Friday, May 29, 2009

WHAT IF..

Approaching "the spot", walking so fast you might be floating.
The thumping of the music in tune with the beat of your heart.
The excitement of knowing, the thumping is growing, louder and louder, and...
You're going to a rave!
Like a child with your mischievious grin,
Pig tails flowing in the wind.
Toys in pocket, money in hand,
Now it is just around the bend.
Checking your watch every minute,
To make sure that you have waited long enough,
Like when you were eight,
Holding your mother's hand
On your way to Disneyland.
Prepared to sweat, prepared to dance,
Whatever else is just by chance.



Now you're in and people everywhere.
Distorted visions and laser lights,
Smiling faces, amazing sights.
The music lifts you off the ground,
Who are these faces from different places?
You never, ever, want to leave.
What if it was like this everywhere,
What if...
You never went to a rave?
I say, you may as well just dig your grave!
by Cary anno 1995





posted while driving to a free with kierewiet, beuken bv and many more.. just perfect.

RAVE & NO SYSTEM


The life on the road, traveling from Teknival to Teknival in Europe.

This film is a collaboration between Zena Merton (camera & editing), Zain Aziz (music) & Vinca Peterson (Camera and Directing).
Also by Vinca Petersen
No System

Vinca Petersen's life is that of a modern nomad: "Different people's lives are based around different things, ours are based around music." For a couple of years she has been cruising through Europe with a group of young people in convoy, organising illegal music events and raves. She lives with her friends in old vans, buses or caravans. These young nomads are constantly searching for wasteland or abandoned buildings to set up their soundsystems and pump out loud techno. No System is a personal document of this way of life. Petersen has photographed the everyday existence of these communities. The pictures are accompanied by her diary notes and collected ephemera describing the forms of autonomy and self organisation of the "tribes", explaining that these people don't want to rebel as much as to live outside the system.
This book presents a modern form of tribal life, where young people live together with their own rules. "Welcome to our way of living"

PUBLISHED BY: Steidl
FORMAT: Paperback, 7.25 x 10 in. / 144 pgs / 146 color
ISBN: 9783882436457 ISBN10: 388243645X
PUBLICATION DATE: 09/02/1999
AVAILABILITY: Sold out, hard to find these days.
A MUST HAVE.

www.vinx.co.uk

Thursday, May 28, 2009

OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND


An Analysis of Rave culture
- Helen Evans, Wimbledon School of Art, London, 1992
Introduction

This dissertation is an analysis of the phenomenon of 'rave culture'. Implicit within my writing is the notion that rave is a part of popular culture rather than a subculture. I think it would be useful at this point to provide a definition of subculture: Subcultures define themselves as other' and 'subordinate' to 'the dominant' culture. The early work of Stuart Hall and Dick Hebdige has been chiefly concerned with the ways in which subcultures subvert and pose a resistance to the 'established order' through their expressive dress codes and rituals. Rave departs from these theories of youth culture, since it has not established an identifiable dress code nor consciously set itself apart from the wider culture. Cultural critics have found it difficult to argue that rave poses any resistance to anything at all. This essay is really an exploration into what rave does do, if its objective is not to subvert. What is rave an expression of? What is its function? What is its position politically? These are the questions that I am fundamentally concerned with.

I came to rave culture as an outsider looking in, and from a rather peculiar position of a young person commenting on the activity of my peers. I have found it a rich subject to explore, enabling me to discuss some of my own creative, personal and political interests which relate very closely to my studio practice: the use of collage, the notion of subversion, and the expression of gendered identity. The research has reasserted my belief in the value of looking at and learning from popular culture.

It is also worth outlining the direct links between rave and theatre. The origins of theatre, according to the Greek tradition, are in the Bacchic rites (or drunken orgies) of ancient Greece. Later, with the building of amphitheatres in Greece, the orgiastic element was replaced by more stylised representations of human life, which were given a text and performed repeatedly. The element of spontaneity and direct experience was reduced as the participator became the spectator. The modern rave begins where theatre also began. Raves are spontaneous, participatory events, which create a powerful emotional experience for the raver as they revel in dionysian bliss. They are also popular, unique events. My studio practice is largely concerned with finding ways to involve the audience, and to put them inside the theatrical world with the performers. I aim to create an emotional event for the audience, so perhaps these roots are worth re-living and re-learning from as theatre struggles to compete with more popular media like film and TV.

