jeff hogue/ bluelab art org

Finish what you've started here
You make your move
just once a year
In the city
in the town
Your happy home
is never found
Second hand
was never planned
The birth was over,
the baby banned
She fled the place
at such a pace
She never even saw your face
So go with me
Inside
Believe
You have so much to give

Switch the light off,
have a go
Force the only one you know
To leave this place
without a trace
A pity
I had seen your face
Where do you think
I will find
This party girl
who was so kind?
Raven hair
and skin so fair
Sadness
never visits there
So go with me
Inside
Believe
You have so much to give

the Delgados
Make Your Move

We didn't sleep too late.
There was a fire in the yard.
All of the tress were in light.
They had no faces to show.
I saw a sign in the sky:
Seven swans,
seven swans,
seven swans.
I heard a voice in my mind:
I will try, I will try, I will try. I will try, I will try, I will try.
We saw the dragon move down.
My father burned into coal.
My mother saw it from far.
She took her purse to the bed.
I saw a sign in the sky:
Seven horns, seven horns, seven horns.
I heard a voice in my mind:
I am Lord, I am Lord, I am Lord.
He said: I am Lord, I am Lord, I am Lord.
He said: I am Lord, I am Lord, I am Lord.
He will take you.
If you run,
He will chase you.
He will take you.
If you run,
He will chase you
'cause He is the Lord.
'Cause He is the Lord...
Seven swans, seven swans, seven swans, seven swans, seven swans...

Sufjan Stevens Seven Swans

“The question is no longer how did we get here, and why? But, where can we possibly go, and how? We live in a society that has drastically narrowed our sensitivity to moral and spiritual issues; the problem we face is how to deal with a belief structure that has blocked both psychological and spiritual development. If there is a new agenda, a new vision now emerging within our society, how might one help put it into practice?”
Suzi Gablik

...bluelab is being developed upon the issue first posed by Einstein, "a problem cannot be solved at the same level of consciousness in which it was created.” It has become evident to many that in order to meet the problems we face as a species we must embrace a radical revision of our beliefs and our behaviors.

bluelab functions upon the strong presumption that artists likely figure significantly into the revisioning of a new world—and the invention of ways to communicate our discoveries. As we all learn more and more about our essential interconnectedness it also becomes increasingly evident that artists can’t function in a social vacuum. The label of “artist” is a problematic one and only used as a signifier of persons with specific media skills and training who are fluent in creative processes and who have some professional link to art. We are working to deconstruct as much as possible the binary--"us vs. them" mentality that still pervades the high art world. It seems to us that consistent with new paradigmatic shifts taking placethroughout all fields--there is a need to reconsider our accepted definitions of "artist" and "audience" all together. bluelab is constructed to offer pathways into higher levels of inclusivity. It is only through true inclusion that we can hope to make work that is deeply inviting and that offers an atmosphere of true love and trust and safety to all.

In terms of the way bluelab will in fact function, we are working to develop a sound and effective approach to community building which relies heavily upon time tested processes that are well understood and are seeking the help of people who are expert in these processes. On practical levels, the sharing and cross fertilization of specific areas of expertise allows for rich and complex works which through communal process are fused unselfconsiously and intuitively making of an organic whole.

Why all the talk of “community”?It is our firm belief that by building works in a heightened communal space we will in fact be building works potent with transformational energies. Jung talked about the distinctions between “liminal”or
transformative space and “liminoid”, or works that are simply entertaining. With a hard look at where we are at as a species and planet—it seems like simple math that we must link art making to the real task at hand—that of saving the earth.

Jesus pushes it back to the edge. Can you even see the image of Christ in the least of the brothers and sisters? He uses that as his only description of the final judgement. Nothing about commandments, nothing about church attendance, nothing about papal infallibility: simply a matter of our ability to see. Can we see Christ in the people, the nobodies who can't play our game of success? They smell. They're a nuisance. They're on welfare. They are a drain on our tax money. If we can, then we are really seeing.

