Program Notes
Support Lorenzo on Patreon.com
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Guest speaker: Android Joines
https://androidjones-obtain.com/collections/new-releasesThis Palenque Norte Lecture was recorded at Burning Man in August 2019.
“Burning Man is like a handicap Olympics for art. Everybody gets a medal. There’s no bar at all. The bar went away. Anything fits in. And we realize the handicap that all of us have in common is that we have the handicap of our trauma. Because it’s our trauma, I believe, that is one of the unifying factors that brings us out here. Healthy people don’t go out to the middle of the desert, to go do drugs, and get naked with other healthy people.” —Android Jones
Android Jones Website
Samskara
An experience by Android Jones [ DMT Simulation ]
Dr. Bruce Damer performing
“Fire In The Sky” with DJ DISSOLV on music &
Android Jones live painting on two LED screens on the
Lucent Temple of Consciousness stage at Lightning in a Bottle, May 28, 2016
Shpongle - Android Jones Visuals
Shpongledroid Tour in New Orleans on 11-23-19 at Joy Theater
Download free copies of Lorenzo’s latest books
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Transcript
00:00:00 ►
Greetings from cyberdelic space.
00:00:20 ►
This is Lorenzo and I’m your host here in the Psychedelic Salon.
00:00:24 ►
And I’m really pleased today to be able to play another one of the Palenque Norte lectures
00:00:29 ►
that were given at the 2019 Burning Man Festival.
00:00:34 ►
And today’s featured guest is none other than the world-famous digital artist, Android Jones.
00:00:41 ►
Due to some technical problems a year ago, I wasn’t able to podcast his talk from 2018,
00:00:47 ►
but the 2019 talk has come through fine, even after going through a tornado,
00:00:52 ►
and we’re going to listen to it today. As you’ll hear in just a moment, this past burn was the
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17th consecutive year in which Android Jones attended the Burning Man Festival.
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Well, if I’ve done my math correctly, his first burn must have been in 2002,
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and that was also the year that my wife and I attended our first Burning Man Festival.
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Of course, I’ve only made it a few times since,
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and so I have a great deal of respect for anyone who has, well,
00:01:23 ►
has what it takes to travel to the playa each year for 17 years in a row.
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Wow, only if you’ve done it yourself at least one time can you really appreciate the commitment that people like Android Jones and his family have to, well, the commitment to the entire Burning Man experience.
00:01:47 ►
Now, if you’ve already seen some of his work, well, at least if you’re like me, you’ll essentially be at a loss for words when you try to describe the depth of his creations.
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Although I have only had the pleasure of experiencing his art through the medium of the internet,
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my friend Bruce Dahmer tells me that being immersed in the art of Android Jones is a
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life-changing experience.
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So rather than me making my own
00:02:06 ►
attempt to tell you more about him, I’m going to take the easy way out and read a couple of
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sentences from his main website, and I quote,
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Best described as a digital painter, Jones has created an immense body of work. He has become
00:02:21 ►
well known for his many layered psychedelic works and live performances
00:02:25 ►
using a custom-built digital setup. He participated in the Grateful Dead Fare Thee Well Tour,
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and his work has been projected on the Sydney Opera House and the Empire State Building.
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A longtime member of the Burning Man community, Android has traveled the world exhibiting his
00:02:42 ►
work and has contributed to events on six continents.
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At the center of Jones’ work is spirituality and altered states of consciousness.
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Manipulating light and energy, Android Jones captures complex concepts
00:02:57 ►
while utilizing his formal background in the arts.
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Described as a digital alchemist, he is determined to alter the
00:03:05 ►
viewer’s perception, pushing the boundaries of the imagination through the use of innovative
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media forms, end quote. So now let’s join Android Jones in the big Palenque Norte tent at Camp
00:03:19 ►
Soft Landing during the 2019 Burning Man Festival.
00:03:23 ►
during the 2019 Burning Man Festival.
00:03:27 ►
Our next speaker now,
00:03:28 ►
Andrew Jones.
00:03:32 ►
You might have seen his artwork displayed on everyone’s booty shorts or bandanas or travesties
00:03:36 ►
kind of all over the place.
00:03:38 ►
I’m sure you recognize it.
00:03:40 ►
But he just informed me
00:03:41 ►
this is also his 17th burn in a row.
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So mad respect for surviving this thing.
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So, without any more delay, Mr. Andrew Jones.
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Good evening, everyone.
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My name is Andrew Jones.
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It’s my extreme pleasure to have your attention, everyone here in person, and to all of you out there in that Lorenzo’s deep, soulful voice filled
00:04:32 ►
the void of my incessantly restless mind and created the soundtrack to a lot of the art
00:04:40 ►
that people appreciate to this day.
00:04:42 ►
I remember back in 2006 how important these podcasts were to me.
00:04:47 ►
And so it’s a real pleasure to be continuing that tradition.
00:04:50 ►
So big props to Lorenzo and the whole team that makes this happen.
00:05:12 ►
Yeah, so the fireside chat basically means that whatever I can do to spend as little time preparing for a talk as possible.
00:05:19 ►
Words are not my first medium of choice for expressing myself.
00:05:25 ►
And usually when I have some type of a theme, I just get into these cyclical circles in my head,
00:05:26 ►
tripping out about it all the time.
00:05:31 ►
So this allows me to just be as present and open and vulnerable with you guys as possible to give the people here the kind of information that you guys would find meaningful.
00:05:36 ►
So we did this last year, and I thought it was pretty successful.
00:05:39 ►
And I just want to continue in that format.
00:05:41 ►
I’ve got a nice, intimate crowd here.
00:05:43 ►
So I can go in lots of different directions.
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I try to not repeat things I’ve said in the past
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out of ease.
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I might throw in a couple, but yeah.
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Burning Man, 2019.
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How incredibly fortunate are all of you to be here right now.
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What a year. What a time to be alive.
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Super excited. I’d like to say this is my 17th burn in a row.
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This year, I kind of vacillate back and forth between
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contributing to some type of visual spectacle as an offering and more kind
00:06:28 ►
of internal burns.
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We kind of go back and forth even in odd years between the two.
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I’d have to say the most significantly impactful visual heart spectacle that I was able to contribute to
00:06:45 ►
and offer to the energy of the Playa this year
00:06:48 ►
is bringing out my two beautiful children.
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I’ve got my beautiful daughter Nova is two and a half,
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and it’s her second burn outside of the womb.
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Three years, technically, she’s been with the brim.
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And my boy Esher, he’s one.
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This is his first out-of-womb birth.
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We actually found out we were pregnant with Escher at the burn.
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Previous, not last year, the year before last.
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We took a pregnancy test after symbiosis just to be responsible adults.
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My wife’s very responsible.
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And we got the amazing news that Escher was going to be coming into the world.
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I brought a lot of art here you know i tried to be a professional mind blower but i i don’t think anything that i could bring really is able to communicate just like the
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heartfelt like smiles and energy that these two kids can radiate
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when they’re in their full power just running around and exploring
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and interacting with people.
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It’s definitely like in all seriousness,
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it is like one of the, I can’t think of any other painting or thing
00:07:58 ►
that I could bring that would have a better impact in general.
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Yeah, it’s really great to see them just thrive out here.
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And if anybody out there has children
00:08:08 ►
or is considering bringing to the burn,
00:08:10 ►
I’m a big advocate for a hell yes to that.
00:08:16 ►
Given the only caveat is we found the success,
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this is the second time we’ve brought kids out here.
00:08:25 ►
As long as you have some type of safe AC container,
00:08:28 ►
that would be a prerequisite.
00:08:31 ►
This is like the biggest game of tag
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you’re ever going to see,
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but you need a base to go to,
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so you’ve got that base.
00:08:39 ►
I think it’s really important, too,
00:08:41 ►
just hearing a little bit of Rick speaking
00:08:46 ►
in this last conversation.