The sources for my research have been diverse: psychoanalytic theory, art history, subcultural theory, cultural studies, television documentaries, newspaper coverage, rave and music magazines, my own interviews with ravers, visits to raves, and listening to the music produced for raves. This essay is really a collage created out of all of these discourses, and I hope it goes some way towards an understanding of a rave event.

I shall begin this dissertation with a brief history of the development of rave events and rave music. I shall then consider the structure of rave music, the way in which meanings are communicated, and what possible interpretations could be made from recent rave output. I will consider the narcissistic and pre-oedipal sexuality of ravers, and the pleasure they experience through loss of 'self' and 'fixed' identity. I shall also look at the use of collage within raves, in the context of both surrealism and subcultural theory. All of these areas involve a discussion of the related issues of boundaries and difference. I shall finally conclude my research by considering the political dimension of rave which is manifested in the loss of traditional boundaries, in the questions it raises about the ownership of culture and about the prevailing
Read it here

Monday, May 11, 2009

RAIDERS & REBELS: The Golden Age of Piracy



In the most authoritative history of piracy, Frank Sherry's rich and colorful account reveals the rise and fall of the real "raiders and rebels" who terrorized the seas. From 1692 to 1725 pirates sailed the oceans of the world, plundering ships laden with the riches of India, Africa, South America, and the Caribbean. Often portrayed as larger-than-life characters, these outlaw figures and their bloodthirsty exploits have long been immortalized in fiction and film. But beneath the legends is the true story of these brigands—often common men and women escaping the social and economic restrictions of 18th-century Europe and America. Their activities threatened the beginnings of world trade and jeopardized the security of empires. And together, the author argues, they fashioned a surprisingly democratic society powerful enough to defy the world.

"Raiders and Rebels: The Golden Age of Piracy" is very possibly the very best book I have ever read on the Golden Age of Piracy.
The information is organized very well, telling a straight chronological history of piracy's evolution from early buccaneers to king's privateers to outright pirates. He devotes separate chapters to the most famous captains, elucidating their personal histories and careers in a clear and concise manner - Henry Morgan, Edward Teach (Blackbeard), Edward Low, Bartholomew Roberts (Black Bart), Calico Jack Rackham (and his lesbian pirate associates, Anne Bonney and Mary Read), the ill-fated Captain Kidd, and more. He also renders a wonderful biography of Woodes Rogers, the privateer-turned-governor of Nassau, a fascinating character whose actions, perhaps more than anyone else's, most damaged the cohesion of piracy - helping it fall apart of its own accord, due to disorganization and lack of discipline and foresight.
Sherry does not write merely about piracy as seagoing theft, but about the short-lived and surprisingly democratic "Maritime Nation." Few people realize that the "Brethren of the Coast" (as they styled themselves) were one of the earliest "countries" - and certainly the only one of their age - to institute accident and disability insurance and elected leadership, not to mention equal opportunity employment and what essentially amounted to equal-share company stock options. Sherry does an expert job of illustrating the brutality and oppression of the age, making it clear why so many sailors voluntarily joined ranks with the seafaring rebels - whose primary battle cry was not "death to all," but "Will ye join us, Brother?"
Many myths are explored and deflated, and many others shown to have a great deal of validity. There is only one recorded instance of anyone being made to walk the plank, for instance, (even if the pirates played on that prevalent myth to their own advantage), though marooning was indeed the favored form of pirate capital punishment.
Most importantly, Sherry does a fine job of making the reader feel what daily life was like for the pirates - and for their suffering cousins in the merchant marines and the Royal Navy - and portrays them in a sympathetic and understanding light. He doesn't soft-pedal the darker side of piracy, but he does put it into perspective.
If you have even a casual interest in Pirates, the Caribbean Expansion, or even global politics - This book will be a priceless addition to your library.
Review by Rob Ossian
Raiders and Rebels: The Golden Age of Piracy (eBook)


Sunday, May 10, 2009

CYBERTRIBE RISING


Oil painting by Pygoya

Consider the present situation. The Industrialized World wakes up to find itself in a quandary. Perhaps the technological confrontation between the two ideologies of Communism and Capitalism, known as the "Cold War", was mearly a device for global control that was expedient and advantageous for the regimes which held the rest of the world at nuclear ransom. We are told that the "good guys" have won, and that the world is now safe from the threat of the "evil empire". We find ourselves left with only one Superpower, which has taken upon itself the job of enforcer for a "New World Order". But what is the nature of the victory that this New World Order has brought us? The ozone layer is still depleted, and continues to become thiner and thiner. People are still starving in the world, while food is rotting in warehouses. A deadly disease is ravaging the continent of Africa and threatens the very fabric of the industrial populations, and the Last Superpower, our Superpower, refuses to spend even a fraction of the amount that it spends on nuclear weaponry, on finding a cure.


