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Photo: Will Cloughley and Sondra Slade of Synapse Productions

August 2004

Grokking the Transparent Network

Reflections on the 13th Digital Be-In

by Michael Gosney

On May 29, 2004, the 13th edition of the Digital Be-In beamed in to San Francisco. The annual cyber culture happening featured Ram Dass and Wavy Gravy, luminaries digital and beyond, exhibits, live bands, DJs and an immersive visual environment. The theme of the event was “The Transparent Network.”

Traditionally held in January to coincide with Macworld Exposition and to commemorate the original January 14, 1967 Human Be-In, this year’s Be-In was scheduled on the Memorial Day weekend. It was ironic, but somehow fitting, that this digital-age peace event would be held on the day our country honored its war dead, while the Wars of Terror raged.

Evolving from the spark of the Beat poets, whose introspective responses to the prevailing culture brought about new ways of perceiving the world and defining human potential, the counterculture ethos of the Be-In is very much about how we perceive the world and how we create our shared reality. In the digital era, this ethos inspired the creation of tools and networks that would radically enhance our perceptions and help us engineer a peaceful and sustainable civilization. Understanding and accessing “the pattern that connects” (following Gregory Bateson’s vision) starts with self-knowledge, then knowing the nature of mind, then the system of Nature in which we exist. The Be-Ins of the ‘60s and the Digital Be-Ins of the ‘90s have shared this underlying search for inner knowledge and social/spiritual evolution.

Be-In 13’s many co-creators addressed The Transparent Network theme through speeches, a curated art gallery, exhibits and installations, a video theater, more than 20 performances on three stages and immersive projections throughout the venue. Like past Be-In memes — “Freedom of Speech on the Internet,” “Cultural Diversity in Cyberspace,” and “Human Rights in the Digital Age” — The Transparent Network idea refers to current technical initiatives and social issues. But it is also an emerging archetype with broader meanings, and these more esoteric dimensions were explored as well.

Transparency refers to elegantly designed technologies that become increasingly invisible to the user. It also characterizes open-source computing, which offers alternatives to proprietary software products and facilitates ongoing collaborative development. This transparent network of open-source code and applications is in the public commons, available to all.

Transparency also means open access to information from our institutions, and a free flow of information between people and groups across all manner of borders. As Kevin Bankston from the Electronic Freedom Foundation pointed out, it works the other way as well: As cybercitizens, we are alarmingly transparent to corporate and governmental agencies, with increasing invasions of our personal privacy looming. As Marc Canter observed in his overview of personal publishing, blogs, and the new social networks, because control of one’s personal online identity is vital, there are movements afoot to design a universal system (spearheaded by Jim Fournier’s PlaNetwork group) for defining and protecting personal identities.

Supplement-enhanced smart drinks were served at the Digital Be-In, early examples of the promised fruits of neurotechnology that will allow us to radically enhance brain and sensory processes. Biofeedback also offers compelling possibilities for mind expansion. One exhibit was The Journey to the Wild Divine, a $150 bio-feedback game that combines a Myst-like CD-ROM journey of personal growth with sensors that measure heart rate and galvanic skin response. Players can fine tune meditative states and energy levels via mind-only interactions with the computer program. Soon, this technology will be available for multi-user groups on the Web. Imagine 200 people online, all attaining their optimum “group intention setting,” with each person achieving a precise meditative state by, for instance, bringing an arrow on the screen in line with a target. Each participant could also be seeing the combined group’s body-mind state on a smaller arrow/target animation and other readouts as they pray together: “Let it rain on the valley!” A network of coherent, focused intention can be a powerful force.

The Transparent Network archetype also implies the web of life in which we are enmeshed: gravity, cosmic rays, geometric forms, resonant fields, and the genetic code. Inventor Patrick Flanagan, whose 1971 book Pyramid Power explored invisible energy fields and sacred geometry, referred in his talk to the first major invention he “channeled” (at age 14) — the neurophone — which used ultrasonic waves to transmit information directly into the human brain. In fact, he said, like dolphins and whales, the human cranium has ultrasonic resonators that can be activated for advanced communication. This example underscores the value of Janine Benyus’ idea of “biomimicry,” which suggests that the design for virtually any technology already exists in nature. All we have to do is find and mimic it.

The Internet, characterized as a remarkable example of “emergent order,” follows the distributed, holonomic model of Nature. The binary code is universal: witness the DNA/RNA nanocomputer at work, dutifully relaying an ever-evolving code in a virtual reflection of visceral life. Information wants to be everywhere it needs to be. From open access to corporate records and congressional proceedings, to the growing world library of published content, to the High Code of modern mythos in evolutionary cinema, shamanic music and hypertext-nets, the noosphere and our use of it is rapidly evolving. But there is even more going on, as our entire species moves toward a quantum shift. While the techné matrix grows, the innernet of consciousness is expanding with new awareness and awakening sensitivities.

The Digital Be-In 13 felt like a concrescence, to use Alfred North Whitehead’s term — a vital combination of elements coming to a timely and powerful fruition. The theme was expressed in visuals and music, speeches and art works, decorations and sacred altars. The Joy-in-the-Now Altar, featuring a beautiful bronze Buddha, stood opposite the Memorial Altar, commemorating Be-In family members Allen Cohen and artist Dianna Rawleigh Davis, both of whom had passed beyond the veil just weeks before the event. There was also a memorial for the altar artist’s veteran father, and a written tribute to those sacrificed in the world’s wars. Artist Carol Michelson’s etheric video piece “Je ne suis pas de ce monde,” projected on the wall above the Memorial Altar, created a polysensory veil beyond which it was possible to imagine that our departed friends were dancing along with us.

The Transparent Network is a grand metaphor for the realm of the Spirit, where all things are seen and connected. The material world, as the playground and school for our embodied souls, tends toward the elegance and interconnectedness of the higher plane. The pattern that connects is moving us up the evolutionary spiral toward a new integral culture — and into a new dimension of being.

Michael Gosney is founder of the new media production firm, Verbum, Inc. and co-founder of the Green Century Institute on sustainable communities. He has produced SF’s Digital Be-In, Arcosanti’s Paradox Conferences, and other events. For more on the Digital Be-In and Michael Gosney, go to: www.be-in.com, www.tribe.net (search for Digital Be-In), www.greencenturyinstitute.org, www.verbum.com.