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I think the reason that I’m an advocate for that,
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and I think that bringing my children out here is one of the most visionary actions
00:08:56 ►
that I can be capable of, because there’s a lot of talk
00:09:00 ►
and a lot of conversations right now around you know mental health and like the
00:09:06 ►
mental health problem that america has the mental health problem that the world has uh my wife was
00:09:13 ►
i don’t know if she heard it somewhere but she’s kind of sharing this she’s like it’s not that
00:09:16 ►
that’s one aspect of looking at the one facet of the of the issue but in reality if you want
00:09:22 ►
to go to the deeper sort of a mental health
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problem i think we have a deeper causality of like an unsuccessful parenting problem
00:09:31 ►
is what’s really going on if you want to get like a little deeper into that you know i’m only two
00:09:38 ►
and a half years into being a dad and there’s a lot i have to learn and a lot of mistakes I’m going to make. And my wife and I are really actively, we go to a lot of effort to try to do the best job as we can as parents.
00:09:52 ►
But I think that when it comes to addressing a lot of the trauma that’s creating a world that’s becoming increasingly scary or hostile or intimidating,
00:10:02 ►
that’s becoming increasingly, you know,
00:10:04 ►
either scary or hostile or intimidating,
00:10:07 ►
you know, based off what we hear,
00:10:13 ►
that I think when I talk to people that have trauma,
00:10:15 ►
I look up my own trauma and those around us, it’s really, yeah, a lot of it is,
00:10:18 ►
it starts so early.
00:10:21 ►
And I think that really, like, the conscious parenting
00:10:24 ►
is the most valuable
00:10:26 ►
contribution that i could be making as an artist if i wanted and i can make a lot of pretty paintings
00:10:31 ►
that can go on but you know my main role in life right now is to raise two human beings with as
00:10:39 ►
much love and health as possible right now they’ve really kind of even eclipsed a lot of the art making
00:10:46 ►
and such. And
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zero regrets
00:10:49 ►
on making that choice.
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So, I don’t know.
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Sideline.
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Breeding. Propaganda.
00:10:59 ►
It’s the best thing ever
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so far. Nothing
00:11:01 ►
compares to the magic.
00:11:04 ►
I mean, if you like
00:11:04 ►
this visionary scene, if you like this visionary scene we’re
00:11:07 ►
going to if you like consciousness and mind expansion um nothing blows has ever blown my
00:11:15 ►
mind is when you have a child you’re basically like watching a like a super time lapse of the
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evolutionary the human evolutionary process on like a day by day basis,
00:11:27 ►
just enfolding in front of you from the recognition of like the non-self to
00:11:35 ►
the self.
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I remember the first time I was taking a bath with Nova and she realized that
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like her toes like belong to her.
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You know,
00:11:42 ►
you get to see these like mind-blowing moments and if you’re not
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paying attention they just it goes by so fast so i just wanted to get that in there i was talking
00:11:53 ►
about this trying to think of the things i’ve learned in last year that are valuable that i
00:11:57 ►
could add to and if it would add value to um to the audience. Yeah. Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
00:12:09 ►
Yeah.
00:12:10 ►
Yeah.
00:12:14 ►
Yeah.
00:12:15 ►
Yeah.
00:12:15 ►
Yeah.
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Yeah.
00:12:17 ►
Yeah.
00:12:18 ►
Yeah.
00:12:19 ►
Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
00:12:24 ►
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for receiving that.
00:12:33 ►
We’ll never do that again.
00:12:34 ►
That was way too much work.
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I’m glad you were there and caught that one.
00:12:38 ►
That’s not happening.
00:12:43 ►
Oh, no, we’re going there.
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I’m just saying like a back to back
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creative triathlon
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of like Burning Man
00:12:49 ►
of an eclipse festival straight to here
00:12:52 ►
with the level that we were
00:12:54 ►
I think we had like a
00:12:55 ►
5 VR headsets
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and dodecahedrons and domes
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and samskara
00:13:00 ►
that was a
00:13:03 ►
stress test for the team, what we were capable of.
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One of the great things about Burning Man, if you don’t push yourself to your limits,
00:13:12 ►
you never know what kind of potential you left lingering on the table.
00:13:17 ►
So we try not to leave too much of that
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on the table. And we also try to realize that there’s a certain amount of
00:13:24 ►
moderation and
00:13:25 ►
moderation that is healthy for a sustainable journey within this community.
00:13:33 ►
Like I said, this is 17 Burns. I reflect back on, you know, there’s, I’ve found like some
00:13:42 ►
novel success in a few very isolated niches of creative endeavors that I feel that I’ve found some novel success in a few very isolated niches of creative endeavors
00:13:48 ►
that I feel that I’ve…
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When I think of things that I’m really good at, there’s not a lot.
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There’s a couple that I do somewhat well,
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but realizing that if anybody has any questions on just how to have a great time at Burning Man.
00:14:05 ►
I think that’s one of my skills I realized this year.
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Like, if I can love myself enough to also be modest,
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like, I’m pretty fantastic at having an awesome time.
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I’m so good at it that I need to go out of my way
00:14:20 ►
to create, like, an obstacle course of ridiculous challenges
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just so I can overcome them
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and still have a badass time.
00:14:28 ►
So far.
00:14:30 ►
So, you know,
00:14:31 ►
a lot.
00:14:32 ►
Yes?
00:14:33 ►
So, yes.
00:14:34 ►
What’s your number one recommendation?
00:14:37 ►
I mean, great,
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I put that in the bottom line.
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Thank you.
00:14:40 ►
And then,
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the same,
00:14:41 ►
and my experience with some of the ones that I thought were exactly the same. I totally agree.
00:15:03 ►
It’s got chills up and down.
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It’s just kind of…
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I mean, what’s the point?
00:15:07 ►
One of the reasons we come out here and have these times
00:15:10 ►
and do these drugs and do these things is for experience.
00:15:13 ►
And I think it’s often…
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It’s cliché when you hear that as a non-parent.
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But it’s so…
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I mean, I don’t even think…
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Looking back now,
00:15:23 ►
it’s just like I didn’t even know what love was
00:15:25 ►
before Nova.
00:15:28 ►
Because we all have this, like,
00:15:29 ►
love is so fantasized,
00:15:31 ►
and through movies and media
00:15:33 ►
and stories, it’s made to be this sort of, like,
00:15:36 ►
mythological thing that you see
00:15:37 ►
someone, and we’re left with this
00:15:39 ►
longing and wanting of, like,
00:15:42 ►
well, you know, it didn’t happen for me
00:15:44 ►
like that, like, maybe I’m not in love because it didn’t happen, like, well, you know, it didn’t happen for me like that. Like maybe
00:15:45 ►
I’m not in love because it didn’t happen like some, you know, manufactured fiction,
00:15:50 ►
like commercial fiction that I saw. And I was kind of in the same boat. Like, you know,
00:15:55 ►
I’d fallen in love before. I felt that. But it never really like, I didn’t have that like
00:16:00 ►
Hollywood like movie love. But, you know But whatever that was,
00:16:06 ►
whatever I had kind of imagined
00:16:08 ►
in my mind that that would
00:16:09 ►
feel like to look into the eyes of someone,
00:16:12 ►
when I look at my daughter,
00:16:14 ►
I mean, it’s just…
00:16:16 ►
The fact that I was even using the word
00:16:18 ►
love before, I felt
00:16:19 ►
almost ill-prepared.
00:16:22 ►
It was almost out of my purview
00:16:24 ►
what love really was,
00:16:25 ►
and that’s something I think you can only really feel.
00:16:28 ►
I mean, it’s one of the big perks
00:16:31 ►
of being a human
00:16:33 ►
is that kind of experience.
