Panel Speakers:
Born in 1970 in Washington D.C., Paul D. Miller is an artist, writer,
and musician working in New York. Miller is best known under the moniker
of his "constructed persona" as "DJ Spooky That Subliminal
Kid." Miller has recorded a huge volume of music and has collaborated
with a wide variety of artists, writers, musicians and composers such
as Robert Wilson, Iannis Xenakis, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Mariko Mori, Kool
Keith/Doctor Octagon, Pierre Boulez, Saul Williams, Steve Reich, Yoko
Ono, Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, Paul Auster, and Colson Whitehead
among many others. In addition to his award winning book
Rhythm Science (MIT Press, 2005), his written work has appeared
in The Village Voice, The Source,
Artforum, Raygun, Rap Pages,
Paper Magazine, The Nation, and a host of
other periodicals. Miller's work as an artist has appeared in a variety
of contexts such as the Whitney Biennial; The Venice Biennial; the Ludwig
Museum in Cologne, Germany; Kunsthalle, Vienna; The Andy Warhol Museum,
Paula Cooper Gallery and many other museums and galleries. www.djspooky.com
Laura Dawn
Creative & Cultural Director, MoveOn.org/Producer/Musician/Artist
– Since 2003 Laura Dawn has served as the Creative and Cultural Director
of groundbreaking grassroots phenomenon MoveOn.org, helping to grow
the organization into a political powerhouse with over 3.3 million members.
Laura’s campaigns have changed not only the way citizens participate
in politics, but how artists can help instigate social change– forever
altering the political landscape in the process. Laura’s work with
MoveOn has also had tremendous impact on documentary film. By working
with political documentary filmmakers from conception to grassroots
marketing, MoveOn not only created a new alternative distribution system
for documentaries, but created organizational models and campaigns to
support political film from a grassroots level, helping to create success
stories like Fahrenheit 9/11 and An Inconvenient Truth.
A critically acclaimed singer/songwriter (most notably collaborating
with Moby on his multi-platinum selling album Hotel), articles on Laura
Dawn & her work as an activist and artist have been featured in
Vogue, LA Weekly, the NY Times, Village Voice, Time magazine, Salon,
& USA Today. Laura has been a speaker and panelist on the merger
of artists and online activism at the Venice Biennale, the Guggenheim
Museum, Tokion, the Sundance Film Festival, Carnegie Hall, & many
others.
Daniel Pinchbeck is author of 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl and Breaking
Open the Head: Psychedelics and Contemporary Shamanism. He is Editorial
Director of Reality Sandwich. www.realitysandwich.com
Publisher of Reality Sandwich. He has been an online pioneer since leading
the 1995 launch of the award-winning SonicNet.com, the web's first multimedia
music zine and digital music store, which later became a property of
MTV. He has written for Wired,
Index, and Paris Review, among other publications,
and is co-author of the influential white paper "The Augmented
Social Network: Building Identity and Trust into the Next-Generation
Internet;" editor of Planetwork Journal;
and co-editor of the anthology Multimedia: From
Wagner to Virtual Reality (W.W. Norton, 2001).
www.realitysandwich.com
Performing
Artists:
Akim Funk
Buddha
Akim Funk Buddha is a critically acclaimed MC and performance artist
who approaches hip-hop holistically, drawing upon a full spectrum of
cultural traditions and disciplines, including rhyming, beat-boxing,
mouth and body percussion, storytelling, break-dancing, Mongolian throat-singing,
Indonesian monkey chants, body-balancing, martial arts, tap, and circus
arts. Recent credits include appearances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center,
the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and The David Letterman Show.
