1. Art manifestos, despite the good intentions of the writer should always “be taken with a grain of salt” as the cliché goes, because they are subject to the ego, pretensions, and plain old ignorance and stupidity of their authors. This goes all the way back to the Die Brücke manifesto of 1906, and continues through time to this one that you’re reading now. A healthy wariness of manifestos is understood and encouraged. However, the ideas put forth here are meant sincerely and with the hope of bringing inspiration and change to others, as well as to myself.

2. Remodernism seeks a new spirituality in art. Therefore, remodernist film seeks a new spirituality in cinema. Spiritual film does not mean films about Jesus or the Buddha. Spiritual film is not about religion. It is cinema concerned with humanity and an understanding of the simple truths and moments of humanity. Spiritual film is really ALL about these moments.

3. Cinema could be one of the perfect methods of creative expression, due to the ability of the filmmaker to sculpt with image, sound and the feeling of time. For the most part, the creative possibilities of cinema have been squandered. Cinema is not a painting, a novel, a play, or a still photograph. The rules and methods used to create cinema should not be tied to these other creative endeavors. Cinema should NOT be thought of as being “all about telling a story”. Story is a convention of writing, and should not necessarily be considered a convention of filmmaking.

4. The Japanese ideas of wabi-sabi (the beauty of imperfection) and mono no aware (the awareness of the transience of things and the bittersweet feelings that accompany their passing), have the ability to show the truth of existence, and should always be considered when making the remodernist film.

5. An artificial sense of “perfection” should never be imposed on a remodernist film. Flaws should be accepted and even encouraged. To that end, a remodernist filmmaker should consider the use of film, and particularly film like Super-8mm and 16mm because these mediums entail more of a risk and a requirement to leave things up to chance, as opposed to digital video. Digital video is for people who are afraid of, and unwilling to make mistakes.** Video leads to a boring and sterile cinema. Mistakes and failures make your work honest and human.***

6. Film, particularly Super-8mm film, has a rawness, and an ability to capture the poetic essence of life, that video has never been able to accomplish.***

7. Intuition is a powerful tool for honest communication. Your intuition will always tell you if you are making something honest, so use of intuition is key in all stages of remodernist filmmaking.

8. Any product or result of human creativity is inherently subjective, due to the beliefs, biases and knowledge of the person creating the work. Work that attempts to be objective will always be subjective, only instead it will be subjective in a dishonest way. Objective films are inherently dishonest. Stanley Kubrick, who desperately and pathetically tried to make objective films, instead made dishonest and boring films.

9. The remodernist film is always subjective and never aspires to be objective.

10. Remodernist film is not Dogme ’95. We do not have a pretentious checklist that must be followed precisely. This manifesto should be viewed only as a collection of ideas and hints whose author may be mocked and insulted at will.

11. The remodernist filmmaker must always have the courage to fail, even hoping to fail, and to find the honesty, beauty and humanity in failure.

12. The remodernist filmmaker should never expect to be thanked or congratulated. Instead, insults and criticism should be welcomed. You must be willing to go ignored and overlooked.

13. The remodernist filmmaker should be accepting of their influences, and should have the bravery to copy from them in their quest for understanding of themselves.

14. Remodernist film should be a stripped down, minimal, lyrical, punk kind of filmmaking, and is a close relative to the No-Wave Cinema that came out of New York’s Lower East Side in the 1970’s.

15. Remodernist film is for the young, and for those who are older but still have the courage to look at the world through eyes as if they are children.

** The only exceptions to Point 5 about video are Harris Smith and Peter Rinaldi; to my mind they are the only people who have made honest and worthwhile use of this medium. (Aug. 2008)

***The position on digital/video has changed since this manifesto was written in 2008- the group is inclusive toward use of any motion picture format.

Above is a short film about Mutable author, William Levy (1939, Brooklyn, New York), and his notorious radio show, The Dr. Doowop show. Levy is an author, publisher and pioneer of independent erotic media, who currently lives in Amsterdam where he has the only doowop radio show in Europe. We have been honored to reprint his writing on Otto Muehl and Christian Loidl, and now we are honored to showcase the above documentary about the life and times of William Levy, and his radio persona Dr. Doowop. It’s a film about radical media, loneliness and eternal love, absurdity and close harmony music. ‘There’s nothing that makes you feel so alive as getting a death threat.’ Indeed.

For our first Mutable Sound of the month, Malcolm and I thought we’d present you with a song we recorded one fateful night many years ago. I will never forget my irritation when Malcolm nudged me to come out to the car to record another pop masterpiece. I remember very distinctly thinking to myself, “Oh. God. Do we have to record every time we hang out?”

The idea was to record an inappropriate holiday country song using an array of instruments from Malcolm’s stash, like his chinese accordian and autoharp, in Malcolm’s grandfather’s old Chevy Caprice Classic. What we ended up with was a new year’s song about an absentee dad.

Then Malcolm began recording, on a stereo microphone attached to a simple cassette. After each track had been recorded, he would play it back on the car stereo, and we would record over it on a new tape, then put that tape in the car stereo, and record yet again, until our final track was this bizarre blown-out mush. Then Malcolm performed his usual production magic, and voila. Here it is. Another song I love. Download it here, or listen below.

