giant Easter egg claiming to be the old man from Majorda".
Unlike my usual portraits, where I coax the expression and pose out of my sitter within a few minutes, I had to be very patient to capture him in his right moods.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Domnic D'souza, the mysterious photographer from Shiolim.
Goa Gil told me of Dominic D'souza, a photographer from the village of Shiolim in Goa. Dominic was a good friend of Gil and Arianne and also shared my interest in photographing the 'Hippy' culture in North Goa, a good two decades or so before I did.
Personally, I had never heard of Dominic before this time, nor do I have any knowledge of his current whereabouts.
Gil showed me two of the prints made by Dominic in the eighties.I would assume that Dominic printed his own photographs.These B&W portraits have their backgrounds masked out during the printing process and are also hand tinted.
Photographs courtesy Goa Gil
Personally, I had never heard of Dominic before this time, nor do I have any knowledge of his current whereabouts.
Gil showed me two of the prints made by Dominic in the eighties.I would assume that Dominic printed his own photographs.These B&W portraits have their backgrounds masked out during the printing process and are also hand tinted.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Terence Mckenna on Truth
The planet has a kind of intelligence, that it can actually open a channel of communication with an individual human being. Consider this, one can easily imagine all of us being intimately connected, just as the stars, quantum-bits, and all... the matter are connected to each other.
Are the world wide web and the internet creating some sort of extra layer of an unified global grid, which could be the ultimate technological expression of the underlying sub-conscious will of humanity to embrace Unity. If we are indeed all a single Consciousness, then we are already a unified global brain, we just don’t know it! The Internet may assist in manifesting that hidden Truth step by step.
The message that nature sends is, transform your language through a synergy between opposite forces, a synergy between dance and idea, a synergy between understanding and intuition, and dissolve the boundaries that your culture has sanctioned between you.
See: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/video/video.php?v=1448766940827&comments
Are the world wide web and the internet creating some sort of extra layer of an unified global grid, which could be the ultimate technological expression of the underlying sub-conscious will of humanity to embrace Unity. If we are indeed all a single Consciousness, then we are already a unified global brain, we just don’t know it! The Internet may assist in manifesting that hidden Truth step by step.
The message that nature sends is, transform your language through a synergy between opposite forces, a synergy between dance and idea, a synergy between understanding and intuition, and dissolve the boundaries that your culture has sanctioned between you.
See: http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/video/video.php?v=1448766940827&comments
Monday, November 8, 2010
Viva la ...
Ernesto Che Guevara by Salnavarro http://www.toonpool.com/cartoons/Ernesto%20che%20Guevara_14342
Monday, November 1, 2010
The Front 242 project
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For his recent album cover ‘Kali Yuga’, Avatar records, (see http://www.avatar-music.com/artists.shtml) is a fold out poster of the black and white portrait I made of Gil.
Dr Vagator (Francisco Guevara)
Dr Vagator Tatoo
Bojan
D.J. Jonas (Trashlords), Stone Age records.
Giuseppe (Parvati Records)
Goa Gil's Kali Yuga album.
“Culture is not your friend, it's an impediment to understanding what's going on. That's why to my mind the word cult and the word culture have a direct relationship to each other. Culture is a cult and if you feel revulsion at the thought of somebody offering to the great carrot, just notice that your own culture is an extremely repressive cult that leads to all kinds of humiliation and degradation, and automatic and unquestioned and unthinking behaviour.”
- Terence Mckenna , From the lecture: "Into the Valley of Novelty"
Music, like art is sometimes subject to violent misinterpretations and musicians, like artists, can be intellectually complex and controversial.
It has been about three years since I conceptualized this project and made my first attempts to put together a series of portraits of Goa Trance musicians and DJ’s. After many conversations and e-mails, I eventually managed these portraits.
It is not my intent to document everyone who may have been associated with the Goa Trance scene. That would be a rather remote possibility.
Instead, I hope to execute at least six to ten portraits of iconic musicians and Dj’s from the Goa party scene.
Instead, I hope to execute at least six to ten portraits of iconic musicians and Dj’s from the Goa party scene.
I borrowed the title from Front 242, a pioneering Belgian electronic music group that came into prominence during the 1980s. Front 242 - along with other electronic music groups - were amongst the first electronic groups to be played at Goa beach parties in the early eighties. These early electronic bands were a precursor to Goa trance.
The music has its roots in the popularity of Goa in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a hippie capital, and although elements of Industrial music and EBM (Electronic body music or industrial dance music) were already being blended with the spiritual culture of India throughout the 1980s, actual Goa trance did not officially appear until the early 1990s.
The music that would eventually be known as Goa trance did not evolve from one single genre, but was inspired by EBM-groups like Front 242,Yellow, T.I.P, Front Line Assembly, Meat Beat Manifesto and acid house music (a sub-genre of house music), techno and psychedelic rock like Ozric Tentacles, Steve Hillage, Simply Red and Ash Ra Tempel. In addition to those, Eastern tribal/ethnic music was also a source of inspiration.
The music that would eventually be known as Goa trance did not evolve from one single genre, but was inspired by EBM-groups like Front 242,Yellow, T.I.P, Front Line Assembly, Meat Beat Manifesto and acid house music (a sub-genre of house music), techno and psychedelic rock like Ozric Tentacles, Steve Hillage, Simply Red and Ash Ra Tempel. In addition to those, Eastern tribal/ethnic music was also a source of inspiration.
Goa Trance developed around the same time that Trance music became popular in Europe.
The introduction of techno and its techniques to Goa led to the Goa Trance style; early pioneers included DJ’s like Laurent, Goa Gil, Fred Disko, and Amsterdam Joey.
Many "parties" (generally similar to raves but with a more mystic flavour, at least in early 1990s) in Goa revolve entirely around this genre of music.
Top DJ's from the UK and other parts of Western Europe used to regularly fly to Goa for special parties, often on the beaches or in rice fields. South Anjuna Beach is traditionally seen as the birthplace and center of the Goan trance scene. In other countries, Goa Trance sets are often played at raves, festivals and parties in conjunction with other styles of trance and techno.
The introduction of techno and its techniques to Goa led to the Goa Trance style; early pioneers included DJ’s like Laurent, Goa Gil, Fred Disko, and Amsterdam Joey.
Many "parties" (generally similar to raves but with a more mystic flavour, at least in early 1990s) in Goa revolve entirely around this genre of music.
Top DJ's from the UK and other parts of Western Europe used to regularly fly to Goa for special parties, often on the beaches or in rice fields. South Anjuna Beach is traditionally seen as the birthplace and center of the Goan trance scene. In other countries, Goa Trance sets are often played at raves, festivals and parties in conjunction with other styles of trance and techno.
Goa Trance was originally referred to as trance dance. The original goal of the music was to assist the dancers in experiencing a collective state of bodily transcendence, similar to that created by the ancient shamans during long periods of drumming in shamanic dancing rituals, through hypnotic pulsing melodies and rhythms.
Goa Trance tracks tend to focus on steadily building energy throughout - using changes in percussion patterns and more intricate and layered synth parts as the music builds a hypnotic and intense feel. To my mind, the Goa parties resemble a ‘tribal shigmo’ with a ‘digital Romoth’ used to induce trance states.
Goa Trance tracks tend to focus on steadily building energy throughout - using changes in percussion patterns and more intricate and layered synth parts as the music builds a hypnotic and intense feel. To my mind, the Goa parties resemble a ‘tribal shigmo’ with a ‘digital Romoth’ used to induce trance states.
The music very often incorporates many audio effects created through experimentation with synthesizers. Another important distinction between European trance and Goa Trance is that, Goa trance features spazzy, spontaneous samples and other psychedelic elements. A well-known sound that originated with Goa Trance and became much more prevalent through its successor, Psychedelic Trance (Psytrance), is the organic "squelchy" sound.
A popular element of Goa Trance is the use of samples, often from science fiction movies. Those samples often contain references to psychedelics, parapsychology, extraterrestrial life, existentialism, OBE’s, dreams, science, spirituality and similar mysterious, occult, or unconventional topics.
Goa Trance DJs' mainly used 'MiniDiscs', 'D.A.T' (Digital Audio Tapes) and CDs. Vinyl was very rare or almost never used.
DAT machines from Sony.
With rapid changes in technology, Laptop computers running professional DJ software like ‘Tracktor’ have been incorporated. Other music technology used in Goa trance includes popular analogue synthesizers such as the Roland TB-303, Roland Juno-60/106, Novation Bass-Station, Korg MS-10, and notably the Roland SH-101. Hardware samplers manufactured by Akai, Yamaha and Ensoniq were also popular for sample storage and manipulation.
With rapid changes in technology, Laptop computers running professional DJ software like ‘Tracktor’ have been incorporated. Other music technology used in Goa trance includes popular analogue synthesizers such as the Roland TB-303, Roland Juno-60/106, Novation Bass-Station, Korg MS-10, and notably the Roland SH-101. Hardware samplers manufactured by Akai, Yamaha and Ensoniq were also popular for sample storage and manipulation.
