On creative cosmology
the narrative for change might mean a lot of dancing
I’m always saying I feel bad for our kids because of all the crap we have left for this generation to deal with, but maybe I should give them more credit.
It’s Friday night and I’m lying in bed looking up at the ceiling fan. My spouse Janyce has since given up on her crime show and turned off her computer. Her breathing is steady and I can tell that she’s already asleep. The bedroom isn’t fully dark, light from the hallway is seeping under the doorway and the room is cast in a bluish-gray tinge. According to Google, the moon is now in it’s waning gibbous phase, post full, where it’s illumination decreases each day until it reaches 50%. I have just enough light in the room to make out the spinning blades above me. I entertain myself by moving my head side-to-side while blinking and it creates an illusion that one of the blades is fully distinct from the blur of the others, seemingly stopped now and pasted up against the ceiling.
Earlier in the week, my son in Nashville sent me a bunch of texts during one of his breaks. He’s part of the sound and set-up crew for the Deep Tropics music festival. I read his text updates to me while also switching back and forth to look at his Instagram story— a bunch of live videos of the stage rigging as it was going up. Eventually, I found myself on the festival’s web page, reading the marketing materials and trying to get a sense of the theme.
The future is balancing on precarious tipping points. An acceleration of planetary chaos has many of us waking up to a sense of accountability to live more intentionally and purposefully. The Deep Tropics team realized the need to integrate regenerative design practices into the festival infrastructure.
This framework nests within the creative cosmology of the festival. We envision the ‘Tropical Traveler’ going on an adventure to actualize the self, society, and the planet.
“Wow, that’s some serious marketing copy,” I said to myself. I googled one of the musicians and pulled up his music on YouTube to play in the background while I was working.
“Im listening to Billy Cave,” I said to my son in my next text.
“Yeah, he’s a local. I’m more excited about CloZee. That’s more my speed,” he said.
I looked up CloZee and found out that she is an innovative young French composer and an up-and-coming big deal in electronic music. I managed to sink into her soundscapes. I can see why my son likes her. Here is CloZee, sitting on a plush couch with her back to nature and her dog by her side, wearing her sweatshirt with the word “Positive” emblazoned across it, grooving to a modern expansive sound.
Is she doing something completely different, here? Or is she merely producing this generation’s spin on layered tracks?
Listening to her, I was reminded of a few of the artists that held my attention back in the 80’s when I was making my own sound art compositions. In a way, her music is reminiscent to me of Steven Reich with its layered human voices and repetitive structures and a particular and evocative Andreas Vollenweider composition, at once rooted in a summer backyard while also reminiscent of an exotic world far away.
While listening to all three of these artists in comparison, I was searching for the words to explain the difference between CloZee and the others. Reich’s work is historical and repetitive and while listening to it you get a building sense of the terrible, while Vollenweider is mostly atmospheric and escapist. And CloZee? I went back to the festival’s marketing copy to find the right word.
We envision Deep Culture as a vessel to catalyze an emergent, “regenerative” culture. Regenerative approaches, as opposed to “sustainable” developments, seek to restore, renew or revitalize their sources of energy and materials and optimize functionality by utilizing principles and patterns found in natural systems.
I’m always saying I feel bad for “our kids” because of all the crap we have left for this generation to deal with, but maybe I should give them more credit for knowing what they need in order to heal themselves and the planet.
I’m tired now of staring at the ceiling fan. I pick up the phone on the bedside table and see that I have an unanswered text from our earlier texting conversation.
“CloZee is gay. Her girlfriend is backstage with her (: she’s cute,” says my son in his text at 9:46 pm.
“I called it!” I text him back.
I’m not expecting a response though, because it’s just now dark in Nashville. My son’s Insta story has turned from daytime shots of scaffolding to nighttime pans of a smallish festival crowd of 20-something- year-olds, all crowded together in a cloud of smoke against a background of video walls, blinking lasers, and a steady electronic beat.
And dancing.