Akim is a founding member of the groundbreaking African hip-hop duo
Zimbabwe Legit and his own dance troupe Dha Fuzion. He is currently
touring with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Co. www.funkbuddha.org
Parashakti: Ritual by
Parashakti & The Gate-Keepers
Descended from a long line of spiritual healers, Parashakti moved from
her native Jerusalem to the United States to pursue her life long exploration
of the healing art of Ritual Dance. Parashakti’s spiritual and artistic
quest led her to the study of Native American healing arts with the
Shoshone and Lakota Indians, with whom she has been co-facilitating
ceremonies for close to a decade. Inspired by the wisdom of her elders,
she has developed a unique form of movement: Shamanic Earth Dance –
integrating ancient Shamanic rituals, TranceDance, Shamanic journeying,
hands on healing, sweat lodges and fasting. She has worked with over
10,000 dancers from around the world In her private practice as a Shamanic
practitioner, Parashakti has developed her own healing modalities that
assist clients with various emotional issues and life threatening diseases.
http://www.parashakti.org
Zack Hagan: The Muramba Sessions
Dance remixes of a Rwandan church choir recorded in July 2007 in
Muramba Parish, northwest Rwanda.
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=89066850
Zemi17: The Orkestra
Jangkrik dan Gamelan Listik
A Live PA by Zemi17 – the retro future of Space Haus performed with
Balinese Trompong and dance insect sounds.
www.zemi17.net
Anthony Williams: Urban Mystic
Tarot
The Tarot has been around for centuries and has the
unique ability to reflect the zeitgeist – the socio-political and
spiritual mood of the society it finds itself in. No matter what spiritual
belief system you are in, the Tarot has a message for you.
Anthony Williams (also known as Lord Pyro) has studied
the tarot for years. His unique approach and uncanny accuracy has bought
him a loyal clientele. Urban Mystic Tarot combines the ancient esoteric
knowledge and insight of the tarot with a modern edge.
You can check out his blog at http://urbanmysticlifestyle.blogspot.com, where he is currently writing an
interpretation of the Tarot deck.
Violet Siegrist: Solar Inspired
Face Painting
Violet Siegrist is a visual artist specializing in drawing and painting
the human form in it's quiet, reflective moments. She delicately allows
the viewer to observe quixotic moments of revelation, pensive transmutations,
curious minds exploring the perceived edifices of the worlds that contain
them, as well as the frailty of the mirrored world within. Violet's
crafted canvases do not let one merely observe; they are an experience
that fails never to invoke deep empathy, sadness, celebration; wherever
her pieces take you, they promise to be a journey unforgotten.
www.myspace.com/kateyviolet
Nelia Vishnevsky:
Creative Body-painting Transformations
A Ukrainian-born graphic designer with a background in visual arts,
fashion, and performance arts. Nelia infuses the art of face and body
painting with deep meaning inspired by sacred symbolism, visionary art,
and cross-cultural shamanic traditions. Her designs originate from a
deep insight into the truest essence of the person being adorned, using
the language of color and shape to create new levels of awareness and
delight. Through these universal energetic marks, you will nourish a
profound relationship with your divine authentic self.
Workshops:
Rene Collins:
Magical Intelligence
Rene Collins has been a practicing Magician and Mystic for 20 years
and has taught privately for 10 of those years. The demonstration workshop
will include exercises in a group setting to understand the nature of
the Magical Intelligence.
www.renecollins.com
Sunny Strasburg:
Alchemical Gender Circle
Sunny Strasburg's interests lie in art, writing, events planning and
depth psychology. She is currently attending the graduate depth counseling
program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Her therapy practice spans diverse
populations, from autistic children to recovering addicts.She has also
illustrated and written Goddess Alchemy, a Dream Journal. She is a co-moderator
for a visionary artists' hub, the Pod Collective, www.podcollective.com. Her medicine woman name is Rising
Red Hawk. She was given this name because she is a macro visionary-
connecting and bridging the nodal network to facilitate the birth into
the era of the goddess.
www.sunnystrasburg.com
www.funartexhibits.com
www.myspace.com/sunnyalchemy
David Rothenberg:
Whale Sounds
David Rothenberg is the author of Why Birds Sing, published in six
languages and turned into a BBC TV show. Rothenberg has also written
Sudden Music and co-edited The Book of Music and Nature. As a clarinetist
he has six CDs out under his own name, including On the Cliffs of the
Heart, named as one of the top ten CDs of the year by Jazziz Magazine.
