What has EsoZone meant to you? Have you met a partner or collaborator at EsoZone? What sorts of art and/or projects have you completed as a result in your participation (or lack thereof) in EsoZone? Has it changed your life in any way?

I’ll go first: [...]

Read more at esozone.com

We have now released the “EsoZone Protocol” – the standards for hosting an EsoZone in your own city.

Free. Sponsorships, voluntary donations, and tips are allowed, but tickets, fees, and mandatory donations are not. Selling merchandise, refreshments, etc. is ok.

Open. We understand some Esozones will have limited space, but attendence should not be limited to a certain group people or be “invite only.” Example: If an Esozone: UT Austin were being planned, it could NOT be limited to only UT students. Pre-Registration limits, first come first served entry, etc. are allowed. This does not mean that people can’t be ejected if they cause disruptions.

Unconference. Some pre-scheduled material may be incorporated, but Esozones will follow unconference principals and allow participants to set the agenda. Anyone can post a session.

Read the full document

The Cyclone of Slack has posted links to some media from the event. If you have more they’d love to know about it.

Cyclone of Slack: we want your pictures (videos, audios, whatever)

EsoZone PDX 2009 is over, and I’m still recovering. Here’s some of the stuff people have posted so far:

Jillian’s EsoZone round-up wherein she shares her own experiences at EsoZone 2009.

She’s shared her outline from her “Radical Therapy for Radical Minds” workshop

Garret Daun has shared a PDF of his “Create Deconstruction” workshop.

Lion42’s pics from EsoZone

Above: a short video from Soup Purse’s workshop on audio processing as invocation and divination.

Pictures from Soup Purse’s workshop.

This is it! EsoZone is upon us again!

If you want to volunteer, please show up around noon. Otherwise, doors open at 6pm.

It’s free, so bring anyone who’s interested!

And don’t forget the EsoZone Astral Temple if you can’t make it in person.

A word about parking:

Please park on or around Schiller, on the north side of the bridge, to avoid getting your car towed and/or getting our hosts in trouble.

Frater Zir will lead a group astral projection to an EsoZone astral temple this Saturday October 10th at EsoZone at 3pm PST. Those who can’t participate in the actual event are invited to join on the astral plane.

For the purposes of this working, I have chosen to locate the EZOSONE Astral Temple (EZTRAL) inside of an orb of liquid metal, floating in the molten viscous fluid in the very center of the Earth.

Within this orb, on the horizontal axis, circumscribing the perimiter are four sphinxes, marking the quarters, facing in toward the center of the temple. Above the center of the temple is an octagonal window, thru which the night sky can be seen. In the center of the floor is an octagonal pool of black fluid, upon which we will skry the vision.

Floating above this pool is a seed pod, about the size of a basketball. Its composition is a hybrid of organic and cybernetic materials. This sentient seed could be viewed as a chaosphere, upon/into which we will be focusing our intentions and interpretations of what the ESOZONE phenomenon means, what it will foster, how it will evolve, why it exists.

The first Esozone could be iconographically described as a key, which unlocked the gateway to a more practical and interpersonally direct understanding of our modern version of the esoteric community, which until then largely existed in the virtual realms. The second, a pyramid, which allowed us to climb to meet the sky, bringing us to the understanding that the stars of this EZ phenomenon are none other than ourselves.

This year, the meaning is as much a mystery as the previous two, but the intent has evolved into a free assembly of modern esoterics connected on the virtual and organic levels, a hope for the phenomenon to spread to other locales, an uncertainty of what kind of information will be presented, by whom, and for what purposes. It is up to us, ours for the making and taking, right here and now, free of charge, open to all.

Therefore, charge this cyber-ganic EZTRAL seed with your unique intentions for the future of this far-reaching community of free individuals, and contemplate in the pool below on the manifested information which the group’s effort transmits back to you. At the ritual’s peak, we will lift the seed to the sky, and focus our intent upon it with an intensity which will heighten to the point that it explodes, sending forth genetic copies of itself outward to the far reaches of this planet, in the hopes that these seeds will find fertility, and manifest in future ESOZONE festivals in other places, linking back to our efforts here at “Headquarters,” and blossom into a cornucopia of previously unseen communal fruit.

And have a happy harvest season, while you’re at it.

And feel free to project yourself forward or backwards in time if 3pm on Saturday doesn’t work for you.

Better late than never! EsoZone t-shirts are now available. I just got a sample one, and Bob does it look sharp!

Artwork by the incomparable Ian McEwan.

Joe Matheny interviews Jillian and me for Gspot:

After EsoZone Portland 2009, we will release the “EsoZone Protocol,” a set of guidelines similar to an open source software license that will enable organizers to host an EsoZone in their own city as long as they are free and follow the “unconference” model.

Download it here

In an incident here on this site I’d rather not revisit, but must, I lost my temper with Danny during an argument about various rights to EsoZone and hurled some personal insults at him that were unfair, hypocritical, had no place in a public conversation.

The EsoZone rights questions were eventually resolved, and in fact Danny is once again doing design work for EsoZone (some volunteer, some paid), but I feel this apology is long overdue and necessary. I can’t take back the things that I said, but I can apologize for them.