We ravers, as a new breed of individuals, have a unique chance to make a difference in the world we live in. Most of you, for better or worse, who are reading this, reside in the United States or some other industrialized nation. You probably came across this at a rave or house party. Some of you have had profound experiences of togetherness and and a sense of community while attending events such as this. What we need to do as a group is to expand this feeling out into our lives and into the global community. As a group, we are incredibly diverse. We are multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-talented. We are artists and engineers, dancers and bankers, doctors and lawyers, scientists and mystics. In many respects, we are the "result" of the goals of the 60's. We have learned to interrelate, communicate, and party with each other across lines of race, gender, class and sexual preference. We all have come together under one "House" to share a few moments in Eternity before we go back to our jobs in the "real world". Consider what the "real world" would be like if part of our jobs were to spread that sense of Unity and Togetherness that we experience within the Rave "Family", to others that we come in contact with. We who live in the industrialized nations have access to incredible technologies, these technologies, like all forms of power, can be used to harm or to heal. The choice is left up to you and me to decide, right now, how our current and emerging energies, wealth and technologies will be used.

Over the last 40 years, the Dominator culture has developed a paradigm, often referred to in military circles as C^3 I, or Command , Control Communication and Intelligence. The doctrine of C^3I has grown up from the early work of Norbert Wiener who coined the word _cybernetics_ [from the greek kyberne-te-s; to pilot or steer] to refer to the "comparative study of the automatic control system formed by the nervous system and brain and by mechanical-electrical communication systems". Early cybernetics research was used in WW II to develop swivel and turret systems for anti-aircraft gun platforms. It laid the foundation for the advent of the digital computer. Subsequently, C3I was developed as a way to manage and control everything from the outcome of battles to the deployment of disaster forces, to the missions of the space shuttle.

We have a chance to transform and mutate this technology of control and domination, into a technology of sharing and cooperation. What is needed is a new paradigm based upon the cybernetic model, but with the additional ideas from Deep Ecology, Distributed Systems Theory and the "New Physics". For lack of a better term, I refer to this as C5I2 - Community, Consensus, Cooperation, Communication, Cybernetics, Intelligence and Intuition.

The old C3I is a vertical control structure. Information passes from a select few at the top, down to the masses at the bottom. The new C5I2 is a horizontal control structure. Information passes from small groups to other small groups through what some call the Web, an interconnected communications network made up of mail, word-of-mouth, phone-trees, VCRs, FAX machines, audio cassettes, free software and computer networks. Control is not centralized in one person, group or place. Each person is individualy responsible for their piece of the whole. If for some reason, they are unable to be responsible, their immediate group will assist them. Groups assist and interact with other groups and communities to form a Web of control and responsibility that is much more powerful then just having individual "leaders".

When we come together for a ritual such as a Full Moon Rave on a remote beach, we are creating what author Hakim Bey calls a Temporary Autonomous Zone. A rave creates a TAZ of relatively short duration, only a few hours, but during that time, we are functioning at the level of _Community_. In the area that has been appropriated, a separate code of ethics and behavior can be enacted. The Authorities are troubled when it becomes apparent that sections of society don't want or need their policing activities. It is not part of their model of society to have a gathering of several hundred people from diverse backgrounds and classes without the eruption of violence and exploitation. The Authorities are frightened because they are not needed; which means they no longer are in control. Think about the ramifications of this.

The strength of a TAZ formed by rave activity is not measured in how many people possess weapons or how well they can out smart or out flank the police, but in how well the group can function as a community, reach consensus during a crisis, and cooperate to insure the safety of each and every member of the group. When we are raving, it is important to remember that if we don't want to have the authorities at our events, then we, EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US, HAVE TO BE THE AUTHORITIES. This does not mean that we should have "raver police forces", that's the old, Dominator way of thinking. What needs to happen is that we have to be just a little bit more AWARE of what goes on around us, and learn to take care of people in our immediate "family" as well as looking out for others outside of our immediate circle of friends. If we want to have parties in remote or underground locations, we need to be able to handle minor emergencies like administering first-aid, CPR and being able to "talk down" someone. This is what building Community is all about.