00:16:37 ►
And I just feel like,
00:16:38 ►
I’ve mentioned it because I feel it’s a little unrepresented.
00:16:42 ►
Even in the visionary community,
00:16:43 ►
I keep trying to pick all my friends
00:16:45 ►
to, you know,
00:16:47 ►
just go for it.
00:16:50 ►
Just get knocked out, take the goalie out.
00:16:52 ►
I don’t know.
00:16:53 ►
You have to find a, I will say, it’s really important
00:16:56 ►
to find the right partner. Like, you would definitely
00:16:57 ►
want to do that. It’s no wonder we really know
00:16:59 ►
the sprint seats out there.
00:17:02 ►
But if you got the right
00:17:04 ►
one and you’re both dad, I was very fortunate
00:17:05 ►
that my wife
00:17:06 ►
has always really wanted to,
00:17:08 ►
she’s an incredible mother
00:17:09 ►
and she’s always really,
00:17:11 ►
it’s been,
00:17:12 ►
it’s been part of my vision
00:17:13 ►
most all my life
00:17:14 ►
to be a good dad
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and it’s been part of hers
00:17:16 ►
and we both had
00:17:18 ►
really wonderful parents too
00:17:19 ►
and that was,
00:17:20 ►
you know,
00:17:21 ►
the fact that we had
00:17:22 ►
the privilege of
00:17:22 ►
loving and caring parents
00:17:25 ►
that stayed together their whole lives
00:17:27 ►
it’s a
00:17:29 ►
it’s a kind of
00:17:31 ►
experience and it’s such a
00:17:33 ►
precious resource these days that
00:17:35 ►
we felt almost an opportunity
00:17:37 ►
and an obligation to
00:17:38 ►
carry that lineage on
00:17:40 ►
it’s like if you were teaching a certain type of
00:17:43 ►
skill or a craft
00:17:44 ►
to be able
00:17:45 ►
to just try to bring those two sides together. It’s been really neat.
00:17:54 ►
Yeah, there’s a lot of things to remember. So I always, part of the challenging myself for
00:18:02 ►
every burn, I’ve always, we bring a team out
00:18:05 ►
every time
00:18:06 ►
and we always like
00:18:07 ►
to bring at least
00:18:07 ►
like one newbie
00:18:08 ►
that’s never been here before
00:18:10 ►
and kind of see it
00:18:10 ►
through their eyes.
00:18:12 ►
This year,
00:18:13 ►
it was our nanny,
00:18:14 ►
Taylor,
00:18:14 ►
who we brought out
00:18:15 ►
on the drive out.
00:18:17 ►
I picked them up,
00:18:18 ►
I drove out myself,
00:18:19 ►
but I picked them up
00:18:20 ►
from the airport
00:18:21 ►
on Tuesday
00:18:22 ►
from Reno
00:18:22 ►
and I could tell
00:18:24 ►
she had a lot of excitement and anxiety.
00:18:27 ►
And she just kind of asked me, like, how do you prepare?
00:18:30 ►
What do you think of?
00:18:31 ►
So, like, some of my top hits on the advice that I gave her,
00:18:36 ►
and this is the same advice, I guess, my team,
00:18:38 ►
people have been here a couple of burns and something.
00:18:40 ►
And I say it because it helps kind of remind me of myself.
00:18:44 ►
But I think I kind of started
00:18:45 ►
off by, you know, there’s always
00:18:47 ►
Burning Man is
00:18:48 ►
there, I think
00:18:51 ►
one of the things that makes this city
00:18:53 ►
thrive is that
00:18:55 ►
all the different varieties of
00:18:57 ►
friction that you will encounter here
00:18:59 ►
regardless. It’s never always
00:19:01 ►
smooth, and so you run a ton of friction
00:19:03 ►
within yourself, friction with other people.
00:19:07 ►
There’s going to be
00:19:08 ►
a lot of
00:19:09 ►
confronting situations
00:19:12 ►
that are challenging or difficult.
00:19:13 ►
One thing I try to emphasize is no matter
00:19:16 ►
what you’re doing,
00:19:18 ►
this is kind of a playoff, like a Barlowism,
00:19:20 ►
but no matter what
00:19:21 ►
your goal or your mission is
00:19:24 ►
here, whatever you think you’re doing,
00:19:26 ►
however important you think it is,
00:19:28 ►
at that moment,
00:19:30 ►
never assume that anyone else’s motivations or drives
00:19:36 ►
are any more noble than your own.
00:19:40 ►
Everybody here is totally on their own trip I try to make it a
00:19:47 ►
sort of like a
00:19:48 ►
I try to expand a blanket of
00:19:50 ►
not taking
00:19:53 ►
anything personally zoned
00:19:55 ►
around the whole playa
00:19:57 ►
when these things happen
00:19:58 ►
recognizing that
00:20:01 ►
each of us can see our truths
00:20:03 ►
each of us have a very unique perspective to the world
00:20:07 ►
that only we can see,
00:20:08 ►
and everyone else has an alternate and meaningful view.
00:20:14 ►
And when you consider that,
00:20:17 ►
it’s every single person out here,
00:20:20 ►
there’s some type of,
00:20:21 ►
even though it’s a passionate society,
00:20:23 ►
understanding there is a value that can be exchanged between us within the gift of conversation and that type
00:20:30 ►
of opportunity.
00:20:32 ►
I encourage you to be really open, but also, and recognize moments where it’s appropriate
00:20:37 ►
to be vulnerable.
00:20:38 ►
And also, you know, this is not Fantasy Island.
00:20:44 ►
Also, you know, this is not Fantasy Island.
00:20:46 ►
There’s a lot of energies at play here,
00:20:50 ►
and I definitely recommend learning how to, like,
00:20:53 ►
make a pretty solid force field around yourself at certain times.
00:20:55 ►
Lots of distant part of the energies are around here.
00:21:00 ►
This is like a feeding frenzy cafeteria for hungry ghosts and things that are not your friends.
00:21:03 ►
So you really need to be aware of what you’re opening
00:21:05 ►
yourself to and when you’re opening yourself to that your own little you know spiritual maintenance
00:21:10 ►
is pretty crucial um i could kind of go on and on one thing uh something that really helped me a lot
00:21:19 ►
so i have really high standards when it comes to art and the art that I make and the music that I like and the things
00:21:26 ►
that I have the shapes and the colors that attract me and as anybody with a sense of opinion it’s
00:21:33 ►
easy to look at things and it’s almost by default we might have like a judgment that comes up you
00:21:40 ►
know I think before I get into that I think one thing is also recognizing that, you know, this is,
00:21:49 ►
working man, it’s kind of like the, it’s like a, it’s like a handicapped Olympics for art.
00:21:56 ►
It’s like everybody gets a medal.
00:22:00 ►
There’s, there’s, there’s no bar at all.
00:22:02 ►
The bar, the bar went away, You know, like anything gets in.
00:22:07 ►
But you realize that the handicap that all of us have,
00:22:11 ►
that we have in common,
00:22:12 ►
is that we have the handicap of our trauma.
00:22:15 ►
Because it’s our trauma, I believe,
00:22:17 ►
that’s one of the unifying factors that brings us out here.
00:22:21 ►
Healthy people don’t go out to the middle of the desert
00:22:24 ►
to go do drugs
00:22:25 ►
naked with other healthy people.
00:22:30 ►
Nonsense.
00:22:30 ►
They don’t. It doesn’t happen
00:22:31 ►
like that. We’re here because there’s something
00:22:33 ►
that we haven’t found either within
00:22:36 ►
ourselves or society.
00:22:38 ►
There’s something about the world that just
00:22:39 ►
is not satisfactory to us, whether that’s
00:22:42 ►
ourselves or our place in it or
00:22:43 ►
the things that we see and we’re out here
00:22:46 ►
because we’re looking for something.
