It’s been a long, long time since I felt this way. A really long time. I’ve not looked upon dance and been stimulated to remember not only what it means to me, but what the possibility art has on society.

I don’t say that lightly – and in this case Jodi Lomask’s company, Capacitor (so aptly described by Ariel Schwartz in her article for Fast Company, as the “The Cirque Du Soleil Of Environmental Science“) has me floating. What touches me so deeply about this mash-up of dancers, acrobats, musicians and scientists is that they have been what I have been waiting for! While I have spent years working with installation artists (with great joy) my training as a dancer has been yearning for science and movement to coalesce. In this case it has. Jodi, and her team, have created a piece that is a living ocean. Using only a few devices to support the weightless of ocean, the group has found a way to explore what we cannot see – and it is exactly this daring, to bring to us the depth of life below the sea that I find so promising for the arts.

Staring April 12-15, Okeanos, a dance two years in the making, will premier at Fort Mason in San Francisco. BLUEMiND is thrilled to share a small segment of the stage on closing night at the Okeanos premier, April 15th AT 6:30pm.  **Tickets here: http://bit.ly/xDsvI3 

(Performance is at 8:00pm, with after show eco-cafes).

I am going to quote Ariel of Fast Company here, because she nailed it:

“Dr. Sylvia Earle, famed oceanographer and TED Prize winner, is known for her ocean advocacy work. Advocacy takes many forms, but even Earle probably never predicted that her explanations of the intricacies of ocean life would be used as part of a multimedia dance performance, complete with acrobats, giant video screens, and on-stage interpretations of overfishing.

It’s safe to say that Capacitor is unique in the dance world. Founded in 1997 by choreographer Jodi Lomask, the dance company does its best to interpret scientific phenomena without sacrificing artistic integrity. Every show explores a different aspect of the natural world. “The truth is, I begin with a vague feeling of where I want to go. This isn’t a physical destination, but a metaphysical one. In the past I have wanted to go into outer space or the deep Earth, to the top of the trees and, in this case, the bottom of the ocean,” says Lomask, who doesn’t have a formal science background but grew up around scientists (her father was a physicist).

Each dance performance is workshopped beforehand in Capacitor Labs–a think tank-style collaboration that brings together scientists, engineers, and dancers. The Capacitor Lab for Okeanos was held over a six month period at the California Academy of Sciences (CAS).

“In these monthly meetings, the creative team would be given a 20 minute lecture by one or two marine biologists or oceanographers and then present for 20 minutes on their craft and how he or she was approaching this particular project. We also show the dance as we develop it there, receiving feedback from the rest of the creative team and the scientists,” explains Lomask.”

- Ariel Schwartz, Fast Company

When Jodi asked me to do two things, 1. sit on her board 2. produce a BLUEMiND event, I seriously swooned. I am, by all accounts, a huge romantic – but mix dance and oceans and I become really gushy, inspired and then a compulsive megaphone. I’ve become undone by the power of the company’s desire to share the two years of study, ocean swimming, surfing, sitting under water looking at plankton, and then find a way to make this all into movement.

Critically speaking, this dance could not come at a more important time. We have been inundated with mainly horrific images and news about the ocean. Okeanos offers us a respite from the tragic, and a view into the sublime.

Yet, for those who are not ocean people (and that is the case for many – they are drawn to mountains and trees, lakes or cities) why should a dance replicating the ocean in all of it’s mystery, sass, darkness, and predatory moments, be relevant? Perhaps it is because our ancestors come from the ocean. That alone is pretty cool. Additionally, no matter how you shake it, some of our most critical memories are shaped at the ocean/seaside – and our global need to have a nostalgic relationship to the ocean is undeniable.

In the past two years our community within BLUEMiND (shaped of cognitive neuroscientists, futurists, media artists, marine biologists, and passionate graduate students compelled by the BLUEMiND idea/movement of NeuroConservation) has been exploring our brain’s critical interrelationship with the ocean. This in not just your brain on chocolate (though I can’t get my mind off that ever!) – it is an exploration of the brain’s (and mind’s) need for the ocean not only relaxation (so put down by western culture), but the possible public health, conservation, and treatments for everything from PTSD to addiction. From Stanford, Duke to MIT, this exploration is being taken very seriously, and we are devoted to this very fluid, yet very serious study (and emerging cultural Meme).

So, BLUEMiND is thrilled to share a small segment of the stage on closing night at the Okeanos premier, April 15th and 6:30pm.

The theme is “Our Mind on Ocean, our Brain on Memory” and the following remarkable people will be speaking (and I will be a very happy M.C.). It’s delightful that our panel is coming from up and down California (leaving surgery early, lectures, training to surf, and producing) to support the work of Capacitor. Who’s sharing:

Dr. Wallace J. Nichols – Marine Biologist, Founder of BLUEMiND
Dr. Amir Vokshoor – Brain Surgeon, Founder of Institute of Neuro Innovation (http://inifoundation.org)
Farhana Huq – Surfer/explorer, Founder of Brown Girl Surf
Dr. M.A. Greenstein (Dr. G) – Applied neuroscience innovator, Founder of (The Greenstein Institute) GGI
MC: Sarah Kornfeld – Hybrid Communicator/Producer, founding collaborator of BLUEMiND – WhatSarahSees

Ultimately, we’ll explore the science of memory and the unique experiences that create nostalgia. Can ocean nostalgia be a driving force for better protection, restoration and more empathy? Additionally, the 2nd BLUMiND summit will be held June 5, 2012, in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

So, please join Capacitor as they bring you Okeanos – and meet up with BLUEMiND-Okeanos on April 15th (please, taxes? What’s a better way to forget that loss with the rich heart of dance and ocean!) as we go deep into the Blue, of memory and beauty.

Please buy tickets here and come for a very full evening of discussion, dance and conservation.  **Tickets here: http://bit.ly/xDsvI3

(Link to Huffington Post http://huff.to/sTemOQ)

By Wallace J. Nichols and Sarah Kornfeld

Our brains have an amazing ability to do something: hide a world of truth from us. We’re able to tune out the blinking lights and honking horns, the stress of work, the underwater mortgage, and those inappropriate clothes and music our kids prefer. Meanwhile, people around the world survive war, abuse, hunger, chronic disease and floods. Our brains excel at rationalization and self-deception helping us handle the grit of living.