He pushes it even further than that. He says we have to love and recognize the divine image even in our enemies. He teaches what they thought a religious leader could never demand of his followers: love of the enemy. Logically that makes no sense. Soulfully it makes absolute sense, because in terms of the soul, it really is all or nothing. Either we see the divine image in all created things or we don't see it at all. Once we see it, we're trapped. We see it once and the circle keeps moving out. If we still try to exclude some: sick people, blacks, people on welfare, gays (or whomever we've decided to hate), we're not there. We don't understand. If the world is a temple, then our enemies are sacred, too. The ability to respect the outsider is probably the litmus test of true seeing. ...

Everything becomes enchanting...

Richard Rohr Everything Belongs

“[Suzi] Gablik speaks of the previous paradigm of the Enlightenment period and what it has meant to artists: ‘Individualism, freedom and self-expression are the great modernist buzz words.’ The notion that art could serve collective cultural needs rather than a personal quest for self-expression seems almost ‘presumptuous’ in that worldview. Yet this assumption lies at the base of a paradigm shift in art, a shift ‘from objects to relationships.’ Gablik challenges her coworkers not to settle for abstract theorizing in making this paradigm shift. She personalizes and therefore grounds the transformations that must be undergone when she insists that ‘the way to prepare the ground for a new paradigm shift is to make changes in one’s own life.’ Spirituality is about praxis, she is saying, not just theory.”
Matthew Fox, The Reinvention of Work

Is it possible to create new spiritual structures for collaborative art making and to implement such toward community building with a depth of conviction, courage and inspiration that might move participants beyond self-interest toward truly new possibilities? Is it possible that with rigorous and focused processes artists could joyously make work engaging meaningfully with the specter of our global challenges while together exploring the uncharted territory of their souls? Can community building processes readily pour into art making wherein something meaningful and healing might evolve? Is it possible that these discoveries might be transmitted to the public at large through various new media shedding fresh light upon human potentials? Is it possible that all of this could dovetail with the efforts of important organizations such as The Global Justice Movement, Environmental Defense and Amnesty International toward a healthier and happier planet?

We say hopefully, yes.

What if artists were offered stipends, room and board allowing them to come together and to work intensively and without distraction for substantial blocks of time on film, music and real time performance collaborations? What if artists and thinkers could explore important issues in depth leading to transformational theater, installation, film and music? What if these artists were guided by experts through a structured community building process prior to beginning to create their projects? What if artists were given opportunity to work with and interact with some of the leaders of our time in the fields of art, science, and philosophy? What if these artists were given all the production equipment and technical assistance they might need to produce global quality shows? What if supporters and friends of our organization were given intimate amphitheater access to segments of our artists’ processes as well as early rehearsals, scheduled meals, activities and fellowship? What if the productions could be built and performed with some eventually touring the US and the world?

bluelab has been founded and created out of a perceived need to reconsider art making and professional collaborative art practice proceeding boldly from visionary prerogatives. We don’t find fault with the many artists who will not be drawn to what we are doing—for spiritual practice and its interface with collaborative art making are not for everyone.

In light of our present global endgame scenario it seems frivolous at best to argue over rhetorical issues. bluelab is intended for the “Great Work”--that of joining leaders of many fields worldwide who are engaged in the work of saving the earth. We believe that perhaps the only way to meet our present challenges is to deeply transform ourselves which implies the support of a real community and structured spiritual practice to be determined by each member for her or himself.

When serious professional artists are willing to embrace the rigors of authentic spiritual practice, the work of community building and heightened artistic collaboration will undoubtedly fall quickly into place.

The abundance of quotes from Sufi teachers have been included simply because they are part of my daily practice and do not infer a direct link between bluelab and Sufism. In point of fact, any serious spiritual practitioner must see that there can be no schism between the teachings of true Sufism and any sincere humanitarian interest. In the interest of those who may fear some sort of covert Islamic link, Sufism as it’s practiced and defined by and large in the West is Universalist in its orientation and in fact many Sufi’s roots are Christian and Jewish.