Gabriel Chad Boyer

Mutable Sound is pleased to present a different unique musical experience every month. Each month we will bring you a different free download of an experimental one-off, by ourselves, or someone perhaps living in your very neighborhood! These are discoveries from the reel-to-reels and tascams of the garages and basements of the world, but also studio jobs make us feel things perhaps we wished we hadn’t, songs that stand on their own and songs that embody the spirit of mutability, songs we want you to cherish even though each is but a lonely single track.

As always, if you have a particular track you think would fit these criteria, just send a link to the song, credits, and a brief description to submissions@mutablesound.com

View all Mutable Sounds of the Month

(Operation Garden Plot is a general U.S. Army and National Guard plan to respond to major domestic civil disturbances within the United States. The plan was developed in response to the civil disorders of the 1960s and is now under the control of the U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM). It provides Federal military and law enforcement assistance to local governments during times of major civil disturbances. Garden Plot was last activated (as Noble Eagle) to provide military assistance to civil authorities following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The Pentagon also activated it to restore order during the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. Under Homeland Security restructuring, it has been suggested that similar models be followed. To read the current military position on Garden Plot, go here, to read Activist Father Frank Morales’ take on it, go here, and to read the original document, see below.)

The United States Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2

The following information was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. The original printing was of June 1, 1984. The information herein is UNCLASSIFIED and does not come within the scope of directions governing the protection of information affecting the national security.

In this document signed by the Secretary of the Army, is hereby assigned as DOD Executive Agent for civil disturbance control operations. Under Plan 55-2 he is to use airlift and logistical support, in assisting appropriate military commanders in the 50 states, District of Columbia, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and US possessions and territories, or any political subdivision thereof.

The official name of this project is called “Operation Garden Plot.”

Under this plan for the deployment of Operation Garden Plot, the use of CIDCON-1 will be mandatory. This direct support of civil disturbance control operations is to be used by the Army, USAF, Navy, and Marine Corp. with an airlift force to be comprised of MAC Organic Airlift Resources, airlift capable aircraft of all other USAF major commands, and all other aerial reconnaissance and Airborne Psychological Operations. This is to include control communications systems, aeromedical evacuation, helicopter and Weather Support Systems.

If any civil disturbance by a resistance group, religious organization, or other persons considered to be non-conformist takes place, under Appendix 3 to Annex B of Plan 55-2 hereby gives all Federal forces total power over the situation if local and state authorities cannot put down said dissenters.

Annex A, section B of Operation Garden Plot defines tax protesters, militia groups, religious cults, and general anti-government dissenters as Disruptive Elements. This calls for the deadly force to be used against any extremist or dissident perpetrating any and all forms of civil disorder.

Under section D, a Presidential Executive Order will authorize and direct the Secretary of Defense to use the Armed Forces of the United States to restore order.

2 TAB A APPENDIX 1 TO ANNEX S USAF CIVIL DISTURBANCE PLAN 55-2 EXHIBIT POR:SGH, JCS Pub 6, Vol 5, AFR 160-5 hereby provides for America’s military and the National Guard State Partnership Program to join with United Nations personal in said operations. This links selected U.S. National Guard units with the Defense Ministries of “Partnership For Peace.” This was done in an effort to provide military support to civil authorities in response to civil emergencies.

Under Presidential Decision Directive No. 25, this program serves to cement people to relationships between the citizens of the United States, and the global military of the UN establishments of the emerging democracies of Central and Eastern European countries. This puts all of our National Guardsmen under the direct jurisdiction of the United Nations.

Section 3:
This plan could be implemented under any of the following situation:

(1) Spontaneous civil disturbances which involve large numbers of persons and/or which continue for a considerable period of time, may exceed the capacity of local civil law enforcement agencies to suppress. Although this type of activity can arise without warning as a result of sudden, unanticipated popular unrest (past riots), it may also result from more prolonged dissidence.

This would most likely be an outgrowth of serious social, political or economic issues which divide segments of the American population. Such factionalism could manifest itself through repeated demonstrations, protest marches and other forms of legitimate opposition but which would have the potential for erupting into spontaneous violence with little or no warning.

(2) Planned acts of violence or civil disobedience which, through arising from the same causes as (1) above, are seized upon by a dedicated group of dissidents who plan and incite purposeful acts designed to disrupt social order.

This may occur either because leaders of protest organizations intentionally induce their followers to perpetrate violent acts, or because a group of militants infiltrates an otherwise peaceful protest and seeks to divert it from its peaceful course.

Subsection C: (2) Environmental satellite products will be continue to be available. (d) Responsibilities. Meteorological support to civil disturbance operations will be arranged or provided by AWS wings.

The 7th. Weather Wing (7WW) is responsible for providing / arranging support for Military Airlift Command (MAC) airlift operations. The 5th Weather Wing (5WW) is responsible for supporting the United States Army Forces Command.

(3) SITUATION. Civil disturbance may threaten or erupt at any time in the CONUS and grow to such proportions as to require the use the Federal military forces to bring the situation under control.

A flexible weather support system is required under control. A flexible weather support system is required to support the many and varied options of this Plan.

ANNEX H: XXOW, AWSR 55-2, AWSR 23-6, AFR 23-31, AR 115-10, AFR 105-3.

Subsection B:

Concept of Environmental Support. Environmental support will be provided by elements of Air Weather Service (AWS) in accordance with refs a-f. The senior staff meteorologist deployed int the Task Force Headquarters (TFH) will be the staff weather officer (SWO) to the TFH.