Goa Trance is closely related to the emergence of Psytrance during the latter half of the 1990s and early 2000s, where the two genres mixed together. In popular culture, the distinction between the two genres often remains largely a matter of opinion (they are considered by some to be synonymous; others say that Psytrance is more "psychedelic/cybernetic" and that Goa Trance is more "organic", and still others maintain that there is a clear difference between the two).
Essentially, Trance music was pop culture's answer to the Goa Trance music scene on the beaches of Goa where the traveler’s music scene has been famous since the time of the Beatles.
Goa Trance enjoyed the greater part of its success from around 1994–1998, and since then has dwindled significantly both in production and consumption, being replaced by its successor, Psychedelic Trance (Psytrance). Many of the original Goa Trance artists are still making music, but refer to their style of music simply as "PSY". T.I.P (The infinity project) Records, Yellow, Flying Rhino Records, Dragonfly Records, Transient Records, were all key players on the beach scene.
Goa Trance enjoyed the greater part of its success from around 1994–1998, and since then has dwindled significantly both in production and consumption, being replaced by its successor, Psychedelic Trance (Psytrance). Many of the original Goa Trance artists are still making music, but refer to their style of music simply as "PSY". T.I.P (The infinity project) Records, Yellow, Flying Rhino Records, Dragonfly Records, Transient Records, were all key players on the beach scene.
For a better understanding of counterculture music, one must examine the philosophy of Industrial music.
Goa Trance and other forms of Trance have their roots in Industrial music, a style of experimental popular music that draws on transgressive themes and is often associated with countercultural angst and anger. While ideologically linked to punk music, industrial music is generally more complex and diverse, both sonically and lyrically. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by Yorkshire band Throbbing Gristle.
Goa Trance and other forms of Trance have their roots in Industrial music, a style of experimental popular music that draws on transgressive themes and is often associated with countercultural angst and anger. While ideologically linked to punk music, industrial music is generally more complex and diverse, both sonically and lyrically. The term was coined in the mid-1970s with the founding of Industrial Records by Yorkshire band Throbbing Gristle.
Industrial music drew from a broad range of predecessors. The precursors that influenced the development of the genre included acts such as electronic group Kraftwerk, experimental rock acts The Velvet Underground and Frank Zappa, psychedelic rock artists such as Jimi Hendrix, composers such as John Cage, and writers such as William S. Burroughs, whose ideas were particularly influential on the scene, particularly his interest in the cut-up technique and noise as a method of disrupting societal control, as well as philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche. Many of the initial industrial musicians preferred to cite artists or thinkers - rather than musicians - as their inspiration.
Alexei Monroe (PhD from the University of Kent, author of many articles on contemporary music, culture, and politics) argues that Kraftwerk were particularly significant in the development of industrial music, as the "first successful artists to incorporate representations of industrial sounds into nonacademic electronic music." Industrial music was created originally by using mechanical and electric machinery, and later advanced synthesizers, samplers and electronic percussion as the technology developed.
The birth of industrial music was a response to "an age [in which] the access and control of information were becoming the primary tools of power."
At its birth, the genre of industrial music was different from any other music, and its use of technology and disturbing lyrics and themes to tear apart preconceptions about the necessary rules of musical form supports the suggestion that industrial music is modernist music. The artists themselves made these goals explicit, even drawing connections to social changes they wished to argue for through their music.
See also sculptor Jungle Goa comment on technology and trance: http://alexfernandesphotography.blogspot.com/2011/02/jungle-goa-on-trance-music.html
The Industrial Records website explains that musicians wanted to re-invent rock music and that their uncensored records were about their relationship with the world. They go on to say that they wanted their music to be an awakening for listeners so that they would begin to think for themselves and question the world around them. Industrial Records intended the term industrial to evoke the idea of music created for a new generation, with previous music being more agricultural.
At its birth, the genre of industrial music was different from any other music, and its use of technology and disturbing lyrics and themes to tear apart preconceptions about the necessary rules of musical form supports the suggestion that industrial music is modernist music. The artists themselves made these goals explicit, even drawing connections to social changes they wished to argue for through their music.
See also sculptor Jungle Goa comment on technology and trance: http://alexfernandesphotography.blogspot.com/2011/02/jungle-goa-on-trance-music.html
The Industrial Records website explains that musicians wanted to re-invent rock music and that their uncensored records were about their relationship with the world. They go on to say that they wanted their music to be an awakening for listeners so that they would begin to think for themselves and question the world around them. Industrial Records intended the term industrial to evoke the idea of music created for a new generation, with previous music being more agricultural.
The first industrial artists experimented with noise and aesthetically controversial topics, musically and visually, such as fascism, serial killers and the occult, the history of uniforms and insignia" and Aliester Crowley’s Magick was present in Throbbing Gristle's work, as well as in other industrial pioneers.
Their production was not limited to music, but included mail art, performance art, installation pieces and other art forms.
Their production was not limited to music, but included mail art, performance art, installation pieces and other art forms.
Early industrial music often featured tape editing, stark percussion and loops distorted to the point where they had degraded to harsh noise.
Vocals were sporadic and electronically treated. Traditional instruments were often played in nontraditional or highly modified ways. Custom-built fuzzboxes for guitars produced a unique timbre.
Vocals were sporadic and electronically treated. Traditional instruments were often played in nontraditional or highly modified ways. Custom-built fuzzboxes for guitars produced a unique timbre.
Documentary about the the people of EMS (Electronic Music Studios) a radical group of avant-garde electronic musicians who utilized technology and experimentation to compose a futuristic electronic sound-scape for the New Britain.Comprising of pioneering electronic musicians Peter Zinovieff and Tristram Cary (famed for his work on the Dr Who series) and genius engineer David Cockerell, EMSs studio was one of the most advanced computer-music facilities in the world. EMSs great legacy is the VCS3, Britains first synthesizer and rival of the American Moog. The VCS3 changed the sounds of some of the most popular artists of this period including Brian Eno, Hawkwind and Pink Floyd.
Chris Carter of Throbbing Gristle built speakers, effects units, and synthesizer modules, as well as modifying more conventional rock instrumentation, for Throbbing Gristle. He also invented a device named the "Gristle-izer", played by Peter Christopherson, which comprised a one-octave keyboard and a number of cassette machines triggering various pre-recorded sounds.
The purpose of industrial music initially was to serve as a commentary on modern society by eschewing what artists saw as trite connections to the past. Throbbing Gristle opposed the elements of traditional rock music remaining in the punk rock scene, declaring industrial to be "anti-music."
Early industrial performances often involved taboo-breaking, provocative elements, such as mutilation, sado-masochistic elements and totalitarian imagery or symbolism, as well as forms of audience abuse, such as Throbbing Gristle's aiming high powered lights at the audience. Jon Savage, the Cambridge-educated writer, broadcaster and music journalist, considered some hallmarks of industrial music to be organizational autonomy, shock tactics, and the use of synthesizers and "anti-music." Industrial Records was perhaps even more important an attack on the public consciousness than Throbbing Gristle.
Early industrial performances often involved taboo-breaking, provocative elements, such as mutilation, sado-masochistic elements and totalitarian imagery or symbolism, as well as forms of audience abuse, such as Throbbing Gristle's aiming high powered lights at the audience. Jon Savage, the Cambridge-educated writer, broadcaster and music journalist, considered some hallmarks of industrial music to be organizational autonomy, shock tactics, and the use of synthesizers and "anti-music." Industrial Records was perhaps even more important an attack on the public consciousness than Throbbing Gristle.
New school Goa trance
Recently, there has been an expansion of new Goa trance artists and labels across the globe. Several artists initially started producing Goa trance music and went on to produce Psytrance instead.
Many new Goa fans emerged, and since 2005, the genre has been going through a new cycle of life. Some artists have established their own indie (independent) labels, while others have made a great success in terms of creativity and production. Currently, there are many sub-genres within the psytrance scene, including minimal/progressive Psy, morning Psy, full-on Psy, and dark Psy.
Recently, there has been an expansion of new Goa trance artists and labels across the globe. Several artists initially started producing Goa trance music and went on to produce Psytrance instead.
Many new Goa fans emerged, and since 2005, the genre has been going through a new cycle of life. Some artists have established their own indie (independent) labels, while others have made a great success in terms of creativity and production. Currently, there are many sub-genres within the psytrance scene, including minimal/progressive Psy, morning Psy, full-on Psy, and dark Psy.
The Goa Trance School has its influence in many other countries particularly Israel and Finland. Trance is very popular in Israel, with psychedelic trance producers such as Infected Mushroom, Astrix, and Yahel Sherman achieving worldwide fame. One particular underground genre that branched off from Goa trance that I like is called Suomisaundi (Finnish sound), which originated in Finland. One of its trademark features is a reference to early- to mid-1990s classic Goa trance music, and this genre is often exhibited in Finland's forest party scene. In China, Chinese trance is a subgenre of trance music that originated in 2000. It derives from House, Techno, Psy and Goa Trance.
I hope the Front 242 series goes out to all lovers of Trance music and people wanting to experience or just curious about the global phenomena of Psychedelic-Goa trance. Goa/Psytrance has re-shaped the style and atmosphere of Trance parties worldwide.