"Emptiness feels empty not because there is nothing present, but because whatever it is we're doing has no egotistic interference. The subtle arteries have no ego plaque in them, nothing to resist the smooth flow of the soul. Without our getting in the way, the life of the soul is rich and full, though unpredictable. But it isn't easy to trust strong desire and the life that keeps pouring into us. We always think we know better what should be and how it should all turn out. That is why the death principle --avoiding, worrying, being moralistic--is so popular." Thomas Moore The Soul's Religion

All through Erikson’s work is the implication that the creative adult (the generative adult) is precisely the person who can infuse his life with play;…the great cultural synthesizers—the religious, political and cultural geniuses such as Luther, Freud and Gandhi—were supreme in their playfulness, especially in their work. Their great words of synthesis were personal attempts to restore the active mastery of their egos in the context of the tensions and dichotomies of their personal and public historical situations. All great historical syntheses are as much play as they are work. They are work because they are indeed attentive to the real contradictions and tensions that most people of a given historical period both sense and suffer. They are a result of play because the creative genius does not simply conform to, adjust to, and accommodate to these tensions. Instead, he bends and reshapes these tensions until they submit to a new synthesis which not only enlivens and activates him but which also enlivens and activates a whole people and an entire era.

“Some renaissance theologians worked hard at reconciling paganism with Judaism and Christianity. We have yet to achieve this détente that is essential to the life of the soul. Fragments of our hearts and minds are located in the garden of Gethsemane and in the garden of Epicurus, on the zodiac of the Apostles and on the zodiac of the animals, in the wine of Dionysus and in the wine of the Eucharist, in the psalms of David and in the hymns of Homer.

It is not a matter of belonging to a religion or professing one’s faith, it is a matter of orientation in life and participation in its mysteries.

We can all be pagan in our affirmation of all of life, Christian in our affirmation of communal love, Jewish in our affirmation of the sacredness of family, [Islamic in our affirmation of self-sacrifice,] [Hindu in our affirmation of the multiplicity of God's expression], Buddhist in our affirmation of emptiness, and Taoist in our affirmation of paradox.

The new monk wears invisible robes. Thomas Merton travels across the globe, and in the home of Eastern monks, dies. Isn’t this a myth for our time and about the resurrection of the monastic spirit!”

“Vulnerability, then, is not only the ability to risk being wounded but is most often made manifest by revealing our woundedness: our brokenness, our crippledness, our weaknesses, our failures and inadequacies. I do not think that Jesus walked vulnerably among the outcasts and crippled of the world purely as a sacrificial act. To the contrary, I suspect he did so because he preferred their company. It is only among the overtly imperfect that we can find community and only among the overtly imperfect nations of the world that we can find peace. Our imperfections are among the few things we human beings have in common….Indeed, only honest people can play a healing role in the world.”
M.Scott Peck, M.D., A Different Drum

"In the very first chapter Thomas (Berry) lays before us 'The Great Work.' In each historical epoch, he says, people are given a “Great Work” to do—in one age, the settling of new lands, in another the building of great cathedrals, the creation of artistic, philosophical, religious or scientific works, or the shaping of political structures and ideas. The Great Works of prior periods are seen in such things as the movement of the first people out of Africa in the Paleolithic Period; the creation of language, rituals and social structures in hunter-gatherer communities; the establishment of agriculture communities in the Neolithic Period; the development of the great classical civilizations; and, in the modern period, advances in technology, urban civilization, new
ideals of government and human rights, the modern business enterprise and globalism.

Our Great Work is not something we choose, Thomas says. It is something we find ourselves thrown into by virtue only of being born in a certain time and place. The task may seem
overwhelming, one coming in response to some huge historical difficulty, but, he observes, just as we are given our historical task by some power beyond ourselves, we must also believe we are given the abilities to fulfill this task.
The Great Work into which we and our children are born, Thomas says, comes in response to
the devastation of the planet caused by human activity. We are facing a breakdown in the life
systems that can only be understood by comparison with events that marked the great transitions in the geo-biological eras of Earth’s history, such as the extinction of the dinosaurs and countless other species when the Mesozoic Era ended and our present Cenozoic Era began. Our task is to move from our modern industrial civilization with its devastating impact to that of benign presence. It is an arduous and overwhelming task, one exceeding in its complexity that ever offered to humans, for it is not simply one of adjustment to disturbance of human life patterns, as, for example, that occasioned by the Great Depression or the recent World Wars, but one of dealing with the disruption and termination of the geo-biological system that has governed the functioning of the planet in the 67 million year reign of the Cenozoic Era in the history of the planet Earth."