00:22:49 ►
There’s something
00:22:50 ►
that’s just not, and that’s why I came out
00:22:52 ►
here. I came out here because I was deeply
00:22:53 ►
unsatisfied with the outer world
00:22:55 ►
that I was in. And ultimately there’s parts of myself
00:22:57 ►
that I think I was deeply unsatisfied with
00:23:00 ►
myself and I was looking
00:23:01 ►
to Burning Man to be some sort of panacea
00:23:03 ►
that would just give me all
00:23:05 ►
the answers. It gave me better questions, but it didn’t give me, I don’t think, any of the answers.
00:23:10 ►
But I think life is about the pursuit of those unknowns. True that. Oh, I’m not saying that
00:23:16 ►
everyone outside is healthy. I’m where the unhealthy ones are. There’s a spectrum of trauma
00:23:22 ►
that I’m trying to address here.
00:23:28 ►
At least you guys know that there’s something broken.
00:23:30 ►
The scariest is when you think you’re healthy.
00:23:36 ►
Just saying, it’s like, you know, there’s something,
00:23:38 ►
we can find that in common.
00:23:40 ►
There’s something inside of all of us that needs healing.
00:23:42 ►
I think maybe we can agree to that. And so I think everyone out there needs healing too,
00:23:45 ►
but this is an expression of our longing for that.
00:23:48 ►
We’ve all at least taken a step towards
00:23:50 ►
putting all this energy and effort,
00:23:52 ►
whether we’re recognizing it or not,
00:23:54 ►
that there’s something that we’re looking for.
00:23:56 ►
And along those lines,
00:23:57 ►
the other thing that everybody’s,
00:23:59 ►
I’ve been looking through a lot of my art
00:24:01 ►
from the lens of the evolutionary biology,
00:24:04 ►
just from the aspect that potentially like 80 to 90% of our actions,
00:24:09 ►
consciously or unconsciously,
00:24:11 ►
are all towards either trying to signal or find the highest probability of an available mate
00:24:20 ►
and or express our status within the pecking order of our society you know so many of our
00:24:26 ►
things i mean that’s why i got into art you know i wasn’t good at sports couldn’t play the guitar
00:24:31 ►
you know wanted some way that people would notice me and make friends and
00:24:36 ►
you know prelude to my entire career just like rinse repeat you know uh
00:24:42 ►
interestingly enough now that i actually have an amazing partner
00:24:45 ►
and beautiful children i’m like i’m so less prolific than i used to be
00:24:51 ►
you know i don’t feel like i have to show off anymore you know i started learning to love
00:24:56 ►
myself once i sort of loved myself i was like man i don’t even make all this art and you know
00:25:02 ►
use that as a proxy method of getting other people’s affection
00:25:05 ►
because I don’t know how to love myself.
00:25:07 ►
I was like, what a silly game that was.
00:25:09 ►
But really effective in making a large body of work.
00:25:14 ►
Wrapping up the advice, just to close that one out.
00:25:18 ►
So, like I said, I have a tendency to get really judgy.
00:25:23 ►
Like, oh man, that dude sucks, or this music is terrible,
00:25:27 ►
or how would anyone play this?
00:25:29 ►
It’s just the inner mechanisms of the mind that tries to make itself feel
00:25:34 ►
complicit or sophisticated or superior to other people.
00:25:38 ►
We all do it at times.
00:25:40 ►
We can admit it and move on and try to get better.
00:25:43 ►
But something, I don’t know when I realized this,
00:25:46 ►
it must have been like four or five years ago,
00:25:49 ►
and it was from that evolutionary biological perspective
00:25:51 ►
that that’s what we’re all doing.
00:25:53 ►
And it’s a lens, it’s a mindset.
00:25:56 ►
I can’t keep this lens on,
00:25:59 ►
I don’t keep these glasses on all the time,
00:26:01 ►
but at certain points, I definitely kind of,
00:26:04 ►
when it serves and
00:26:05 ►
when it’s helpful is to just it’s a lens of compassion and it’s when I look at
00:26:15 ►
the playa like this I am more fun I have a much better time I’ll say that’s a
00:26:19 ►
hack for accepting everything but realizing realizing that, you know, that thrown-together sculpture,
00:26:26 ►
like, out in deep playa
00:26:28 ►
that you have no idea how they talk someone
00:26:30 ►
into setting it up,
00:26:31 ►
or the shitty dubstep remix
00:26:35 ►
of, like, an insane clown posse song
00:26:38 ►
that you hear, you know,
00:26:40 ►
in a camp that isn’t a sound camp
00:26:42 ►
that’s keeping you up all night,
00:26:44 ►
you know, as unpalatable.
00:26:46 ►
And just insert the most unpalatable thing you’ve ever seen at Burning Man,
00:26:50 ►
like the most culturally, visually, utterly offensive thing
00:26:54 ►
that’s had an impact on you.
00:27:00 ►
And if you look at it from the evolutionary, biological standpoint,
00:27:04 ►
that this shitty sculpture or this terrible song, And if you look at it from the evolutionary, biological standpoint,
00:27:08 ►
that this shitty sculpture or this terrible song,
00:27:12 ►
to the individual that created this, it represents the highest aspect of their means,
00:27:22 ►
their cultural experience,
00:27:26 ►
the technology available,
00:27:28 ►
and essentially it’s their, it’s like
00:27:30 ►
their bird song,
00:27:33 ►
their love song to the
00:27:34 ►
universe, that somebody sees
00:27:37 ►
them. That insane clown
00:27:38 ►
posse remix, like,
00:27:41 ►
that’s, that’s, that’s, he’s putting
00:27:43 ►
that out there for, or she,
00:27:47 ►
for one person that recognizes that, and goes, that’s that’s that’s what he’s putting that out there for or she for one person that recognizes that and goes that’s they hear it out in the client like that’s that’s my favorite man like
00:27:53 ►
that’s the hope that that happens and so that everything is an expression of needing love or
00:27:59 ►
wanting love or wanting to be seen or acknowledged you, whether that’s the truth or not,
00:28:06 ►
the mindset of that makes this whole experience
00:28:09 ►
so much easier to enjoy and appreciate
00:28:16 ►
and not be in a perspective of constant criticism.
00:28:21 ►
I respect the juggalos, those guys are living their truth.
00:28:23 ►
Whether you like it or not, it’s not your truth, but it’s their truth.
00:28:27 ►
More power to anyone that has the fearlessness to express themselves in that way.
00:28:33 ►
So, yeah.
00:28:36 ►
Let’s see.
00:28:37 ►
What else is going on this year?
00:28:39 ►
Oh, I brought a…
00:28:41 ►
I recently bought a…
00:28:44 ►
I’ve been really into these government and large industrial
00:28:47 ►
equipment auctions.
00:28:49 ►
Lately, I don’t know how I got into this, but I’ve just been, I go to like, I go to
00:28:54 ►
auctions almost like every other month.
00:28:56 ►
Like the real big, like, they like show up seven in the morning on a Sunday wearing your
00:29:03 ►
car hearts, you know,. You just blend right in.
00:29:07 ►
It’s a fascinating little slice of society.
00:29:12 ►
I’ve been starting to come to these.
00:29:13 ►
I recently came into the acquisition of a 28,000-pound semi-truck.
00:29:22 ►
It was marked when they came up with an auction. It was called, and we got the command. semi-truck that was, it used to be a,
00:29:25 ►
it was marked one day,
00:29:26 ►
one day,
00:29:26 ►
it came up at auction,
00:29:27 ►
it was called,
00:29:27 ►
and we got the
00:29:29 ►
Command Center.