Billions of feelings, tactile senses, memories, sounds, smells and a barrage of voices are all around us. Most of the time our brain insulates and protects us from the rest of the abundant information in the universe that isn’t in our direct focus. But that thick padding comes with a cost. It means we really have no idea — most of the time — why and how we do what we do.

This concept might deeply challenge the idea of our lives happening because things are “meant to be”, or that we have a “higher calling” or we can “will things happen”. We certainly have brilliant insights, accurate intuitions and strokes of genius. It’s seems that our subconscious leads us to make decisions that feel like they come from someplace else, yet really happening inside us.

It’s tough because we’ve been working hard for a long time to understand why we do what we do. We have therapy, religion, hallucinagens and many other practices that we use to try to understand who we are. Yet new information about the brain need not rule out all the tools we’ve been using. Instead it could be a “power tool”. The way the brain processes (and hides) information is one of the great scientific insights of our era. And though seemingly heretical when looked at through more traditional lenses, it’s an amazing, mysterious and transcendent ecosystem of new ideas.

These ideas have led the cognitive scientist David Eagleman to coin the term “Possibillian” to describe the confident state of unknowningness. A Possibilian takes into account that we may have a deep connection both to the unknown, what some may call mysticism, as well as the great scientific discoveries of neuroscience and astrophysics. A Possibilian encourages us to stay open to all the far out possibilities unfolding with regard to our mind and the universe.

But, let’s back up. Way, way, way up.

Who are we?

We are people who live on a very small, apparently unique, blue planet. Our planet came about within the context of an unfathomably ancient universe in constant change filled mostly with invisible dark matter. Our planet is apparently surrounded by an infinitely shifting cosmos, gasses and suns in every direction, which we know something about, but really almost nothing. Our lives are a minuscule, temporary flash by comparison to the vastness of the universe. Yet we often feel invincible. We see ourselves as masters of the whole shooting match.

Our small planet is blue because of water. From a million-or even a billion-miles away, Earth appears blue.

Our ancestors came out of the water, evolved from swimming to crawling to walking. They developed remarkably complex brains, as well, necessary to move successfully through nature encountering constant unexpected challenges.

We started small on this blue planet-and we are descendants from, relatives of and subsidiary to the ocean.

This is not a biology or an astronomy lesson, rather it might be an amazing clue to how we can alter how we treat the planet. We literally have “blue minds”.

And we’re literally seated here now, virtually connected, pondering our evolutionary state with our future on the line.

Over the past year an open source community called BLUEMiND has taken up the task of exploring the human mind-ocean connection. Some of the finest thinkers in cognitive neuroscience, ocean exploration, media and art have gathered at the California Academy of Sciences, the Bioneers conference, and with leaders at the Environmental Defense Fund. Now the idea of exploring the intersection of conservation with how our brains process empathy, gratitude, fear and protection is starting to travel the world. It’s the beginning of a new field, and it all points to our brains’ critical need for the ocean: our planet’s largest, most-dominant system.

After a screening of his film “Transcendent Man”, famed futurist and author Ray Kurzweil was asked why he loves the ocean. The most poignant scene in the movie depicts Kurzweil quietly contemplating the sea and himself. He replied that: “It’s a metaphor for the way the brain is organized.”

The grand duchess of the environmental movement, Frances Moore Lappé (author of “Diet for a Small Planet” and the new book “EcoMind: Changing the Way We Think, to Create the World We Want”) stated,”The first step is getting people to realize that the current metaphors aren’t working … we have to think about these issues differently.” She continues, “There’s nothing inexorable” about the environmental problems at hand. “It’s a matter of how we perceive them …” (Santa Cruz Weekly, 9/11/11)

It’s said that those who control the frame, control the contest. We must reclaim the framework with which we see the world: we must engage with our minds to help us achieve this goal.

Here’s what we’ve learned about our blue minds:

- Our brains sit in saline and craves a connection to the planet’s ocean on a deeply primal level tied to our evolution.

- Doing “one small thing” for the planet does not mean you will stick to doing good -our brains heal and change with our complex relationships to people and nature experienced outdoors.

- The ocean isn’t just pretty, it stimulates our health-both psychologically and physically. We might be staring at a new approach to public health based on the ocean, one now being taken seriously by doctors and scientists.

So, this huge body of water, our one world ocean, impacts our remarkably powerful brains in ways we’ve always felt but are only beginning to know. Together, we occupy this planet, and together our minds and the sea have an interdependency beyond the fish, whales and sea turtles, ecosystems and biodiversity, or economic benefits. The water and our neurons need each other to live.

How can your blue mind help change the world?

To get healthy, get near, in, on or under the ocean more often. The ocean can literally suck the stress from you.
Demand that polluters don’t destroy the very thing our brains need to evolve.

Learn all you can about your brain, and teach it to the kids. Especially as it intersects with nature.

Or, as we like to say, LIVEBLUE and swim in the possibilities of your blue mind.

This is an interview that is typically techno: Neil Ever Osborne and I did it email via email, and Wallace J Nichols and I over a beer with little wi-fi. It was great fun to interview my ocean brothers, and bioneers on this amazing adventure they are having called, “Faces of Chelonia”.

Both Neil and J are scientists, but they are artists, media makers and are making a profound impact on turtle health, and the use of art/imagery to explore the planet, and beauty.

** All images by Neil Ever Osborne

——————————————————————————————–

SK: Ok, you first Neil. How did you find photography? Did looking at pictures influence you, or did a camera find you?
NEO: I have just a simple answer. Before I was a photographer, I was a biologist. When I realized I could communicate with more diverse and larger audiences through images, it was easy to swap research-measuring tools for the camera!

SK: Once you had a camera what were the topics, or subjects that interested you most?

NEO: I guess you can say I’ve remained intrigued by the scientific and natural world, so my assignments and personal work are almost exclusively centered on an environmental topic or issue. It takes me to some fascinating places!

SK: J, how did you find Turtles, or how did they find you?

WJN: I’ve been a bit of a turtle and math geek since I was a kid. We used to catch snapping turtles and paint numbers on their shells and use simple algebra to estimate the size of the population based on recaptures. Turtles have been a steady obsession ever since. I just like them.

SK: J, you’re a biologist, but you also have a degree in economics, oh, and you are also a media maker. How did this mish-mash come together, and why?

WJN: I was always interested in problem solving more than any particular academic discipline. So I’ve just learned about the tools that I think are needed, often by hanging around the people I know are best at those things, be they photographers, designers or neuroscientists.