Ten Sufi Thoughts

from The Way of Illumination by Hazrat Inayat Khan

There are ten principal Sufi thoughts which comprise all the important subjects with which the inner life of man is concerned:
1) There is one God, the Eternal, the Only Being; none else exists save God.
2) There is one Master, the Guiding Spirit of all souls, who constantly leads all followers towards the light.
3) There is one Holy Book, the sacred manuscript of nature, which truly enlightens all readers.
4) There is one Religion, the unswerving progress in the right direction towards the ideal, which fulfils the life's purpose of every soul.
5) There is one Law, the law of Reciprocity, which can be observed by a selfless conscience together with a sense of awakened justice.
6) There is one human Brotherhood, the Brotherhood and Sisterhood which unites the children of earth indiscriminately in the Fatherhood (/Motherhood) of God.
7) There is one Moral Principle, the love which springs forth from self-denial, and blooms in deeds of beneficence.
8) There is one Object of Praise, the beauty which uplifts the heart of its worshipper through all aspects from the seen to the unseen.
9) There is one Truth, the true knowledge of our being within and without which is the essence of all wisdom.
10) There is one Path, the annihilation of the false ego in the real, which raises the mortal to immortality and in which resides all perfection.

The following are shared objectives for bluelab and were first articulated as such by Hazrat Inayat Khan who is credited as the first to bring Sufism to the West--in the early 20th century.

The objectives of the Sufi path:

1) To realize and spread the knowledge of unity, the religion of love and wisdom, so that the bias of faiths and beliefs may of itself fall away, the human heart may overflow with love, and all hatred caused by distinctions and differences may be rooted out.

2) To discover the light and power latent in man, the secret of all religion, the power of mysticism, and the essence of philosophy, without interfering with customs or belief.

3) To help to bring the world's two opposite poles, East and West, closer together by the interchange of thought and ideals that the Universal Brotherhood may form of itself and man may see with man beyond the narrow national and racial boundaries.

Thursday, September 28, 2006

“My religion is very simple, my religion is kindness.”

The Dalai Lama

"In and through community lies the salvation of the world." M Scott Peck, MD, a Different Drum

What if?

What if leading artists were offered resources allowing them to come together and to work intensively and without distraction for substantial blocks of time on film, music and real time performance collaborations toward activism and global healing? What if these artists were guided through community building processes prior to beginning their projects allowing them entrance into deep levels of trust and communication? What if they were given opportunity to work with and interact with some of the leaders of our time in the fields of science and philosophy and spirituality? What if they were given all the production equipment and technical assistance they might need to produce global quality shows?

“A growing consensus of scientists, scholars, and visionaries now recognizes that the earth community is facing an unprecedented evolutionary challenge. The ecological, political, and spiritual crisis of late modernity calls for a fundamental reorientation of our civilization, including a transformation of both the structures of our institutions and our own consciousness.

Thomas Berry has called this task ‘The Great Work.’ “

“In our present situation, the effectiveness of art needs to be judged by how well it overturns the perception of the world that we have been taught which has set our whole society on a course of bioshperic destruction. Ecology (and the relational, total-field model of “ecosophy”) is a new cultural force we can no longer escape—it is the only effective challenge to the long-term priorities of the present economic order. I believe that what we will see in the next few years is a new paradigm based on the notion of participation, in which art will begin to redefine itself in terms of social relatedness and ecological healing, so that artists will gravitate toward different activities, attitudes and roles than those that operated under the aesthetics of modernism.”