Centralized environmental support products are requested in accordance with AWSR 105-18. (4) Weather support is provided by weather units located at existing CONUS bases or by deployed SWOs and / or weather teams to the objective areas.

(5) Support MAC source will be provide in accordance with the procedures in MARC 103-15. MAC forces will be provided in accordance with the procedures in AFR 105-3.

(a) Air Force Global Weather Central: Provides centralized products as requested.

REFERENCES : JCS Pub 18 – Doctrine for Operations Security AFR 55-30, Operations Security

1. GENERAL Opposition forces or groups may attempt to gain knowledge of this plan and ‘use that knowledge to prevent or degrade the effectiveness of the actions outlined in this plan. In order to protect operations undertaken to accomplish the mission, it is necessary to control sources of information that can be exploited by those opposition forces or groups.

OPSEC is the effort to protect operations by identifying and controlling intelligence indicators susceptible to exploitation. The objective of OPSEC, in the execution of this plan, is to assure the security of operations, mission effectiveness, and increase the probability of mission success.

2. RESPONSIBILITY FOR OPERATIONS SECURITY (OPSEC):

The denial of information to an enemy is inherently a command responsibility. However, since the operations Officer at any level of command is responsible to his commander for the Overall planning and execution of operations, he has the principal staff interest in assuring maximum protection of the operation and must assume primary responsibility instibility for ensuring that the efforts of all other staff elements are coordinated toward this end. However, every other individual associated with, or aware of, the operation must assist in safeguarding the security of the operation.

3. OBJECTIVES:

a. The basic objective of OPSEC is to preserve the security of friendly forces and thereby to enhance the probability of successful mission accomplishment. “Security” in this context relates to the protection of friendly forces. It also includes the protection of operational information to prevent degradation of mission effectiveness through the disclosure of prior knowledge of friendly operations to the opposition.

b. OPSEC pervades the entire planning process and must be a matter of continuing concern from the conception of an operation, throughout the preparatory and execution phases, and during critiques, reports, press releases, and the like conducted during the post operation phase.

4. Specific operations orders and standard operating procedures “MUST be developed with the awareness that the opposition may be able to identify and exploit vulnerable activities.

Reference Material:

Released under Freedom of Information Act on March 30th, 1990. All material presented here has been declassified and supersedes USAD Operations Plan 355-10 of July 16, 1973. Information released by USAF under supervision of Alexander K. Davidson, BRIG. GEN, USAF, Dep. Director of Operations.

APPENDEX 5 TO ANNEX E TO USAF CIVIL DISTURBANCE PLAN 55-2 Annex Z. Other References: 10 United States Codes 331,332,333,8500,1385, MARC 105-1, MARC 105-18, AR 115-10, AFR 105-3, PDD-25.

()

1. Markets are conversations.

2. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.

3. Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.

4. Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived.

5. People recognize each other as such from the sound of this voice.

6. The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.

7. Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.

8. In both internetworked markets and among intranetworked employees, people are speaking to each other in a powerful new way.

9. These networked conversations are enabling powerful new forms of social organization and knowledge exchange to emerge.

10. As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.

11. People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.

12. There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.

13. What’s happening to markets is also happening among employees. A metaphysical construct called “The Company” is the only thing standing between the two.

14. Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman.

15. In just a few more years, the current homogenized “voice” of business — the sound of mission statements and brochures — will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court.

16. Already, companies that speak in the language of the pitch, the dog-and-pony show, are no longer speaking to anyone.

17. Companies that assume online markets are the same markets that used to watch their ads on television are kidding themselves.

18. Companies that don’t realize their markets are now networked person-to-person, getting smarter as a result and deeply joined in conversation are missing their best opportunity.

19. Companies can now communicate with their markets directly. If they blow it, it could be their last chance.

20. Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.

21. Companies need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously. They need to get a sense of humor.

22. Getting a sense of humor does not mean putting some jokes on the corporate web site. Rather, it requires big values, a little humility, straight talk, and a genuine point of view.

23. Companies attempting to “position” themselves need to take a position. Optimally, it should relate to something their market actually cares about.

24. Bombastic boasts — “We are positioned to become the preeminent provider of XYZ” — do not constitute a position.

25. Companies need to come down from their Ivory Towers and talk to the people with whom they hope to create relationships.

26. Public Relations does not relate to the public. Companies are deeply afraid of their markets.

27. By speaking in language that is distant, uninviting, arrogant, they build walls to keep markets at bay.

28. Most marketing programs are based on the fear that the market might see what’s really going on inside the company.

29. Elvis said it best: “We can’t go on together with suspicious minds.”

30. Brand loyalty is the corporate version of going steady, but the breakup is inevitable — and coming fast. Because they are networked, smart markets are able to renegotiate relationships with blinding speed.

31. Networked markets can change suppliers overnight. Networked knowledge workers can change employers over lunch. Your own “downsizing initiatives” taught us to ask the question: “Loyalty? What’s that?”