00:29:31 ►
All right,
00:29:32 ►
we got five grand,
00:29:32 ►
five grand,
00:29:33 ►
six grand,
00:29:33 ►
six grand,
00:29:33 ►
you know,
00:29:34 ►
and I was just blown away
00:29:36 ►
because it wasn’t on my radar
00:29:37 ►
because I wasn’t searching
00:29:37 ►
for command centers that day
00:29:39 ►
because I was looking
00:29:40 ►
for some Bobcats,
00:29:41 ►
maybe like another pickup truck
00:29:42 ►
or some toolboxes,
00:29:44 ►
you know,
00:29:44 ►
just kind of, I was easing into the world of large industrial auctions.
00:29:50 ►
And long story short, I acquired it for what I think is a nominal price
00:29:55 ►
for a vehicle of this size and scale.
00:29:57 ►
And it was the, they called it a command center,
00:30:02 ►
and that’s one of the words they used.
00:30:03 ►
It was when I looked it up
00:30:05 ►
after I brought this monstrosity back to the farm.
00:30:09 ►
It’s 40 feet long, 8 feet wide, 13 feet tall,
00:30:12 ►
10 wheels that are $500 apiece to replace,
00:30:17 ►
which kind of hurt.
00:30:18 ►
I didn’t know I had to do that.
00:30:22 ►
And it has a gross carrying capacity of 52,000 pounds.
00:30:26 ►
So we brought like 12,000 pounds of stuff out here,
00:30:29 ►
and we could have had like another 10,000 pounds of things out here,
00:30:32 ►
which is just awesome.
00:30:39 ►
And on the side of it is that when I got it back to the farm,
00:30:42 ►
it had a stencil that said STV 2600.
00:30:47 ►
And I’m like,
00:30:47 ►
this didn’t come with an operating manual.
00:30:49 ►
Before it got to me, it definitely
00:30:51 ►
got salvaged by
00:30:53 ►
people who ripped out
00:30:56 ►
the generators,
00:30:57 ►
control, whatever it was that people
00:31:00 ►
thought was valuable or had copper in it
00:31:02 ►
was stripped before I got it.
00:31:03 ►
So unfortunately, I was never able to see it like in its glory days when it was what
00:31:09 ►
it once was but when I put that into Google the STB 2600 immediately popped
00:31:15 ►
up and this is my stimulation treatment vehicle is what it was classified after
00:31:23 ►
and I love this stimulation treatment is a
00:31:26 ►
it’s basically like a fancy gas lighting way of saying the mother brain of any like
00:31:31 ►
multi-hundred million dollar fracking operation and so the whole inside is just decked out with
00:31:38 ►
just it’s got like six captain chairs across like 360 panoramic windows,
00:31:46 ►
server racks, 12 monitor mounts,
00:31:48 ►
like 38, like 110, 120 power receptacles,
00:31:55 ►
and then about like 900 feet of data cables
00:31:59 ►
that we kind of stripped out of it.
00:32:01 ►
And these cables were attached to cameras
00:32:04 ►
that went you know
00:32:06 ►
hundreds and hundreds of feet inside the earth to stimulate
00:32:10 ►
and treat the earth in order to uh extract you know valuable gases and chemicals and so
00:32:21 ►
total decepticon this car was so that’s such a dark as i had to have my like
00:32:25 ►
my ninja like you know spiritual bodyguards like totally cleanse it we said we’re rehabilitating
00:32:32 ►
the decepticon um and we’ve converted it into a mobile vr biofeedback ketamine laboratory
00:32:41 ►
that’s what we put on the taxes, at least.
00:32:46 ►
That’s the cover story.
00:32:49 ►
And yeah, we’re out here with that.
00:32:52 ►
Crazy. It’s awesome.
00:32:54 ►
We finally got everything working.
00:32:56 ►
We spent this entire
00:32:58 ►
time just, it took
00:32:59 ►
a long time to get it ready for operation,
00:33:01 ►
and then we filled it full of stuff. We spent most of the
00:33:04 ►
burn emptying it and just moving stuff around like i didn’t even leave camp until i think
00:33:10 ►
wednesday or thursday was the first time i actually wednesday was the first time i actually
00:33:15 ►
left camp for the first time and uh it’s been a blast just working on this truck because i work
00:33:21 ►
on it alone on the farm and it’s boring but you’re here and I have all these friends that like,
00:33:30 ►
you know, have Class A driver’s lessons. It’s no way more than I do, so I’ve been developing that and
00:33:38 ►
yeah, we had our first, we also, I don’t know why, I think I use Burning Man and these sort of challenges to get, I have a
00:33:40 ►
small team of three people that we work on
00:33:43 ►
microdose in the VR and without,
00:33:49 ►
when you’re on, when you have your own team and you don’t have the benefit of millions of dollars from other VCs and you just like to sell fun things on your own because you’re stubborn,
00:33:53 ►
there’s a lot of benefits for that.
00:33:56 ►
But at the same time, it can be challenging because you don’t really have a lot of deadlines either.
00:34:00 ►
And things really get done at a deadline.
00:34:02 ►
So I think we somehow use these events to
00:34:05 ►
create a certain amount of
00:34:07 ►
pressure and expectation for us to then deliver
00:34:10 ►
on and for whatever reason
00:34:12 ►
it’s really helpful for development so
00:34:13 ►
it really forced us to develop our
00:34:15 ►
VR biofeedback
00:34:18 ►
a whole
00:34:20 ►
simulator
00:34:21 ►
thing that we’ve got going on right now
00:34:24 ►
we don’t even know what to call it yet.
00:34:25 ►
But it’s pretty trippy.
00:34:27 ►
We have this headset that
00:34:29 ►
uses a Muse biofeedback
00:34:32 ►
infrared laser.
00:34:34 ►
And it takes your pulse,
00:34:36 ►
a really accurate pulse rate from
00:34:37 ►
kind of your zygomatic,
00:34:40 ►
from the blood in between your skin
00:34:42 ►
and your cheekbone.
00:34:44 ►
And the vision was we take that
00:34:47 ►
and then
00:34:47 ►
you’re kind of in blackness
00:34:50 ►
and all of a sudden
00:34:52 ►
you lay down.
00:34:54 ►
It’s kind of a lay down passive experience.
00:34:57 ►
we’ve been playing some Blu-Tack,
00:35:00 ►
Secret Interest in the Darkness,
00:35:02 ►
Steven Roach, really ambient binaural beat.
00:35:05 ►
Very low friction type of music in the background.
00:35:10 ►
And then Out of the Darkness,
00:35:11 ►
this kind of like a circle of little,
00:35:15 ►
they’re like little dodecahedrons kind of like start to appear.
00:35:20 ►
But when they do, there might be like 12 of them,
00:35:22 ►
but they’re pulsing to your heartbeat.
00:35:25 ►
They only spawn when your heart beats.
00:35:28 ►
We have a sub-map that’s also echoing your own heart behind that.
00:35:34 ►
And as you get into it, you start getting into a breathing rhythm.
00:35:37 ►
They start multiplying and multiplying. And they’re coming off a radius of a fractal polar math equation
00:35:47 ►
that we use to create the different petals of a lotus mandala.
00:35:53 ►
So you’ve got your two-petal lotus is kind of like that.
00:35:58 ►
They look like the chakra symbols, but they’re being generated, emanating.
00:36:02 ►
We can go from one pedal to 32 pedals
00:36:05 ►
and increase…
00:36:07 ►
I don’t want to bore you with the technical things it does,
00:36:09 ►
but it does a lot of really interesting and novel things,
00:36:12 ►
but then you can…
00:36:13 ►
We have all these controls on the iPad
00:36:14 ►
that let a therapist move you forward in space
00:36:18 ►
or backward or increase the intensity
00:36:21 ►
or activate different…
00:36:22 ►
I was trying to describe it to Rick.