A Psytrance party is definitely an unforgettable experience, a party of peace, spirituality, smiles and good music.
A Psytrance party is definitely an unforgettable experience, a party of peace, spirituality, smiles and good music.
Links to interviews with Goa Trance DJ's (GateLessGate Magazine)
Chicago 1200 mics
http://gatelessgate.wordpress.com/category/1200-mics-chicago/
Chicago 1200 mics
http://gatelessgate.wordpress.com/category/1200-mics-chicago/
GMS(Growling Mad Scientist) -The Bansi interview
http://gatelessgate.wordpress.com/category/gms-the-bansi-interview/
Last Hippe Standing Goa Gil interview
http://gatelessgate.wordpress.com/category/goa-gil/The Phenomenon of Goa Trance- Ma Faiza interview
http://gatelessgate.wordpress.com/category/dj-ma-faiza-goa-trance/
Also see Ma Faiza website: http://www.mafaiza.com/nodes/home
Trance around the world
At TEDxVancouver 2010 Jeet Kei Leung takes the crowd on a journey through the world and experiences of transformational festivals!
Glastonbury Festival
http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/
http://gatelessgate.wordpress.com/category/glastonbury-festival/
Boom Festival (Portugal)
http://www.boomfestival.org/boom2010/
http://gatelessgate.wordpress.com/category/boom-festival/
The Burning Man
http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Help Free A Major Indigenous Leader Imprisoned in the U.S.
On Tuesday, October 19, 2010 while en route to leading traditional Ayahuasca ceremonies in Oregon, indigenous Colombian healer Juan Agreda Chindoy was detained in the Houston International Airport. He was formally arrested by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) for possession of his traditional medicine Ayahuasca. He is now being charged as a federal criminal and is facing up to 20 years in federal prison. Taita Juan is certified by his community and by the Colombian ministry of health as a traditional healer. He is one of the few remaining indigenous spiritual leaders in the world that holds the ancestral medicinal knowledge of an ecosystem that is rapidly disappearing. Taita Juan is a father, a husband and a godfather to more than 20 children. With more than 3000 supporters from several countries in the world, his life and work have touched many.
see http://www.freetaitajuan.org/
see http://www.freetaitajuan.org/
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Setting History Free: Graham Hancock & David Wilcock Bringing together two inspirational investigators of our hidden past and uncertain future, this unique dialogue between David Wilcock and Graham Hancock takes us on a roller-coaster ride through the wonders of ancient civilisations and into the mysterious nature of reality itself. What is the Ark of the Covenant? Why is its loss the greatest riddle of the Bible? Has its final resting place been found? What do the Great Pyramids and the Great Sphinx of Giza teach us? What was the function of the Osireion and other awesome megalithic sites of unknown origin found throughout Egypt? Were the high knowledge and magic of ancient Egypt brought to the Nile Valley by the survivors of an earlier civilisation around 12,500 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age, an epoch referred to in the Book of the Dead as Zep Tepi, "The First Time"? The possibility of a great lost civilisation Atlantis by any other name was the focus of Hancock's book Fingerprints of the Gods and the dialogue considers the evidence for this exciting idea -- including out-of-place artefacts and technologies, ancient maps of the world as it last looked more than 12,500 years ago, and the mysteries of the Mayan calendar. Is it a computer for calculating the end of the world? Or do its prophecies of a great change to come speak to us of a joyous rebirth of human consciousness after 21 December 2012? Join Hancock and Wilcock as they discuss Angkor in Cambodia, Baalbeck in the Lebanon, underwater ruins submerged by rising sea levels all around the world at the end of the last Ice Age, and the alleged monuments and a gigantic sculpture of a human face on the planet Mars. The dialogue concludes with a paradigm-busting investigation of parallel realms and universes, spirit beings, shamanism, visionary plants, and the role of altered states of consciousness in exploring and understanding the full mysterious spectrum of reality. See: http://www.grahamhancock.com/ and http://divinecosmos.com/ . See Graham's latest book at: http://www.entangledthebook.com/ Category:Setting History Free: Graham Hancock & David Wilcock Setting History Free: Graham Hancock & David Wilcock
Bringing together two inspirational investigators of our hidden past and uncertain future, this unique dialogue between David Wilcock and Graham Hancock takes us on a roller-coaster ride through the wonders of ancient civilisations and into the mysterious nature of reality itself. What is the Ark of the Covenant? Why is its loss the greatest riddle of the Bible? Has its final resting place been found? What do the Great Pyramids and the Great Sphinx of Giza teach us? What was the function of the Osireion and other awesome megalithic sites of unknown origin found throughout Egypt? Were the high knowledge and magic of ancient Egypt brought to the Nile Valley by the survivors of an earlier civilisation around 12,500 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age, an epoch referred to in the Book of the Dead as Zep Tepi, "The First Time"? The possibility of a great lost civilisation Atlantis by any other name was the focus of Hancock's book Fingerprints of the Gods and the dialogue considers the evidence for this exciting idea -- including out-of-place artefacts and technologies, ancient maps of the world as it last looked more than 12,500 years ago, and the mysteries of the Mayan calendar. Is it a computer for calculating the end of the world? Or do its prophecies of a great change to come speak to us of a joyous rebirth of human consciousness after 21 December 2012? Join Hancock and Wilcock as they discuss Angkor in Cambodia, Baalbeck in the Lebanon, underwater ruins submerged by rising sea levels all around the world at the end of the last Ice Age, and the alleged monuments and a gigantic sculpture of a human face on the planet Mars. The dialogue concludes with a paradigm-busting investigation of parallel realms and universes, spirit beings, shamanism, visionary plants, and the role of altered states of consciousness in exploring and understanding the full mysterious spectrum of reality. See: http://www.grahamhancock.com/ and http://divinecosmos.com/ . See Graham's latest book at: http://www.entangledthebook.com/
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Conversation with Anne Bonneau of Radio France.
Panjim, Goa, 4/10/10 .
Ecoutez "Instantanés du monde" sur http://radio.rfo.fr/
You can tune in to the web site at the above link, look for Instantanés du monde, Panjim. Or, you can click here to download MP3.
You can tune in to the web site at the above link, look for Instantanés du monde, Panjim. Or, you can click here to download MP3.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
The Secret Life of Mushrooms
About this film
A documentary film about an explorer's look at the history and culture of the ritual use of psychedelic mushrooms in the rural mountain town of Huautla de Jimenez, Mexico. The film examines the recreational popularization of mushrooms, and what effect narco-tourism has had on the city, and the practice itself.For more information go to www.secretlifeof.com
A documentary film about an explorer's look at the history and culture of the ritual use of psychedelic mushrooms in the rural mountain town of Huautla de Jimenez, Mexico. The film examines the recreational popularization of mushrooms, and what effect narco-tourism has had on the city, and the practice itself.For more information go to www.secretlifeof.com
Friday, September 3, 2010
Carl Gustav Jung, Collective Consciousness : Wisdom Of The Dream Movie
Carl Gustav Jung (26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, an influential thinker and the founder of analytical psychology. Jung's approach to psychology has been influential in the field of depth psychology and in countercultural movements across the globe. He emphasized understanding the psyche through exploring the worlds of dreams, art, mythology, world religion and philosophy. Although he was a theoretical psychologist and practicing clinician, much of his life's work was spent exploring other areas, including Eastern and Western philosophy, alchemy, astrology, sociology, as well as literature and the arts. His most notable ideas include the concept of psychological archetypes, the collective unconscious and synchronicity.
As a quiet, introverted child, Carl Jung would come to be one of the most influential psychiatrists in the world. And, his association, collaboration, and eventual fall out with Sigmund Freud would make his biography even more astounding. Through an expansive education and by authoring many books, Carl Jung donated so much to the study of the human psyche that he is considered by many to stand next to, and not in the shadow of, the world’s leading psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.
Born the son of a preacher, Jung went on to graduate with a degree in medicine from the University of Basel. He worked until 1909 in Burghöltzi, an asylum and clinic for those suffering the maladies of schizophrenia in Zürich. This experience undoubtedly affected Jung’s work in his later years.
Always interested in spirituality and parapsychology, Carl Jung dabbled in the arts of the spiritual world, ever exploring the realms of unconscious human experience that was often being ignored in modern-day medicine. Jung released his book entitled, The Psychology of Dementia Praecox. This caught the attention of Sigmund Freud and the two would later work and lecture together in the United States.
What bitterly separated Freud and Jung was their different beliefs on just how much sexuality controlled motivation. Freud believed it absolute. Jung admitted it was a part of man’s make up, but wouldn’t go as far as Freud did in his theories. This break-up caused a six-year mental breakdown for the young Jung. Some say that Jung was having prophetic images of World War I, which was looming in the distance.