32. Smart markets will find suppliers who speak their own language.

33. Learning to speak with a human voice is not a parlor trick. It can’t be “picked up” at some tony conference.

34. To speak with a human voice, companies must share the concerns of their communities.

35. But first, they must belong to a community.

36. Companies must ask themselves where their corporate cultures end.

37. If their cultures end before the community begins, they will have no market.

38. Human communities are based on discourse — on human speech about human concerns.

39. The community of discourse is the market.

40. Companies that do not belong to a community of discourse will die.

41. Companies make a religion of security, but this is largely a red herring. Most are protecting less against competitors than against their own market and workforce.

42. As with networked markets, people are also talking to each other directly inside the company — and not just about rules and regulations, boardroom directives, bottom lines.

43. Such conversations are taking place today on corporate intranets. But only when the conditions are right.

44. Companies typically install intranets top-down to distribute HR policies and other corporate information that workers are doing their best to ignore.

45. Intranets naturally tend to route around boredom. The best are built bottom-up by engaged individuals cooperating to construct something far more valuable: an intranetworked corporate conversation.

46. A healthy intranet organizes workers in many meanings of the word. Its effect is more radical than the agenda of any union.

47. While this scares companies witless, they also depend heavily on open intranets to generate and share critical knowledge. They need to resist the urge to “improve” or control these networked conversations.

48. When corporate intranets are not constrained by fear and legalistic rules, the type of conversation they encourage sounds remarkably like the conversation of the networked marketplace.

49. Org charts worked in an older economy where plans could be fully understood from atop steep management pyramids and detailed work orders could be handed down from on high.

50. Today, the org chart is hyperlinked, not hierarchical. Respect for hands-on knowledge wins over respect for abstract authority.

51. Command-and-control management styles both derive from and reinforce bureaucracy, power tripping and an overall culture of paranoia.

52. Paranoia kills conversation. That’s its point. But lack of open conversation kills companies.

53. There are two conversations going on. One inside the company. One with the market.

54. In most cases, neither conversation is going very well. Almost invariably, the cause of failure can be traced to obsolete notions of command and control.

55. As policy, these notions are poisonous. As tools, they are broken. Command and control are met with hostility by intranetworked knowledge workers and generate distrust in internetworked markets.

56. These two conversations want to talk to each other. They are speaking the same language. They recognize each other’s voices.

57. Smart companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable to happen sooner.

58. If willingness to get out of the way is taken as a measure of IQ, then very few companies have yet wised up.

59. However subliminally at the moment, millions of people now online perceive companies as little more than quaint legal fictions that are actively preventing these conversations from intersecting.

60. This is suicidal. Markets want to talk to companies.

61. Sadly, the part of the company a networked market wants to talk to is usually hidden behind a smokescreen of hucksterism, of language that rings false — and often is.

62. Markets do not want to talk to flacks and hucksters. They want to participate in the conversations going on behind the corporate firewall.

63. De-cloaking, getting personal: We are those markets. We want to talk to you.

64. We want access to your corporate information, to your plans and strategies, your best thinking, your genuine knowledge. We will not settle for the 4-color brochure, for web sites chock-a-block with eye candy but lacking any substance.

65. We’re also the workers who make your companies go. We want to talk to customers directly in our own voices, not in platitudes written into a script.

66. As markets, as workers, both of us are sick to death of getting our information by remote control. Why do we need faceless annual reports and third-hand market research studies to introduce us to each other?

67. As markets, as workers, we wonder why you’re not listening. You seem to be speaking a different language.

68. The inflated self-important jargon you sling around — in the press, at your conferences — what’s that got to do with us?

69. Maybe you’re impressing your investors. Maybe you’re impressing Wall Street. You’re not impressing us.

70. If you don’t impress us, your investors are going to take a bath. Don’t they understand this? If they did, they wouldn’t let you talk that way.

71. Your tired notions of “the market” make our eyes glaze over. We don’t recognize ourselves in your projections — perhaps because we know we’re already elsewhere.

72. We like this new marketplace much better. In fact, we are creating it.

73. You’re invited, but it’s our world. Take your shoes off at the door. If you want to barter with us, get down off that camel!

74. We are immune to advertising. Just forget it.

75. If you want us to talk to you, tell us something. Make it something interesting for a change.

76. We’ve got some ideas for you too: some new tools we need, some better service. Stuff we’d be willing to pay for. Got a minute?

77. You’re too busy “doing business” to answer our email? Oh gosh, sorry, gee, we’ll come back later. Maybe.

78. You want us to pay? We want you to pay attention.

79. We want you to drop your trip, come out of your neurotic self-involvement, join the party.

80. Don’t worry, you can still make money. That is, as long as it’s not the only thing on your mind.

81. Have you noticed that, in itself, money is kind of one-dimensional and boring? What else can we talk about?

82. Your product broke. Why? We’d like to ask the guy who made it. Your corporate strategy makes no sense. We’d like to have a chat with your CEO. What do you mean she’s not in?

83. We want you to take 50 million of us as seriously as you take one reporter from The Wall Street Journal.

84. We know some people from your company. They’re pretty cool online. Do you have any more like that you’re hiding? Can they come out and play?

85. When we have questions we turn to each other for answers. If you didn’t have such a tight rein on “your people” maybe they’d be among the people we’d turn to.

86. When we’re not busy being your “target market,” many of us are your people. We’d rather be talking to friends online than watching the clock. That would get your name around better than your entire million dollar web site. But you tell us speaking to the market is Marketing’s job.

87. We’d like it if you got what’s going on here. That’d be real nice. But it would be a big mistake to think we’re holding our breath.

