“Turn on, boot up, jack in”
During the 1980s and 90s the legendary LSD guru Timothy Leary,update became known for his phrase “Turn on, tune in, drop out." He later changed it to "Turn on, boot up, jack in". He did this because he believed we were about to enter a new epoch for mankind which would be governed, not by hallucinogenic drugs, but by the use of technology.
Leary originally called upon the youth of America to ‘turn on’ at the ground-breaking Human Be-in, held in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park at the beginning of 1967 and which ushered in what would become the Summer of Love. This event, which was billed as the gathering of the tribes, was in direct response to a new law passed in California banning the use of LSD. The idea was to bring together in front of a large crowd those within the counter culture movement who had the most influential ideas, no matter how philosophically opposed they were, and to brainstorm how they could implement them. The one thing all these participants shared was a common goal for the greater good.
With that in mind, Hackstock - Beyond 2017 will be following that very same concept, but this time bringing together the most influential, but independent, minds in mixed, virtual & mystical reality experiences. These visionaries will brainstorm the move forward – and the timing couldn’t be more important. Like in the 1960’s, the world is under a cloud of uncertainty and upheaval, and this has been exasperated all the more by the overlapping of boundaries of what we perceive to be right or wrong, real or not. The term ‘fake’ is now often used to blur these so called boundaries. #HackstockBeyond
David Bowie famously said "I think the potential of what the Internet is going to do to society both good and bad is unimaginable. I think we're on the cusp of something exhilarating and terrifying”. Bowie’s prophetic musings on the dawn of the internet age ring true today.
Just like David Bowie, Sci-Fi and comic pop-culture often explore notions of a dystopian tech-reliant future. Ask your inner geek - are today’s youth voice-activating, double tapping and swiping their way towards THE MATRIX, Rebel Alliance or Starfleet reality?”
James E. Marks, The 2017 Youth Marketing Strategy 100
Hackstock will be holding their group Vulcan mind meld at The Trampery, 239 Old Street, London, ECIV 9EY between the 5th - 6th May and admission is free. The event will be hosted by Talkaoke Ring Master Mikey Weinkove (The People Speak 20th Anniversary) and details of the programme and participants can be found below.
Resistance & Unity - Friday 05/05/17
10:30 – 11:30AM
“Turn on, boot up, jack in”
Welcome To #HACKSTOCK – BEYOND 2017 kicking off with a lively round-table reflection back to the first Human Be-In, and are we now in a paradox age of the same, same but different, come join the others.
11:30 – 12:30PM
“Dream long enough and dream hard enough you will come to know dreaming can make it so...” William S. Burroughs
Luciana Hall will be joined by guests to discuss her Art and Neuroscience in Lucid Dreaming. They will delve into the experience of being able to achieve the conscious awareness of dreaming while still asleep. For all cosmonauts of inner space, relax and float downstream!
12:30 – 1:30PM
“We are living in a computer-programmed reality, and the only clue we have to it is when some variable is changed, and some alteration in our reality occurs.” Philip K. Dick
Sci-Fi meets Psych-Fi as it twists through the wormholes into the Multiverse and other mind-meting dimensions, explore the real-world science facts behind alternate realities.
1:30 – 2:30PM
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” Alduos Huxley
Why are we experiencing a psychedelic and cyberdelic renaissance? Take a trip into ecology, the cosmos, consciousness and the breaking of convention to find the answer and it might not be what you were thinking.
2:30 – 3:30PM
"What if one day those in the depths rise up against you?" Metropolis
2017 celebrates the 90th Anniversary of the Sci-Fi classic Metroplis and its dialectical treatise on man verses machine. Now with the huge leap forward in technology, the film’s central premise could now become a reality. Only last year, the SFL 48 Hour Film challenge had its first entry written by a computer, Fox had their first trailer also edited by a computer and AI is creating better adverts than anything conceived by human creators. Join in and explore the 4th wave of technology where AI, machine learning, robots and drones have become part of the world we live in today and they ask the quite possible and disturbing question, ‘Could they rise up against us?’
3:30 – 4:30PM
“There is a transcendental dimension beyond language... It's just hard as hell to talk about!” Terence McKenna
Urgent! A shift in the paradigm is needed, now! Exploring the dire need to bring about awareness in the hope to redeem the human spirit so that we can learn how to unite and live in harmony. This has never been as important as now – it’s time for your ‘virtual awakening’.