Suzie Gablik, the Reenchantment of Art

“[Suzi] Gablik speaks of the previous paradigm of the Enlightenment period and what it has meant to artists: ‘Individualism, freedom and self-expression are the great modernist buzz words.’ The notion that art could serve collective cultural needs rather than a personal quest for self-expression seems almost ‘presumptuous’ in that worldview. Yet this assumption lies at the base of a paradigm shift in art, a shift ‘from objects to relationships.’ Gablik challenges her coworkers not to settle for abstract theorizing in making this paradigm shift. She personalizes and therefore grounds the transformations that must be undergone when she insists that ‘the way to prepare the ground for new paradigm shift is to make changes in one’s own life.’

Spirituality is about praxis, she is saying, not just theory.”

Matthew Fox, The Reinvention of Work

"Works of art are indeed always products of having been in danger, of having gone to the very end in an experience, to where man can go no further."

Rainer Maria Rilke from Letters

“The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.”
Albert Einstein

“If one wishes to change the world, one must first become that change.”

Mohandas Gandhi

“Man needs many things in life, but his greatest need is an ideal.”

Hazrat Inayat Khan

The central theme of Bluelab is the endgame need for heightened cooperation among artists and the potential efficacy of new collaborated art forms toward critically needed global healing and transformation. We believe that art holds special potentials for exploratory interactive processes and for the immediate multidimensional transmission of discoveries as they might evolve. It is toward these key ideas that many ancillary concepts and provisions have been developed. Bluelab is being built with the intention of providing unique resources and strategies for artists who are willing to give themselves to new art making experiences and who care deeply about our world intuitively understanding the value of spiritual practice and personal sacrifice.

Bluelab will offer a focused experimental atmosphere minimizing distractions and providing a safe and supportive environment where breakthroughs can more readily be evoked and funneled into potent new media works. Bluelab’s key ideas, concepts and strategies will be made vibrant and effective through ongoing consensual developmental process allowing all who are involved in the community to participate in its formation and direction. Radical inclusion will lead to solidarity that will support and inform all our endeavors. To make art with conscience and in highly experimental forms calls for heightened support from those around us. Visionary citizens from many walks of life will be invited to have input and opportunities to make real contributions to our work.

We will strive to be mindful and balanced in the way we approach the fusion of art, spirituality and social activism and we believe that as daunting as such a task may appear, it is essential that we give ourselves humbly and fully to this process. Bluelab will be one of a number of organizations with a part to play in the “Great Work,” the world wide effort to meet and to embrace the issues critical to the survival of our planet.

With the awareness that our window of opportunity for unencumbered collaboration in a free western first world culture may be limited, we will work to implement our work with diligence, determination and conviction. Bluelab will be a community filled with a depth of resources encouraging its members to readily move beyond self-interest toward new and inspired forms of collaborative process. With rigorous, focused and balanced processes artists will find it possible to make work infused with deep meaning and compassion fully embracing the specter of our global challenges while also exploring the uncharted territory of their souls. M. Scott Peck, a pioneer in community building research defined a true community as a “mystical body.” Bluelab will strive to function as such.

Operating as test microcosms, pilot projects of gifted and skilled collaborators will work to discover processes through close relationship to one another fostering art making processes that will have the potential to change their lives and the lives of the public around them. Discoveries will be transmitted to the public at large through various new media installations and events shedding fresh light upon human potentials and creating sculptures comprised of healing and transforming energies. Inspired spaces discovered through rigorous spiritual and communal processes will imbue works of art and be transferred to the public at large in beneficial and transforming ways. Community building processes will readily pour into art making wherein something meaningful and healing will evolve making publicly performed and installed works fields of healing energies and ideas .Perhaps for the first time, artistic leaders will have opportunity to work intensively with spiritual leaders and great thinkers in holistic environment created to offer all possible.

We will seek to dovetail with the efforts of important organizations such as The Global Justice Movement, The Center for Economic and Social Justice, Environmental Defense and Amnesty International toward a healthier and happier planet. Because Bluelab is foremost and artistic enterprise we will enjoy great freedom. Art stands beyond immediate contradiction and controversy and is focused upon the exploration experience and expression of our highest ideals. There will hopefully be positive social and political implications as result of our productions—but by focusing upon our Vision, we place ourselves beyond simple egoic strife.