00:36:24 ►
He came to the trailer the other day and i started you know it’s really tempting to get into all this
00:36:30 ►
like jargon and catch phrases of like immersive and coherence and make it sound like you know
00:36:37 ►
there’s a tendency in this world where you’re when you’re building things that have never been
00:36:41 ►
built to i’m guilty of as anyone of like of, like, trying, maybe, I try to
00:36:45 ►
under-promise and over-deliver, but
00:36:47 ►
I would be guilty of sometimes overstating
00:36:50 ►
your hand and maybe
00:36:51 ►
giving it,
00:36:53 ►
slightly exaggerating, like, what it is for
00:36:55 ►
the theatrical impressiveness of
00:36:57 ►
talking about it, but
00:36:59 ►
I was using all these words, like, trying to describe
00:37:02 ►
it, and I was like,
00:37:03 ►
it’s just advanced color therapy. That’s all it is, just advanced describe it. And I was like, it’s just advanced color therapy.
00:37:06 ►
That’s all it is, just advanced color therapy.
00:37:09 ►
That’s the best way I can under-promise what it is, advanced color therapy.
00:37:16 ►
But it has this, what we’ve noticed, and we finally got it running last night.
00:37:21 ►
And so last night was our first, like, you know,
00:37:24 ►
launching monkeys
00:37:25 ►
into outer space testing phase.
00:37:28 ►
Read the ticket.
00:37:29 ►
There’s no liability out here.
00:37:30 ►
It’s like, yeah.
00:37:33 ►
Where else am I going to find
00:37:35 ►
all these traumatized people?
00:37:36 ►
We’re not open to public testing. That’s totally
00:37:38 ►
a joke. Just kidding. We’re not really doing
00:37:41 ►
that.
00:37:42 ►
Yep.
00:37:44 ►
My theory was, I haven’t done ketamine in years
00:37:47 ►
and uh when i did i mean the fact that they’re using ketamine for anti-depression really baffles
00:37:54 ►
me i got a lot of things out of ketamine like mostly it was like a just an unquenchable conundrum
00:38:02 ►
of thinking that i might have had some inkling into figuring out the way
00:38:06 ►
the world works and Petty Me did a pretty good job of like dissolving and demolishing like any
00:38:11 ►
sense of theory I had around any sense of what reality was it was really good at that it was
00:38:17 ►
really good at giving me an alternate reality that I thought was more important than this reality. It did that a lot.
00:38:27 ►
But I don’t know if it ever made me happier.
00:38:30 ►
So I’m a little, you know,
00:38:33 ►
we’re using the ketamine now because it’s pretty popular and it’s kind of, you know, it’s in vogue.
00:38:35 ►
There’s all these ketamine therapies,
00:38:37 ►
therapists popping up all over the place.
00:38:39 ►
And so we figured it’s kind of an interesting Trojan horse to ride
00:38:47 ►
because it’s kind of in people’s minds and it’s the hot new thing.
00:38:53 ►
But ultimately, our goal is we definitely don’t want any of the software
00:38:57 ►
that we’re creating for either creative expansion
00:39:02 ►
and or healing and recognition and self-awareness,
00:39:06 ►
self-aware development.
00:39:07 ►
Like, all the things we’re doing with VR,
00:39:10 ►
it’s not a real smart plan to, like, anchor yourself into any type of, like,
00:39:15 ►
illicit or illegal substances, especially ones like ketamine that are just still totally mystified.
00:39:23 ►
I mean, I don’t know. It’s like just when you just when i thought
00:39:27 ►
i figured out what i was doing it would just it would just throw this throw me for a loop that i
00:39:32 ►
still i mean the words to explain things that it did to me it was so weird um but apparently
00:39:38 ►
there’s a lot of evidence that it is within limited amount it’s working for people so
00:39:41 ►
evidence that it is within limited amounts it’s working for people so
00:39:43 ►
we’re trying that out but my theory
00:39:45 ►
was that because it’s a dissociative
00:39:48 ►
it
00:39:49 ►
when I was using it in creative
00:39:51 ►
capacity I would use ketamine
00:39:53 ►
to and I don’t try this at home
00:39:56 ►
to I would start it off I only did
00:40:00 ►
it when I was making a piece of digital art
00:40:02 ►
and I would start with a
00:40:04 ►
I wouldn’t do I would just do a, I wouldn’t do, I
00:40:07 ►
would just do it once, but I would do enough to pretty much obliterate any sense of self.
00:40:12 ►
But I would, the ramp up was when I was kind of white canvas and I would start making something.
00:40:18 ►
And what I found is that it had the ability to completely disintegrate any and disassociate myself from any aspect of the inner critic
00:40:28 ►
or the part of me that’s judging myself when I’m making these decisions
00:40:32 ►
or questioning every move I make with the way I comment.
00:40:35 ►
It would just put me in a place of just pure intuitive, creative action and response.
00:40:43 ►
And I would get into these zones where I would
00:40:45 ►
I would completely forget
00:40:48 ►
that I was even a human being
00:40:49 ►
but my muscle memory would be
00:40:52 ►
enacted and I could still understand how to use
00:40:54 ►
these tools and I just became like
00:40:56 ►
the monitor I was looking
00:40:58 ►
at became like a window into another dimension
00:41:00 ►
and sometimes I would make a piece of art
00:41:02 ►
and I would like come back afterwards
00:41:03 ►
and not even look at this piece like I was staring at it for the first time other dimension. Sometimes I would make a piece of art and I would come back afterwards and look
00:41:06 ►
at this piece like I was staring at it for the
00:41:08 ►
first time. I had no idea how
00:41:09 ►
this was made. Not sustainable.
00:41:13 ►
Interesting
00:41:14 ►
anecdote for a Burning Man lecture.
00:41:16 ►
Not anything I recommend to people in the long term.
00:41:19 ►
It’s a
00:41:20 ►
wild astral world out there.
00:41:24 ►
So, my theory was, if you can create an experience
00:41:27 ►
where the focal point is your biofeedback and your rhythm,
00:41:31 ►
when I talked to a lot of ketamine therapists,
00:41:33 ►
they mentioned that they’re,
00:41:35 ►
I’m like, what are you guys really trying to do?
00:41:37 ►
We talked to several and interviewed them,
00:41:39 ►
just a lot in Colorado.
00:41:41 ►
Like, what’s the end?
00:41:42 ►
Like, how are you using this?
00:41:43 ►
Like, what kind of wording or languaging are you using around this and what you know i’m a big fan of the john c
00:41:50 ►
lilly and like you know deprogramming the brain and center of the cyclone he’s like superhero
00:41:56 ►
of mine and i’m pretty aware of the way that he was using ketamine to you know deconstruct go
00:42:03 ►
deeper and implant like little seeds of knowledge or
00:42:07 ►
instruction that you would then sort of like sprout within his consciousness later on.
00:42:12 ►
And the consistent message I kind of got is that whether it’s anti-depression or let’s
00:42:18 ►
say autoimmune, most of the ailments, the psychological that result in physical ailments
00:42:24 ►
that people have is
00:42:25 ►
not loving themselves enough. And I think a lot of the times I’ve realized for me that
00:42:30 ►
the not loving yourself comes down to either a dissatisfaction with some aspect of ourselves,
00:42:37 ►
we look in the mirror, we have these judgments for whatever reason that people have this.
00:42:43 ►
I feel that when we started using the bio
00:42:47 ►
feedback in our heart rate there was something about seeing my heart reflected in real time
00:42:53 ►
90 frames a second in vr as like a pulsing light emitting particle that’s kind of what we use um just the revealing of the most intimate muscle in my body like the one
00:43:09 ►
muscle that’s it’s never let me down if it had i wouldn’t be here with you guys today you know
00:43:14 ►
from day one this guy has been working to keep me alive and being able to have it echoed within my body from the base sub-pack and see it there in real time,
00:43:30 ►
it was profound to have that type of just the nuance and the intimacy.
00:43:41 ►
It was a very intimately digital experience.
