Wow... can't begin to say how mindblowing Peru was... Think that will require a whole long conversation at some point... Since I came back, life has been equally wonderfully crazy. The loft life has been quite magickal, tons of amazing people have been in and out of here in the last weeks and it just keeps on going... Lots on the plate these days, so time-management is becoming a renewed focus, gotta get evermore efficient!
In the meantime, there are random fun art things as well, while I haven't got to make music any time lately, at least there are the occasional midnight collaborations. The pictures on the right where created by my neighbor Logan, a wonderfully talented photographer and artist, resulting spontaneously from a conversation he and I were having about such lovely and dear concepts as the meaning of life and dharma...
Also made the commitment to update this page more frequently, so hopefully I will be able to catch up with myself soon ;-)
Watching my friend Eric Matthies' movie "The Matrix Revisited" where he features the philosophy and science of the Matrix movie trilogy. One of the thoughts it sparked was whether anyone has ever built a robot based on the four-fold body, i.e. a robot with four different circuit boards, one for the physical (governing internal processes and serves as the "OS"), one for the emotional (spatial movement and recognition of objects/advance and retreat dynamics), one for the intellectual (visual/auditory processing and intelligence) and one for the spiritual (relationships and processes), and then have them interact on some levels similar to how we as humans interact between our different bodies... hmmm.... Might be fun ;-)
So much to say. Just moved into a new and amazing space (pictures coming soon). Am now surrounded by 300 other artists creating all day. The space will also serve as the headquarters for the Center for Conscious Creativity, and there will be more on all that coming soon as well (we are about to redo the entire website and structure...). It's brewing all over...
For now, I am off to Peru for an international conference on Shamanism... Should be interesting ;-)
I really need to get into the habit of updating this page more often as too much happens too quickly... The last months have been turbulent again. Was in Europe for a quick business/pleasure trip, working in London on another film finance/IT project, which was the primary reason for my trip. Then hopped over the channel to Amsterdam to visit my delightful cousin (the same one I visited in India), who is currently working there for Greenpeace. Went to a Greenpeace office party on a houseboat and had a most interesting and disturbing conversation with their ocean delegate. Really a sad situation further spoiling my love for fish. It appears that over 90% of the bigger predator fish (e.g. Tuna) are completely gone, so are 75% of all the other fish, and deep sea fishing has already destroyed twice the size of the continental US underneath the sea... Makes it even more urgent that people transform their understanding of the world. From Amsterdam, I went on to Germany for a quick visit with my family and some of my amazing friends there. Always a wonderful recharge. Took my dad back with me to LA and had a great time with him here. Quite a luxury to get to spend a few days with him mano a mano. Usually, when I am visiting, I only get brief moments here and there, so it was great to actually have time to talk with him. He is an amazing man and I am grateful for our relationship. Without a break, another lovely friend of mine from Germany visited me right after my dad, and I am just now slowly catching up with my world again. In between all this, we had three great events with the Center for Conscious Creativity under the banner of "The Transformational Power of Sound&Vision." And while all this was going on... I decided to move from my beloved Los Feliz neighborhood, and am currently preparing to move to the Brewery, an artist complex just east of downtown Los Angeles. Indeed a former brewery (Pabst Blue Ribbon, yum), the place today houses over 300 artist studios. Am utterly thrilled to be moving there as I love the energy of creativity that is buzzing around the concrete walls down there. Look forward to the effect this will have on my own art, and cannot wait to throw parties and seminars there... Am planning a thesis seminar toward the end of July after returning from my trip to Peru to partake in a conference on Shamanism, which should be quite interesting... So... yeah... it never stops... could go on, but need to get working on some of my other projects ;-)
One of the nice things about having control over my time lately is that after years and years of working with the Internet, I lately have actually had the time to "surf the web" a bit and come across all these lovely digital meme packages... Below is one of them that I rather enjoyed. Am still trying to find out who made it so I can credit them properly, but maybe that is not that important in today's day and age. Just got an invite from Artist X on myspace, who, I guess, was a moderately successful musician in the typical sense, but recently decided to go incognito and focus all his marketing around his music and its content rather than his persona. Nice approach. Now we just need to figure out anonymous and automatic value exchange models and we will no longer have to worry about copyrights and money (maybe it's just that we will decide to help and work with each other because we realize that in all our separation we are just one after all) ;-) The whole digital media phenomenon is curious. I think it will probably serve as the straw that will break the back of our current economic systems, but then, what is art for if not for bringing about transformation?? ;-)