Carl Jung overcame his breakdown and found the modern system of Analytical Psychology. Feeling limited and enclosed by the academia of the day, Jung decided to travel the world to explore and be an anthropologist of the mind of the people. He later dubbed this the “Collective Consciousness” of mankind. He went on to classify personalities as extrovert or introvert. He regarded mental breakdowns and fervent behavior to be rooted in the fact that one had not yet discovered their own personal meaning in the world. Jung hypothesized that through the exploration of the unconscious, in dreams, in art, and in other cultures, the ‘self’ could fully be realized.
Jung had interests in the study of literature and alchemy, and came to theorize that men and women each had a certain anima or animus – the inner need to feel and not reject our own male or female tendencies. Many of his theories are cited in his biography entitled Memories, Dreams, Reflections where he also explores the psychological conflicts of his own life.
Carl Jung was made the president of the General Medical Society for Psychotherapy in 1933. While this organization did have certain Nazi connections, Jung accepted the position in hopes of preserving the field of psychoanalysis and therapy. With some criticized publications, Jung never claimed any personal anti-Semitic feelings, but only theorized about differences of how each interpreted the role of psychology.
Carl Gustav Jung movie 'Wisdom of a dream'
Jung emphasized the importance of balance and harmony. He cautioned that modern people rely too heavily on science and logic and would benefit from integrating spirituality and appreciation of unconscious realms.
As a quiet, introverted child, Carl Jung would come to be one of the most influential psychiatrists in the world. And, his association, collaboration, and eventual fall out with Sigmund Freud would make his biography even more astounding. Through an expansive education and by authoring many books, Carl Jung donated so much to the study of the human psyche that he is considered by many to stand next to, and not in the shadow of, the world’s leading psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud.
Born the son of a preacher, Jung went on to graduate with a degree in medicine from the University of Basel. He worked until 1909 in Burghöltzi, an asylum and clinic for those suffering the maladies of schizophrenia in Zürich. This experience undoubtedly affected Jung’s work in his later years.
Always interested in spirituality and parapsychology, Carl Jung dabbled in the arts of the spiritual world, ever exploring the realms of unconscious human experience that was often being ignored in modern-day medicine. Jung released his book entitled, The Psychology of Dementia Praecox. This caught the attention of Sigmund Freud and the two would later work and lecture together in the United States.
What bitterly separated Freud and Jung was their different beliefs on just how much sexuality controlled motivation. Freud believed it absolute. Jung admitted it was a part of man’s make up, but wouldn’t go as far as Freud did in his theories. This break-up caused a six-year mental breakdown for the young Jung. Some say that Jung was having prophetic images of World War I, which was looming in the distance.
Carl Jung overcame his breakdown and found the modern system of Analytical Psychology. Feeling limited and enclosed by the academia of the day, Jung decided to travel the world to explore and be an anthropologist of the mind of the people. He later dubbed this the “Collective Consciousness” of mankind. He went on to classify personalities as extrovert or introvert. He regarded mental breakdowns and fervent behavior to be rooted in the fact that one had not yet discovered their own personal meaning in the world. Jung hypothesized that through the exploration of the unconscious, in dreams, in art, and in other cultures, the ‘self’ could fully be realized.
Jung had interests in the study of literature and alchemy, and came to theorize that men and women each had a certain anima or animus – the inner need to feel and not reject our own male or female tendencies. Many of his theories are cited in his biography entitled Memories, Dreams, Reflections where he also explores the psychological conflicts of his own life.
Carl Jung was made the president of the General Medical Society for Psychotherapy in 1933. While this organization did have certain Nazi connections, Jung accepted the position in hopes of preserving the field of psychoanalysis and therapy. With some criticized publications, Jung never claimed any personal anti-Semitic feelings, but only theorized about differences of how each interpreted the role of psychology.
Carl Gustav Jung movie 'Wisdom of a dream'
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
A Front 242
Front 242 is my special project because it deals withrevolutionaries and as is the case with most revolutionaries
the are usually the underground...
Goa Gil with a calender that was distributed to
people at the beach party in south Anjuna 1974.
Fatima Danielle Picanelli my friend.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Camera lucida- Roland Barthes
Barthes considers photography as asymbolic, irreducible to the codes of language or culture, acting on the body as much as on the mind. The book (Camera Lucida) develops the twin concepts of studium and punctum: studium denoting the cultural, linguistic, and political interpretation of a photograph, punctum denoting the wounding, personally touching detail which establishes a direct relationship with the object or person within it. ...Roland Barthes -Camera lucida
Monday, August 30, 2010
Cannon Hack Development Kit (CHDK) software
The Cannon Hack Development Kit (CHDK) is software that enhances the features of some Canon cameras. It is the result of excellent work of many people around the world. The web site for the project contains up-to-date information, a forum, downloads, and a wiki page. You can visit it at http://chdk.wikia.com/ . This software is not intended to produce permanent changes to your camera, so you can try it and then you can decide if you want to continue using it or not. If you decide not to use it, you can simply delete some files from your camera’s flash memory card, put it back into your camera, and it would be like CHDK was never there.One of the main advantages of using this software is that it enables you to shoot in raw mode on cameras that do not have this option available. Shooting in raw mode is a good choice because it allows you to select the white balance on the computer afterward. Also, the color depth is larger than the processed .jpg file.Another interesting feature of CHDK is the continuous display of different indicators, such as battery, temperature, histograms, and zebra mode for a visual representation of under-and overexposed areas in the image.Exposure time is also enhanced. Using CHDK, you can select from an extremely fast 1/10,000”exposure to a very slow 64” exposure. By using these extreme parameters, you can create a new variety of shots that are impossible to capture on the camera without the use of CHDK. Other parameters, such as aperture, focus, and ISO, are also enhanced.You can easily use the bracketing technique with CHDK. You can take many continuous pictures by just maintaining the shutter button pressed and the camera automatically will be changing such parameters as exposure time, ISO, or aperture on each capture. By using this feature, you can take the images needed for creating an HDR image.There are many other additions in CHDK. Some of them even transform your camera into a more versatile device. CHDK allows you to read text files stored on your memory card, display a calendar, and even play games. For example, you can copy tutorials to your camera so that you can read them on-siteor play a game while waiting for a specific shot.For more advanced users, CHDK also has the ability to run scripts. This allows you to write or download programs that add more features to your camera. For example, by using a script, you could add a motion detection feature to your camera so that you can photograph lightning. For programmers,the source code of CHDK is released under the GNU Public License. This gives you full access to the project so that you can compile a customized version that suits your needs.You can visit http://fiveprime.org/hivemind/Tags/chdk to look at some pictures taken with the extra capabilities of CHDK. On that site, you can also search for other tags, such as the tag qtpfsgui,which will give you HDR-looking images produced with that software.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Dr Jose Pereira speaks to Gerard D,Souza ( Gomantak Times)
'THE FORCES DESTROYING GOA ARE MUCH STRONGER THAN I AM'
One of Goa's foremost intellectuals, Dr Jose Pereira, also known as Goa's Da Vinci, inaugurated
his painting exhibition at Porvorim last week. In an exclusive interview, this polymath (who has published 24 books on theology, history of art, architecture, Goan culture, language, literature and music) speaks to GERARD D'SOUZA about his varied interests.
Q: Your interests span a wide range of issues from Islamic
architecture in India to teaching Theology of World Religions
at the Fordham University, to the Goan mando. How did you
come to span such a wide range of interests and
specialisations?
I see myself as a product of two traditions: one is the
Latin-Christian tradition and the other is the Indian Hindu
tradition. So, in order to bring to expression these
traditions, I had to do extensive research.
Q: You spent a majority of your life outside Goa. How did it
feel to be separated from your motherland?
Like a rat, I have run away from the sinking ship, which is
Goa.
Q: How did you manage to keep in touch with Goa despite
being based in far off places, even before the internet came
into the picture?
When I was in London, I used to travel by land to Goa. That
meant travelling across Europe and then to the border of
Iran. From there, I would hitchhike by truck on the border of
Pakistan and then make my way into India. Nobody does that
anymore.
Q: You have done extensive work on the mando. How do you look
at the mando today?
As I said, I am a product of two cultures. In the
mando, I find a concrete symbol of the synthesis of
two cultures. I needed a concrete argument to bring
out the synthesis of the Latin Christian and the
Indian Hindu and I find this in the mando.
The mando is beloved but betrayed. It was the work of the
aristocratic minority to create a fragment of Europe
surrounded by the waters of the Arabian sea and the hills of
the Sahyadris... an attempt to create a little Vienna with
a fantastic spirit and dance.
It is amazing to see a file of men dressed in purely Western
outfits and a file of women in Indian costumes holding
ostrich fans gently swaying back and forth to a melancholic
tune. It was a fantasy world. It couldn't have lasted very
long. It lasted about a hundred and fifty years. I like the
fantasy world of the mando.
Q: What about the tiatrs?
In my time, there were folk plays, beautiful plays. But they
published nothing. It was only when Joao Agostinho arrived on
the scene that he began publishing. They were lucky I arrived
on the scene and took notes of what was happening.
These folk playwrights were ahead of their time. They were
already attacking social evils like landlords sexually
exploiting their tenants and drunken behaviour and all this
pushed them much ahead of their contemporaries.
Q: Even today, the tiatr is a very vibrant industry, don't
you think?