SK: So, Neil, when did the blending of science and art/art and science come into your consciousness?

NEO: I’m still learning the power of this convergence. But, it is clear to me this is the direction conservation needs to head. Conservation communications should not be a novel term, but in many conversations it still is. As these worlds collide, I think we’ll see more work coming from the emerging genre of conservation photography, and other communication platforms. Our next step is to start quantifying the role each can play with the other.

SK: Same question for you J. When did the blending of science and art/art and science come into your consciousness?
WJN: In high school I liked science, but was singled out by faculty for my writing. I told the head of the English Department that I was going to be a biologist who could write. He wanted it the other way around. It was then that I realized that I liked the blend of art and science, or science and art, as the case may be. The two strands wind around each other so easily.

I’ve sold a couple of images to National Geographic, so I’m now retired as a photographer ; )

SK: Neil, do you think photography can change the world? Or, people’s attitude towards place?

NEO: More and more I find myself saying that photography and imagery might not change the world, but it could be the factor that changes the mind of someone who can.

SK: J, what about you. Do you believe in “changing the world” Or images being  a part of that?

WJN: Anything or anyone can potentially change anyone or anything. Especially in this era of speed-of-light communication. Why limit the opportunities?

SK: Neil, What is your most recent project, it has to do with turtles….ya?

NEO: In the latest chapter of my Faces of Chelonia project, which depicts sea turtle conservation stories from around the world, J. and I are returning to the Baja California Sur coastline to bring back one of the most positive conservation tales around. We’ll introduce the public to a movement that started more than a decade ago with some very unlikely characters. It will be a novel contribution to the media where we are constantly informed about what is going wrong in the world. If this excites you, you can support our project here:

PLEASE LINK BELOW FOR A WONDERFUL VIDEO AND A PLACE TO DONATE:

Emphas.is: http://bit.ly/qagRa2

SK: Do you feel that photography of nature is left out of the “canon” of museums? Or, does that not really matter?

NEO: These days, I’m spending most of my time trying to find outlets for my work and other photographers’ projects that align with audiences who might be influential in making decisions that affect the conservation issue. So, I’m more interested in the novel deliverables that get images into the face of the right people. More often this is the public who can persuade policy makers, but I’m looking to target specific audiences as well.

SK: Finally, J, what’s it like for you to work with Neil? Is there a different kind of collaboration or process you experience, as opposed to those in the labs you help run, or the projects you do on land?

WJN: Beyond the theory and rhetoric, Neil and I work well together. He’s easy to travel and camp with and we like the same kind of beer. I think people say, “those guys who love turtles are kind of crazy, fun to work with and polite.” So we build rapport, friendships and get invited back. And that’s much more important to the conservation process than you may think.

By Wallace J. Nichols, Sarah Kornfeld and Andy Myers (as seen in The Huffington Post)

The stuff of war is the stuff of art.  Some of the earliest cave drawings depict tribal strife.  Since before history, the material and materiel of war has served as a vast palette for artists to explore and explain the times in which they live.

Eighteen-year-old Lovetta Conto designs jewelry—some is made of fine metal, but others are shaped from bullet casings pulled from the soil of her native Liberia, a nation rent by civil war.  Lovetta crafts beauty from bullets, finding meaning in the things that have ripped her homeland apart.  No daisies, no meadows, no fairy tales for Lovetta.  She’s a child who escaped civil war, suffering and violence to look upon the world with the eyes of an artist.

(Image left – “see food” sculpture by artist Karissa Vasil)

Today, we are in the midst of a new sort of invasion, not of foreign armies but one that is often invisible and insidious.  In this occupation, we are willing if unwitting participants in our own oppression.  The materiel of this occupation is not hand grenades and bullets, it drifts in the ocean and washes up on our shores.  The material of this invasion is plastic.
Our oceans are fringed with this toxic residue.  The ground is layered with plastic straws and bottle caps.  Rivers carry minute colorful fragments. The wildest most isolated animals on our planet have our trash in their stomachs.  The chemicals from these materials occupy our bodies and will be passed to the next generation.

Each day scientists churn out new data on the total volume of plastic entering the biosphere, the hundreds of species harmed by plastic pollution, and the health threats related to plastic.  Economists have documented the staggering costs to society of this misguided invasion, the most devastating of which will be pushed off on those without voices: the disenfranchised, the unborn, and the endangered members of our animal kingdom.

Like Lovetta and her necklaces made of bullets, artists and designers are using the stuff of their occupying force—plastic—to create meaning for the world.

Photographer Chris Jordan has been traveling to Midway Island, one of the most remote places in the world, over the past year to document albatross carcasses whose guts are filled with plastic.  The birds eat plastic from the sea and feed it to their babies.  Jordan photographs the contents of the dead birds intact to show the reality of the plastic inside them.  His work has made him aware that he is both artist and subject—the one taking the picture and the one in the picture, though perhaps not literally.  In the plastic, Jordan sees himself—a citizen of a consumption-dominated world trying hard not to contribute to the problem he is documenting. http://bit.ly/bQZh63

“Standing over the dead bodies of these magnificent creatures filled with our plastic garbage is like looking into a macabre mirror,” the photographer told us.  “The tiny brain of an albatross is unable to distinguish between what is nourishing and what is harmful; and yet with all of our advanced intelligence, we humans suffer from this same lack of discernment.”

Lila Roo welds costumes out of plastic pollution and performs elaborate interpretive dances.  Recently at the TEDx conference in Santa Monica she appeared as a raptor in plastic made from truck-stop waste gathered from across America. She wears toxic things as a cry for action—and to call upon the traditions of theater and visual imagery to shock the viewer into seeing the world anew. http://bit.ly/fYsfEw

(Opposite: Lila Roo “Oil and Water”)

Dianna Cohen works with plastic to create sculptures, clothing and artifacts   http://bit.ly/fLuT0H.  When she was making her work initially she believed that there must be a way to lift the plastic out of the world, to “hoover” it up and transport it somewhere in one fell swoop.  As she learned that this was impossible, that mere removal or recycling is not possible as a total solution, she was filled with despair.  So, Cohen turned her despair into more art, and then went on to co-found the Plastic Pollution Coalition to address the issue head on.

Plastic is not a benign occupier, it is toxic.  Nothing about it—from its genesis as petroleum, to the manufacturing plant, to your life, to its recycled resurrection—is clean.  Plastic is toxic through and through and it never breaks down or disappears.  It just wears down, it fragments and it gets smaller.