4:30 – 5:30PM
“Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences.” Brian Eno
Pioneers of Krautrock and German electronica Harald Grosskopf and Eberhard Kranneman are joined by Fabio Garces and guests to explore binaural beats, meditative sonics, Krautwerk, DIY Electronics, Krautrock and their first VR experience R.I.S.E. for Google Cardboard.
5:30 – 6:30PM
"When you can feel that close to something you're used to seeing from this great distance, well, it changes a person." Sally Ride
Feel the colour purple and taste the colour green with as they discuss blurring the boundaries of reality with light art and the Oblique Flux collective experiences.
6:30 – 7:00PM
TBC Performance: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Stylophone
This groundbreaking children’s toy, which has been used to dazzling effect by Kraftwerk, & David Bowie, was pivotal in electronic music because it allowed anyone for the first time to be able to own an electronic instrument. To celebrate this achievement Hackstock will be having a jam session along with mind-altering visuals.
Resistance & Unity - Saturday 06/05/17
10:30 – 11:30AM Welcome To #HACKSTOCK – BEYOND 2017
“Isn't life a series of images that change as they repeat themselves?” Andy Warhol
We kick off the second day’s events with a lively and illuminating discussion on what is art and is it tribal? They will also discuss the exploration of social platforms, meme culture, street art, body art, virtual art, and augmented art. Everything might not be as it seems.
11:30 – 12:30PM
“Time moves in one direction, memory in another.” William Gibson
It might surprise you but it was exactly 50 years ago that the world’s first interactive movie, Kinoautomat, was released and will explore what our future experiences will be like when instead of watching the content of a movie, we find we are the content itself. Will contextology be the new narrative in virtual and mixed-up worlds?
12:30 – 1:30PM
"I thought, well here I am. I'm a bit sort of mixed up creatively” David Bowie
What happens when counter culture and fashion collide? We discuss how this collision unites future fashion, sustainability, UbiWear and body hacking. Installing USB drives in your fingertips and taking eye-drops for night vision is only possible for cyborgs …unless, that is, you become one.
1.30 – 2.30PM
“An ideal culture is one that makes a place for every human gift” Margaret Mead
What is the role of technology and identity? Unfold discuss Virtual Gender, disability, ethics and love.
2.30 – 3.30PM
“You don't have to be a man to fight for freedom. All you have to do is to be an intelligent human being.” Malcolm X
The People Speak looks back at 20 Years of Talkaoke the revolutionary pop-up talk show. There has never been a better platform for hearing the latest ideas that people are talking about and to generate and discover new ones. You’re welcome to hitch a ride on this conversational journey.
3.30PM – 4.30PM
“The most erotic zone is the imagination.” Vivienne Westwood
VR Porn, Future Vice & Immersive Togetherness are we heading to Strange Days to get our ultimate pleasure highs. Don’t feel guilt about joining in.
4.30PM – 5.30PM
“Always recognize the dreamlike qualities of life and reduce attachment and aversion” The Tibetan Book Of Living & Dying
Save our planet save our cities! Can Virtual and mixed reality deliver empowering ways for us to connect at a higher level and to consume less. Can it lead to our lives becoming more balanced and spiritual?
5.30PM – 6.30PM
TBC – Performance
Guest Mix:
Tupac Martir is an internationally acclaimed multimedia artist, visual designer and creative director, specialising in light.
“Tupac Martir is the visual artist and creative director behind some of the most important events in the world” Vogue
Luciana Haill is a contemporary Surrealist working with brainwave monitors; her recent practice has focused on artist Brion Gysin’s Dreamachine, Entoptic visuals and the phenomena ‘Flicker’. She has developed this into a series of performances and installations involving the real-time recording and sonification of the brainwaves of individuals in the participating audience.
“Haill’s work is deeply influenced by surrealism and Beat philosophy, in particular,” William S. Burroughs' Vice / Creators
Deanna Rodgers is an international writer, performer and facilitator. She co-curates two leading spoken word events: Chill Pill and Come Rhyme With Me and is on the board of Safe Ground
’30 inspirational women under 30′ Elle UK
Bushra Birge is an artist-designer whose work explores body centred experiences and things bringing together art and science through the use of a range of traditional and new media, from couture to digital installation
Dr. David Luke lectures in psychology at several London universities and is a writer and researcher with a special interest in parapsychology and altered states of consciousness. He has studied techniques of consciousness alteration from South America to India, from the perspective of scientists, shamans and Shivaites. He lives life on the edge, of Shoreditch.
