INTERACTIVE TALKS ARE INFORMATIVE AND ENLIGHTENING SEMINARS DESIGNED TO ENCOURAGE A CONTINUOUS INTERACTION AND EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION BETWEEN THE SPEAKER AND THE AUDIENCE.
DADARA
BIO
Dadara started designing flyers, live-paintings and record covers for the then upcoming international electronic house music scene in the nineties. In 1999 Dadara built his first big public sculpture: the 9 meters high Greyman Statue of No Liberty in front of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. This marked the beginning of the production and design of more big public pieces, which over time became more interactive, combining theatrical aspects with the use of multi-media. More and more these projects started dealing with the problems and challenges of our modern days society, such as Love, Peace, and Terror, in which he used explosives to blow up a pink tank with four barrels. His last big project before becoming a bank director was Checkpoint Dreamyourtopia, a border control checkpoint to enter your own Dreams, which was destroyed with chainsaws and sledgehammers in an old swimming pool in Berlin, exactly twenty years after the Berlin Wall fell.
ART AS MONEY
In times when governments don’t want to spend money on art anymore, but spend billions on bailing out banks, artist Dadara started his own bank – the Exchanghibition Bank – which issues banknotes of Zero, Million, and Infinite. The bank has popped up in the main hall of Amsterdam Central Station, The Rijksmuseum, Occupy, cultural venues, as well as shopping centers, and also performed at Burning Man, where customers could get a Zero note in return for filling out a Spiritual Karma Laundering Contract. Dadara is now working on the Transformoney Tree for Burning Man 2012, a tree from which branches the Exchanghibition Banknotes will hang, while the whole trunk will be covered in an interactive process with one-dollar bills.
GWENAEL PRIE
BIO
Journalist, photographer, engineer, compulsive traveler… A few years ago, he decided to quit his job and life to travel one year around the world. The goal: to understand today’s and tomorrow’s water issues, not by reading a book but by visiting projects on the ground. The result: a widely-followed blog, a book and several conferences and photo exhibitions. Gwenael is 32 years old, based in Paris, and now works as a journalist and consultant on development issues in the field of water and new technologies.
WATER TRAVELLERS: ONE YEAR AROUND THE WORLD OF WATER
One can often hear that “Tomorrow’s wars will be about water”, that “Water is blue gold”, that “Water is life” or that “The world is going to lack water”… Is this true? What exactly does this mean? To find answers, Gwenael traveled one year around the world, with a friend, to visit projects, take pictures, interview people. During this talk, he will speak and show photos of many places visited. Each of them illustrates, in a very concrete way, a specific issue related to water, be it the cultural aspect with the Khumba Mela festival in India, the protection of the environment with the Santa Marta marshland in Colombia or the use of water by agriculture with the Yellow River in China…
KEVIN ROWELL
BIO
Kevin has devoted himself to the study of sustainability, working extensively on international development, particularly in Asia and Latin America. His passion for natural materials and their use in construction has shown through his publications with groups such as the World Monuments Fund in preserving traditional architecture in Haiti, and with the United Nations where he has facilitated dialogues about the use of local materials in construction for development.
In 2005 he cofounded the Natural Builders (www.thenaturalbuilders.com) a contracting company that works around the world doing cutting-edge work in green building and development, as well as large scale art installations. Clients include Kleiwerks International (www.kleiwerks.org) and Boom Festival.
http://www.thenaturalbuilders.com
NATURALLY BUILDING A REVOLUTION
Common perception is that “Developed nations” are ahead of the curve and “Developing nations” are catching up. What if this perception was actually backwards, what if the way of the future will be driven more by the technology of the past? Come join us as we explore the edge of architecture, technology and delve deeper into human perception and human needs in this unique interactive environment.
MANUEL MAQUEDA
BIO
Manuel Maqueda was trained as an international economist, attorney, entrepreneur, and environmentalist, but actually he prefers not to identify with any profession, career or position. He is involved in a variety of organizations and projects to educate, lead, and innovate our transition to a responsible, thriving way of life on Earth.
Manuel is cofounder of Plastic Pollution Coalition and is a member of Midway Journey, a transmedia project and documentary film documenting plastic pollution on the albatross colonies of Midway island. Manuel was born in Spain and lives in California.
