News flash for psychedelic writers and artist.

[RonnySimulacrum]

Some months ago when Rak and myself were on the way to Tribeadelic( and then again when we where up at the Exodus festival, shooting footage for both of our forthcoming documentaries), we engaged in some very interesting conversations about science fiction/cyberpunk and how, in our opinions, it is the best genre able to support and propagate psychedelic/entheogenic/transcendental/environmental/spiritual/political etc related concepts. We chatted about how it would be the best thing ever to produce a book of Australian short stories in a new genre which drew from s/f. We referred to this new genre as P/F - Psiberdelic Fiction. It was our belief that this new kind of fiction would always be founded on a political basis. It was also our original thinking to incorporate lots of Oz psy artwork to break it up and give it a truly distinctive local flavour. I know that we are not really speaking about anything new here, but are hoping to incorporate current trends in Oz thinking and writing into one brilliant volume. The ideas I speak of have been afloat in the minds and hearts of many of us, and we would like to see such an endeavour become a reality. Well - I have just received some very good news in an email from Rak this week - and it looks like a mutated version of the project may be coming of age.

“ps. your oz psi fi anthology short stories idea has been mutating since Jan when you mentioned it to me and ive been mentioning it to a few other people and it looks as if im involved getting a 64 page qurterly digital magazine together on these themes called UNDERGROWTH.. its still in planning stages but as part of planning we need a) writers and audience (=c advertisers) so if you have any samples or contacts or indeed any people wanting to be involved or just readers we are testing all these waters over next three months. I am getting the model and subscriber base together and am on the lookout for trippy alternative Oz psiberdelic fiction - and art...”

I am thinking it would be a short story magazine with other strange info along the lines of Mondo 2000/21c. With a lot of other stuff, like articles on Australian digital psy artist, writers, musician, painters and Art groups. Also book reviews and other strange theory of life.

So if you have any expressions of interest in the venture - submissions, subscription or advertising enquiries etc, then let us know what your thoughts on the existence of such a project are.

Early days yet, but we will see what happens.

Kind Regards

Jonathan

[ 03. September 2003, 01:03: Message edited by: RonnySimulacrum ]

[RonnySimulacrum]

Thanks for the pm and other expressions of interest. I have had some people say things like; “I have something but do not know if it is worth printing”, well there is only one way to find out. Send any submissions or other enquiries [email protected]. We will have a proper email soon.

Remember it is only early days yet, the project will take mouths to get into full swing, if it gets off the ground.

[RonnySimulacrum]

"a collection of some of Australia's cutting edge guerilla ontologists using science fiction as a medium of exploring consciousness. From sustainable eco-tek communities to shamanistic modes of perception on the street, UNDERGROWTH is the sprouting of a new wave of writers and a new type of psyence fiction as cyberpunk becomes psyberdelic, mixing higher consciousness with technology and the street for bent fiction..." TIM.

[RonnySimulacrum]

A new kind of thinking is rising up amongst the clinical concrete of the everyday. It propagates itself in the guise of neo-science fiction, cyberpunk and speculative fiction. This new thinking is a virus that we hope will induce remembering - prompting political activism instead of anaesthesia, evoking the re-conception of reality/self and consciousness.

Psyber-fiction (P-F) is not drawn form the classic concepts of literature; it is the divine child of a pop culture of decay, of hi-tech digital media overload, of fetish products and the ideology of the post-millennium apocalypse. It is literature for a new world of radical politics and state of being. It stems from the dust of outdoor dance parties, the keyboards of internet junkies, from feral eco subcultures, neo-mystics, new age anarchists and etheogenic psychonauts the land over.

The days of the old literature and institutional canons have corroded in to virtual insignificance; they no longer signify any tangible reality. These borders of old can no longer hold back the flow of information. The last hundred years has seen the rise of the information age and with this the suppression of the self. We are constantly riding the waves of data, unable to dismount, paralysed by its expanse. From here on the world itself is the text. Everything, everywhere is constantly redefining itself and mutating. Meaning is not a true form any longer; it is a fluid web, with no core or focal point.

For P-F, the classic texts are not along the lines of Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’ but rather new wave science fiction and cyberpunk writers, critical theorists, mystic philosophers and new digital art forms and media. Yes, P-F feeds off pastiche, but it also gives credit to knowledge gained from other (often suppressed) platforms of experience such as spiritual spaces and psychedelic landscapes. P-F is the canvas of transcendental awakening for a new age, the age of the true being.

