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Somewhere between a psychological terrorist organization and a social club lies the Los Angeles Cacophony Society.
"Umbrella organization for all manner of art-damaged malcontents and namesake of its' San Francisco progenitor, the Los Angeles Cacophony Society has been responsible for all manner of ungodly happenings intended to mine raw wounds in the cultural psyche -- what you might call "art" if there were some state funding behind it. Since 1991, they have collaboratively produced a number of weird spectacles which no self-respecting bohemian would want to miss -- a parade of junk-encrusted "art-cars", a roller-skating Las Vegas lounge extravaganza, A midsummer "Christmas Show" with indoor fireworks and stuffed animal decapitations, an Easter egg hunt at an abandoned Nazi camp, a patriotic mudwrestling blow-out, and most recently a retro-kitsch environmental Tiki-bar theater, complete with human sacrifice and erupting volcano. Beyond organizing these psycho-pageants, Cacophony has also faithfully served the LA underground as a sort of outsiders' travel service, sponsoring various fringey field trips to eccentric museums, folk-art sites, gun shows, cult headquarters, public sewers, cryogenic labs, and mortuaries. And then there are those small-scale guerrilla assault on the public psyche -- excursions to city hall dressed as clowns, shopping trips to Rodeo Drive covered in mud, absurdist protest marches, poultry liberations, effigy burnings, and staged UFO encounters. All these forays into madness are known to insiders as trips to "the Zone," a non-geographic realm of surprise, incongruity and wonder. And it's not hard to get there. Events are usually free, hosted by anyone interested and open to anyone foolish enough to participate. See you at the next one." L.A. Cacophony Society
Drive By Shootings Strange Road Signs... and Happenings... by the Side of the Road. Viewer participation invited.
DANA ATCHLEY: IN THE 1980's I traveled around America in a thirty-foot motorhome with Wild Will Walker and Tapley Dawson. "We were Video Buccaneers pulling off this string of cross-country video holdups and fencing our images to Showtime. One day we driving down the highway and saw this: A submarine with a sign that reads "Horse-Cow". Did we drive by or did we drive in? Check this story out to see the wierdest piece of videotape from my archives for which I have a fully signed release..."
The Miss Rockaway Armada "... is both a collection of individuals and an idea. At its most basic, the
idea is this: we’re going to float down the Mississippi River from Minneapolis to New Orleans on rafts that we built ourselves. The crew can be called many things: artists, musicians, builders, travelers, organizers, dreamers. Ask one of the people who help build and move these crafts for the purpose, though, and you’ll get many answers. But there are some things that we all agree on. We want to create: to invent a new sustainable way to travel, to demonstrate different ways of living and moving that are friendlier to the environment and to each other, to indulge in that essential urge to make something out of nothing. We want to meet people: to learn from new folks along the way, to teach what we know, to share our art, our music and our performance, and to make new friends. Finally, for adventure: to reclaim and reinvent the old American urge to strike out and discover the vast, mysterious land we inhabit and see it for ourselves...." See also "Being Here is Better Than Wishing We'd Stayed"
The Monks on the Road An amazing journey through offbeat urban America... and now the world. Click Here for an interiew. And here's a review by one reader of their bookMad Monks On The Road - A 47,000-hour Dashboard Adventure From Paradise, California To Royal, Arkansas, Up The N.J. Turnpike: "...Mad Monks on the Road (the first book by perennially-traveling
self-published magazinists and soulmates Michael Land and Jim Crotty)
is one of those books I just didn't know what to do with when I
finished; unlike any other book I've read recently, it had a weird
disposible quality (I was half-expecting recycling instructions on the
back cover)...yet it's, well, neat to have around. The story is by turns delightfully whimsical and maddeningly wispy. (Mike's hippie-ish and Jim's a Buddhist and both have an admirable sense of what's campy--and they run right at it.) The authors' habit of introducing each person they meet by zodiac sign made me cringe after a while, but perhaps that's just my personal bias. I've previously read The Mad Monks' Guide to California and Michael Lane's Pink Highways, and was really surprised by the sharp contrast in style (over so few years, no less). On the Road is a much less-tempered flight of fancy ("The Monks and How They Got That Way," kinda) which shares with Pink Highways only the nagging question of how much the reader can expect to be true (because it may well all COULD be, but it's hard to fathom living in the same world as these characters and not knowing it). Given the tone of the book, it isn't really surprising that even though their macrojourney is ostensibly from San Francisco to New York, they spend a large chunk of the book going from east to west...."
".... Andy Kaufman practiced improvisational comedy that bordered on guerrilla theater and modern performance art...."