HOOKED ON PLASTIC: TRUTHS ABOUT PLASTIC POLLUTION
Plastic pollution is an emerging environmental issue, like Global Warming was 30 years ago. Together we will explore the shocking facts and multiple ramifications of this issue: floating continents of garbage, plastic beaches, the toxic loads in our bodies, pre-polluted newborn babies, the lies and dirty secrets of “recycling”, and more.
This talk will challenge the core beliefs of our disposable culture, busting many myths that even environmentalists believe, and changing forever the perception of the world around us. We will watch stunning film footage from Midway Island, and we will conclude with a transformative ceremony.
PEDRO PRATA
BIO
Trained as an Environmental Conservation Biologist, after working on ecosystem assessment and recovery, Pedro was soon fascinated by the works of Paul Stamets within the mushroom world. He learned about Permaculture with Lesley Martin and Rosemary Morrow who gave him a bigger picture of how and where to act after a long period as a social and environmental activist. At the moment he shares his visions at Simbiose, a collective working for Earth regeneration and mainly focused on forest and river wilderness.
MUSHROOMS: THE GATEWAY TO A NEW UNDERSTANDING OF NATURE’S LANGUAGE
How is it that mushrooms pop up the same time and place every year? How can they degrade oil and radioactive pollutants? Can we use those powers too? Let’s go on a journey into the mysterious life of the fungi kingdom, exploring their biology, cycle of life and cohabitation of our shared planet. We’ll pay attention to their intelligent behavior and amazing capabilities and look at how we can benefit from them by using simple technologies that are well within reach. We’ll demonstrate simple yet high impact mushroom solutions for the regeneration of Mother Nature’s health. This calls for an exercise in thinking like a forest using its own world wide web: thinking with a mycelial mind.
SCOTT BEIBIN
BIO
Scott Beibin is a Philadelphia based artist, performer, filmmaker, theorist, storyteller, and culture jammer working at the intersection of science, nature, art and consciousness. Beibin’s current projects include Groucho Fractal, the Lost Film Festival and The Redefinery / Evil Twin Booking Agency.
GROUCHO FRACTAL’S NEARLY AMAZING QUANTUM TRANSDIMENSIONAL SURVIVAL GUIDE AT THE END (AND BEGINNING) OF EVERYTHING
This sci-fi vaudeville creative visualization experience explores the intersection of science, consciousness, art, and nature.
Fueled by eco-engineering and bicycle power, the live performance is hosted by Scott Beibin who combines show-and-tell with audio, visuals, sensory perception games, silly dance moves, gadgetry, circuit bending, and a bevy of other delights including delicious vegan snacks made from the combined technologies of brain computer interface and 3D printing.
Performers, audience, and special guests collaborate collectively in a mindshare experiment designed to explore the mysteries of the universe, while setting intention to visualize solutions to complex social, economic and environmental issues.
STEVE ALLIN
BIO
Steve Allin has enthusiastically pioneered the use of hemp in building in Ireland and internationally for the last 12 years & is the author of “Building with Hemp” 2006. He has also contributed articles to a variety of publications from the Green Building Bible to Cannabis Culture magazine. He is currently director of the International Hemp Building Association IHBA established on the 20th November 2009 after the successful 1st International Hemp Building Symposium which he organised earlier that year in Ireland. He continues to act as an advisor for projects wishing to establish hemp processing facilities for hemp construction products.
HEMP CAN’T SAVE THE PLANET BUT IT MIGHT SAVE HUMANITY
In this stand up info show Steve takes us on a whistle stop tour of all the multiple uses of the Hemp plant. Using his wide ranging knowledge of Hemp materials, gained from 15 years involvement with the industry, he explains with humour, music and pictures how we don’t need Hemp to save the planet, as many people like to claim, but what it might help us do is save ourselves. What we have to save ourselves from and how Hemp might be able to do it, is illustrated with colourful projected backdrops which add to his words.
YOUTH VOICES ON CIVIL SPHERES: 4 BACK-TO-BACK TALKS ON NEW HUMAN HABITATS AND CIVIL PLATFORMS
BILLIE BAILLIE
BIO
William Baillie was born in London UK in 1989. He grew up there until age 15 when he moved to Oregon, USA, to finish high school and then go to College in Eugene, Oregon, where he received a degree in Political Science. During college he learned about cooperative living at the Campbell Club student cooperative, where he lived for 4 years. In his spare time he travelled around the West Coast visiting other cooperatives and working on various permaculture projects.