Yes, that is because the Catholics are afraid that their
entity is being dissolved and this is their way of asserting
their identity.
Q: What do you feel about the future of Konkani?
I'm no longer optimistic about the future of Konkani. It
has to fight too many forces that are too great for it to
take on. What will we do?
Look at Marathi. It is spoken over such a wide territory,
almost 80 times the size of Goa, and they all have one
standard that they can look up to.
How can Konkani survive? They claim there is a standard: the
Devanagari Konkani, but does it inspire loyalty among a
Bardezkar or Saxttikar? Take for example the mando 'Adeu
Korcho Vellu Paulo'. Tem Ponddekar-ak poddlam? Amchem nu
mhonntelem te.
If we have the zeal of the Jews, then maybe. They have
revived the buried Hebrew language. It's plastered
everywhere, on their walls, they speak it to their children
and they speak it on the radio. Do you think we are capable
of this?
Q: You are primarily known as a scholar and intellectual.
Where does painting come into the picture?
I look at myself as a painter. It's just that my primary
source of income was not from paintings. Besides, nobody
noticed my work so I went into scholarly studies. People were
perhaps... equally confused as I was about myself. My
painting was otherwise sporadic.
Q: You were based in Benares for awhile. Tell us what you did
there?
I was centered in Benares as I had a project to research the
history of Indian art with the American Academy of Benares. I
was working on producing photographs of Indian monuments
across India.
We were supposed to take pictures and store them there and
then study them. That was our plan. I was doing Indian
Baroque art. I travelled a lot in India then, especially
visiting Daman and Diu, Bombay and Kerala, not to mention Goa
where Baroque art is popular.
Q: Tell us about your encounters with D.D. Kosambi?
My encounters with him were very brief. He was being driven
somewhere and he allowed us to enter his car. But I was
friends with Manoharrai Sardessai and still remember his
poems.
Q: How did you end up lecturing Theology?
I'm a self-taught theologian. It is one of my greatest
fascinations, especially Latin scholastic theologies. I've
written articles on theology. But then, how does one expect
people who are into theology to be interested in a painter?
Q: If you were to get a chance to live again, what would you
like to come back as?
I supposed I could be a computer graphics expert. But then, a
meditative existence would not be possible. I would not be
able to have the vivid experiences that I have had. I am
happy to have lived in the time I have lived and have been
living.
Q: What are your views on today's young generation?
I know nothing of the young of today. I am nearly eighty
years old. The world that I knew is very different from the
world of today.
We used to read books and classics. I read all of
Shakespeare, Dickens... but today's youth know computers. We
had an opening to Portuguese culture which today's youth
don't have. The Portuguese have died out and with that the
Goa I knew has also died out. We no longer create new songs.
In our time, the songs were being composed by the dozen.
Q: Do you think Goa is a good place to nurture scholars of
your caliber?
We don't have the institutions. It will take time. Where can
one do meditative research? Definitely not at Goa University!
In any case I don't live here so I don't know the scene.
Q: Do you ever regret leaving your home behind?
What they cannot control, the wise do not grieve. The forces
that are destroying Goa are much stronger than I am, why
should I grieve?
SOURCE: Gomantak Times.
One of Goa's foremost intellectuals, Dr Jose Pereira, also known as Goa's Da Vinci, inaugurated
his painting exhibition at Porvorim last week. In an exclusive interview, this polymath (who has published 24 books on theology, history of art, architecture, Goan culture, language, literature and music) speaks to GERARD D'SOUZA about his varied interests.
Q: Your interests span a wide range of issues from Islamic
architecture in India to teaching Theology of World Religions
at the Fordham University, to the Goan mando. How did you
come to span such a wide range of interests and
specialisations?
I see myself as a product of two traditions: one is the
Latin-Christian tradition and the other is the Indian Hindu
tradition. So, in order to bring to expression these
traditions, I had to do extensive research.
Q: You spent a majority of your life outside Goa. How did it
feel to be separated from your motherland?
Like a rat, I have run away from the sinking ship, which is
Goa.
Q: How did you manage to keep in touch with Goa despite
being based in far off places, even before the internet came
into the picture?
When I was in London, I used to travel by land to Goa. That
meant travelling across Europe and then to the border of
Iran. From there, I would hitchhike by truck on the border of
Pakistan and then make my way into India. Nobody does that
anymore.
Q: You have done extensive work on the mando. How do you look
at the mando today?
As I said, I am a product of two cultures. In the
mando, I find a concrete symbol of the synthesis of
two cultures. I needed a concrete argument to bring
out the synthesis of the Latin Christian and the
Indian Hindu and I find this in the mando.
The mando is beloved but betrayed. It was the work of the
aristocratic minority to create a fragment of Europe
surrounded by the waters of the Arabian sea and the hills of
the Sahyadris... an attempt to create a little Vienna with
a fantastic spirit and dance.
It is amazing to see a file of men dressed in purely Western
outfits and a file of women in Indian costumes holding
ostrich fans gently swaying back and forth to a melancholic
tune. It was a fantasy world. It couldn't have lasted very
long. It lasted about a hundred and fifty years. I like the
fantasy world of the mando.
Q: What about the tiatrs?
In my time, there were folk plays, beautiful plays. But they
published nothing. It was only when Joao Agostinho arrived on
the scene that he began publishing. They were lucky I arrived
on the scene and took notes of what was happening.
These folk playwrights were ahead of their time. They were
already attacking social evils like landlords sexually
exploiting their tenants and drunken behaviour and all this
pushed them much ahead of their contemporaries.
Q: Even today, the tiatr is a very vibrant industry, don't
you think?
Yes, that is because the Catholics are afraid that their
entity is being dissolved and this is their way of asserting
their identity.
Q: What do you feel about the future of Konkani?
I'm no longer optimistic about the future of Konkani. It
has to fight too many forces that are too great for it to
take on. What will we do?
Look at Marathi. It is spoken over such a wide territory,
almost 80 times the size of Goa, and they all have one
standard that they can look up to.
How can Konkani survive? They claim there is a standard: the
Devanagari Konkani, but does it inspire loyalty among a
Bardezkar or Saxttikar? Take for example the mando 'Adeu
Korcho Vellu Paulo'. Tem Ponddekar-ak poddlam? Amchem nu
mhonntelem te.
If we have the zeal of the Jews, then maybe. They have
revived the buried Hebrew language. It's plastered
everywhere, on their walls, they speak it to their children
and they speak it on the radio. Do you think we are capable
of this?
Q: You are primarily known as a scholar and intellectual.
Where does painting come into the picture?
I look at myself as a painter. It's just that my primary
source of income was not from paintings. Besides, nobody
noticed my work so I went into scholarly studies. People were
perhaps... equally confused as I was about myself. My
painting was otherwise sporadic.
Q: You were based in Benares for awhile. Tell us what you did
there?
I was centered in Benares as I had a project to research the
history of Indian art with the American Academy of Benares. I
was working on producing photographs of Indian monuments
across India.
We were supposed to take pictures and store them there and
then study them. That was our plan. I was doing Indian
Baroque art. I travelled a lot in India then, especially
visiting Daman and Diu, Bombay and Kerala, not to mention Goa
where Baroque art is popular.
Q: Tell us about your encounters with D.D. Kosambi?
My encounters with him were very brief. He was being driven
somewhere and he allowed us to enter his car. But I was
friends with Manoharrai Sardessai and still remember his
poems.
Q: How did you end up lecturing Theology?
I'm a self-taught theologian. It is one of my greatest
fascinations, especially Latin scholastic theologies. I've
written articles on theology. But then, how does one expect
people who are into theology to be interested in a painter?
Q: If you were to get a chance to live again, what would you
like to come back as?
I supposed I could be a computer graphics expert. But then, a
meditative existence would not be possible. I would not be
able to have the vivid experiences that I have had. I am
happy to have lived in the time I have lived and have been
living.
Q: What are your views on today's young generation?
I know nothing of the young of today. I am nearly eighty
years old. The world that I knew is very different from the
world of today.
We used to read books and classics. I read all of
Shakespeare, Dickens... but today's youth know computers. We
had an opening to Portuguese culture which today's youth
don't have. The Portuguese have died out and with that the
Goa I knew has also died out. We no longer create new songs.
In our time, the songs were being composed by the dozen.
Q: Do you think Goa is a good place to nurture scholars of
your caliber?
We don't have the institutions. It will take time. Where can
one do meditative research? Definitely not at Goa University!
In any case I don't live here so I don't know the scene.
Q: Do you ever regret leaving your home behind?
What they cannot control, the wise do not grieve. The forces
that are destroying Goa are much stronger than I am, why
should I grieve?
SOURCE: Gomantak Times.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Rocket Baba
Portrait of Rocket and Jeannie at Ozran beach (small Vagator), Goa. copyright Alex Fernandes Portraits.
Good Sadhu Babas should never be as you expect them to be and Rocket Baba is no exception.