At some point it gets so small that fish begin to think it’s plankton.  The smaller it gets the deeper it buries itself in our soils and sands, beside our food and our water.  Plastic becomes so small it is virtually invisible in our daily lives, but it never, ever goes away.  We have created it and it is ours, forever.

It is only natural that artists would use plastic: because plastics are pervasive, because they are strong and malleable, because they are colorful.  Artists see the plastics all about them and they see ideas.  They see meaning.  They see beauty.

This is nothing new.  For ages, artists have used what is around them to tell the story of their time.  These days, some are choosing shell casings and plastic pollution the way their predecessors chose wood or marble.  For Lovetta, Chris, Lila and Dianna the materials they work with are the materials of life and death.  They are committed to using art to
educate and to create beauty from the profane, working with the very materials they would like to dispel from the planet.  They are documenting a global crisis of consumption.

There is a risk that their art may transform the medium too well and make plastic pollution look too beautiful, masking the true nature of the invasion.  It is this paradox—the juxtaposition of the beautiful and the ugly, the sacred and the profane, the life-affirming and the deadly—that makes their work so powerful and filled with meaning.  It is a fine line to walk for those deeply gifted at creating beauty.  Art can and should create discomfort—even when it looks beautiful.

As Jordan has cautioned, “by dwelling on the awfulness of these tragedies—and the smorgasbord of others we survey in the news every day—we may lose our already tenuous connection with life’s beauty, mystery, humor and joy.”

As we make art from death and waste, we ought to keep in mind its role in shaping the future.

Sun Tzu famously stated “all warfare is based on deception.”  The same might be said of art.  When artists turn deadly things into beautiful things they are deceiving us to win the war of ideas.  Art that deceives also enlightens, enrages, shocks and provokes.  And, it leads to change.  The choice is ours.  We can heed the artists and the scientists and force out these occupying toxic armies, changing the future of our planet for the better.  Or, we can do nothing and succumb to the plastic invasion.

“Even something as ugly as a bullet that was fired in a war can be made beautiful,” Lovetta Conto wrote, “if you are willing to work to change it into something else.”

When I was a kid a video looked like this:

Call me crazy, but I still think Toni Basil’s, “Hey Mickey!” still works. And, back in the 1980’s it was “viral” because we talked about it at school, and ran home to the one kid who had cable to wait for her “music video” to play on a young channel called, MTV.

Actually, popular Internet videos of today look almost EXACTLY like “Hey Mickey”. Come to think of it, there’s little difference between the quality of her video, and those of today. Except, well, MILLIONS of dollars.

Viral videos have a huge line item on the marketing budgets of companies. Millions of dollars are spent on video’s (that look like, “Hey Mickey”) to sell product, promote and develop audiences. For companies an investment in videos (when done well) provide companies huge rewards in the form of awareness, and sales.

Yet, is it just me or does the term “viral video” creep you out? The term kind of makes me, itchy.

Ok, I know what “viral” means in this context: a company (or person) creates a video, it gets viewed and spread widely from person to person (or, often, is marketed behind the scenes using search engine optimization – a way of having your site rated and placed high up on Google search). The hope is, the video goes viral and you make a ton of money.

There’s a very dynamic, and wonderfully intense marketing guru named, Scott Stratten, who’s written a book called, “UnMarketing”. He’s one of many people (including, I hope, myself) that’s making a compelling case that social media (for lack of a better description) is about relationships, listening, and responsiveness to human beings. And, his core point is IT TAKES TIME. If any kind of organization is engaging in “authentic” relationships your success will follow (though, Oy, really, are these “authentic” relationships, or is it that we are simply cutting down on the A.D.D and paying attention to people?) So, “viral videos” are what for-profit organizations call their Old Spice Guy viral investments, and the name is probably going to stick.

Yet, what do we call the videos that are created to help the world?

“Love videos”? Or, “Doing+The+Right+Thing+Videos”?

Nope. Too earnest. Too crunchy, right? People figured out that out years ago, that “earnest” wasn’t working. So, videos then got extremely visual, with lots of simple designs and graphics to explain the problems of the world. “The Story of Stuff” is a brilliant example of taking huge, scary information and making it “simple” to understand. It was shot and went viral in 2007:

Yet, between 2007 and 2011, things in the world got both more complex, and scary. And, I think, unfortunately, the approach to provide information about the world as digestible data was experienced as overload: and freaked people out. What the quick cuts of those dense, yet zippy videos did was set a precedent for rapid, neural overstimulation. They succeeded in cleaning up the information, but left you without a sense of a future that might better than the negative data they presented in the video.

So, what to do when, “Drama is easy, but comedy is hard”?

Get funnier.

It’s been great to see a bunch of video’s come out that are really funny, and that share information about the needs of the world without making you feel bad about not doing enough. It seems like a definite trend that videos are taking a breather from the, “freak them out so they change” approach. Self effacing and funny and touching one’s include these (below):

“Canvas Bag” by the Australian comedian, Tim Minchin. Minchin’s a brilliant pianist, who’s channeling some kind of modern day Dudley Moore – ready to kick some plastic ass. In this video he also goes from “crunchy” to “glam” in a dizzying display of Camp:

Or, this from my buddy J Nichols, about the Blue Marble (made without Tim Minchin’s budget . And, what makes it funnier is that he’s a marine biologist (not an actor) with a penchant for not taking himself too seriously, while asking for a serious commitment to share hope (and, action):

Minchin and J’s videos work because both are willing to be goofballs, as well as not freak you out, AND provide really good information. In these two, I experience a spirit that makes you want to try again, give yourself another chance to hope for something better; to try again to live a healthier (funnier) life, which will intrinsically help the planet.

Yet, what are the odds that a viral video really creates change? How do you measure that success? Passing videos from email to email, or by “click rates” or the number of people who view the video? We don’t really have a metric, or analytic tool to “measure” social change from these videos (which seems to be the Holy Grail for most non-profits/or people fighting for budget and grants to keep their organizations afloat in these hard times).

The fact is, we don’t have a true tool in Google to measure (in numbers) social change, because although their search engine was created to help people find relevant content in a natural (organic) search, Google’s core business is selling ads. The metric of sales (although amazing for small businesses in particular) is not the same metric needed to track the impact videos (or the Internet) has on changing the world. That’s not a criticism, it’s an algorithmic fact.