88. We have better things to do than worry about whether you’ll change in time to get our business. Business is only a part of our lives. It seems to be all of yours. Think about it: who needs whom?

89. We have real power and we know it. If you don’t quite see the light, some other outfit will come along that’s more attentive, more interesting, more fun to play with.

90. Even at its worst, our newfound conversation is more interesting than most trade shows, more entertaining than any TV sitcom, and certainly more true-to-life than the corporate web sites we’ve been seeing.

91. Our allegiance is to ourselves — our friends, our new allies and acquaintances, even our sparring partners. Companies that have no part in this world, also have no future.

92. Companies are spending billions of dollars on Y2K. Why can’t they hear this market timebomb ticking? The stakes are even higher.

93. We’re both inside companies and outside them. The boundaries that separate our conversations look like the Berlin Wall today, but they’re really just an annoyance. We know they’re coming down. We’re going to work from both sides to take them down.

94. To traditional corporations, networked conversations may appear confused, may sound confusing. But we are organizing faster than they are. We have better tools, more new ideas, no rules to slow us down.

95. We are waking up and linking to each other. We are watching. But we are not waiting.

First time I met Marc, he was going to cooking school. “Sometimes it takes a really destructive love affair. To realize this’s no way to spend your life. Writing code for hours and hours and hours and then? What do I get at the end of the day? A headache.” That was seven years ago now, and he has since gone on to become an underground food hacker, his own term.

Hacking food is the same principle as hacking computers, not in the illegal sense, but in the “dangerously innovative” sense, to hack into a food and recreate it from the inside out sort of thing. Taking something that was formerly inedible and somehow turning it into an edible thing for example. This is only the most recent among a long list of projects to have come through, and come out of the Unicorn Precinct, a house in San Francisco, notorious for its evocative creatural fare.

The Unicorn Precinct was founded in 1999, and is “home to family of anarchist artist musician spiritualist freak hacker chefs”. It started out as a hacker studio, then evolved into a recording facility, recording the likes of “Threesome at the Gas Station,” an easy-listening hip hop underground classic, produced by the Reverend Al and featuring the vocal stylings of K the I among others. The Unicorn Precinct has also served as a gallery of sorts, having on-going shows of local artists displayed on their walls, like “Pills” by Ellen Kraft, in which a place is set on the wall, the plate in the center of the place setting full of pills, but as far back as 2002 they were already becoming interested in food as a force for change. Below is the copy from their event, Ice Cream Armageddon:

“within a year we’ll all be in the army or in jail, we can either pay all of our bills *OR* spend all of our cash on SWEET DELICIOUS ICE CREAM for all of our friends! liquor + Mitchell’s ice cream cake + music + friends = one of many peak experiences we can all enjoy before the world breaks in two and we’re all forced to vote the machine line by robotic smallpox vaccine delivery agents.”

And so it seemed none too fitting that I meet Marc for a tasting of some Bombay Ice Creamery in the mission, and he can tell me what he’s been up to, other possible delicious ice cream eateries, lead me through the bizarre options. (Such as Falooda, which I did indeed try: rose-flavored with rice noodles and basil seeds if you must know.) There were two kinds of cocoanut ice cream, regular and young, as well as Chiku, Taro, Cardamom and Rose, and Black Sesame Seed. Amazing stuff, but never to be outdone, Marc informed me that there was yet another mind-blowing ice cream emporium a few blocks away, Polynesian this time. “Their avocado ice cream makes the most amazing absinthe smoothie.”

So how did he get involved in food hackery?

It began as the Food Hacking Supper Club, which is attempting to create an “anarchist food aesthetic”, or as Marc says, “Chefs are a lot like hardware hackers. Both geek out, absorbing the specs of (vegetables|technology) for the purpose of creating something that nobody else has: (innovative food|new machines). So what happens when the kitchen becomes a hack lab? Something delicious. Something geeky.” And he goes on:

“What happens when the world’s leading hacker chefs skill up on organic chemistry and buy centrifuges for their kitchens? Is your palate ready for ‘meat glue’, ‘cooking’ with liquid nitrogen, and ‘liquid noodles’? Molecular gastronomy is a culinary aesthetic of a growing number of chefs worldwide who wish to cross-pollinate their culinary skills with the trade secrets of chemists, physicists, researchers, perfumers and industrial food manufacturers. Typically, only the most high end restaurants have the budgets to stock their kitchens with steam baths, centrifuges, and microscopes. Spurred on by the friendly competition rife in the food industry, these restaurants work to develop new culinary techniques, improve (and disprove) accepted kitchen wisdom, and deploy their food to the customer in crazy new futuristic ways. Can we bring food into the future without seriously freaking out the fickle palate of the public? Are you ready for liquid nitrogen-cooled food, steak-flavored cellophane and bacon & egg ice cream?”

Marc apprenticed in the research kitchen of Heston Blumenthal’s Michelin starred restaurant The Fat Duck (fatduck.co.uk), aka the bleeding edge of the molecular gastronomy movement, and so perhaps we should chalk this up as the birthplace of food-hacking. Like a black ops chef, trained by the best, to take down everything you thought you knew about food and the consumption of food.