Over seventy years in age, he has the body of a fit thirty year old, his skin and eyes are clear and his voice just booms. He arrives at the house of his student like an angry demi- god. He sits himself on the charpoy cot and we gather at his feet like children. Once he is suitably seated and in control, he orders chai and surveys the group at his feet.He takes the time to notice me, but I know he has already been briefed about me by my brother Gopal.
“Madam that course you did in Kerala? It’s all BULLSHIT!” He roars by way of greeting. Rocket Baba is an expert on the medicinal uses of the plant Neem and has spent many years in the jungle as well as the laboratory exploring the healing qualities of the plant.
“They just taught you monkey stuff! There is never any circumstance when hot metal should be applied to the body.”
He is talking about a massage course I did in Kerala.
“They corrupt an ancient science to create duplicates!”
I think of the guy who taught practical massage technique pole-vaulting around the room to the tune of the Brazilian students pseudo orgasmic moans (when she was GIVING the massage) and have to agree with him.
“ROCKET science is the only truth,” He announces firmly. He points his bony finger at my designer bag.
“Do you have a rocket in that woman’s bag of yours?”
By Rocket he means a chillum, the clay pipe used for communication with the gods via smoking ganja.I don’t.
“Well then Madam you are nothing but a duplicate!”
Now I really like a Baba who will insult and challenge you immediately upon meeting, he reminds me of a mild version of my own Baba ji.
A lot of people prefer to cleave to a white robed swami with a permanent expression of bliss on his or her face but I am a child of the Kali Yuga and things just aren’t that blissful anymore so the bossy warrior type take no crap kind of Baba is my Baba of choice. Anyway, compared to the Naga Sadhu I lived with, this guy is really quite mild.
“Jai Ho Baba ji” is always the best response to outrageous Baba’s and I pull my ears to show my repentance for being a duplicate.
“Rocket is the oldest artefact in the world. It symbolises the only one true eternal truth. Everything Goes Up In Smoke. Dust to dust, ashes to ash!”
“So Madam you get yourself a chillum and you keep it in your (he pauses to sneer) woman’s bag. And when you go back to your country while they search through your stuff at the airport. Then Light your rocket!
I imagine the scene at Auckland Airport if I somehow managed to light a chillum in the arrivals hall.
“You are laughing?”
I am.
I pull my ears again but I am sure Rocket Baba is pulling my leg.
He isn’t.
“Madam this is Rocket Science, its only for True Rocket Stars not duplicates! If you take my advice you will have freedom. You light a chillum. They immediately assume you are mad. So?”
He fixes me with his hazel stare.
Less said the better at this stage, I think.
I flip my eyebrows in question.
“No criminal charge! Only they take you to the nut house. They think you must be mad. Then after three months in the crazy house, bed, food everything supplied, they give you a crazy paper. Your governments pay you to be crazy! And with that you are free!”
Free to be a rocket star!
By Dianne Sharma (December 19th, 2009). Reproduced from Wanderlust and Lipstick Dianne's Blog.Also see Jeannie Kurz's web site neemhealthcare.com about Baba's work with Indian naturopathy.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Think Different
"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify and vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as crazy, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Portrait of Antonio E Costa (Moira, Goa, 21st June 2010)
On 21st June 2010, Anne Bonneau of Radio and Television France and myself visited Antonio E Costa and Tanya Mendonca at their lovely house in Moira, Goa. Antonio showed me his studio and his rare B&W prints of Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Marylin Monroe he had purchased from a photographer in Mexico. Antonio spoke to me at length about his work. We had the most amazing conversation over a cup of coffee and Tanya's heavenly freshly baked pastries. We spoke about about life, art, and shamanism
I made this portrait of Antonio, I think the photograph speaks a great deal of what I felt from meeting the great artist.
Monday, June 28, 2010
From Terence Mckenna's Non-Ordinary States Through Vision Plants
"We're playing with half a deck as long as we tolerate that the cardinals of government and science should dictate where human curiosity can legitimately send its attention and where it cannot. It's an essentially preposterous situation. It is essentially a civil rights issue because what we're talking about here is the repression of a religious sensibility. In fact not "a" religious sensibility, the religious sensibility. Not built on some con game spun out by eunichs, but based on the symbiotic relationship that was in place for our species for 50,000 years before the advent of history riding priestcraft and propaganda. So it's a clarion call to recover a birthright, however uncomfortable that may make us. A call to realize that life lived in the absence of the psychedelic experience that primordial shamanism is based on is life trivialized, life denied, life enslaved to the ego and its fear of dissolution in this mysterious mama matrix which is all around us and which apparently extends to infinity and where our historical future actually lies. This is the other thing..
It is now very clear that techniques of machine-human interfacing, pharmacology of the synthetic variety, all kinds of manipulative techniques, all kinds of data storage, imaging and retrieval techinques, all of this is coalescing toward the potential of a truly demonic or angelic kind of self-imaging of our culture. And the people who are on the demonic side are fully aware of this and hurrying full-tilt forward with their plans to capture everyone as a 100% believing consumer inside some kind of beige furnished fascism that won't even raise a ripple. The shamanic response in this situation I think is to PUSH THE ART PEDAL THROUGH THE FLOOR."
It is now very clear that techniques of machine-human interfacing, pharmacology of the synthetic variety, all kinds of manipulative techniques, all kinds of data storage, imaging and retrieval techinques, all of this is coalescing toward the potential of a truly demonic or angelic kind of self-imaging of our culture. And the people who are on the demonic side are fully aware of this and hurrying full-tilt forward with their plans to capture everyone as a 100% believing consumer inside some kind of beige furnished fascism that won't even raise a ripple. The shamanic response in this situation I think is to PUSH THE ART PEDAL THROUGH THE FLOOR."
Terence Mckenna: Culture is not your friend
Culture is not your friend, it's an impediment to understanding what's going on. That's why to my mind the word cult and the word culture have a direct relationship to each other. Culture is a cult and if you feel revulsion at the thought of somebody offering to the great carrot, just notice that your own culture is an extremely repressive cult that leads to all kinds of humiliation and degradation, and automatic and unquestioned and unthinking behaviour.
I mean the American family is what keeps American psychotherapy alive and well. This is a cauldron for the production of neurosis.
Part of what psychedelics do, is they decondition you from cultural values. This is what makes it such a political hot potato, since all culture is a kind of congame, the most dangerous candy you can hand out is candy that makes people start questioning the rules of the game.
From the lecture: "Into the Valley of Novelty"
I mean the American family is what keeps American psychotherapy alive and well. This is a cauldron for the production of neurosis.
Part of what psychedelics do, is they decondition you from cultural values. This is what makes it such a political hot potato, since all culture is a kind of congame, the most dangerous candy you can hand out is candy that makes people start questioning the rules of the game.
From the lecture: "Into the Valley of Novelty"
Sunday, June 13, 2010
INCOGNITO (Wigs and costumes in Tiatre)
I was looking at the Tiatre portraits for the well known fashion designer Wendell Rodricks who is working on his book on Goan costumes. I came up with an interesting set of character transformations the Tiatre actors underwent using wigs and costumes.
Though some of these transformations are subtle, others could be at the extreme ends of the spectrum, even going as far as cross dressing.
Click Here for Slide show
Though some of these transformations are subtle, others could be at the extreme ends of the spectrum, even going as far as cross dressing.
Click Here for Slide show
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Shamanism and 2012
- A short excerpt from a lecture by Terence Mckenna
"Time has accelerated, Time has left the gentle ebb and flow of gene transfer and adaptation that characterizes biological evolution and instead historical time is generated. No one of us I think can imagine that history could go on for another thousand years. What would it look like? At the current rate of population growth, spread of epidemic diseases, rate of invention, connectivity, depletion of resources. It is impossible to conceive another thousand years of human history. We have burned our bridges. We are preparing for a kind of cultural forward escape.
The simple example of metamorphosis, is that of a caterpillar to a butterfly. We all know that there is this intermediate resting stage where the caterpillar (for all practical purposes) is enzymatically dissolved and then reconstituted as an entirely different organism, with different physical structures, different eyes, different legs, a different way of breathing, with wings, where no wings were before, with a different kind of feeding apparatus; this is what is happening to us. History is a process of metamorphosis. It’s like what a butterfly is doing in a cocoon or what is happening to a child in the womb, it’s a gestation process where one form of life is being changed into another. It begins with monkeys and ends with a human machine planet girdling interface, capable of releasing the energies that light the stars; and it last about 15 or 20 thousand years and during that period the entire process hangs in the balance. This would all happen naturally and with a great deal of anxiety I imagine, as history builds to its ever more climactic and horrifying crescendo and we would all be ignorant or very baffled about what’s going on were it not for the institution of Shamanism.
The Shaman actually rises into a domain where past and future are different areas on the same topological manifold. It’s what’s really going on. If you think about Shamanism, it’s about predicting weather, predicting game movement and curing diseases. It’s as though, the members of culture are imprisoned in linear time and the Shaman is not. Culture is simply closing upon the human experience, but the human organism outside the confines of culture in a direct relation to nature transcends time and space. This was a fact I believe that was known in prehistory and in fact was the source of Paleolithic values, which were not material, not linear, not surplus oriented, not class oriented, not power oriented, but rather oriented towards an egalitarian partnership, in an environment of great material simplicity. Human beings lived like that probably for half a million years; with poetry, with dance, with mathematics, with magic, with story, with humor. But not with, the paralyzing and toxic artifacts of the late evolving, machine worshiping, linear phonetic alphabet using, tight arsed straight culture that we are a part of.”