Consensus and Cooperation go hand in hand with Community. Consensus means collective opinion or general agreement, it doesn't mean that you have to have the same beliefs as your group. What it means is that you are willing to support the general direction that the Community is going in or, if you feel strongly about something, that you take responsibility for getting your point across. With Communities that work by consensus, the whole group cannot move forward unless EVERYONE agrees or at least agrees to allow movement, (i.e. steps out of the way). This is not the same as attempting to change an agreed upon decision once it has been decided, but it can include forming a contingency plan if you feel that the decision is "doomed to failure". The former is sabotage, the latter is supportive. The majority opinion of the group also has a duty not to " bull-dose" their opinion over the minority. Remember, one person who firmly holds their ground should be enough to stop what ever the majority decision might be. That is the essence of consensus. Cooperation insures that individuals or sub-groups don't abuse their powers of veto or opinion, this is not an easy thing to achieve in practice and is the major place that consensual governments break down.

Communication and Cybernetics constitute the areas of opportunity and challenge for our group. The creative and dynamic use of these technologies will make the difference between a "flash in the pan" fad, or a serious contribution to global culture that we could make as the _CyberTribe_. It is not necessary for each and everyone of us to be a Hacker or "Computer Geek" but we, as a group, should all strive to become "computer literate". Just as you don't need to be an auto mechanic to drive a car, you don't need to be a programmer to be skillful at the use of computers. As the realm of computers and telecommunications continues to merge, computer literacy will become as important as standard literacy is today.

The CyberTribe exist today. All over the world, thousands of ravers communicate daily via e-mail over an international computer network called the INTERNET. They do everything from exchanging information on the latest _techno_ trax, to planning and organizing raves, to discussing the Scene, politics, and the ultimate meaning of life. E-mail has turned out to be an invaluable tool for keeping in touch with folks in our "family" as well as the worldwide "Family". It also is a great aid at building consensus and cooperation. _Virtual sites_, such as the VRAVE telnet port, function 24 hours a day and provide a meeting place where ravers from all over the world can meet, share ideas and socialize. When Personal Communicators (pagers that can send and receive data) come on-line in the near future, the CyberTribe will be able to communicate with each other at the speed of light. At no other time in history has a movement had the facilities of high speed communication at their disposal; this is significant, but technology alone is not enough to make a difference. Each and every one of us must strive to become more aware, and more loving. Not because our parents or some other authority want it, but because it is necessary if we, our movement, and our House (planet) are going to survive in the coming years.

Intelligence and Intuition are the glue that binds these diverse areas into a functioning, organic whole. Intelligence as we use it here, is the accumulation of knowledge. On a mundane level, it is knowing the laws, behavior, policies and procedures that the Authorities will utilize in their dealings with us; for example the techniques the Milwaukee Police used to bust 950 people at a rave last year and the legal strategies the ravers used to combat this type of harassment by the police. (400 people pleaded not guilty and the charges were dropped, the Milwaukee raver community is now filing a class action suit against the City for civil rights violations) On a higher level, it is learning about the nature of the environment around you, which includes everything from paying attention to and caring for your body (It's your piece on the monopoly board of life) to learning to care for the Planetary environment. We are at the vanguard of western culture, both socially and technologically, and as we gather and use Intelligence information we must temper it's use with Intuition.

Intuition can be summed up most simply by the phrase "Do the Right Thing". If we look deep into our Hearts, we can always find that place where we know what the next step is. It may not be the thing that our parents or our teachers or our leaders may want or tell us to do but it is the thing that will always feel "right". Sometimes it is hard to tune into this place and find where our Intuition speaks to us. Sometimes you have to just be still, but it is always there. When people as a whole are acting from combined Intelligence and Intuition, laws become unnecessary because it becomes obvious what does and doesn't work.

One way to look at all of this is to view C5I2 as the technology behind Temporary Autonomous Zones, and to see the CyberTribe as a step towards the realization of Global T.A.Z. networks. The economic and social strategies for this type of network are already being practiced on a basic level. What we need more of is, "Family values" but not the family that the dominator culture speaks of, but the Global Family. This type of awareness can start with your own individual "rave" family and spread out from there. There are simple things that each of us can do that increase the economic strength of the CyberTribe, like buying from other people in the "Family" as much as possible, bartering for goods and services with other Family members and offering discounts. These activities help to circulate our available monies within the CyberTribe and gives the Tribe better overall buying power when purchases have to be made "outside". It also makes it more difficult for opportunists to exploit the trends and creativity that we have as a group. As we grow older and the Web becomes stronger and more extensive, economic prosperity will extend with it.