In 2006, he decided to take his understanding on the road, going from San Francisco to Maine, down to Florida and back — 16 dinner parties in 32 days and 10,000 miles, the idea being that they would arrive at the prospective dinner party host’s house at 4 or earlier to shop and begin preparations for the evening, first course at 8 and winding down by 11, and he’s been expanding ever since, giving lectures on setting up kitchen hack labs, setting up a web site entitled, delicious corpse, in which a menu is randomly generated, and has continued to open up his kitchen to friends and strangers every Thursday for his food hacking supper club. Marc fully believes that sharing knowledge through experimentation and cooking truly is revolutionary social networking.

But what sort of recipe’s have come out of all of this food-hackery? Duck Fat Okonomiyaki with Mugwort Soba for one, as well as Celery Root Cake with Sassafras Icing. Others include, Crab Butter, Quinoa and and Hummus Collard Tacos, and Spanish Skin Syrup. They have also performed some very daring experiments, such as toe cheese, in which a toenail is used as cheese rind and flavoring, or ant venom gumdrops.

Last winter they took it to Europe, and this year they’re doing the cookbook iditerod, in which they use and review 365 cookbooks in 365 days. Food hackers of Unicorn Precinct XIII, may your journey be on-going.

Ouspensky's mentor, Georgy Gurdjiefff

(Below is the first few pages of Ouspensky’s classic, The Fourth Way, in which he further expounds upon the teachings of his mentor, Gurdjieff, a man notorious for his extraordinarily limber disciples, and incapable, like Socrates, of taking notes on his own process. Gurdjieff has been accused of magic, and accused of being nothing more than a very demanding physical trainer with delusions of grandeur. Read on and decide for yourself.)

BEFORE I BEGIN TO EXPLAIN TO YOU in a general way what this system is about, I want particularly to impress on your minds that the most important ideas and principles of the system do not belong to me. This is chiefly what makes them valuable, because if they belonged to me they would be like all other theories invented by ordinary minds — they would give only a subjective view of things.

When I began to write A New Model of the Universe in 1907, I formulated to myself, as many other people have done before and since, that behind the surface of the life which we know lies something much bigger and more important. And I said to myself then that until we know more about what lies behind, all our knowledge of life and of ourselves is really negligible. I remember one conversation at that time, when I said, ‘If it were possible to accept as proven that consciousness (or, as I should call it now, intelligence) can manifest itself apart from the physical body, many other things could be proved. Only it cannot be taken as proved.’ I realized that manifestations of supernormal psychology such as thought transference, clairvoyance, the possibility of knowing the future, of looking back into the past, and so on, have not been proved. So I tried to find a method of studying these things, and worked on that line for several years, but the results were very elusive; and though several experiments were successful, it was almost impossible to repeat them.

I came to two conclusions in the course of these experiments: first, that we do not know enough about ordinary psychology; we cannot study supernormal psychology, because we do not know normal psychology. Secondly I came to the conclusion that certain real knowledge exists; that there may be schools which know exactly what we want to know, but that for some reason they are hidden and this knowledge is hidden. So I began to look for these schools. I traveled in Europe, Egypt, India, Ceylon, Turkey and the Near East; but it was really later, when I had already finished these travels, that I met in Russia during the war a group of people who were studying a certain system which came originally from Eastern schools. This system began with the study of psychology, exactly as I had realized it must begin.

The chief idea of this system was that we do not use even a small part of our powers and our forces. We have in us, so to speak, a very big and very fine organization, only we do not know how to use it. In this group they employed certain oriental metaphors, and they told me that we have in us a large house full of beautiful furniture, with a library and many other rooms, but we live in the basement and the kitchen and cannot get out of them. If people tell us about what this house has upstairs we do not believe them, or we laugh at them, or we call it superstition or fairy tales or fables.

This system can be divided into study of the world, on certain new principles, and study of man. The study of the world and study of man include in themselves a kind of special language. We try to use ordinary words, the same words as we use in ordinary conversation, but we attach a slightly different and more precise meaning to them.

Study of the world, study of the universe, is based on the study of some fundamental laws which are not generally known or recognized in science. The two chief laws are the Law of Three and the Law of Seven, which will be explained later. Included in this, and necessary from this point of view, is the principle of scale — a principle which does not enter into ordinary scientific study, or enters very little.

The study of man is closely connected with the idea of the evolution of man, but the evolution of man must be understood in a slightly different way from the ordinary. Ordinarily the word evolution applied either to man or to anything else presupposes a kind of mechanical evolution; I mean that certain things, by certain known or unknown laws, transform into other things, and these other things transform into still others, and so on. But from the point of view of this system there is no such evolution at all — I do not speak in general, but specifically of man. The evolution of man, if it occurs, can only be the result of knowledge and effort; as long as man knows only what he can know in the ordinary way, there is no evolution for him and there never was any evolution for him.

Serious study begins in this system with the study of psychology, that is to say with the study of oneself, because psychology cannot be studied, as astronomy can, outside oneself. A man has to study himself. When I was told that, I saw at once that we do not have any methods of studying ourselves and already have many wrong ideas about ourselves. So I realized that we must get rid of wrong ideas about ourselves and at the same time find methods for studying ourselves.

Perhaps you realize how difficult it is to define what is meant by psychology? There are so many meanings attached to the same words in different systems that it is difficult to have a general definition. So we begin by defining psychology as study of oneself. You have to learn certain methods and principles and, according to these principles and using these methods, you will try to see yourselves from a new point of view.