In my experience, change (or, simply awareness that “coverts” to action) is a person-to-person experience. Videos stimulate a sense of context, or make you feel inspired to do one specific thing. Yet, being together in one place (or, in the case of Twitter, driving people to one physical place) tends to make things “happen” (case in point the middle east’s citizen uprisings this summer).

“Point and click activism” (jargon for Internet based activism) was once seen as the way to motivate, rally and gather email addresses. But, I sense the belief that the Internet can really motivate profound change in “behavior” is loosing steam. Though, videos continue to rise in popularity, creation and sharing.

The video, “It gets better” is a great example. Author Dan Savage, and his partner, Terry, created it. The video spoke directly to teenagers who are gay and being terrorized. It’s serious, sweet, funny at times, yet mainly it’s honest. It didn’t promise the world to teens, it simply reassured them through personal narrative that, yes, it sucks right now, and, it will get better. The video garnered massive sharing from their site, the president himself spoke about it (in the wake of a teen suicide), and it’s being used to gather gay and lesbian teens together to make their own community:

And, as only the Internet can offer, there was a fabulous video that was created called, “It gets worse” which utilizes humor as a goofy alternative version of a future that meets one homophobic bully:

And, stating the obvious, now that our phones are fully mobile broadcasting stations, we all can take an idea, ten minutes to shoot, edit and upload our own videos. So, it’s possible for more and more people to share their passion (viral or not). Perhaps we’ll see more and more passion videos (ok, I like that term!) that will start to blossom on the web.

So, good for you Toni Basil for setting a precedent of video passion! I’m for this emergence of down to earth, hopeful (without being a fool) trend in video. And, what will the “metrics” look like? I don’t know, how about a reduction in carbon poisoning, sexual harassment, biospheric health, massive reduction by manufacturing in materials that are harmful, and world peace. Now, really, can a fun, clear, funny, futures focused video do all that?

I don’t know. Let’s keep watching.

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For more info on the impact of videos on society check out this report from The Institute For The Future, The Future of Video: Becoming People of the Screen

Celine Cousteau, and her wonderful, “Glass is Life”, more proof-positive, below:

I typed in “New Forms” + “World Music” and suddenly Google provided me Jon Hassel on a plate. Turns out he’s a great trumpet player who’s defined: “Fourth Wall“.  Plus, he likes to talk about masturbation. He had my attention, immediately.

Then, the lovely machine of the Internet provided the most curious thing: an interview from Paris between he and Brian Eno at a conference called La Gaîté Lyrique, called “An illustrated talk”. Thinking it was going to be about their music collaboration that began in the late 1970′s, I was transfixed that the conversation was really about, “North and South” as Hassel and Eno are defining it: The North and the South of us — the brain and the body of us all (the dominance of hemispheres, and need to feel the south of us — inside of us).

Out of six installments, I’ve decided to post this one below:

I’d suggest you check out the entire talk because it’s a wonderful discussion about pleasure, time, and connection. And, it has small, funny moments including M. Eno expressing his hatred for couches (his reason turned me around, and I now distrust them — seriously), and Hassel’s deeply insightful, and wonderfully loopy tangent about spirituality (Hassel’s laid back explanations are like jazz riffs — I suggest you just sit back into them). Yup, they are full of lovely and quirky moments that can only happen when you are made to sit in two “comfortable” chairs on a stage that is a faux living room, conducting an “informal” talk in front of a large number of strangers. And, actually, it’s the stilted environment they sit in that makes the conversation ironic, and more interesting: they are talking about the need for a new (non-Freudian) pleasure principle – a space in our lives where we spend time in personal pleasure (not just in work) that redefines our sense of time — and meaning.

(A side note here: I had the pleasure of hearing Greg Sarris, writer and Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, speak in Sonoma this weekend. He told a story about how a medicine woman had described to him that for hundreds of years the Indians’ work hours had been 45 minutes — a day. When he asked her what they did with the rest of their day, he said she took a drag from her cigarette and responded, “Make baskets and talk about god” — as Greg sagely said, “Art and philosophy — sounds like a good use of time to me…”)

But, back to the video — here these two guys are — kind of forced, as it were, to look and seem relaxed, in France, speaking english, about a book they’ve been working on for ten years. Ten years. It’s remarkable to think of how that collaboration has unfolded — not “heads down” in cubes, but over years of exploration and probably wine. Collaboration, time, pleasure, and connection to our body (not just our minds) are on people’s tongues these days — yet seem so elusive. How can we truly LIVE in a world that is so rigidly defined by a time density (of short, meaningless spurts of tweets), when we do not provide ourselves time AS pleasure? More critically, how is this impacting our global culture (let alone our relationship to the planet)?

This clip speaks to what artists bring to the equation for finding pleasure, and making it an example, or framework, for our life. It’s also a wonderful portrait of what creative collaboration looks like: even though it’s Brian Eno and Jon Hassel, it’s simply two people talking, someone taking notes and asking for more thoughts, and then a final conclusion — one that is almost always still in process. Eno keeps notes (finds the key moment, grabs it and points out the most important question we all have to ask ourselves … ). Finally, Hassel is dreamy as he describes our need to “let go” — or how he has divided his work into “pre-orgasmic” and “post-orgasmic” sections for years.

I found this conversation as charming as the song that inspired it. I’ve passed the talk on to some good friends, and they all seem to enjoy it. I hope you do as well.

And, and here’s Miles Davis for some sound afterwards — “All of you” by Cole Porter, whose lines inspired the conversation and book to come:
I love the look of you, the lure of you
The sweet of you, the pure of you
The eyes, the arms, the mouth of you
The east, west, north and the south of you
— Cole Porter

This is a picture of my friend and cohort A.M. Hoch. It’s from a rally this year in Bologna, Italy where people took to the streets in protest of the representation of women in the Italian Media.

We may find the sexy, luscious images we see from runways and fashion magazine’s as elegant, but Italian people are bombarded with newspapers that look more and more like political porn, and less like human news. It’s women who grace the covers looking demeaned, and not portraying the remarkable women who live and work in that country.

A.M. Moved to Italy in 2006, and created the “TV” pictured here. The statement loosely says, “We hereby liberate the image of women”. This picture made many covers of newspapers and zoomed through social networks, and instigated a conversation amongst women about this issue of being seen, claiming their place in modern Italy, and, critically, how “image” isn’t everything: the true story of women (and the lives of real people) must make their way back into the Italian media.