Danny – I’m sorry.

This year EsoZone – the third annual Portland conference dedicated to the occult, fringe science, and other offbeat topics – is forgoing a pre-planned schedule in favor of letting attendees create their own agenda.

On October 9th, participants will arrive at Watershed PDX and collaboratively create the schedule. The event will be free and open to the public, and anyone will be able to propose a session, lead a workshop, or suggest a group activity. The approach is called “unconferencing,” a technique pioneered by tech-industry events.

Portland has played host to a number of unconferences in the past few years, including BarCamp, WordCamp, and CyborgCamp.

Event organizers Klint Finley and Jillian Ordes-Finley were inspired to transform EsoZone into an unconference after attending CyborgCamp in December of 2008.

“I was amazed at how quickly the schedule was put together at CyborgCamp, and how smoothly the event ran. We’d agonized over the EsoZone schedule for months and were still changing things at the last minute. I was really impressed by how the whole unconference model worked,” Finley says.

The pair hope this new approach will help EsoZone better reach its goal: fostering connections between its eclectic and oftentimes outsider audience. Finley says “This should be a better platform for getting people to interact each other, and making sure the event centers around the subject matter the attendees really want to discuss.”

EsoZone will use the same scheduling system used by CyborgCamp and BarCamp. Participants will propose sessions on 8.5 x 11 pieces of sticky paper and place them on a large schedule grid on the wall. The sessions can then be rearranged as necessary as attendees negotiate times and spaces for each session. New sessions can be added to empty slots at any time during the event.

In order to give people an idea of what to expect, the organizers are encouraging likely participants to propose subjects on their online forum in advance of the event. However, nothing will be decided until the actual event.

EsoZone will also be exhibiting esoteric art by a variety of artists. “Watershed is such a cavernous space, we have room for a staggering amount of artwork,” Ordes-Finley says. Although artists will be allowed to hang art the day of the event, they are encouraged to check in ahead of time if they have questions or could have any logistical issues.

More information, and contact details, are available at esozone.com

After EsoZone, enjoy the Cyclone of Slack!

Featuring:

REV. IVAN STANG!
DR. HOWLAND OWL!
PRINCESS WEI R. DOE!
REV. DR. ONAN CANOBITE!
THE DUKE OF UKE!
REV. CRAWFORD!

With the Musical Stylings of:

POWER CIRCUS!
NEQUAQUAM VACUUM!
CULT OF ZIR!

And:

an utter lack of NENSLO!

More Info

What is Ignite?

If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Around the world geeks have been putting together Ignite nights to show their answers.

Ignite was started in Seattle in 2006 by Brady Forrest and Bre Pettis. Since then 100s of 5 minute talks have been given across the world. There are thriving Ignite communities in Seattle, Portland, Paris, and NYC.

We’re pleased to announce that EsoZone will be hosting a one hour Ignite during EsoZone on Saturday afternoon, October 10th.

Of course, there’s a twist.

Instead of 20 slides, at EsoZone Ignite speakers will use 5 props. The time will still be exactly 5 minutes. Speakers must incorporate all 5 props, and must speak for exactly 5 minutes.

Want to do it? Send a proposal to klint @ renegadefuturist dot com. Up to 10 talks will be selected by a panel. The deadline is September 15th, 2009.

Be sure to check out the next Ignite Portland this Thursday if you’re in town to see how the whole thing works, or check the Ignite web site for a schedule of Ignites in other cities.

You might also want to check out the BIL Speaker Guidelines for some general ideas for how to give a good talk.

(Please note that there is no relation between Ignite EsoZone Portland and Ignite Portland)

EsoZone Portland 2009 admission is free. We are funding this year’s event through sponsorships, merchandise, individual donations. We hope to raise as much in individual sponsorships as the cost of a single sponsorship fee – $250.

Speaking of which, if you’re interested in sponsoring, you can find more information here.

Esozone Portland 2009 will be an FREE unconference October 9-10. And for those who haven’t heard, I’m back in the saddle as organizer.

ANNOUNCEMENT:
Esozone Portland 2009
The New Esozone

The Esozone virus is resilient. It mutates and evolves. Faced with a rapidly changing environment, Esozone has rewritten its own code.

No more admission fees, no more weekend passes, no more divide between speaker and spoken-to. The new Esozone is an unconference, an open environment with an agenda determined by its own participants.

Esozone Portland 2009 will be held on Friday night, October 9, and all day Saturday, October 10. It will bring together renegade philosophers, experimental magicians, visionary artists, outsider academics, street entrepreneurs, mad scientists, sexy satanists, conspiracy theorists, benevolent pranksters, fearless psychonauts and other shameless mutants for two days of discussions, demonstrations and interaction from participants who are the main actors of the event.

Come for free, but be ready to share. Bring what you do and what you know. Bring who you are. This year, Esozone is all about you.

Coming soon: a FAQ, forums, and announcements about after parties and other events that weekend.

Announcing the new Esozone

From Esozone.com

Announcing…

EsoZone 2009: Power

October 9-11, 2009
Portland, OR

Logistics Director: Vin Al Ken
Stage Director: Nolon Ashley
Operations Director: Johnny Brainwash

Watch this space for more infos.