If we begin to study ourselves we first of all come up against one word which we use more than any other and that is the word ‘I’. We say ‘I am doing’, ‘I am sitting’, ‘I feel’, ‘I like’, ‘I dislike’ and so on. This is our chief illusion, for the principal mistake we make about ourselves is that we consider ourselves one; we always speak about ourselves as ‘I’ and we suppose that we refer to the same thing all the time when in reality we are divided into hundreds and hundreds of different ‘I’s. At one moment when I say ‘I’, one part of me is speaking, and at another moment when I say ‘I’, it is quite another ‘I’ speaking. We do not know that we have not one ‘I’, but many different ‘I’s connected with our feelings and desires, and have no controlling ‘I’. These ‘I’s change all the time; one suppresses another, one replaces another, and all this struggle makes up our inner life.

‘I’s which we see in ourselves are divided into several groups. Some of these groups are legitimate, they belong to right divisions of man, and some of them are quite artificial and are created by insufficient knowledge and by certain imaginary ideas that man has about himself.

To begin self-study it is necessary to study methods of self-observation, but that again must be based on a certain understanding of the divisions of our functions. Our ordinary idea of these divisions is quite wrong. We know the difference between intellectual and emotional functions. For instance, when we discuss things, think about them, compare them, invent explanations or find real explanations, this is all intellectual work; whereas love, hate, fear, suspicion and so on are emotional. But very often, when trying to observe ourselves, we mix even intellectual and emotional functions; when we really feel, we call it thinking, and when we think we call it feeling. But in the course of study we shall learn in what way they differ. For instance, there is an enormous difference in speed, but we shall speak more about that later.

Then there are two other functions which no system of ordinary psychology divides and understands in the right way — instinctive function and moving function. Instinctive refers to the inner work of the organism: digestion of food, beating of the heart, breathing — these are instinctive functions. To instinctive function belong also ordinary senses — sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch, the feeling of cold and warmth, things like that; and this is all, really. Of outer movements, only simple reflexes belong to instinctive function, because more complicated reflexes belong to moving function. It is very easy to distinguish between instinctive and moving functions. We do not have to learn anything that belongs to instinctive function, we are born with the capacity to use all the instinctive functions. Moving functions, on the other hand, all have to be learned — a child learns to walk, to write and so on. There is a very great difference between the
two functions, since there is nothing inherent in moving functions, and instinctive functions are all inherent.

So in self-observation it is necessary first of all to divide these four functions and to classify at once everything that you observe, saying, ‘This is intellectual function’, ‘This is emotional function’ and so on.

If you practise this observation for some time you may notice some strange things. For instance, you will find that what is really difficult in observing is that you forget about it. You start to observe, and your emotions connect with some kind of thought and you forget about self-observation.

Again, after some time, if you continue this effort to observe, which is a new function not used in the same way in ordinary life, you will notice another interesting thing — that generally you do not remember yourself. If you could be aware of yourself all the time, then you would be able to observe all the time, or in any case as long as you liked. But because you cannot remember yourself, you cannot concentrate; and this is why you will have to admit that you have no will. If you could remember yourself, you would have will and could do what you liked. But you cannot remember yourself, you cannot be aware of yourself and so you have no will. You may sometimes have will for a short time, but it turns to something else and you forget about it.

This is the situation, the state of being, the state from which we have to start self­ study. But very soon, if you continue, you will come to the conclusion that almost from the very beginning of self-study you have to correct certain things in yourself which are not right, to arrange certain things which are not in their right places. The system has an explanation for this.

We are made in such a way that we can live in four states of consciousness, but such as we are we use only two: one when we are asleep, and the other when we are what we call ‘awake’ — that is to say, in this present state, when we can talk, listen, read, write and so on. But these are only two out of four possible states. The third state of consciousness is very strange. If people explain to us what the third state of consciousness is, we begin to think that we have it. The third state can be called self-consciousness, and most people, if asked, say, ‘Certainly we are conscious!’ A sufficient time or repeated and frequent efforts of self-observation is necessary before we really recognize the fact that we are not conscious; that we are conscious only potentially. If we are asked, we say, ‘Yes, I am’, and for that moment we are, but the next moment we cease to remember and are not conscious. So in the process of self-observation we realize that we are not in the third state of consciousness, that we live only in two. We live either in sleep or in a waking state which, in the system, is called relative consciousness. The fourth state, which is called objective consciousness, is inaccessible to us because it can only be reached through self-consciousness, that is, by becoming aware of oneself first, so that much later we may manage to reach the objective state of consciousness.

So, at the same time as self-observing, we try to be aware of ourselves by holding the sensation of ‘I am here’ — nothing more. And this is the fact that all Western psychology, without the smallest exception, has missed. Although many people came very near to it, they did not recognize the importance of this fact and did not realize that the state of man as he is can be changed — that man can remember himself, if he tries for a long time.

It is not a question of a day or a month. It is a very long study, and a study of how to remove obstacles, because we do not remember ourselves, we are not conscious of ourselves, owing to many wrong functions in our machine, and all these functions have to be corrected and put right. When most of these functions are put right, these periods of self-remembering will become longer and longer, and if they become sufficiently long, we shall acquire two new functions. With self-consciousness, which is the third state of consciousness, we acquire a function which is called higher emotional, although it is equally intellectual, because on this level there is no difference between intellectual and emotional such as there is on the ordinary level. And when we come to the state of objective consciousness we acquire another function which is called higher mental. Phenomena of what I call supernormal psychology belong to these two functions; and this is why, when I made those experiments twenty-five years ago, I came to the conclusion that experimental work is impossible, because it is not a question of experiment but of changing one’s state of consciousness.