A.M. is a visual artist who has been integrating painting, installation, science and text for her entire career. She has been exploring these ideas and themes of women with great risk for some time, and I respect her profoundly. Her large scale installation was recently on view at the Popoli Pop Cult Festival (June 24, 25, and 26) - Bagnara di Romagna, Italy. It is still up on view till July 10th.

I’ve interviewed A.M. here on the site in the tab above (“Metamorfosi di una barca”) – or here  http://www.whatsarahsees.com/contact/

Please join us as we explore her work, “Portrait of a Young Boat”

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A. M. Hoch (a.k.a. Amy Hotch) has exhibited her Theatres of Memory—installations that combine painting, sculpture, original text, and digital technologies—in museums and galleries in the United States and Europe, including “Mitosis: Formation of Daughter Cells,” a site-specific installation, commissioned and exhibited by the Beall Center for Art and Technology, in Irvine, California, and adapted for exhibition at the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, Spoleto, Italy; “interstices,” a multimedia installation, exhibited at the Alice Austen House Museum, New York; “I keep forgetting … it’s not working,” exhibited at the Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany. Solo painting exhibitions include one-person shows at Deutsches Haus, Columbia University; and LaMama La Galleria, New York City.

Ms. Hoch has received numerous grants throughout her career, including an artist-in-residency from Altos De Chavon, in the Dominican Republic; a project grant from the State Senate in Berlin, Germany; and a Gottlieb Grant. She was a research artist at the Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, Snug Harbor Museum, New York. She received a large-scale commission from the Beall Center for Art and Technology to launch their 2004 season.

Born in New York City, Ms. Hoch currently lives and works in Bologna, Italy.

Portrait of a Young Boat (“Metamorfosi di una barca”) was originally conceived as an immersive installation combining painting, sculpture, and a fictional aural diary of a pubescent girl’s miraculous transformation into a boat. But, in this site-specific installation, there is no sound; instead the winding staircase and the four circular floors of the ancient Bagnara di Romagna tower provide an extraordinary embodiment of the girl’s metamorphosis, her ingenious invention for escaping the prison of her childhood. A. M. Hoch, who has exhibited in the U.S. and Europe, has found a perfect symbiosis between the complex world of conceptual art and the history and architecture of this late 14^th-century castle fortress. The result is amazingly powerful, both visually and conceptually. The artist combines recycled materials (wires, strings, mirrors, and everyday objects), stirring the viewer on an unconscious level—evoking questions about perception and the ambiguity of memory, and touching the most hidden parts of the psyche.

What I learned from BLUEMiND: our brains/hearts are in the details, and the artist, Sarah Sze had already shown to me years ago. Her work below fires with sensors, light, and the making of the bluemind.

Image: http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/19444/sarah-sze/

But, let’s start with this June @ BLUEMiND for just a minute.

BLUEMiND (http://mindandocean.org) was a summit that we produced, spearheaded by J Nichols, myself and a ton of passionate people, at the California Academy of Science. Neuroscientists, oceans people, writers and surfers, dancers and neurosurgeons spent the day uncovering:

- the relationship between the brains necessary connection to saline
- our brains prossessing of compassion to danger
- how our brains are our hearts – and this electromagnetic function is born of salt water: and that further study into this relationship will yield a new form of neuroconservation. It was thrilling.

So, in a nutshell, what I learned:

- A surfer’s brain function can tell us how much we need the excitement of the ocean to help us experience risk – something, when safe, supports our species ability to trust and be brave.
- Our addiction (neural, not theoretical) to food in general (yes, the big fast food, but also our own compulsive “foodiness”) is not only born of corporate marketing, but a growing, dangerous need to temper our free floating obsessive anxiety: this is driving the demand of deep sea “trolling” huge nets that catch fish and all things alive on the sea bottom.
- Children, when given something as simple and clear as a marble can imagine and create art and programs that are innovative and change patterns of interaction with the planet. It’s called brain plasticity, they are better at it than adults, and we should take them very seriously if we want innovative ideas: they should be partners, and quick.
- That our brain and heart connection is critical to public health – and from Vice-Mayors, futurists, and leading public relations executives we learned that if we don’t move away from scaring people into “awareness” and provide alternative futures that tap into love, we will not be creating a solution-based culture – but an extended culture of fear.
- And, in the end, saying we love the complexity, the dance of the biosphere, the layers of it all, is GOOD for us … and the ocean gives both a simple blue vista, a vast complex and vibrant collaborator for our positive neural response.

Or, all that, all those bullet points above, kind of looks like this:

Sarah Sze is an American artist whom I met in the early 1990’s who impacted me deeply as a person. She had just been “discovered” though she showed grace and a sense of awareness that she would be an artist for her whole life, yet her notoriety may be fleeting (and irrelevant to her vision for her work). She accepted that acclaim with elegance, said thanks, and just kept working (her career has been astounding, and her accomplishments are provided here – not only has she continued to stay on her path, but was recognized with a Macarthur “Genius” Award) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_Sze

Sarah’s work is filled with the story of us: pieces of the stuff we make to help us through the day — miniatures of the products we create to get around, the candy we love to eat, the symbols we cleave to that help make meaning of our place in culture, and she fills it all with bits and pieces of found things. Mainly, plastic. Actually, I’m surprised that people are not talking more about her work as a pioneer working with plastic as a medium for art. Yet, it sort of makes sense, her art transcends her medium – she takes us into a biosphere of her own, and we are elevated above to see the world anew: not just as a “message”, but of something deeper: our fragility, as well as our clogged-ness (a clogged-ness now exposing itself as a polluted planet).

Her work makes me feel like looking at ourselves from a million miles above – elevated to see the world anew. She shows our natural connection to spirals, which reflect our spiraling brains and ever circling biosphere. And, this resonates with me because when my brain sees the world a new way, the neural pathways make room for these new visions. The brain actually changes, reshapes, and become a new brain. Well, that’s what the doctors confirmed at BLUEMiND and what every artist I’ve ever known has done to my head: moved my heart by changing my brain. And, it was humbling to have te the doctors confirm this as well.

So often, Sarah’s pieces are ascending. They feel filled with what seem like firing neurons – and those neurons are the things of our time, ladders and little do-dads, and the ever sweeping climb for awareness – for awakeness.