Plus: Esozone coverage in High Times (Maybe Rolling Stone next year?)

Update: A Public Apology to Danny Chaoflux for my out-of-line comments here and following.

For the record:

I put off saying anything until I’d talked to the current Esozone staff, and determined where things stand legally.

Danny does not and never has owned the Esozone trademark. I do. I was financially and legally responsible for Esozone from the beginning. To be honest I’m a bit sick of people who think they have a claim to ownership over the project because they spent a lot of time talking about it on the Internet.

I’m in the process of transferring the ownership of the trademark to the current Esozone staff, and it will be up to them if the want to make “Esozone” an open brand. It’s not really my place to make that decision at this point, it’s up to the people who did the actual work to make the event happen (as opposed to just talking about it) and who are now responsible for making it happen again.

As many people know, I embrace free culture, going so far as to open all my creative works to the public domain. But it’s a bit trickier when it comes to identity.

It’s much easier for someone like Danny, who has no responsibility for what happens with the name “Esozone” to say that anyone can use it. It’s hard for me to begrudge the people who will actually have to deal with fallout of fraudulent use of the name for wanting to have some say in how it’s used. If someone holds an event and calls it “Esozone” pre-sells a bunch of tickets, and skips town the money, Danny and I aren’t the ones who are going to deal with it. If some Gary Spivey type puts on some cornball psychic scam event and calls it Esozone, we aren’t the ones who get slimed by the association. The guys who are putting labor and money into Esozone are the ones effected by it.

In short: do not listen to what Danny Chaoflux tells you about Esozone. He has no moral or legal authority regarding it. What he does with his own designs – the logo (which was stolen from the Alien screenplay anyway), the ouija board, etc. are his own prerogative. But the only people with the authority to make decisions about the use of the name Esozone are the organizers of Esozone.

Esozone stage manager Nolon Ashley writes:

for the time being, i’m only going to say that’s going to have to remain a mystery until we flesh it out more. but at this point, we have a team of 3 individuals committed and clear about the context of the means of operating, ready to go forward.

yes, we are insisting it will be as large as the previous years (the definition for ‘large’ remains flexible). in other words, we’re not going to slap together a half-assed scaled back version of the previous attempts and call it the same thing.

that is all i’m going to say for now, except that if you have an interesting idea for a presentation, activity, or performance, we’d sure like to hear about it.

/me contemplates the need to build a second computer so that his girlfriend can still get her work done. probably a phone and a car needed, too. damn.

lots of work to do, delicious!

stay tuned!

Over the weekend I informed the other Esozone organizers that I’m officially leaving the organizing/planning structure of the event.

It’s been an insane two and a half years since we started planning the first Esozone, and my life has changed tremendously, internally and externally, since then. It’s time for me to move on to new projects. I’m not taking up anything new as of yet, I’ve got enough dangling projects to work on to keep me busy for the time being. But I’ve got lots of ideas for things I’ve wanted to do but haven’t had time. So it’s refreshing to be entering 2009 with a fresh start.

I plan on attending Esozone this fall and look forward to what the team puts on.

Many many more photos at Flickr. Photos courtesy of Beth Wozniak.

Sign up for our mailing list to be notified when we have our video footage from the event online. (Note: the mailing list is the same as the RSS feed, so there is no need to subscribe to both).

Full Story: Alterati

Turkish coffee ground divination is one of breakcore goddess Hecate’s lesser known talents. At Esozone, she read for Clyde Lewis (above right), and Baphomat appeared in the grounds.

More on this, plus Clyde interviewing Rex Church and Freeman at Ground Zero Lounge.

Plus: Here’s the Portland Tribune’s coverage, which focuses mostly on the Satanism angle.

Thanks again to everyone who came to Esozone. We were pleased with both the quality and quantity of this year’s attendees. But I’d also like to devote attention to those who weren’t at Esozone, with a little poll to find out why:

Take the poll here

Esozone starts tomorrow! That means today is the last day to order your pre-sale tickets and save money. Click here to buy now.

An alternative but not necessarily parallel universe is forming in Southeast Portland this weekend.

They call “Esozone: the other tomorrow” a festival, but don’t expect corn dogs and Ferris wheels. Fringe thinkers, visionary artists and occult musicians from around the world will gather at Watershed, a rambling, ramshackle building near Sellwood for a weekend of … well … the inexplicable.

Noah Mickens, who will take part in the festivities, defines it this way: “Esozone is an exhibition of scientists, philosophers, magicians and performance artists, gathered together by a subculture of young radicals who don’t recognize the distinction between the four.”

Of course, you still may be a little fuzzy about exactly what goes on. You’re not alone.

Full Story: the Oregonian

If you haven’t bought your ticket to Esozone, what are you waiting for? The event begins a week from tomorrow so buy now!

Tomorrow night at Watershed will be our gallery unveiling and free movie night. Come by and check it out – assuming everything goes according to plan on their end we’ll be screening Zeitgeist 2 which is coming out tomorrow. If it doesn’t actually come out tomorrow, we’ll show something else.

Esozone