Why would individualistic artists want to participate in something like Bluelab? Perhaps initially only those who’ve had some sort of opening or awakening (or sometimes collapse) can see and feel the merit of these ideas. Only people who’ve come to some sort of precipice in their lives will comprehend Bluelab because in many ways its ideas go completely against the grain of the ego. There’s nothing per se wrong with the ego and it’s generally understood that the ego is inescapable in our lives and in fact is the mechanism by which we know ourselves. People with no ego at all are harbored in various institutions. The key here seems to be in artfully addressing the ego and working with it in constructive and healthy ways. It seems clear to most reputable spiritual teachers, whatever their traditions that perhaps the key to authentic spiritual practice as opposed to false is in how the ego is addressed and dealt with. Contemporary culture is littered with the incomplete, ineffective, and even destructive teachings of self-appointed teachers who lack the credentials for dependable spiritual direction. For this reason, Bluelab will seek to ally ourselves only with well known and respected teachers and elders from various widely regarded and respected traditions.

People coming out of art schools and trying to erect a livable career by which they can continue to make work, explore new ideas, and simultaneously enjoy at least a survivable lifestyle have learned to be wary of distractions. To some extent we are all still marching to the tune of our Modernist ancestors. We’re all still at least a little enamored of the image of the lone ranger kind of artist who’s mysterious and grand, solitary and defiant—riding into town on a pale horse, making a big splash, then disappearing again. Rugged individualism still has a certain beauty, but if we are to face, embrace, and give ourselves to the task of “The Great Work” of global transformation we will need to be deeply rooted in community. No human being has the personal isolated strength to undergo the changes we must entertain without substantial structure, assistance and supervision.

Granted, the image of oneself as simply one of a company of artists is hardly as sexy as that of the reckless and flamboyant rugged individualists of many of our predecessors. Theirs was a different world than the one we inhabit. Maybe one can come to see that the pay offs of communal art making are equally rich and valid. It seems that many teachers throughout time have tried to tell us that suffering is inherent in authentic human life and that much of the suffering comes through the perpetual resistance of the ego. We can’t really escape the ego and its influence—at least not immediately. Many masters would say that we never circumvent the ego—that it retains its strength and gains in ingenuity as we make meaningful discoveries. The ego can easily co-opt whatever gains we make through our surrender processes and becomes more cunning and wily the more we grow.

There are however clear pathways to success here. Many have traversed these trails and left clues, experiences, encouragement and teachings.

This is part of the necessity of the “Sangha” or spiritual community. Artists are often wary of “spiritual communities” for a number of reasons—many valid reasons based on the scandals and debacles of recent years. However, upon further consideration these were not communities in the true sense of the word at all. A true community is a work of mystery and defies dissection and simple assessment—however there are a number of pioneers who throughout the last twenty or thirty years have made real progress in understanding and discerning the true community from its counterfeits. Some of our understanding in recent years has been informed by the tragedies of various cults as well.

We all feel vulnerable in this contemporary world. Information seems to come in faster than our digestive systems can handle it. I think in some ways artists are the most vulnerable. Artists are wide open to all that we experience and in many ways lack the psychological filters that most have allowing distance from the voluminous stimuli and the more terrifying prospects around us constantly piped in by a global media complex including twenty-four hour news channels and the web. Many artists don’t watch television at all. Some find it easier to direct their interests through navigating around informational channels on the web and stay focused on things of their personal interest which is helpful—but perhaps all who are truly intuitive sense the looming dangers we’re all subject to.

So much seems to be at stake. Yet on many levels and over the years at many times I’ve seen that there are mysterious forces at play here—and as utopian or improbable as this whole thing seems—it or something similar can and in fact needs to be created. All resources must be gathered toward combating ignorance and injustices for these are now linked to technologies of unspeakably destructive potentials.

Art is one of our greatest human assets. To turn away from the difficulty of all this would mean utter failure on my part. To embrace this vision and to humbly and vulnerably approach people seeking support and participation seems my only viable alternative. For years these ideas have been too ethereal and inchoate to sell—even to artists. While some have seen merit in the scope of the vision, I have slowly come to the understanding that without grounding these concepts in logistical and strategic solutions they hover sadly quixotic.