The godfathers of P-F are people from all walks of life and historical standing - from mystics, to science fiction writers, to postmodernist thinkers and beyond. I wish just to name a couple of well known writers and thinkers here so you can gain an understanding of my thinking. Aldous Huxley, Albert Hofmann, Timothy Leary, Terence McKenna, Hunter S. Thompson, William Burroughs, Robert A. Heinlein, J.G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick, Stanislaw Lem, Roger Zelazny, Ursula k. Le Guin, William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Neal Stephenson, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Guy Debord, Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault, Fredric Jameson, Hakim Bay, Umberto Eco and Bill Nichols, James Lovelock, Benoit Mendelbrot.

If you were to ask me which person in the above list was the quintessential P-F writer/thinker, I would most definitely point you in the direction of Philip K. Dick. He is P-F personified, in both his life and his writings.

I have great hopes for this new genre of science fiction. It is an entheogenic pathology with the power to engage and educate us. It can help us to find our way on the genesis of the Entheo-Human.

By Jonathan Carmichael

[Slarty Fart Blaster]

Trance, the future...OMG stop the planet i want off, NOW.

More power to ya mate but i think Trance is THE most corporate commercial cheesy crap that ever came out of the dance scene. I guess things must be very different down under.

Just my 2p

[RonnySimulacrum]

Not exactly shore what you are referring too;

I mean Psy trance and real party experiences which only happen out doors at small parties (100-1500 people) in the middle of the desert or in the grate outdoors.

No walls or barriers for the mind body and soul.

so yes we mean different things I think.

[RonnySimulacrum]

This is a submissions call to creative types far and wide of a new type of

publication looking for writers and artists. UNDERGROWTH is a non-profit,

open-source collective putting together an ongoing anthology of Australian

writing for publication in a digital, downloadable magazine. We're looking for

solid writing of a speculative/ science fiction edge that comments on a

consciousness/ spirituality, psychedelic perspective and how that relates to

the rapidly changing world around us now. We embrace street culture that

comments on socio-political alternatives, technology, green ecology, Gaian

consciousness, magick, the Archaic Revival, ethnobotany, psychedelic and

doof counterculture, New Paradigm themes and writing that helps point the

way to a sustainable future.

We are drawing on the enthusiasm and verve of a youth culture that

embraces collective collaboration, network building, new media, new ways of

expression and the fire in the belly that refuses to be extinguished by the

forces of corporate-military-industrial-infotainment Spectacle! Another world is

possible and indeed, happening all around! We hope to show that by drawing

on the techno-cultural possibilities of the present, a multiplicity of positive

futures is also possible.

We would love you to be part of our evolving network and are seeking short

fiction (500 - 6000 words), non-fiction, (up to 3000 words) poetry and art (web

sized jpegs please) , as well as people wanting to be involved in production

behind the scenes. We are attempting to do all this in an 'open-source',

transparent model on-line, uniting creators through the Net and encouraging

discussion and non-hierarchical community building. So please forward this

call to interested parties and check us out @ http://groups.yahoo.com/

group/undergrowthdigizine/ or email us @

[email protected] for further info.

{we live not underground, but in the undergrowth}

[loaded]

I write on narcotics however you couldnt classify the drugs I use as psychedelic.

Im not sure of the direction this will take - it may well end up to be a movie script.

Im not sure if my work may encompass or is compatible with your theology (though I do agree with alot of it). But I do know I have alot of ideas Im throwing around these days, the ones I may persue are the one aforementioned and a fantasy novel I'm going to try and put together through all the notes. I may be able to sumbit a copy of this as a short story.

Let me know if were on the same wavelenght

Edited September 30, 2006 by loaded

[RonnySimulacrum]

Sounds very good to me On-Lucid, you should send something when you can.

We are trying to work out a voting system so people can vote for which stories they like and we can pick the ones with the most votes, so it remains open source.

We are hoping to have four issues a year I think, first one in jan/feb.

Thank you to everyone for there support and submissions, we have probably received at lest 30.

Regards

Jonathan

[RonnySimulacrum]

Ok let me try and explain myself a little clearer, so even I know what I

mean.

UNDERGROWTH is open source, so anyone can submit and vote for any genre or type of writing. Yes there are editors and people that will have to make some decisions and construct the digizene layout, but it will be as open sourceas possible and still produce a good 'product' as such. It will also have anon-fiction element as well so we can cover all sorts of stuff like interviews with authors or ideas in critical theory, to political rally's or visual artists and music.

Ok the biggest sticking point is what do we mean by Psyber Fiction, what

dose it have to do with science fiction and what is psychedelic about

Psyber-Fiction.