And, that’s what the Dr’s also told us at BLUEMiND: that our brains are always searching for a new way to process the billions of pieces of us, our feelings, our place on the planet: that we are hanging sculptures ourselves in search of vistas that make us feel safe, we are filled with the need for the color blue to harness a critical sense of calm, that we are a limbic system in search of meaning – and we have just barely begun to understand our brain, and it’s needs: for our care of it, and our care of the planet for the brain’s sake.

So, every magazine cover seems to have new information on how our brains change on time, computer games, sex, chocolate, lust, law, time, and logos. Yet, what do these findings imply for our “brain on planet”? And, why is it that when I look at the intricacy of Sarah’s work – which is playful, and luminous and generally lifting up up up so that you can look down down down into life – do I feel, well, calm? And, why do I search for calm? And, why does the ocean (and nature and art) give me this: and why do I need it to keep going?

From the cognitive neurosurgeons to our visiting brain surgeon, we had it confirmed: our brains constantly search for where we are, and when they find the needed images, smells, colors, tastes, and sounds our brains not only heal, but they improve their ability to make choices and then they want to SURVIVE.

So, if our goal of BLUEMiND was to test the theory that our brain on ocean meant our brains crave the ocean in order to evolve as a species, we had some compelling ideas/implications that came out of it for policy/real estate/health and public access.

If our aim for BLUEMiND was to see if bringing writers and communicators and musicians and dancers into the conversations (through performance, readings and presentations) to see if the daring, risk and power of various forms of storytelling could support our brains – I think we had that confirmed as well: we all agreed that a new form of communication/interaction is needed to heal the damage we have done to our brains by using fear/urgency/doubt (FUD) to force change. Cousteau had it closer to right, as usual, “People protect what they love”.

And, finally, BLUEMiND was a happening. It was a gathering of brave people who were willing to talk about the brain and feelings – their interconnection, and the need to bring these two generally different discussions together.

We need to bring them together because we need a new neural pathway into ecological empathy and bravery.

Perhaps the greatest challenge to us from BLUEMiND is that way we are not just being “encroached by ourselves”, but that we have the power to fence our mind’s mistakes: we must do what Sarah has pictured below – we must use our hearts and minds to claim the earth back: creatively, fiercely and with love.

Image from: http://howmanydaysisthirteenweeks.blogspot.com/2011/06/day-88-sarah-sze.html

I’ve been doing a ton of writing about Blue. BLUEMiND that is (http://mindandocean.org) But, this time, it’s all purple. ‘Cause, I’m just ITCHING to write about the Prince show.

A few weeks ago, Prince decided to call upon Oakland and we all had a chance to pray before the great one. I mean it, he told us to pray because he was the best there is, or was or ever will be. It also happened to be a few days before Judgement day.

Seriously, May 21st was coming, and we were going to die. So, best to see Prince before that happens. Also, he seemed to agree, and the entire show was some kind of metaphorical recap, in rapid motion, of ALL of his greatest (half way through a back to back set of songs, he pushed back his chair, and stood up away from the piano and stated, “I have too many f**king hits.”) Ya, he was going to play each and every one of them before we died, and to say the experience was surreal doesn’t hit it.

But, who cares, because he’s simply one of the best live performers ever, stole his name back from a record label and lived as a symbol, wrote some of the most longingly sexy and achy songs ever – and in his own words, simply kicks some rock and funk ass.

But, here’s the odd part – Purple Rain. In the past when I’ve had the honor to see him, his ripping up of “Purple Rain” has been an explosion of vocals, and insane instrumental abilities, and a crowd that usually goes wild when he cries out in the end that the rain is love – Love will bring us there. Not this time. A few days before judgement day, he was reframing the song and told us that the rain was God, and that we were all going to meet there.

I can accept that as a passing metaphor, that’s cool, he’s prince, he has passing fancies, he woke up one night and asked for a live camel – and they actually brought him one – it’s cool. But, really? The purple rain, all these years has been God?

For me, when I was a kid I thought the lyrics had always been about romantic love:
“I never meant to cause you any sorrow
I never meant to cause you any pain
I only wanted to one time see you laughing
I only wanted to see you laughing in the purple rain
I only wanted to see you bathing in the purple rain”

Perhaps I had not been listening with clear ears, or heard only what a kid (agog with the idea of having such deep feelings) was capable of understanding. At that time, when Purple Rain came out he was the androgynous outsider who sang about love in the side corners of club culture, and seemed to be reaching for greater meaning (beyond our big hair, and Bush era politics, and the uneven economic times) in search of his own poetry. And, we loved him. And, the song Purple Rain became a cult hit – and people would cry because it meant connection, and friendship and some faith that being different can make you have a rockin’ life.

I’ve recently learned that the B-side was called “God”.

I never heard the “B” side, and wouldn’t have guessed it when I saw the show(s) that he had always been talking about Genesis. For me, Purple Rain had, over the years become a song that spoke of my generation:

“Honey I know, I know,
I know times are changing
It’s time we all reach out for something new
That means you too
You say you want a leader
But you can’t seem to make up your mind
I think you better close it
And let me guide you to the purple rain”

I have been enjoying my adolescent interpretation that he meant stand up – be different! And, I guess I was clueless all along when he lifted his finger to the sky, pointed at the heavens and winked and nodded the implication that being a leader, making up your mind, waking up and getting to the purple rain meant redemption. Ya, when I was younger, I simply assumed Purple Rain was the place of cool, and difference, and lust.

Yet, that’s changed. Aging teaches you other longings – more ancient needs arise, the hope or promise to find community (or, is it communion) with those that stand with each other: in love. And, in my case, with our freak on.

Yet, sincerely, let’s not sweat this one – it seems like this Purple God is the hip and benign God of a Rock God. And, ultimately, like any great artist Prince leaves the last lines open – and we can make the decision for ourselves:

” … Purple rain Purple rain
If you know what I’m singing about up here
C’mon raise your hand
Purple rain Purple rain
I only want to see you, only want to see you In the purple rain”

So, I’m keeping it my anthem:
- That people should not try to harm another

- That times are changing

- That we need to be a leader

- That we need to make up our minds

- That we’ve gotta meet, again, and again, and baby, again, in our Purple Rain

(Please view him below – let it wash over you till at least 6.9 minutes)

Water has always been the place of revolutions: from the story of Moses and a toe parting that crazed sea, to ocean gods and their mad wars with the tides, to our own, deep need to change our lives when we find ourselves in the presence of water. Oceans, rivers, creeks and small fountains are not only metaphore for human beings – they are the places we go to create, or witness our own change.