His latest book is Thousand Mile Song, about making music with whales.
Rothenberg is a frequent contributor to realitysandwich.com
www.thousandmilesong.com
CC Treadway: Divine Deity Dancing
CC Treadway is an energy and sound healer, channel and artist with
a private practice in New York City. She is a graduate of the 4-year
program, The Barbara Brennan School of Healing and is also a Reiki and
Theta Healer. She has studied and traveled extensively with world-renowned
author and teacher, Drunvalo Melchizedek, working with various tribes
for Earth's healing. A former dancer and film editor, CC regularly teaches
workshops on channeling, creativity and healing.
www.cctreadway.com
Art Installations:
Anakin
Koenig: Starfish Bouquet
Anakin Koenig is a performance-sculpture artist who creates large-scale
inflatable structures. His transformative installations engage architectural
space and challenge the social and psychological horizon of the audience.
Some of the pieces that he builds are transient instruments/environments
for performances; others, such as Breathing Chandeliers, are soothing
kinetic objects with built-in lights and sequenced inflation. Recent
projects include: an installation at the Museum of Modern Art in New
York City; a collaboration with Pierre Huyghe to create an inflatable
environment for The Journey That Wasn't, presented at the 2006 Whitney
Biennial; an installation at the DDM Warehouse in Shanghai; a collaboration
with Leo Villareal for Creative Time, a sculpture at NASA Ames Research
Center; and, a residency at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology MediaLab for the Soft-Car project with Frank
Gehry and General Motors. Based in New York, he founded Anakin Koenig
Airways in 2001 and received his Ph.D. from New York University in 2004.
www.akairways.com
Harlan Emil Gruber:
The Structure of the Vaccuum
Harlan Emil Gruber utilizes sacred geometry, color and sound to create
evolutionary interfaces that are keys to the 2012 vibrational shift.
The 11:11 Diamond Portal, 12:12 Emerald Portal and 1:11 Sapphire Portal
have been at Burning Man the last few years.
www.harlanemil.com
Lisa Renko: 2b4d image
27
Lisa Renko is a native New Yorker, painter, installation artist,
and recently actress in “Pollock Squared”starring as Lee Krasner.
Born to Russian immigrant parents, she was exposed from the earliest
age to the potent spirituality and rich iconography of Russian Orthodox
images and to the eloquent movement of classical ballet through her
grandmother’s teaching legacy at Balanchine’s School of American
Ballet. These influences instigated a process of reconciling with different
philosophies and bridging diverse, sometimes clashing cultures. Involved
in numerous on-going projects, Renko actively pursues and investigates
ideas and directions that she feels authentically challenge challenge
established art lexicons. To pursue such investigation, Renko believes
that one must engage chaos and confusion and acknowlerdge them as evolutionary
agents. She considers the intensely emotional aspects of these agents
to be essential catylists for spiritual development, whose illumination
can lead to a more complete form of enlightenment. This attitude is
reflected in creations that often blur the line between the singular
and collective artistic ego,
fluctuating between her personal expression and collaborative constructions.
These take the form of elaborate installations which completely immerse
the viewer/participant in what Renko considers to be “walk-in paintings.”
Instead of a one-directional focal point, the viewer is surrounded from
all sides by the experience. The innovative use of reflective surfaces
and varied light sources, highlight paintings, prayers, diaries, poems,
photographs, and other types of valuables, strewn around with living
and organic matter, and a range of discardable, seemingly unrelated
items.There is an emphasis on pure physicality, bypassing any need for
obvious conceptual connection.. Renko considers these resulting images,
capturing the movement of her physical body and continuous rearrangement
of the installation’s composition through simultaneous photographic
documentation, to be the contemporary version of Abstract Expresssionism,
( trumpeted by the likes of Kandinsky and Pollock), reaching beyond
the two dimensional surface, into the third, fourth, and possibly fifth
dimensions. These windows into multi-dimensional realities, created
with loving intent, serve to reveal the spiritual as an essential ingredient
of artistic creation.