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
ALEX FERNANDES in conversation with Ranjit Hoskote ( Archetypal Images, Fractal Diversity )
Extract from the book Retrieval Systems, edited by Ranjit Hoskote ((New Delhi: Art Alive, 2009)
Ranjit Hoskote: Alex, let’s go back to the beginning of our project. ‘Retrieval Systems’ evolved from my interest in memory as a condition, a resource, an archive or reserve of impulses, enigmas, images, complexes and patterns that all human beings, and certainly artists, draw upon constantly. What role does memory play in your art?
Alex Fernandes: One’s memory is what creates the ‘race mind’ and ‘racial consciousness’, as Jung puts it. The Goan portraits, particularly of the ‘Tiatristes’, reflect this racial consciousness.
RH: Alex, the trope of a ‘race mind’ sounds strange coming from you, given your publicly stated and marvellously practised openness to diversity. Although Jung never intended it that way, this term can sound dangerously fascist and ethnocentric. Shifts in world politics as well as intellectual history after 1945 have ensured that we now regard anything said to be founded in ‘race’ with wariness and scepticism. Do you think ‘regional’ might be a more valid description than ‘racial’?
AF: Ranjit, my reference to the ‘race mind’ and ‘racial consciousness’ may not be politically correct, as you point out it. I agree that Jung never intended it that way. He realised the reality of psyche and thought the mythic archetype contained in the psyche had autonomy, an agency beyond the individual. He proposed that the archetype had a dual nature – it exists both in the psyche and in the world at large. This is what Jung meant when he introduced the notion of a race mind, and proposed the archetypes of a racial consciousness.
Now, with reference to the ‘archetypal figures’ in the ‘Tiatristes’ portrait series. An ‘archetype’ is something we all experience and know intimately from the inside. Indefinable, an archetype is like a psychological instinct or informational field of influence which patterns our psyche, our experience of the world around us and how we experience ourselves. Archetypes are the image-making factor in the psyche, informing and giving shape to the images in our mind and the dreams of our soul, and as such, they insist on being approached imaginatively.
RH: So you draw on reservoirs or receptacles of memory. What sort of mental or physical archives or iconographies or narratives do you work with?
AF: Somewhere in the Goan psyche, we have archetypal figures of who we were as a race, a culture, and this is where we draw from to express our fantasy. We even recognise fictional characters as entities whose behaviour we might predict, with whom we may sympathise. What makes the character of Ganesha recognisable to worshippers as a god, for instance? Ironically, archetypes are not learned. They are inborn tendencies to experience the world. Strictly speaking, archetypal figures such as the Bhatkar, the Sasumai, the fisherwoman and so on are not archetypes, but archetypal images that have crystallised out of the archetypes. The images are objective, but universal.
My portraits of the ‘Tiatristes’ in their exaggerated stage garb, along with the viewer’s involvement, create a readily identifiable fantasy. This imagery, I believe, comes from a universal memory.
Strangely enough the great Goan cartoonist, Mario de Miranda, in his drawings of Goans has archetypal images of Goans that are almost identical with my ‘Tiatristes’ portraits. The archetypes had synchronically manifested themselves in Tiatre, in Mario’s work, and in my portraits. Such synchronicities are from a universal memory.
RH: Your ‘Tiatristes’ and ‘Goan Musicians’ portrait series encode and preserve a lively account of a specific subculture. Clearly childhood memory and subcultural knowledge play a major role in your imaginative process.
AF: As a second-generation Roman Catholic Goan born in Dhobi Talao, South Bombay, I had spent all of my adult life being disassociated from mainstream Goan culture. I spoke Konkani only with my grandmother, and English was the primary language of conversation at home and elsewhere. The cosmopolitan life in Bombay exposed me to various influences and I was never really a ‘Tiatre’ fan. But living in Dhobi Talao, one would often bump into famous ‘Tiatristes’, since most of them lived in close proximity to Sonapur Church and were a common spectacle after Sunday mass.
Dhobi Talao has been described by many as the “Goan enclave of Bombay” with its ‘kudds’ or clubs for Goan seamen in transit, and for Goan restaurants that served authentic Goan pork and beef dishes, and the joints run by ‘Aunties’ during the Prohibition period. It was a natural hangout for famous Goan musicians like Chris Perry, who lived close by in Dabul, Chic Chocolate, Micky Correa, and others. I remember seeing the great Mario Miranda with his friend the late ‘Busybee’ (Behram Contractor), sipping chai with their snacks at Kayani’s.
Western music in India was pioneered by Goans. My fondest memories of Goan musicians were at the Bistro café at Flora Fountain, where my father would often take us to see performances by jazz quartets made up of Goan trumpeters, double bass players, a pianist and a vocalist. In my later youth, Rang Bhavan near St Xavier’s College was the place to go to for open-air jazz and rock performances.
In the early 1970s in Bombay, I saw the first ‘hippies’ in Colaba near Hotel Stiffles and the surrounding areas. I thought their unconventional lifestyles were “really cool”, so to say. Later, this fad was reflected in the ideologies and lifestyle of my days at Elphinstone College in Bombay.
RH: We make discoveries all the time! So you were my senior at Elphinstone. And you were there in that golden decade when the campus of this elite college was divided between the tripping-out, cloud-head culture people and the class-warfare theoreticians and hunger-striking activists of the far Left?
AF: I loved every moment of those years at Elphinstone, the college canteen being the most frequented place.
RH: It was, for some students, like a Goa beach in the middle of Bombay’s colonial quarter!
AF: Speaking of Goa beaches, it was by no accident that my early ‘unsupervised’ vacations in Goa took me straight to the North Goa beaches and the beach parties. It was like being ‘Alex in Wonderland’! I still remember the trance parties at ‘Disco Valley’ in Vagator in the early 1990s with people like 'Goa Gil' playing his very special Goa psychedelic music. Dreadlocked Goa freaks adorned with tattoos, body piercings and freaky party costumes kicked up huge clouds of red dust whilst dancing to that psychedelic Goa trance music. Most of my work in Goa relies on these memories as a link to the ‘Goan race mind’.
RH: Alex, what a fantastic account! You should write a memoir. But again, you speak of a ‘Goan race mind’ but actually describe and celebrate an incredibly confluential gathering of diverse people of various cultural, religious, social and continental origins, all coming together in a new and redemptive fusion through cultural expression.
AF: ‘Goan psyche’ would be a more appropriate term. I agree, ‘race mind’ definitely implies jackboots, swastikas and Sieg Heils. I am definitely one who celebrates the confluential gatherings of diverse peoples.
RH: In what does the importance of memory reside, in your view? And could there sometimes also be a negative, sinister or debilitating aspect to memory?
AF: Memory is what gives us our character, and our various personalities, however diverse we may be. We inherit this first as genetic information from our parents and ancestors and then by observing traditions, rituals and everyday life patterns. Memory creates close tribal bonds via information that is passed on from one generation to the next generation, along with newly modified patterns of information of that current generation.
Cultural hegemony and intolerance for others would be a negative aspect of the ‘race mind’ or ‘racial consciousness’, if left unchecked. To forget that we are all ultimately connected even though we are diverse would be a negative aspect.
RH: Meaning, it would be negative if we got stuck in a specific ‘ethnic’ or ‘national’ or other kind of exclusivist memory and forgot the larger, more capacious, universal and unifying ‘species memory’?
AF: That is exactly how I see it. You see, we humans evolved in Africa about 150,000 years ago. From there to this point in time we have seen genetic and cultural diversity and the rise and fall of many civilisations. I don’t think evolution as a process will stop with our generation. I honestly think that to get stuck with ‘ethnic’ or ‘national’ memories while missing out on the ‘species memory’ is not very wise.
RH: Does the prospect of the loss of memory, both at the level of the individual mind and that of a civilisational corpus, terrify you? Do you think memory can oscillate between active and latent states, become dormant and be translated, reactivated, retrieved afresh years or centuries later?
AF: The genetic information inside the cell that propagates evolution is never a result of random accidents, or as Darwin suggests, that information came from natural selection rather by an intelligent design. If we go by Darwin’s theory of natural selection (use it or lose it theory), he suggests that organisms lost memory of genetic information as they evolved into different species. The theory of natural selection would reduce the amount of genetic information that is carefully stored in each strand of DNA. It is DNA that determines the nature of the physical being and contains the inherited memory of all generations. As we now know, DNA doesn’t dump information, but merely transforms these instructions into various organisms at an appropriate time by turning on and off various combinations of amino acids based on an intelligent design.
RH: Can you conceive of a world structured on the principle of amnesia?
AF: It would be highly unlikely, as this memory is recorded at a genetic level in the DNA for every generation of every living species. In the unlikely event that such a catastrophe takes place, at the most intimate level you would find a loss of family bonds, and from this would follow the feeling of disassociation from each other as a species.