Martin Percy is a director of interactive video. He has won a BAFTA British Academy Award, five Webby Awards and a Grand Clio. He has created interactive video pieces for the Tate Gallery, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, British Film Institute and National Theatre
Carl H. Smith is director of the Learning Technology Research Centre (LTRC) and senior lecturer at Ravensbourne in London. His background is in computer science and architecture.
He is an academic and developer with over fourteen years’ experience conducting R+D into the application of advanced technologies for lifelong, work and creative learning.
EBERHARD KRANEMANN is an innovator in audiovisual art. Kranemann cofounded the electronic bands KRAFTWERK, NEU, PISSOFF, and assumed the pseudonym FRITZ MÜLLER. KRANEMANN studied music at the Dormund Conservatory and art at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. KRANEMANN challenges the conventional boundaries between art, sound and performance - originating many radical experiments in multi media works.
Harald Grosskopf was the first drummer and percussionist in the world of electronic music who accompanied electronically-generated melody and basslines on drums. In the late 70’s he took to an apartment with his Minimoog and recorded one of the pioneering synth scores to be tagged kosmische, Synthesist,.
“Synthesist offers a complex array of feelings and settings, but it flows together and feels complete. Throughout, is a sense of joy, wonder, and playful exploration, even when the music leans dark. Best New Reissue." Pitchfork
Christopher Bingham is an enigma.
Tony Langford has worked on the research and application of audiovisual and interactive media for more than 15 years. He has coordinated the annual programme of talks and events at Kinetica Art Fair in London, themed around concepts such as the human body and brain, perception and consciousness, and has established networks and connections with artists, neuroscientists, academics and performers who are using some of the latest interactive, holographic and immersive technologies.
Katherine Templar Lewis comes from a strong academic background. It underlies a range of work that brings together both the arts and sciences and attempts to provide a dialogue between the two. She originally studied Human Science at Oxford University, specializing in genetics and evolution. She traveled extensively as a part of a science research team, before returning to work with the BBC and Radio 4. Her interests took her towards social psychology and a Masters in Performance Theory at the University of East Anglia. She now lives in London where she works as a freelance journalist, consultant and science communicator for Motherboard & Huffington Post
Experiences:
Death is Only the Beginning (VR)
An immersive experience made for users to confront sociopolitical issues through a virtual reality tour of the modern world. Created by Virtual Awakening, your trip takes cues from the emotional, revelationary state said to be experienced by a person after having a near-death experience. The result, however, ignites social consciousness in those who wear the VR headset.
“Death Is Only the Beginning of This Virtual Reality Experience” Vice / Creators
Brain in / & The Strobe (Yipee Yi Yay)
https://creators.vice.com/en_us/contributor/catherine-chapman
An opportunity to book an individual session with the latest technological genius in psychedelic strobing white light, have your brainwaves monitored and recorded. And you can compare with a Dreamachine hypnagogic kinetic light sculpture setup in our Arts Labortory. The parent event Hackstock is free to enter and many other wonderful interactive demonstrations and talks on offer.
If you want to know more about a transcendental experience you have had, during a journey, a dream, on the dance floor or through teacher plants then this session is for you. We will show you the art of entoptic patterns, phosphenes behind closed eyes as bright as stained glass decorations illuminated via a preternatural luminescence, visions - and explain how your brain creates them.
Collecting your experiences of awe and wonder as research for my new science faction fashion story Alienascent ... investigating the dislocating spiritual experience of going to space.
Alienascent Hackathon
DARK MATTER DARK ENERGY V2.1 - Drop-in sci-fi wear neon drawing taking inspiration from Dark Matter Dark Energy expanding and contracting universe garment including trying out new haptic communication piece.
COSMIC WHIZ JAM – Join in and experience a wide range of artists creating cyberdelic virtual art, no limits, frames & no boundaries, touch the rainbow
Got all the way down the page to here? Excellent.. here's some info on other bolt-on #HB events:
http://bit.ly/BrainInTheStrobe
http://bit.ly/ScienceFactionFashion
http://bit.ly/BladeRunnerLifeDrawing