00:43:43 ►
That was our kind of goal as well.
00:43:43 ►
The intimacy was a very intimately digital experience.
00:43:44 ►
That was our goal.
00:43:47 ►
If they’re going to disassociate from themselves,
00:43:51 ►
let’s keep a thread that’s always them.
00:43:56 ►
It’d be really amazing if they can disassociate to the point where they lost the thread that this thing that’s pulsing
00:44:02 ►
at the center of their entire experience was themselves
00:44:04 ►
and then being brought back into reality with whatever i mean penamine mostly they say what
00:44:11 ►
happens on penamine is not they’re not getting guidance it’s just the mechanisms of the meaning
00:44:15 ►
making machine of the mind kind of going through these but they finally come down there the
00:44:21 ►
therapist has an opportunity to interject some message around self-love or their own heart.
00:44:28 ►
Just the idea of knowing.
00:44:31 ►
I think what excites me about this technology is making the invisible visible.
00:44:38 ►
Making these aspects, knowing yourself.
00:44:40 ►
To know thyself is a pretty noble pursuit.
00:44:43 ►
And creating a deeper relationship
00:44:45 ►
with these aspects of ourselves. So we’re aware of them and then potentially within that
00:44:52 ►
relationship, um, create new ideals for that. Like we’re using, we use it in ways where we can match
00:44:59 ►
your heart rate to an LFO. And then if you want to have an experience that’s more stimulating or to bring
00:45:06 ►
you down we can take your heartbeat and then modulate the feedback so there’s a slower base
00:45:12 ►
and the visualist gets slower or cooler and more cool colors and we’ve been able to like take a
00:45:19 ►
heart rate down up to like I don’t know 10 90 to 80 to 70, or stimulate a heart rate by stimulating a faster heartbeat,
00:45:29 ►
like syncing your heartbeat and then slowly modulating your heartbeat
00:45:32 ►
into a faster beat with a faster visual.
00:45:37 ►
Humans’ consciousness is a biofeedback machine,
00:45:41 ►
and VR gives us the ability to really hijack the visual feedback
00:45:46 ►
and feed whatever new information we want into there. And it’s interesting. You know,
00:45:54 ►
I don’t know what we’re going to accomplish with it. I don’t have a business plan or anything
00:45:58 ►
for it. I do it because I can. You know, it’s within my means and i like buying big trucks and it’s a
00:46:06 ►
that’s the thing martha that like you know like like why do you love birding i was trying to
00:46:12 ►
describe to somebody i’m like it’s it’s the best excuse and enabler it combines like two of my
00:46:18 ►
favorite things which is spending thousands of dollars at home Depot buying tools and partying and
00:46:26 ►
getting high and listening to music with people
00:46:28 ►
I love in the desert.
00:46:30 ►
You know? It can be that simple
00:46:32 ►
too sometimes.
00:46:36 ►
That’s what gets the claps.
00:46:39 ►
You don’t hear your mic
00:46:40 ►
on the people.
00:46:41 ►
Speak to your mic on the people. Do you have a time
00:46:44 ►
check for what time it is right now?
00:46:45 ►
It’s 7.45.
00:46:48 ►
It’s not 47.
00:46:49 ►
Oh, man, and we are reaching the end
00:46:52 ►
of this. I think we
00:46:53 ►
started at
00:46:54 ►
7 so we can go to 8.
00:46:57 ►
So I want to entertain
00:46:59 ►
10, 15 minutes
00:47:01 ►
of questions.
00:47:03 ►
And
00:47:04 ►
I can just imagine
00:47:06 ►
the Venn diagram if you
00:47:07 ►
out of all the things that Burning Man
00:47:09 ►
you could be doing right now if you’re here listening to me talk
00:47:12 ►
I would speculate that
00:47:13 ►
anybody like Duel?
00:47:15 ►
Duel fans out there?
00:47:17 ►
We’re going to keep this next 10 minutes
00:47:20 ►
15 minutes of questions really precise
00:47:22 ►
because afterwards
00:47:23 ►
if you choose if you’re
00:47:25 ►
interested i’m going to be driving my e-bike as fast as i can out into finding the golden
00:47:32 ►
abraxis art car dragon which should be between the man and folly that big kind of house thing
00:47:38 ►
where they had someone paraglide in a hard drive with the new Tool album that they’re playing for the first time
00:47:46 ►
on a Braxis with Alex
00:47:48 ►
and Allison Gray.
00:47:52 ►
I really miss that. Okay, quick questions.
00:47:55 ►
Let’s get on our bikes.
00:47:57 ►
I’ll get you guys to see where the truck’s at.
00:47:59 ►
We’re running our
00:48:00 ►
protocol right now.
00:48:03 ►
But stay tuned.
00:48:05 ►
Send it to the newsletter.
00:48:06 ►
We’ll see what happens.
00:48:07 ►
We got it.
00:48:08 ►
Huh?
00:48:09 ►
Really, yeah.
00:48:10 ►
It’s a Peterbilt.
00:48:11 ►
Yeah, it’s a 2001.
00:48:15 ►
It’s got 140,000 miles on it.
00:48:17 ►
It just sat.
00:48:18 ►
It was in Texas.
00:48:19 ►
It would just sit there.
00:48:20 ►
But it drives great.
00:48:23 ►
Yeah.
00:48:23 ►
We got a 60-mile 60 mile an hour governor on it
00:48:25 ►
which is great because I don’t drive it.
00:48:26 ►
I have the droids drive it.
00:48:29 ►
Yeah, so we have
00:48:30 ►
a samskara playing
00:48:32 ►
at 9 in E.
00:48:34 ►
Horizon.
00:48:36 ►
Yeah, Camp Horizon.
00:48:37 ►
Am I correct? 9 o’clock in E?
00:48:40 ►
Yep, awesome. We’ve got a 30 foot dome there
00:48:42 ►
and do you know what times
00:48:44 ►
they’ve been
00:48:45 ►
playing the samskara?
00:48:47 ►
10 to 3pm
00:48:48 ►
so they play that
00:48:50 ►
it’s a 24 minute experience
00:48:52 ►
it’s pretty, people like that
00:48:55 ►
a lot, it’s got
00:48:56 ►
pretty good feedback out here
00:48:58 ►
I’ll be doing, after the
00:49:00 ►
Tool album release
00:49:02 ►
party, I’ll be biking over to
00:49:05 ►
Ply Alchemists, and we’re going to be using
00:49:07 ►
Microdose to do visuals on the pyramid
00:49:09 ►
for a few hours.
00:49:12 ►
And, uh,
00:49:13 ►
yeah. There’s art.
00:49:17 ►
Like, just,
00:49:17 ►
it’s spread around. There’s
00:49:19 ►
some art on Mystic Flyer.
00:49:21 ►
There’s some art around Recamp with the
00:49:23 ►
Film Guys, so there’s some art around there.
00:49:26 ►
And, yeah,
00:49:28 ►
as our host communicated,
00:49:30 ►
you can find a lot of my art
00:49:31 ►
adorning the booties
00:49:34 ►
of many beautiful birders out there
00:49:35 ►
this year, you know, if you know where to look.
00:49:39 ►
Yeah.
00:49:41 ►
Thank you so much.
00:49:42 ►
Thanks for receiving the art so deeply
00:49:43 ►
and thanks for reflecting that
00:49:45 ►
next
00:49:47 ►
we are still working and continuing
00:49:49 ►
the relationship with
00:49:50 ►
Full Dome and the group of the Russian
00:49:53 ►
Hare Krishnas that we created Samaskara with
00:49:55 ►
things on the horizon is
00:49:57 ►
we’ve got a
00:49:59 ►
venue in Los Angeles called Wisdom
00:50:01 ►
where we show Samaskara
00:50:02 ►
four days a week
00:50:04 ►
that was kind of our test pilot in Los Angeles called Wisdom, where we show samskara four days a week. You know,
00:50:08 ►
that was kind of our test pilot venue.