To do the impossible, one must first glimpse the invisible. Truth cannot be conceptualized, it must be sighted. To see with the eyes of the soul, one must first feel safe enough to let go of all that obscures its field of vision. Bluelab has been conceived as a safe and encouraging place for gifted artists and thinkers to join with others of like mind in order to rise to their highest capabilities funneling the fruits of their gifts into state of the art multimedia events and new media in the service of the community at large.

Our human dilemma will not be resolved through great ideas alone, but through changed hearts. Artists are often big hearted servant/leaders. By guiding and supporting them into transformative breakthrough they will naturally go on to inform, transform and heal those around them. Generosity is not a distant ideal to be attained, but our very essence as human beings –as souls.

Great artists and creative thinkers are great souls. Herein is hope for our troubled world.

Bluelab is intended to become an art driven triage center for a world culture on the verge. We are aware that there are no simple solutions to the systemic difficulties we all face. We call forth and celebrate a strange and translogical freedom to hold as true the notion that as artists willing to become empty of self-concern, the phenomenon known as “time” is on our side. All resources shall be called into our assistance for our intentions are truly altruistic.

Bluelab will be seeking support and funding from visionary contributors to provide stipends and consultation for collaborating interdisciplinary artists and thinkers. Bluelab will be bringing in a variety of exciting guest artists and thinkers who are leaders in their respective fields and our friends and supporters will be invited to participate in some of the liveliest and most life affirming research and dialogue available anywhere today. Supporters and friends will have access to many of our key creative process moments along with raw early rehearsals. This will give us the energy of a live audience to reflect back to us the ideas and energies we’re working with while providing our benefactors with access to some ecstatic personal and shared experiences.

Bluelab is formed upon a foundation based upon “perennial values” and we honor the essential non-hierarchical nature of reality and will provide an atmosphere largely free of pretense and political strife. We recognize that all human beings have gifts to share and that communities flourish in diversity.

Bluelab offers a model of radical inclusion in which all who sincerely want to be a part of our community will be welcomed. As our individual hearts grow we discover the power of dynamic tension which is to say the power of loving inclusion of divergent human leanings and tendencies which when held in the poise of compassionate tolerance can give amazing depth, potency and vibrancy to co-created works of art.

Those with eyes wide open are aware of the urgency of our global situation and are intent upon doing all possible to address it by working to heal ourselves and our world. We look forward to many wonderful and formative evenings with guests, participants and supporters with a number of warm and casual events planned in order to provide clarification, comfort and encouragement to all who visit us. The wise men and women who created A.A. have a saying, “Easy does it.” We don’t have to take ourselves too seriously. Here is the subtle power of true humility. We must know our limitations as individuals to discover the almost limitless potentials of community. It’s truly mind-blowing when one does see what communities are

capable of.

Bluelab plans to rapidly ramp up organization and construction toward a number of projects even as “artist / transformers” are standing by in Kansas City (and perhaps elsewhere) continuing to sharpen their skills while awaiting funding and organizational opportunities to allow them to pour their formidable gifts into our transformative new media works. Most prospective participants have art degrees from leading nationally honored schools and many years under their belts in the development of specific skills and craft/s that they will be bringing to our work.

Art has always been inextricably linked to philosophical, theological, and scientific questions. We align ourselves with those who lead the way in searching for solutions to the problems we face as beloved relatives on this gorgeous and troubled little planet.

The primary interest of Bluelab is in doing our part to fully change ourselves knowing that whatever we might be able to do for the world will be contingent upon what happens within each of us as individuals—within the context of daily practice and all of us as a community of individuals must be willing to practice ethical principles in order that our work together might be feasible.

Mission

Bluelab is a developing non profit corporation providing new approaches to socially conscious new media art collaborations. Bluelab will seek involvement on the part of artists, filmmakers, performers, writers and musicians along with spiritual teachers and leaders of other fields. Through the fusion of the fields of art, science, and philosophy we will explore new forms of integration and thereby new insights to our shared global crises. As an artistic venture bluelab will funnel these new insights, energies and discoveries into works of art that will be transformative for participants and ultimately for the community at large.