2025 Festival Talk Notes
by Davide gombaCiao. Random notes, this page may change quickly. Previous 2024 version of this doc here.
This short video tells the story of the latest version of Lutopia at Ozora last year (2024), codenamed: The Ozorian Experiment
It's a video and a milestone in teaching and sharing experiences in the Festival-verse. I guess we are ready to bring the talk and a lighter version of the workshop to other festivals!
This is an addendum to the activities held during Lutopia workshops around, namely in Festivals and TAZs. As I write this ongoing description I have three Festivals in mind (basically because I can't afford to attend more in an year :) )
- Ozora Festival (HU)
- Fusion Festival (DE)
- Universo Parallelo (BR)
I deeply thanks Bunnie himself, my dear friend Michelle Thorne and Bruce Sterling to help me reaching this notes, as well as my son Djibril, the very first person I shared this tame idea on Febraury the 20th, 2024. A thought to Eric Pan and Peter Pan for some confrontational chats.
Some talk notes. The Whys
I am experiencing a Catabasis.
I am envisioning a Palingenesis.
The intention of this talk is to intrigue and inform the audience about a series of phenomena of which they themselves are, partially or totally, already aware of.
We are going to have fun.
Progress and the Digital Citizen
Whether you want it or not, even if it is not present in any Constitution, today our experience as citizens is underpinned by the presence of an electronic device that we strive to call a ‘phone’ but which is less and less used as such.
It is our key to many activities, and without it in some countries we would now have great difficulty asserting our rights.
The operating system, the vast majority of applications in the device and their production are the expression of various geopolitical forces that in one way or another exploit their position of dominance by pandering to their own agenda, not that of the citizens (of which State, BTW?).
The very agenda of these corporations is more and more distant from the interests of a state, and we are getting closer and closer to the dynamics of a cyberpunk world.
cyberpunk high tech low life
Source
Laws about what we can and cannot do. On what our privacy and our rights are enshrined in the
GDPR in Europe, and other EULAs, but we have repeatedly seen how weak these laws and rules are.
How often these new Techno-Vassals enter in our lives with their opinions, their requests of attention: the true coin of this age.
These places do not belong to us; they are not our property. This concept is told very well by Yannis Varoufakis' book "Techno Feudalism" in which we are metaphorically represented as the serfs in the Middle Ages willing to work the master's land in order to benefit from its fruits. It is not our land. We oftens disguise our instagram profile feed as our diary. It's indeed our little place of land.
An increasingly smaller world
Another consideration that touches me is the size of the world we find ourselves living in, which is getting smaller and less accessible. Mobility has decreased, and conflicts undermine our individual freedoms.
My son (2004) will travel less than I (1982) in the world, and I - oddly enough - in my own way have travelled less than my father (1952), who lived through the West's most exciting time growing up. The best of the 20th century.
But what does this have to do with transformative festivals, festival goers, us?
When I think back to the Lutopia years, I am always amazed at how extremely inclusive it was, allowing many people who would traditionally see themselves as distant from technology to get their hands on it.
To have fun with it.
Learning how to solder electronic components, repairing devices and even programming, playing with LEDs and batteries, and understanding how technology is a means and not an end, and how this tool could allow us to play an active role in society.
So ultimately, one of the purposes of the workshop is a very strong political message of reappropriation of tools in an era when we are increasingly inclined to benefit passively from them.
These transformational festivals (small, anonymous TAZs ) seem to be meant to confront in your head a new idea, to free your brain to a sea of possibilities.
Some would say it's the inherent neuroplasticity of the psychedelic, substance experience, but I think it's really a result in your experience of going somewhere else, outside your comfort zone.
Sleeping in a tent, hearing different languages and music from everywhere etc.
And then there is radio.
Radio has always been an ontologically anarchic experience.
A tightrope between anarchy and super powers. The idea that a signal could (can) cross seas and mountains and reach someone with a message is evidence of an inconceivable and inherently distributed force.
So many memories and anecdotes come to mind, the anarchy of Radio Alice or the MV Mi Amigo and the amateur radio movement
I am reminded of the bust of Marconi on the walk to Cristo Redentor in Rio de Janeiro. When they inaugurated the statue (1931), its lighting was at the hands of the Pope in Rome, through Marconi's radio. Meu deus do céu!
I have observed in recent years the coming of as many as three LoRa (868Mhz radio) experiences distributed across Europe:
- The Things Network (free and bottom-up)
- Helium Network (free and bottom-up, but profitable through Helium crypto, and its blockchain. Also a wave, refracted)
- Meshtastic (more all-purpose than the first two that were only related to communication between "things," whereas meshtastic is more of a chat with the ability to send telemetry data from node to node)
Who do we see on the horizon: Amazon Sidewalk , which is about to land in Europe. Little anarchy here, I would say.
Of all these experiences I make meshtastic's my own. It is interesting how Chinese Shanzaism has really productively espoused this talk of anonymous mesh networks.
In a very short time large and smaller companies have tried their hand at creating meshtastic ready devices. LILYGO , RAK . As I’m writing this (early march ‘24), I’m sure there will be all kind of different product by the beginning of summer.
I could design and prototype a badge myself, but I don’t know how I would be able to compete with the kings of Shanzaism [1]
[1] I don’t really like this definition of Shanzai, which is partial. Shanzai is not anymore just about copycats. I see a lot of creativity and the gift to know market and anticipate it. I could be a good collaborator for a Shanzai company lol
Let's pull the strings
Lutopia '25 will add this element of education regarding totally off the grids in a festival discourse that will become urban, upon return. An entirely useful skill in this era, adding new skills to express the right of citizenship.
As we speak - following last year example in the video above, many groups of cool people are designing solar, standalone nodes with powerful antennas to allow better comunication using these new tools.
Let's rock # presentation # comms