00:50:10 ►
But
00:50:11 ►
next up, Swami’s been, he’s not here this year,
00:50:14 ►
but anyway, he’s been spending a lot of time in China,
00:50:16 ►
and we’re looking at expanding,
00:50:18 ►
having samskara in China
00:50:20 ►
and doing kind of a new,
00:50:21 ►
sort of a new samskara
00:50:24 ►
we’re making, instead of where we focused on the
00:50:27 ►
the Vedic
00:50:30 ►
writings for samskara
00:50:31 ►
imagine like a samskara
00:50:33 ►
inspired by the
00:50:35 ►
Dao De Ching
00:50:36 ►
you know so
00:50:38 ►
a samskara that can be named
00:50:40 ►
a samskara
00:50:41 ►
dragons, tigers cally, things like that.
00:50:49 ►
Microdose, still passionate about that.
00:50:51 ►
Hopefully we have a private alpha now.
00:50:54 ►
We’ve got several hundred testers that are using it.
00:50:57 ►
We’ll be probably releasing it whenever it’s ready.
00:51:01 ►
I don’t make any date promises anymore, but soon-ish.
00:51:05 ►
And, yeah, the current thing is we really want to develop this.
00:51:10 ►
My new favorite thing beyond, I realize that artwork is cool to make.
00:51:15 ►
I really enjoy making a lot of satisfaction out of transitioning from art making
00:51:25 ►
into making art tools you know using microdose as a tool i see people using as a tool to explore
00:51:34 ►
and express themselves creating this you know this k-hole simulator as a tool for therapists
00:51:42 ►
to use i just feel that that if i look at if I try to look at sort of a fractal over time
00:51:49 ►
of where I could be making the most amount of impact
00:51:53 ►
in the larger spectrum of this conversation,
00:51:57 ►
I think when it comes to health and wellness and everything,
00:52:00 ►
all those sort of things, is that for me,
00:52:03 ►
creativity is the most,
00:52:05 ►
the chemicals that are released in my body and my brain
00:52:09 ►
when I’m in a deeply creative flow state,
00:52:14 ►
to use the common lexicon.
00:52:19 ►
That is, that’s, there’s no pharmacy that can recreate the benefits
00:52:25 ►
of that. For me, creativity
00:52:27 ►
is medicine and
00:52:28 ►
making tools that enable other people
00:52:31 ►
to feel that sense of
00:52:33 ►
creativity and to
00:52:34 ►
extract and isolate
00:52:37 ►
the experience that gets in there as fast as
00:52:39 ►
possible is
00:52:40 ►
you know, I think
00:52:43 ►
we’re going to just keep working on it until we feel like that’s something that really works,
00:52:46 ►
and then who knows from there.
00:52:48 ►
Making awesome kids.
00:52:51 ►
I want to make a school out in Colorado.
00:52:54 ►
We’re probably going to start slow,
00:52:55 ►
but I’m going to make like a summer school,
00:52:58 ►
summer art school, like summer camp for kids.
00:53:01 ►
I just really want to spend more time on the farm
00:53:04 ►
and just have excuses not to leave and spend time with my kids. I just really want to spend more time on the farm and just have excuses not
00:53:06 ►
to leave and spend time
00:53:08 ►
with my kids and
00:53:09 ►
grow our garden
00:53:11 ►
and other excuses
00:53:14 ►
that I can buy more heavy equipment
00:53:15 ►
front loaders
00:53:17 ►
yeah, go ahead
00:53:19 ►
it’s out there
00:53:23 ►
I don’t know what’s going on
00:53:26 ►
but I don’t buy
00:53:27 ►
I don’t buy whatever
00:53:29 ►
you know
00:53:31 ►
yeah
00:53:32 ►
when I look back
00:53:36 ►
a lot of the books that I read
00:53:38 ►
you know the geography
00:53:39 ►
I think a lot of the books
00:53:42 ►
that I was educated with in school
00:53:44 ►
in public school
00:53:45 ►
I look back at it now
00:53:47 ►
and they just feel like graphic novels
00:53:48 ►
so it’s like I don’t know
00:53:51 ►
what’s going on but I’m open
00:53:53 ►
to being surprised
00:53:54 ►
and I definitely
00:53:56 ►
I like to entertain lots of
00:53:59 ►
my mom says that
00:54:00 ►
I’ve never met a conspiracy theory I didn’t like. I think that’s the way
00:54:07 ►
that she puts it. So yeah, I just like thinking. I like that we live in a really mysterious
00:54:13 ►
world. And I think that there’s a lot, there’s a lot more to discover than has been discovered.
00:54:20 ►
Yeah. All right, guys, thank you so much for your time
00:54:26 ►
thank you to the team at
00:54:29 ►
Planting All Day for keeping this tradition
00:54:31 ►
really strong and
00:54:32 ►
thanks so much for inviting me back
00:54:34 ►
yeah just go out there
00:54:36 ►
and just embrace
00:54:38 ►
just the thousands of love songs
00:54:41 ►
that all the people on this
00:54:42 ►
fire are putting out
00:54:44 ►
and just try to get the most
00:54:45 ►
out of that and hopefully you guys all find your opportunity to express that love to the universe
00:54:53 ►
and everybody out there at home make some good babies
00:54:57 ►
like bringing the burning man thanks so much guys You’re listening to the Psychedelic Salon
00:55:11 ►
where people are changing their lives
00:55:13 ►
one thought at a time
00:55:14 ►
And once again
00:55:17 ►
I would like to thank fellow salonner
00:55:19 ►
Frank Nunzio for making this
00:55:21 ►
recording for us
00:55:22 ►
I’m sure that you appreciate his work as much as I do.
00:55:26 ►
Now, if you go to the program notes for today’s podcast,
00:55:29 ►
which you will find at psychedelicsalon.com,
00:55:32 ►
you’ll see that I’ve linked to not only Android Jones’ website,
00:55:36 ►
but I’ve also linked to, well, it’s one of my favorite works of his.
00:55:40 ►
It is titled Samskara.
00:55:42 ►
I don’t know if I’m pronouncing that right.
00:55:44 ►
It’s S-A-M-S-K-A-R-A. I think it’s Samskara.
00:55:49 ►
And, well, it’s the closest work I’ve ever encountered that really most closely takes me back to some of my DMT experiences.
00:55:57 ►
And, well, there are nights before I go to sleep sometimes when I turn off all the lights here or get stoned and I watch that amazing video.
00:56:08 ►
You know, if you’ve ever smoked DMT, well, you’ll really love it.
00:56:15 ►
And if you haven’t yet had your first DMT trip, well, this will give you a little idea of what you have in store for yourself one day.
00:56:23 ►
It’s, well, it’s really too bad that Terrence McKenna didn’t live to see this video because I think it’s exactly like what he once was dreaming about. Also, on the program notes page for this podcast,
00:56:27 ►
I’ve embedded a two-minute paste-up of a talk featuring the words of Bruce Dahmer
00:56:32 ►
and the light show by Android Jones,
00:56:34 ►
just to give you a little better idea of how his art can be embedded in live performances.
00:56:41 ►
Also, if you’re looking for some of the coolest items of clothing to wear to the next event you
00:56:47 ►
attend click on the image in the program notes and you’ll be taken to android jones’s store
00:56:52 ►
where you can collect some of the most spectacular art that you’re going to find anywhere
00:56:56 ►
for sure wearing one of his t-shirts will certainly help you start a conversation about
00:57:02 ►
psychedelics with almost anybody and who knows that may be how you meet your next new best friend.
00:57:09 ►
And for now, this is Lorenzo signing off from
00:57:12 ►
Cyberdelic Space. Namaste, my friends. Thank you.