Axis
"I believe in the transformational healing power of art and it's
potential for positive social change. I wish to reveal the immortal
presence which lives in all things, everywhere and nowhere, beyond the
boundaries of time, which is transcendent beyond categories, names and
form, yet which is identical to our very own Self."
Tony Torn: Grand Inquisitor
Sabrina Asch:
Sabrina Asch applies art to everyday life and everyday
life to art. Which might sound cliche, but her everyday life is blessed
with unique stimulation.
Without hesitation, she boasts "everything I need to know about
approaching life's challenges, I learned by playing rugby." Sabrina
had documented the sport of women's rugby from the inside during her
10 year stretch of playing on a nationally ranked rugby team. A career
ending injury forced her to hang up her cleats & most auspiciously
catapulted her photography career.
Emotional transformation and the study group dynamic is a common theme
in her photographic work to date. Facilitating others to overcome emotional
and physical challenges comes naturally to her and is fulfilled by her
work as an emcee of Karaoke. She creates a platform for the amateur
performer to extol – add the ingredients of New York City happenstance
and the inspiration is interminable.
While a camera has been embedded in her hand for decades, Sabrina's
work is not restricted to still photography, but is supplemented by
performance, multimedia, video and installation.
Sabrina is grateful for opportunities to collaborate and document the
insightful and ambitious. Her camera has pointed it's lens at The Women's
Rugby World Cup (02, '06), Feeling Not So Fresh, My Apple Genius, The
UN Ambassador's Ball, several bat mitzvah's, extravaganza's around the
world, and more! Most recently, she is thrilled to document the Evolver
Salon's "Electric Equinox"!
SabrinaAsch.com, Sabrina_Asch@mac.com
Susan Buck:
Susan Buck is an artist on tangent from motorcycle journalism. Editor
of Thunder Press(96-00), she's contributed to Hot Bike, Motorcycle Consumer
News, Bikernet.com and many others. Susan adds the discipline of journalistic/documentary
photography to the interpretive and artistic style that most of her
contemporaries in the Burning Man, music festival and neo-psychedelic
art culture are known for. The result is surreal, experiential truth.
She's currently a house photographer for Chapel of Sacred Mirrors, Freek
Factory, Merlin's Wheel mobile gallery. and Indian Lookout Country Club.
William Radacinski
Salon Organizers:
Jonathon
Phillips:
Jonathan Philips is the Community Director/News Editor of the web-magazine
Reality Sandwich and Executive Editor of the NYC body/mind/spirit events
newsletter, Souldish.com. He is a Reiki Master and the founder of the
NYC Gnostics. He also does a regular podcast called "The Electric
Jesus" and teaches "Electric Jesus" workshops using energy
work to bring out the divine. To schedule a workshop email, jonathan@realitysandwich.com.
www.realitysandwich.com
Elke Dehner:
Elke Dehner is an event producer, curator and marketing professional. She
has organized international art festivals in Germany and coordinated
multi-media events, warehouse dance parties, flash mobs and art installations
in New York City and at the Burning Man Festival. Elke is member of
Safetycan, an interdisciplinary supergroup and creative think tank that
develops new models of participatory culture. She creates immediate
one-of-a-kind experiences and explores new forms of creative collaborations
as opportunities for unique and intimate experiences.
Kevin Balktick:
Kevin Balktick is a cultural event producer living in Brooklyn, NY.
He has organized a wide range of events including multimedia art exhibitions,
outdoor festivals, conferences, street parades, dance parties and many
things in between. These events are designed to build New York City's
cultural community by providing a forum for people to meet each other
in creative contexts. Their settings have included such diverse environs
as streets, churches, lofts & warehouses, public parks, art museums,
bars, yoga studios and subways. His larger projects include Decompression,
a 2,500 person non-profit art exhibition and party and Figment, an outdoor
arts festival on Governors Island.Kevin Balktick is a cultural event
producer living in Brooklyn, NY. He has organized a wide range of events
including multimedia art exhibitions, outdoor festivals, conferences,
street parades, dance parties and many things in between. These events
are designed to build New York City's cultural community by providing
a forum for people to meet each other in creative contexts. Their settings
have included such diverse environs as streets, churches, lofts &
warehouses, public parks, art museums, bars, yoga studios and subways.