Firstly some general comments;

P-F is political

P-F is a literature of the mind

P-F is about environmental consciousness and eco sustainability

P-F is about waking people up and 'Turning them On' to the real issues at

hand for mankind, the universe and beyond.

P-F is a literature focused on the debate of spiritual evolution and altered

conciseness.

P-F is about writing our future into existence

So what we are interested in are fictional worlds and stories that use one

or more of the above ideas, concepts or approaches. I do not mean that the

works have to in any way be scientific.

P-F loosely relates to the Science fiction genre because the New wave S-F

writers of the 60-70s and the cyber writers do utilize many elements and

theories of the social sciences to produce works that we in the P-F field hail as master consciousness and mind expanding works. Science fiction is its closest living

relative. But P-F is not about hard science.

Ok now on to Psychedelic, firstly when we refer to the Psy in Psyber fiction we are in some ways paying homage to the great Psychedelic thinkers of last century, eg Leary and McKenna.

Secondly we are also very much using the term as a metaphor to represent a writing style that is more challenging, psychotic and non- traditional than anyother genre, in other words we are encouraging non-conformity and alternativemethods in writing style in what people submit to undergrowth.

Thirdly we are identifying with many of the ideas, concerns and philosophies of today's counterculture movements, most notably the entheogenic, psychedelic communities and outdoor Doof scenes. And on this note let me clarify, again we are interested in fictional stories not trip reports. Use your experience in psychedelic and spiritual spaces to guide elements of your story but not dictate it.

So without thinking to hard on the subject I will list some ‘Classic’ works of Psyber-fiction in no particular order so you can truly understand what I mean;

Philip K Dick - ‘The Man in the High Castle’

J. G. Ballard - ‘The Drowned World’

Roger Zelazny - ‘Lord of Light’

Aldous Huxley - ‘Brave New world’ – ‘Island’

Arthur C Clarke - ‘2001 a spage odyssey’

Neal Stephenson - ‘Snow Crash’

Chuck Palahniuk - ‘Fight Club’

Michel Houellebecq – ‘Atomised’

William S Burroughs - ‘The Naked Lunch’

Ursula K Le Guin - ‘The Lathe of heaven’

James Joyce - ‘Ulysses’

Stanislaw Lem - ‘Solaris’

I many ways I did come up with the original idea which evolved into what is now called UNDERGROWTH, but in fact I do not have that much say in how it works or what it has in it, because to get this thing up and running we need lots of people to come together and chip in. The man at the centre, if there is one, is probably Rak, who had the will to go out and really make this thing happen. But ultimately we are trying to let everyone who wants to get involved have a say, that is the advantage of open source, there is no center, or at lest there will not be after we have a couple of editions out in cyber space.

Be a part of the future

Hope this helped some.

[RonnySimulacrum]

Undergrowth #1 is all in and being groomed for the public catwalk as we

> speak. Thanks to everyone who contributed a submission - there were

> some great pieces but in the end we're still limited in size to what we

> can publish and keeping a firm eye on our themes and direction. All

> contributors will be notified this week and are free to try again for

> issue #2. Our publication date is being pushed back a few weeks while

> we get the website finely tuned and set up a Melbourne launch party for

> the last week of Feb. More details to follow, and an amazing literary

> excursion into the Undergrowth awaits!

[RonnySimulacrum]

Undergrowth Launch Party 4/3/04

It is coming into to seed.

The launch of the ethno sf mag will be on the 04/03/04

Would love to see some of you being a part of this project.

See; web page for details.

Love and light

Jonathan

[RonnySimulacrum]

UNDERGROWTH ONE: seed

a new on line compilation of art, literature and new media

/A seed planted long ago is sprouting

/Another world is happening/We live not underground, but in the undergrowth

Irene Artspace Thurs 4th of March, 7:30 - late

featuring:

>Multimedia psyence fiction readings

rak razam/tim parish/dan(iel) mckinley/john kelly

>Resolutionary projections

verb/bulb/breez/remix cinema + more.

>Biorganik Performances

Tin Rant

>art exhibitz

thin black line/civil/gage/halska

>Ambient electronic futurescapes

Ronny Simulacrum/Gorgeous Georgeous/Dan(iel)

>drinks for sale to soma the soul

>food provided by Food Not Bombs

ENTRY $5 (includes a free copy of UNDERGROWTH#1 on CD)

Thurs 4th of March, 7:30 - late

Irene Artspace

5 Pitt St, East Brunswick

Melways ref: 29J8