The Night Andy Kaufman Sabotaged Fridays".... Andy Kaufman practiced improvisational comedy that bordered on guerrilla theater and modern performance art. Andy considered this element of his repertoire, "pure entertainment." To Kaufman, this pure entertainment was "living theater" - life as theater, theater as life. The fantasy of performing, combined with Andy's dangerous mixtures of provocation, superseded everything else in his professional life. His ability to challenge the established standards of performance changed many perceptions about the entertainer/audience relationship, and perhaps will be Andy Kaufman's true lasting legacy...." See also A Hollywood Yankee in King Lawler's Court "....It's one of those crazy things you always hope will happen on television, although, given the precautions and general uneventfulness of the medium, it almost never does. Fifteen years ago this week, professional wrestler Jerry "The King" Lawler slapped comedian Andy Kaufman out of his chair on Late Night with David Letterman, striking -- if only for a moment -- through the plastic predictability of the small screen with a flash of spontaneity that seemed to surprise everyone involved -- Kaufman, Letterman, and even Lawler. "I promise you," he says today, "I was in a dilemma right up until the last second...."
Stelarc".... an Australian-based performance artist whose work explores and extends the concept of the body and its relationship with technology through human/machine interfaces incorporating the Internet and Web, sound, music, video and computers...." See Exoskeleton: Event for extended body and walking machine and Extra Ear
Ullanta Performance Robotics"....is a theater troupe in which the actors are autonomous robots. The troupe presents traditional plays, performance art pieces, and dances; and, for recreation, participates in RoboCup robotic soccer competition...."
Stomp ".... started stomping on the streets of Brighton, England. Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas the creators of STOMP were a group of street performers commonly know as "buskers" trying to grab people's attention.
"And attention is what they received
"Busking is an old custom in the UK, dating back to booth theatres erected at village fairs in the Middle Ages. Luke and Steve updated this historical custom and created a modern symbiotic marriage between movement and music...."
Natural Theatre Company. Virtually invented street theatre. "... We don't perform 'a show' but rather people an area with immaculately turned-out,
visually striking characters acting out a scenario. Often we are unannounced
and at first might blend with the surroundings and passers-by. Gradually
our eccentric behaviour becomes noticed and onlookers start pointing and
laughing. Eventually the whole street comes to a standstill and the onlookers
become willing participants...."
Strange Attractor is a series of monthly talks, films and events culled from the fringes of contemporary culture held at the Horse Hospital in London's Russell Square which has been described as the capital's oddest arts venue. Topics will cover a broad spectrum, ranging from conspiracy theories, cargo cults, psychic deception and hacktivism, to the 60s occult explosion, the Jonestown mass-suicides, voodoo and surveillance.
Temple of Sound "... is both an installation and a mix of technology and musicians participating in an ongoing experiment in new music / sound form. The temple, which through multiple sensors and feedback, produces an ever-changing panorama of sound and is powered by natural energy.
The Nautilus shells produce a 3D moving seascape from five shell speakers. Owen's work uses almost all facets of the natural world to create these strange and surreal sculptures which are Daliesque in appearance...."
Next Exit "is an interactive theatrical performance created and presented by Dana Atchley. Atchley sits on a log next to a digital campfire and, drawing from a virtual suitcase of seventy stories, creates a unique selection for each audience. Next Exit is in turn humorous, touching surprising and emotionally resonant. It is an excellent example of the positive impact of new technology on the ancient art of storytelling." See also Ace Space's Electronic Vaudeville Show
Faulty Optic "...world renowned for their haunting visual theatre, automated sets, strange animated figures, cronked inventions and macabre humour.... surreal adult puppetry at its best...."
Blue Man Group: "... you leave the theater with a heightened awareness of everything surrounding you, feeling elated, as if given a jolt of vibrant air. It's like having some ER doc shock you with a defibrillator....
Blue Man Group"....It's extraordinary to think that an experience can awaken the senses so acutely that you leave the theater with a heightened awareness of everything surrounding you, feeling elated, as if given a jolt of vibrant air. It's like having some ER doc shock you with a defibrillator. Sitting through the Blue Man Group's show is like being recharged and reacquainted with the world of sound, color, light and music that embraces us. If a single picture is worth a thousand words, then the images and sounds of the Blue Man Group could not possibly be described in a single language. There simply aren't enough words...."
Fire Festivals
"The most prominent words on your admission ticket read, 'You voluntarily assume the risk of serious injury or death by attending.' "So why are you--and some 24,000 other people--not simply resigned to attending this get-together but positively ecstatic at the prospect of spending the last week of summer in a hot, god-forsaken dry lake bed beset by unpredictable windstorms, flash floods, and bone-chilling drops in temperature after sunset?
"It's because the party--perhaps better described as an art happening? an alternative community?--is Burning Man, the week-long festival held annually around Labor Day...." CLICK HERE for more of "Burning Man Grows Up"
A "Radical Free Expression Festival" in Nevada's beautiful Black Rock Desert - the wildest experience you've ever had!