I have just given you some general ideas. Now ask any questions you like.

Q. To attain the higher state of consciousness is it necessary to be permanently aware of oneself?

A. We cannot do that, so there is no question of being permanently aware. We can only talk now about the beginning. We must study ourselves in connection with this division of different functions when we can — when we remember to do it — because in this we depend on chance. When we remember, we must try to be aware of ourselves. This is all we can do.

Q. Must you be able to be conscious of your instinctive functions?

A. Only of the senses. Inner instinctive work does not need to become conscious. It is conscious for itself, independently of the intellectual function, and there is no need to increase this. We must try to become conscious of ourselves as we see ourselves, not of our inner functions. After some time we may become aware of certain inner functions of which it is useful to be aware; but not yet. You see, we do not acquire any new feelings. We only classify better our ordinary impressions, the ordinary things we get from life, from people, from everything.

Q. Would it be correct to say that when learning anything like driving a car, intellectual function tells moving function what to do and that, when proficient, moving function works by itself?

A. Quite right. You can observe many things like that. First you learn by intellectual function.

Q. How important is the knowledge gained by watching our physical actions? Is this merely an exercise for watching our minds?

A. No, it is very important because we mix many things and do not know the causes of many things. We can understand causes only by constant watching for a long time.

Q. May we have instruction about how to work on each of the four functions?

A. All that will be explained, but for the present, and for a long time, you can only observe.

Q. Would it be an example of different ‘I’s working when one goes to bed late and fully decides to go to bed early next night and, when night comes, does otherwise?

A. Quite right, one ‘I’ decides and another has to do it.

Q. How do we set about trying to be more conscious of ourselves?

A. This is quite simple to explain, although it is very difficult to achieve. There are no roundabout ways. A better state can only be achieved by direct effort, just by trying to be more conscious, by asking oneself as often as possible, ‘Am I conscious or not?’

Q. But how does one attain any certainty that your method is right?

A. Just by comparing one observation with another. And then we talk when we meet. People speak about their observations; they compare them; I try to explain what they cannot understand; there are other people who help me; and in that way one becomes sure of ordinary things, just as one knows that grass is green. There is no question of faith or belief in all this. Quite the opposite, this system teaches people to believe in absolutely nothing. You must verify everything that you see, hear and feel. Only in that way can you come to something. At the same time you must realize that our machine docs not work perfectly; it works far from perfectly, because of many wrong functions, so that a very important part of self-study is connected with the study of these wrong functions. We must know them in order to eliminate them. And one of the particularly wrong functions, which we sometimes like in ourselves, is imagination. In this system imagination does not mean conscious or intentional thinking on some subject or visualisation of something, but imagination that turns without any control and without any result. It takes very much energy and turns thinking in a wrong direction.

Q. When you say ‘imagination’, do you mean imagining something to be true, not drawing pictures?

A. Imagination has many aspects; it may be just ordinary day-dreams or, for instance, imagining non-existent powers in oneself. It is the same thing, it works without control, it runs by itself.

Q. Each one is self-deception?

A. One does not take it as self-deception: one imagines something, then believes it and forgets that it was imagination. Studying man in his present state of sleep, absence of unity, mechanicalness and lack of control, we find several other wrong functions which are the result of his state — in particular, lying to himself and to other people all the time. The psychology of ordinary man could even be called the study of lying, because man lies more than anything else; and as a matter of fact, he cannot speak the truth. It is not so simple to speak the truth; one has to learn how to do it, and sometimes it takes a very long time.

Q. Would you mind explaining what you mean by lying?

A. Lying is thinking or speaking about things that one does not know; this is the beginning of lying. It does not mean intentional lying — telling stories, as for instance that there is a bear in the other room. You can go to the other room and see that there is no bear in it. But if you collect all the theories that people put forward on any given subject, without knowing anything about it, you will see where lying begins. Man does not know himself, he does not know anything, yet he has theories about everything. Most of these theories are lying.

Q. I want to know the truth that it is good for me to know in my present state. How can I discover whether it is a lie?

A. For almost everything you know you have methods for verifying. But first you must know what you can know and what you cannot. That helps verifying. If you start with that you will soon hear lies, even without thinking. Lies have a different sound, particularly lies about things we cannot know.

Q. As regards imagination — if you are thinking instead of imagining, should you be aware of the effort all the time?

A. Yes, you will be aware of it—not so much of effort as of control. You will feel that you control things, they do not just go on by themselves.

Q. When you say ‘remember yourself’, do you mean by that to remember after you have observed yourself, or do you mean to remember the things we know are in us?

A. No, take it quite apart from observation. To remember oneself means the same thing as to be aware of oneself—’I am’. Sometimes it comes by itself; it is a very strange feeling. It is not a function, not thinking, not feeling; it is a different state of consciousness. By itself it only comes for very short moments, generally in quite new surroundings, and one says to oneself: ‘How strange. I am here’. This is self­ remembering; at this moment you remember yourself.