The beautiful fractal diversity of genes that gives us various traditions and cultures would vanish into a bland world, a world without the love, emotions and thoughts that make us what we are – human.
Also see Tiatriste and Jungian Archetype
Lens-ing It
Ranjit Hoskote: Alex, let’s go back to the beginning of our project. ‘Retrieval Systems’ evolved from my interest in memory as a condition, a resource, an archive or reserve of impulses, enigmas, images, complexes and patterns that all human beings, and certainly artists, draw upon constantly. What role does memory play in your art?
Alex Fernandes: One’s memory is what creates the ‘race mind’ and ‘racial consciousness’, as Jung puts it. The Goan portraits, particularly of the ‘Tiatristes’, reflect this racial consciousness.
RH: Alex, the trope of a ‘race mind’ sounds strange coming from you, given your publicly stated and marvellously practised openness to diversity. Although Jung never intended it that way, this term can sound dangerously fascist and ethnocentric. Shifts in world politics as well as intellectual history after 1945 have ensured that we now regard anything said to be founded in ‘race’ with wariness and scepticism. Do you think ‘regional’ might be a more valid description than ‘racial’?
AF: Ranjit, my reference to the ‘race mind’ and ‘racial consciousness’ may not be politically correct, as you point out it. I agree that Jung never intended it that way. He realised the reality of psyche and thought the mythic archetype contained in the psyche had autonomy, an agency beyond the individual. He proposed that the archetype had a dual nature – it exists both in the psyche and in the world at large. This is what Jung meant when he introduced the notion of a race mind, and proposed the archetypes of a racial consciousness.
Now, with reference to the ‘archetypal figures’ in the ‘Tiatristes’ portrait series. An ‘archetype’ is something we all experience and know intimately from the inside. Indefinable, an archetype is like a psychological instinct or informational field of influence which patterns our psyche, our experience of the world around us and how we experience ourselves. Archetypes are the image-making factor in the psyche, informing and giving shape to the images in our mind and the dreams of our soul, and as such, they insist on being approached imaginatively.
RH: So you draw on reservoirs or receptacles of memory. What sort of mental or physical archives or iconographies or narratives do you work with?
AF: Somewhere in the Goan psyche, we have archetypal figures of who we were as a race, a culture, and this is where we draw from to express our fantasy. We even recognise fictional characters as entities whose behaviour we might predict, with whom we may sympathise. What makes the character of Ganesha recognisable to worshippers as a god, for instance? Ironically, archetypes are not learned. They are inborn tendencies to experience the world. Strictly speaking, archetypal figures such as the Bhatkar, the Sasumai, the fisherwoman and so on are not archetypes, but archetypal images that have crystallised out of the archetypes. The images are objective, but universal.
My portraits of the ‘Tiatristes’ in their exaggerated stage garb, along with the viewer’s involvement, create a readily identifiable fantasy. This imagery, I believe, comes from a universal memory.
Strangely enough the great Goan cartoonist, Mario de Miranda, in his drawings of Goans has archetypal images of Goans that are almost identical with my ‘Tiatristes’ portraits. The archetypes had synchronically manifested themselves in Tiatre, in Mario’s work, and in my portraits. Such synchronicities are from a universal memory.
RH: Your ‘Tiatristes’ and ‘Goan Musicians’ portrait series encode and preserve a lively account of a specific subculture. Clearly childhood memory and subcultural knowledge play a major role in your imaginative process.
AF: As a second-generation Roman Catholic Goan born in Dhobi Talao, South Bombay, I had spent all of my adult life being disassociated from mainstream Goan culture. I spoke Konkani only with my grandmother, and English was the primary language of conversation at home and elsewhere. The cosmopolitan life in Bombay exposed me to various influences and I was never really a ‘Tiatre’ fan. But living in Dhobi Talao, one would often bump into famous ‘Tiatristes’, since most of them lived in close proximity to Sonapur Church and were a common spectacle after Sunday mass.
Dhobi Talao has been described by many as the “Goan enclave of Bombay” with its ‘kudds’ or clubs for Goan seamen in transit, and for Goan restaurants that served authentic Goan pork and beef dishes, and the joints run by ‘Aunties’ during the Prohibition period. It was a natural hangout for famous Goan musicians like Chris Perry, who lived close by in Dabul, Chic Chocolate, Micky Correa, and others. I remember seeing the great Mario Miranda with his friend the late ‘Busybee’ (Behram Contractor), sipping chai with their snacks at Kayani’s.
Western music in India was pioneered by Goans. My fondest memories of Goan musicians were at the Bistro café at Flora Fountain, where my father would often take us to see performances by jazz quartets made up of Goan trumpeters, double bass players, a pianist and a vocalist. In my later youth, Rang Bhavan near St Xavier’s College was the place to go to for open-air jazz and rock performances.
In the early 1970s in Bombay, I saw the first ‘hippies’ in Colaba near Hotel Stiffles and the surrounding areas. I thought their unconventional lifestyles were “really cool”, so to say. Later, this fad was reflected in the ideologies and lifestyle of my days at Elphinstone College in Bombay.
RH: We make discoveries all the time! So you were my senior at Elphinstone. And you were there in that golden decade when the campus of this elite college was divided between the tripping-out, cloud-head culture people and the class-warfare theoreticians and hunger-striking activists of the far Left?
AF: I loved every moment of those years at Elphinstone, the college canteen being the most frequented place.
RH: It was, for some students, like a Goa beach in the middle of Bombay’s colonial quarter!
AF: Speaking of Goa beaches, it was by no accident that my early ‘unsupervised’ vacations in Goa took me straight to the North Goa beaches and the beach parties. It was like being ‘Alex in Wonderland’! I still remember the trance parties at ‘Disco Valley’ in Vagator in the early 1990s with people like 'Goa Gil' playing his very special Goa psychedelic music. Dreadlocked Goa freaks adorned with tattoos, body piercings and freaky party costumes kicked up huge clouds of red dust whilst dancing to that psychedelic Goa trance music. Most of my work in Goa relies on these memories as a link to the ‘Goan race mind’.
RH: Alex, what a fantastic account! You should write a memoir. But again, you speak of a ‘Goan race mind’ but actually describe and celebrate an incredibly confluential gathering of diverse people of various cultural, religious, social and continental origins, all coming together in a new and redemptive fusion through cultural expression.
AF: ‘Goan psyche’ would be a more appropriate term. I agree, ‘race mind’ definitely implies jackboots, swastikas and Sieg Heils. I am definitely one who celebrates the confluential gatherings of diverse peoples.
RH: In what does the importance of memory reside, in your view? And could there sometimes also be a negative, sinister or debilitating aspect to memory?
AF: Memory is what gives us our character, and our various personalities, however diverse we may be. We inherit this first as genetic information from our parents and ancestors and then by observing traditions, rituals and everyday life patterns. Memory creates close tribal bonds via information that is passed on from one generation to the next generation, along with newly modified patterns of information of that current generation.
Cultural hegemony and intolerance for others would be a negative aspect of the ‘race mind’ or ‘racial consciousness’, if left unchecked. To forget that we are all ultimately connected even though we are diverse would be a negative aspect.
RH: Meaning, it would be negative if we got stuck in a specific ‘ethnic’ or ‘national’ or other kind of exclusivist memory and forgot the larger, more capacious, universal and unifying ‘species memory’?
AF: That is exactly how I see it. You see, we humans evolved in Africa about 150,000 years ago. From there to this point in time we have seen genetic and cultural diversity and the rise and fall of many civilisations. I don’t think evolution as a process will stop with our generation. I honestly think that to get stuck with ‘ethnic’ or ‘national’ memories while missing out on the ‘species memory’ is not very wise.
RH: Does the prospect of the loss of memory, both at the level of the individual mind and that of a civilisational corpus, terrify you? Do you think memory can oscillate between active and latent states, become dormant and be translated, reactivated, retrieved afresh years or centuries later?
AF: The genetic information inside the cell that propagates evolution is never a result of random accidents, or as Darwin suggests, that information came from natural selection rather by an intelligent design. If we go by Darwin’s theory of natural selection (use it or lose it theory), he suggests that organisms lost memory of genetic information as they evolved into different species. The theory of natural selection would reduce the amount of genetic information that is carefully stored in each strand of DNA. It is DNA that determines the nature of the physical being and contains the inherited memory of all generations. As we now know, DNA doesn’t dump information, but merely transforms these instructions into various organisms at an appropriate time by turning on and off various combinations of amino acids based on an intelligent design.
RH: Can you conceive of a world structured on the principle of amnesia?
AF: It would be highly unlikely, as this memory is recorded at a genetic level in the DNA for every generation of every living species. In the unlikely event that such a catastrophe takes place, at the most intimate level you would find a loss of family bonds, and from this would follow the feeling of disassociation from each other as a species.
The beautiful fractal diversity of genes that gives us various traditions and cultures would vanish into a bland world, a world without the love, emotions and thoughts that make us what we are – human.
Also see Tiatriste and Jungian Archetype
Lens-ing It
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