LIVING COOPERATIVELY, LIVING DELIBERATELY
In this talk Billie explains the story of how the cooperative movement kicked off in the 1930s, explaining how different schools of political thought have the ability to be explored in the cooperative setting, and how some political systems flourish in a co-op, and some don’t (with surprising results). The bottom line for any intentional or radical community is to never lose track of the mission statement. He will talk about what life in general is like, living in a co-op, the challenges and the benefits and how you can go about starting a cooperative.
CRISTIANA VALE PIRES
BIO
Cristiana Vale Pires is a psychologist and researcher in Anthropology. This year she completed her master thesis: “Ecovillages: resilient spaces” and she is researching around the themes of peace, sustainability and care in ecovillages and other movements. So, besides her relationship with GEN (Global Ecovillage Network), she was in ecovillages as Tamera (Portugal), Los Angeles Ecovillage, Christiania (Copenhagen), Damanhur (Italy).
ECOVILLAGES: RESILIENCY SPACES IN CRISIS CONTEXT
We are living trouble times, with a holistic crisis: environmental, economical, political, social, cultural, personal… In this sense we need holistic solutions. In this talk Cristiana will share her research and personal insights about the ecovillages movement. They are laboratories where people are creating and experimenting new politics applied in a holistic way to all areas of human life, in order to create a new culture: a culture of peace, care and sustainability.
ANGEL ANTICH
BIO
Angel Antich was born in 1986 in Andalucia and considers herself just “one of the the 99%, a thinking mind between the critical mass”. She is finishing her Philosophy Degree and in the meantime dedicates herself to music production (Aenima, Tikismikis, etc.), whilst exploring new proceedings of thinking and action and devoting herself to social movements in favour of a consciousness change.
GLOBAL ACTIVISM: WE ARE ONE
In this talk Angel attempts to give a historiographical revision of the facts occurred along the planet regarding all social movements that are arising against oppressive power: it doesn’t matter if they are occidental neoliberal democracies, militar dictatorships or autocratic governments. She will adopt the perspective of how the world is synchronizing on auto-organization to demand what belongs to it: From the Arab spring to the last raids in the Occupy movement, without forgetting the very important precedents like Iceland or Greece. Finally, she will also try to express how we could channel our energies for the global change through fractal thinking.
ERIC TURNER
BIO
Eric Turner was born and grew up in Turin, Italy and has also lived in Switzerland and England where he became gradually more interested in protest movements and in raving. In England he studied Politics and History at Essex University and York University, obtaining a degree and a masters, as well as a Graduate Diploma in Law at University of East London. Before moving stateside in 2009 he was involved with protesting the G20 as well as the Anarchist movement in London. He lived briefly in Boston and protested the G20 in Pittsburgh, and in 2010 he started a PhD in Sociology at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, his current abode. Right now he is in the 2nd year of his Phd and has been teaching Classical Sociological Theory, as well as publishing a paper in Social Movement Studies (for their October 2012 issue) about the Grillini Movement in Italy.
NEW CIVIL SPHERES AND SOCIAL CHANGE: FROM OCCUPY TO BOOM
In this talk Eric gives an overview of some new Social Movements that have emerged in the last few years in the West, zooming in on Occupy Wall Street in the US, the Grillini in Italy and the15 M in Spain. He focuses on their innovative tactics, especially the role the Internet has played in mobilising and aiding participation. These movements have contributed towards creating both an offline and online civil sphere to improve popular participation and mobilisation whilst increasing consciousness of social and environmental issues and inequality. Eric relates these ideas with his personal experience at various festivals and compares more commercially driven, unfriendly, rule intensive festivals with friendlier, ethically driven festivals with a much higher level of social solidarity. How has the Internet been an effective mobilising tool for new anti-inequality movements whilst helping the Psy Trance movement become a more globally integrated self conscious civil society of its own? Could Psy Trance even be defined as a social movement? How are these new social movements and ethically driven festivals such as Boom different aspects of a collective effort to create a more just, equal and democratic world?
Program is constantly updated, stay tuned!