"Hurtling down the road to the Black Rock Desert, the colors paint themselves like a spice cabinet -- sage, dust, slate gray. Maybe you're in your trusty car, the one that takes you to and from work every day. Perhaps you've got a spacious RV, your Motel 6 on wheels for the next days in the desert. Or you're driving your glittering art car, complete with poker chips and mirroring to do a disco ball proud.
"The two-lane highway turns off onto a new road. You drive slowly onto the playa, the 400 square mile expanse known as the Black Rock Desert. And there you’ve touched the terrain of what feels like another planet. You’re at the end -- and the beginning -- of your journey to Burning Man.
"You belong here and you participate. You're not the weirdest kid in the classroom -- there's always somebody there who’s thought up something you never even considered. You're there to breathe art. Imagine an ice sculpture emitting glacial music -- in the desert. Imagine the man, greeting you, neon and benevolence, watching over the community. You're here to build a community that needs you and relies on you.
"You're here to survive. What happens to your brain and body when exposed to 107 degree heat, moisture wicking off your body and dehydrating you within minutes? You know and watch yourself. You drink water constantly and piss clear...." CLICK HERE for the rest of the story.
The most marvelous spectacles were electric, the actualized fantasies of tinkering, fire-happy grown boys. A man called Megavolt stood atop a 30-foot moving Tesla coil in an astronaut suit, touching it with a metal pole that caused bolts of Frankenstein electricity to shoot across the sky. A roving, towering rose-lit tree made entirely of animal bones traced paths to each night's most stunning sights. Mechanized couches darted through the landscape, as did a stocked mobile bar complete with stools. Bicycles were adorned with leaping neon animals, so that from far away you could see a school of glowing clown loaches swim through the night. As with a real city, it takes hours to walk the perimeter of Black Rock. Click Here for more of the Millennial Brigadoon story
Check out the Green Tortoise site for transportation packages... then look at the rest of the Green Tortoise site for other "happenings" (as each Green Tortoise adventure really is!)
The Illumination Project ".... creates monumental and fleeting works of art, revocable interventions on the landscape that appear and disappear like the shadow of a cloud passing before the sun. The installations transform the environment with color and form through impossibly large paintings that float just above the earth. Then they vanish in a dance of wind and fire. The Illumination Project has joined realization with destruction to create a new union where planning, creation, transition and remembrance become art...."
Beltane Fire Society "....Some see it in a spiritual light, others see it as a coming together of a community, others see it as a transformatory event, others just love the spectacle... most recognise it as a fertility rite. Main motivating forces among members of the Beltane Fire Society include a strong belief in the power, collectively, to bring about change, to show a different way of seeing things ... Enjoying working with chaos and a certain pyromaniacal exhibitionism go quite a long way too!...."
Survival Research Laboratories "... an organization of creative technicians dedicated to re-directing the techniques, tools, and tenets of industry, science, and the military away from their typical manifestations in practicality, product or warfare. Since 1979, SRL has staged over 45 mechanized presentations in the United States and Europe. Each performance consists of a unique set of ritualized interactions between machines, robots, and special effects devices, employed in developing themes of socio-political satire. Humans are present only as audience or operators...."
Festivals and Events
Carnaval Brasileiro in Austin "Carnaval in Austin is one of the biggest Brazilian carnival
celebrations outside Brazil—samba, costumes
and wild abandon—
Brasileiro style in the heart of Texas." Also read the Monk's Review of this event.
: "...Mad Monks on the Road (the first book by perennially-traveling
self-published magazinists and soulmates Michael Land and Jim Crotty)
is one of those books I just didn't know what to do with when I
finished; unlike any other book I've read recently, it had a weird
disposible quality (I was half-expecting recycling instructions on the
back cover)...yet it's, well, neat to have around. The story is by turns delightfully whimsical and maddeningly wispy. (Mike's hippie-ish and Jim's a Buddhist and both have an admirable sense of what's campy--and they run right at it.) The authors' habit of introducing each person they meet by zodiac sign made me cringe after a while, but perhaps that's just my personal bias. I've previously read The Mad Monks' Guide to California and Michael Lane's Pink Highways, and was really surprised by the sharp contrast in style (over so few years, no less). On the Road is a much less-tempered flight of fancy ("The Monks and How They Got That Way," kinda) which shares with Pink Highways only the nagging question of how much the reader can expect to be true (because it may well all COULD be, but it's hard to fathom living in the same world as these characters and not knowing it). Given the tone of the book, it isn't really surprising that even though their macrojourney is ostensibly from San Francisco to New York, they spend a large chunk of the book going from east to west...."