It's up to us to pick up the pieces of a post Communist/Capitalist, Us/Them "Dominator Culture" world and transform it into a "Partnership Culture" world of "Global Unity with respect for Cultural Diversity". It can be done, but it will take work, mostlikely all of our lifetimes at the least, but when all is said and done, we will leave to our children, an intact planet which, will be back on the road to health and prosperity, rather than a sick, dying, world, flitting from crisis to crisis, awaiting the apocalypse. The choice is ours now, as we gather together in our dance rituals to build "the feelings of togetherness, instill courage and break down emotional and mental barriers".

Remember in the months and years to come as this tapestry that we call the Scene unfolds...

"THEY MIGHT STOP THE PARTY, BUT THEY CAN'T STOP THE FUTURE"

Beltane 1993

(c) copyout, 1993. May be freely pirated and quoted - the publishers and authors, however, would like to be informed at:

umt@nexsys.net (Universal Movement Trinity)

Saturday, May 9, 2009

MAKE THE TAZ A PAZ

"Raves are as Hakim Bay calls them, Temporary Autonomous Zones. They are places
that when every thing works out right the old cultural models and stereotypes
break down and we get a glimpse of what it would be like to live in a culture in
which people are high on ecstasy, and open to life and each other. They are
temporary because they have a short duration in time. They are set up by
entrapenurs to make cash basicly just like a grateful dead concert.

What we really want is a Permanent Autonomous Zone, in which we create not a
counter-culture but a real new culture free from violence and fear. Island Group
 is dedicated to the creation of such a psychedelic culture.

By the way, the search for community, for utopia, for a break out of the
adolence of our species is not new. Aldous Huxley wrote about it in Island and
Plato tried to create a rational PAZ in The Republic. What we need to do is go
somewhere away from the dominant culture and experiment. It will take
responsiblity and work. But in the end, we can party without the hangover of a
sick culture."

Bruce Eisner - exstasym@aol.com (Exstasy M) - 13 May 1994






Island is the final book by English writer Aldous Huxley, published in 1962. It is the account of Will Farnaby, a cynical journalist who is shipwrecked on the fictional island of Pala. Island is Huxley's utopian counterpart to his most famous work, the 1932 novel Brave New World, itself often paired with George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. The ideas that would become Island can be seen in a foreword he wrote in 1952 to the 20th anniversary edition of BNW:
If I were now to rewrite the book, I would offer the Savage a third alternative. Between the Utopian and primitive horns of his dilemma would lie the possibility of sanity... In this community economics would be decentralist and Henry-Georgian, politics Kropotkinesque co-operative. Science and technology would be used as though, like the Sabbath, they had been made for man, not (as at present and still more so in the Brave New World) as though man were to be adapted and enslaved to them. Religion would be the conscious and intelligent pursuit of man's Final End, the unitive knowledge of immanent Tao or Logos, the transcendent Godhead or Brahman. And the prevailing philosophy of life would be a kind of Higher Utilitarianism, in which the Greatest Happiness principle would be secondary to the Final End principle – the first question to be asked and answered in every contingency of life being: "How will this thought or action contribute to, or interfere with, the achievement, by me and the greatest possible number of other individuals, of man's Final End?"
Quoted from Wikipedia
Aldous Huxley's Island (1962) - PDF
Aldous Huxley's Island (1962) - HTML

FreeNRG: Notes From the Edge of the Dance Floor

"FreeNRG is a collection of frontline communiques on technotribes, contemporary musical practices and events transpiring on the fringes of Australian dance culture throughout the nineties. The anthology's 13 essays are written by specialists and affiliates of a spectrum of youth phenomena found at the edge of the dance floor."


Edited by Graham St John (Common Ground, Altona 2001), the anthology examines DiY culture, a networked youth movement committed to voluntarism, ecological sustainability, social justice and human rights. FreeNRG people subscribe to an economy of mutual-aid and co-operation, are committed to the non-commodification of art and embrace freedoms of experience and expression. Artists and activists, their cultural output is a product of novel mixtures of pleasure and politics. Technicians and esotericists, they pirate technologies in the pursuit of re-enchantment and liberated space.
Contents

Foreword by Ken Gelder

Introduction: Techno Inferno 

I: Post Rave Australia 
Doof! Australian Post Rave Culture, Graham St John.
Propagating Abominable Knowledge: Tekno Zine Culture, Kathleen Williamson.