His larger projects include Decompression, a 2,500 person non-profit
art exhibition and party and Figment, an outdoor arts festival on Governors
Island.
Salma Shamy:
Salma Shamy has been working on several new projects lately including
spearheading the "Green" initiative and the Marketing and
Promotions effort for the Evolve 2012 Music and Arts Festival to take
place on a 100+ acre farm in New Jersey. She also edits the Souldish
On the Radar NYC events calendar published on Realtiy Sandwich and in
newsletter form. Currently she"s working as a Personal Trainer
and wellness expert, graduating from NPTI (National Personal Training
Institute), the Institute of Integrative Nutrition in New York City
and the Institute for Therapeutic Learning in Seattle, WA. She is a
certified Fitness Trainer, Holistic Health Counselor, Reiki Master,
Energy Coach (CEC), Transpersonal Hypnotherapist and Bach Flower expert.
Her approach is a spiritually focused and an individually crafted mind,
body and spirit alchemical celebration of the divinity within each one
of us. She is also a digital artist and photographer, and creates unusual
portraits and colorful documentations of people and places. In addition,
she regularly volunteers her time at CoSM and hopes to become more involved
in the spiritually oriented underground Cultural Revolution in art,
music and dance, helping to create community and fun. Http://www.myspace.com/aylavue
is another online community where she frequently blogs and shares art,
poetry and inspiration
Philip Riley:
Philip attended the Central School of Art in London to study Fine Art
Painting in the mid-eighties and remained in there until the mid-nineties
as an active participant in the vibrant and exciting art scene of that
decade. A scene that has given rise to so many important Young British
Artists. His work has been included in significant shows such as Wonderful
Life at the Lisson Gallery London, the Institute of Cultural Anxiety
at the ICA, London, Instructions, Gio Marconi Gallery, Milan and also
at the 2nd Gramercy Art Fair in New York with Maureen Paley/Interim
Art. He left London in 1995 to live in New York and continued to show
his work internationally. Exhibitions in New York, L.A., London and
Vancouver followed and he took part in the Brooklyn-Paris Festival exhibiting
a wall drawing at the Eric Dupont gallery in Paris. Most recently he
was commissioned with Arts Council of England funding to create computer
animation and video to support the UK touring project ‘A change of
light’ which showcased newly commissioned works for the cello
(www.a-change-of-light.com).
Michael Robinson:
Director of the acclaimed New York design studio Nowhere, Educator,
Visual Artist, recent clients include Alicia Keys, Courtney Love, Levi
Strauss, Coca Cola; he led the global rebranding of the Ramada Hotels
and Kmart. He is currently at work on the first monograph of his Universus
project which will feature 22 meditations for people who use Alphabets
in their day to day communications. He is Creative Director of Reality
Sandwich. www.nowherenyc.com
Craig Reuter:
Craig is a freelance events producer with his company, Sublingual Innovations.
He is also a visionary artist and founder of Deisigns, a Brooklyn artists'
collaborative.
www.deisigns.net
Elizibeth Brackbill:
Elizabeth will graduate from Gallatin at New York University in
May with an individualized degree in holistic health focusing in nutrition,
psychology, mind body integration and energy healing. She is the co-founder
of Fruition–a developing holistic wellness company whose mission is
to spread mindful bliss through nutrition, energy healing, mind-body
integration, sustainability, self-reliance, and ecstatically action-oriented
community building.
Natasha Blank:
Natasha Blank, on the verge of completing a degree in Consciousness
Studies and Holistic Health at NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized
Study, is a Reiki practitioner and co-founder of Fruition–a developing
holistic wellness company whose mission is to spread mindful bliss through
nutrition, energy healing, mind-body integration, sustainability, self-reliance,
and ecstatically action-oriented community building. She thinks it's
very important to dance as often as possible.
natashablank@gmail.com