For many years now, I’ve lived by an ocean. I grew up by a river (the mighty “Brooklyn River” – no, sorry, never met this dude “Hudson”) and now by the Pacific Ocean. This ocean thrills me and has created a revolution in me. It’s brought me something larger than myself. It’s brought the idea of sea monsters, mermaids and distant lands to my son. It’s where I knew I wanted to lay my heart down and change my life – not one by a river but by an ocean. The ocean is grand. And, I love her.

To be brutally honest, I would I pick up my bed and walk for most water (hey, and not just the Pacific) — kinda makes me sound slutty I guess? I don’t care! I love other oceans and lakes and rivers and plan to, and most certainly will gladly live by them one day. Any water really is fine by me. Why? Don’t really know, just feels right.

Why does the ocean make us feel this way? And, why do we NEED the ocean to call us to this kind of action?

This coming month, June 2nd to be exact, we’ll be putting on a summit called BLUEMiND. There are literally dozens of people, on many different coasts, working tirelessly to make this event happen. There are neurosurgeons, and neuroscientists, dancers, futurists, writers and you name it, coming to speak on that day. We’ll be locking ourselves into a room for an entire day, and ask ourselves the question I pose now: why do we love her so? Why do we need her so? What is our brain on ocean?

So, though this is a serious convening (with some kick ass art thrown in for good measure) we are, at the end of the day, exploring our love affair, our mad, passionate place with the ocean: and, we’re asking ourselves to dig just a bit deeper to see how this connection, this love, might be understood through neuroscience, so that we can have a new approach to ocean and biospheric health.

For many of the scientists in the room it is also a START to the serious conversation between the head and the heart, as it relates to the biosphere. Our oceans are 91% of the planet, though that water is connected to land, to species and to us. We think it’s time to see what our brains give and get in this symbiotic, and very fluid relationship.

We believe we will benefit as a species with an integrated biosphere policy, with clarity in crisis, with factual/ethical/emotionally based marketing, social media, public relations and innovation related to the planet: we hope BLUEMiND sparks the questions that will inform smart, open approaches that will inform change in policy, communications and research.

Anyone can participate in the Summit by watching it live on http://mindandocean.org — 8:30am – 5:30pm PST U.S.A (so sorry, the room literally only holds 80 people! But, if you are in SF, do come to the Nightlife event at 6:30 which is open to the public  - and we’ll be providing art, conversations and media surprises…)

So, as Cousteau said, “People protect what they love” – it’s a great honor to be part of this conversation – please join us, since really, we all love the planet – we’ve just been told (for too long) that is makes us seems goofy, soft or weak to express it. We’re about to uncover why the oposite is true: why love really can cast out fear, and why our planet needs us to understand how our brains thrive, evolve and make the right ecological decisions using both our brains, and emotions.

Some of the amazing people who will be attending and speaking at this revolution of BLUEMiND include:

BLUEMIND: Dr. Wallace J Nichols +Dr. Christopher Andrews (Steinhart Aquarium, California Academy of Sciences) &

Our Blue Marble: Science of Happiness, Compassion, Empathy, Gratitude & the Ocean Connection,
Dr. Kelly McGonigal (Stanford) & Andi Wong (teacher, Rooftop School) 

Mind, Rhythm & the Ocean: Neuroauditory Science & the Sea,
Dr. Shelley Batts (Stanford) & Michael Stocker (musician and acoustic biologist/Ocean Conservation Research)

Light, Color & the Ocean,
Amir Vokshoor, M.D. (Inst. of Neurosurgical Innovation) & Mark Shelley (Sea Studios)

Why is “Ocean View” the Most Valuable Phrase in the English Language & Why It Matters,
Dr. Marcus Eriksen (Algalita Marine Research) & Eric Johnson (Sotheby’s)

Science of Taste, Smell & the Ocean,
Dr. Andrea Garber (UCSF School of Medicine) and Loretta Keller (chef Coco 500 and The Moss Room)

Neuromarketing, Behavior Change and the Ocean,
Dr. Jennifer Scott (Ogilvy) & Dawn Martin (SeaWeb)

Dopamine, Addiction, Stress & the Ocean,
Dr. Howard Fields (UCSF), Lorne Lanning (gaming guru, OddMobb) & Jeff Clark (Legendary big wave surfer)

The Science of Ocean Meditation,
Dr. Philippe Goldin (Stanford University) & author Jaimal Yogis (Saltwater Buddha)

The Science of Ocean Advocacy,
Dr. Darren Schreiber (UCSD) & Fabien Cousteau (ocean advocate, PlantaFish.org)

Neurolinguistics & Ocean Words,
Dr. David Poeppel (New York University) & Jay Salter (poet)

Why is the ocean sexy?
Sheril Kirshenbaum (U Texas-Austin) & Anne Alexander Rowley

The Ocean’s Futures: What BLUEMIND Means For Ocean Policy & Governance,
Dr. Jake Dunagan (Institute for the Future) & Suja Lowenthal (Vice Mayor, Long Beach, CA)

Mind-Body-Ocean: What the Ocean Can Teach Us About Our Brain (and vice versa)
Jodi Lomask (Capacitor.org) & Dr. Michael Merzenich (UCSF Professor Emeritus, Neuroscience)

Ending the evening will be an “Ocean Meditation” in Planetarium with neuroscientist Dr. Philippe Goldin and author Julia Whitty
followed  by Ocean NightLife @ California Academy of Sciences, Kristin McArdle Dance Company and a BLUEMIND conversation w/ the public in African Hall

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Additional thanks to the following:

BLUEMIND collaborators: 

ARUP
California Academy of Sciences
Max Davis Co.
Ocean Revolution
Production Collective
SeaWeb
The Ocean Foundation
WhatSarahSees.com

BLUEMIND speaker institutions:

Algalita Marine Research
California Academy of Sciences
Capacitor.org
Institute for the Future
Institute of Neurosurgical Innovation
New York University
Ocean Conservation Research
PlantaFish.org
Rooftop School
Sea Studios Foundation
Sotheby’s
Stanford University
The City of Long Beach, California
The Moss Room
University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Francisco
University of Texas, Austin

BLUEMIND artists:
Jennifer Kloetzel
Kristin McArdle
Julia Whitty

BLUEMIND Team:

Stuart Candy

Julia Rhodes Davis

Rio Dluzak

Jake Dunagan

Jules Grace

Sarah Kornfeld

Wallace J. Nichols

Primavera Salva

Julie Starke