II: Sound Systems and Systems Sound
Sound Systems and Australian DiY Culture: Folk Music for the Dot Com Generation, Enda Murray. Doofstory: Sydney Park to the Desert, Peter Strong
Tuning Technology to Ecology: Labrats Sola Powered Sound System, Monkey Marc and Izzy Brown.
Techno Terra-ism: Feral Systems and Sound Futures, Graham St John.

III: Techno-Ascension
Mutoid Waste Recycledelia and Earthdream, Robin Cooke. 
Psychic Sonics: Tribadelic Dance Trance-formation, Eugene ENRG (DJ Krusty) interviews Ray Castle.
Chaos Engines: Doofs, Psychedelics and Religious Experience, Des Tramacchi.
Directions to the Game: Barrelfull of Monkeys, Rak Razam.

IV: Reclaiming Space
Practice Random Acts: Reclaiming the Streets of Australia, Susan Luckman.
Carnival at Crown Casino: S11as Party and Protest, Kurt Iveson and Sean Scalmer.
Appropriating the Means of Production: Dance Music Industries and Contested Digital Space, Chris Gibson.
FreeNRG: Notes From the Edge of the Dance Floor (eBook hosted by Undergrowth)
- or order it at CGPublisher.


Another project by Graham 'GMAN' St John is Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures in which he will publish a detailed exposition of the pleasurable and activist trajectories of post-rave. A publication I am looking forward to, because it will basically describe my way of creating a temporary autonomous zone and it's history. Eager to buy this print.  




"The book documents an emerging network of techno-tribes, investigating their pleasure principles and cultural politics. Attending to sound system culture, electro-humanitarianism, secret sonic societies, teknivals and other gatherings of the techno-tribes, intentional parties, revitalisation movements and counter-colonial interventions, Technomad explores how the dance party has been harnessed for transgressive and progressive ends, for manifold freedoms. Seeking freedom from moral prohibitions and standards, pleasure in rebellion, refuge from sexual and gender prejudice, exile from oppression, rupturing aesthetic boundaries, re-enchanting the world, reclaiming space, fighting for "the right to party", and responding to a host of critical concerns, electronic dance music cultures are multivalent sites of resistance."

"Drawing on extensive ethnographic, netogaphic and documentary research, Technomad charts the post-rave trajectory through various local sites and global scenes, with each chapter attending to important developments in the techno counterculture: e.g. Spiral Tribe, teknivals, psytrance, Burning Man, Reclaim the Streets, Earthdream. The book offers a nuanced theory of resistance to assist understanding of these developments. Written in an accessible style, this cultural history of hitherto uncharted territory will be of interest to students of cultural, performance, music, media, and new social movement studies, along with enthusiasts of dance culture and popular politics."

Quoted from Edgecentral

Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures
I: The Rave-olution?
II: Sound System Exodus: Tekno-Anarchy in the UK and Beyond
III: Secret Sonic Societies and Other Renegades of Sound
IV: New Tribal Gathering: Vibe-Tribes and Mega-Raves
V: The Technoccult, Psytrance and the Millennium
VI: Rebel Sounds and Dance Activism: Rave and the Carnival of Protest
VII: Outback Vibes: Dancing up Country
VIII: Hardcore, You Know the Score

The chapter outlines by GMAN can be found here
.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Hakim Bey and Ontological Anarchy

For all I know the Bilderberg Group runs our planet. 
Or better.. they decide how it is being run and our society is too ignorant to be aware of it. There isn't anything I can do other than spreading the word. But that is something I will get back to later.
What I can do is living my life in a way I want to.
A major part of that is the free spirit. 
Not being a frequent reader myself I do have some literature that has had a great impact on the way I think and my look on the world.
The writings of Hakim Bey have been a great influence in my life for a long while now. Especially Temporary Autonomous Zone and Millennium are a must read for those interested in the land of the free.
His writings can be freely pirated (copyright who?) so you can find numerous copies of his word magic online. A great collection can be found at the Hermetic Library.
- Temporary Autonomous Zone
- Millennium

"What of the anarchist dream, the Stateless state, the Commune, the autonomous zone with duration, a free society, a free culture? Are we to abandon that hope in return for some existentialist acte gratuit? The point is not to change consciousness but to change the world."