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A little event that me and the other kids at PDX 0cculture, Key23, Foolish People, Technoccult, and C-Pan are putting on in August. I know it's a hike but I figure it's particularly relevant to thee Temple.
WTF is esoZone?
In the second half of the twentieth century cultural trends proliferated geometrically. Zine culture, underground comix and alternative media covered subcultures otherwise inaccessible in a stifling, corporatist consensus reality. This culminated in the Internet's promise of personally-created virtual realities. Now in the twenty-first century this promise has come to fruition with a corner of the Internet for every microculture imaginable. However, esoZone is decidedly oriented towards moving our specific meme culture (however one personally interprets that) out of impersonal communication (whether it be the Internet or mail art) into the Meatspace of Malkuth. Human beings are deeply social animals, enriched by interpersonal communication in the flesh. Any (r)evolution which takes place only in cyberspace, the Interzone or the Akashic records is fundamentally flawed because culture is only a form of communication, not experience itself.
esoZone recognizes the truth in Stephen Dedalus' "History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake." We see designer realities as personal chariots of travel into future and hope to provide a collective road map (not the territory!) through three days of mutual interaction. Rejecting the doom and gloom of the so-called "Apocolypse Culture", esoZone draws on the radical optimism of Robert Anton Wilson. However, while we admire the work of the counterculture, Chaos Magick, our comic books heroes and the Discordian pranksters of " the good old days" we do not seek to venerate or even necessarily to emulate them. Rather, we wish to create a future filled with realities we create and that make sense to us. esoZone is a future-present oriented meta-event rooted in the present while never forgetting that we are creatures moving forward in space-time.
To avoid confusion, the "star" of esoZone is Time Magazine's person of the year- You. The meta-event is user-driven, ceasing to be the exclusive property of the planners when doors open on August 10. esoZone has been designed facilitate maximum communication between all participants be they event planners, guests, staff, performers, speakers or anyone else present in the physical area of esoZone.
But more interesting than lofty intentions is the schedule. Performers and speakers will be available for Your inspection- at audience-driven panels, performances that will permanently change your brain, open discussion groups, a custom mass for the 21st century, live podcasting, workshops, gallery showings, dance parties, or just mingling around. esoZone stands firmly against quasi-celebrity driven esotericism, providing a forum where all primates are equal. Vehemently not a conference, convention or any other collection of talking heads esoZone is a menagerie of reality engineers just like You. |
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