I remember the day when those big ominous boxes arrived and the technician set up this magical machine that looked like a big cabinet attached to a typewriter. It was the bomb. I wasn't allowed to touch my dad's "Computer" for the first couple of months (until I sort of took over). I remember my joy and excitement about hearing the sound of those two 8inch floppy disks spinning, that green monochrome monitor lighting up with the CPM command prompt, those 64kB RAM clicking away... Since, I have had 8086s, 8088s, 286s, 386s, Pentiums, AMDs..... all the way up to my last two machines which I love. They are both tablets. Definitely as close to how computers should be in my mind. BUT... a couple of days ago I finally crossed over. Many of my friends have had Macs from the get go and avoided the corporate tie-in. Many of them have used Macs for their art for many years. My official reason was Final Cut Pro, as I have several movie projects coming up. Then there is the Joymonkey record, so I decided to buy an mBox and ProTools as well, which is where many hours of my life went since. My first two experiments with it can be downloaded here: "One Track Mind" and "Divine g(od)-u-i-dance" (in collaboration with Stosh Machek). Have fun... More to come on that... Back to the Mac... LOVE this machine. It appears to be the fastest PC I have ever had, too... At least so far. But the design, the usability, the all around concept of this gorgeous Powerbook Pro I know get to play with is just absolutely stunning. Have no other words for it. Feel like I bought my first computer...
On a general update note: The Sin and Soup Salon was a delight and the next one is already in the planning. Have been loving the artist life. Last week I had the first "normal" day of my life be so exciting that I did not want to go to bed and could not wait to get up the next morning (2 hours later). Quite a fascinating time and I am enjoying allowing the artist in me emerge a bit... We shall see where that leads ;-)
In only mere hours I will finish this project that has kept me busy since last August. Can't really believe it yet. Will definitely miss some of the lovely and amazing people I got to work with, but hopefully will be able to see them outside of this environment. Will also miss my little rituals around taking the train in the morning, getting tea and a croissant... Not sure how much I will miss global media and financial systems, but then both might appear in my world all too soon ;-) March will be about taking a break. Outside of the short week in Hawaii last year, it feels like I haven't had a break in quite a while. So a few weeks of relaxing are definitely in order. After that, it's on to writing my thesis, which is now years overdue. Apart from that, I will finally be able to pay more attention to the Center for Conscious Creativity. Have been neglecting that too much in the last years of traveling and can't wait to go knee-deep back into that. Thirdly, I am going to be spending some time marketing my eCourse "Six Sigma for Your Life" with the help of my fantastic new assistant (Thank you, Michelle! You rock!). Then, there is Joymonkey #3 - "Who is creating your reality?", my third audio project. Might also venture into visual media this year. Would really love to put together a documentary on the transformational power of art and media... We will see... In the meantime, I am also starting a new party series under the name of "Sin&Soup Salons" the first one coming up tomorrow (flyer is on the right). Well, anyway... gotta get back to the work I have left here... All the best!
Wow... can't begin to say how mindblowing Peru was... Think that will require a whole long conversation at some point... Since I came back, life has been equally wonderfully crazy. The loft life has been quite magickal, tons of amazing people have been in and out of here in the last weeks and it just keeps on going... Lots on the plate these days, so time-management is becoming a renewed focus, gotta get evermore efficient!
I really need to get into the habit of updating this page more often as too much happens too quickly... The last months have been turbulent again. Was in Europe for a quick business/pleasure trip, working in London on another film finance/IT project, which was the primary reason for my trip. Then hopped over the channel to Amsterdam to visit my delightful cousin (the same one I visited in India), who is currently working there for Greenpeace. Went to a Greenpeace office party on a houseboat and had a most interesting and disturbing conversation with their ocean delegate. Really a sad situation further spoiling my love for fish. It appears that over 90% of the bigger predator fish (e.g. Tuna) are completely gone, so are 75% of all the other fish, and deep sea fishing has already destroyed twice the size of the continental US underneath the sea... Makes it even more urgent that people transform their understanding of the world.
I remember the day when those big ominous boxes arrived and the technician set up this magical machine that looked like a big cabinet attached to a typewriter. It was the bomb. I wasn't allowed to touch my dad's "Computer" for the first couple of months (until I sort of took over). I remember my joy and excitement about hearing the sound of those two 8inch floppy disks spinning, that green monochrome monitor lighting up with the CPM command prompt, those 64kB RAM clicking away...
