WELCOME TO V. VALE's [abridged] RE/SEARCH NEWSLETTER #51, August 2006. HERE'S THE NEWS FROM SAN FRANCISCO... ALL READERS ARE INVITED TO SEND CONTRIBUTIONS AND FEEDBACK!

1. 9PM Fri, Aug 11, 2006, SRL (SURVIVAL RESEARCH LABORATORIES) presents its first full-bore, no-holds-barred, give 'em all you've got, Bay Area performance in over ten years! SRL shows are rare, and cannot be truly experienced by seeing a film or video... you need to see, hear, smell and feel the cataclysmic spectacle in person - "virtual" doesn't cut it. Tickets are on sale now, and it is highly recommended you purchase them in advance.

If you live in other areas, reserve your airplane tickets now! Who knows how long it will be before you have another opportunity to experience SRL? And since this is near the group's "home base," it will be a "fuller" presentation than you could see in, say, Tokyo or Barcelona, where everything to put on a show has to fit inside an ocean freight container...

To buy advance tickets, SEE BELOW. In our next newsletter, we hope to print directions to the show. If **YOU** live in San Jose and can provide housing and/or food preparation or Production Assistance (car required) help, please email us at RE/Search (info@researchpubs or call 415-362-1465) - it's an amazing amount of work to stage this show, and work begins on-site starting Sat August 5, 2006. At least 30 people will need to be fed (no small task) and not all can sleep on the site. Please ONLY CALL if you are willing to work hard, not just "hang out"... (Thanks to the "elect" who have already responded!)

We guarantee you will not regret experiencing this omni-sensory-overload spectacular clash of the SRL titans.

We quote the promotional text for this show: "Some things are purely mythic like Survival Research Labs, which springs from the shell of abandoned buildings, monster robotic history, and fire. An interdisciplinary mash-up like no other, SRL brings a newly conceived performance to ZeroOne San Jose full of its legendary machines, flame-throwers, and bombastic sound. As described by founder Mark Pauline, an SRL performance is comprised of ≥ritualistic interactions between machines, robots, and special effects devices." Whatever else you call it, (and the title wonπt be announced until just before the show), we call it big fun, exciting, and something you wonπt want to miss. This one is definitely for more than the brainiac crowd ≠ itπs monster machine, meets hovercraft, meets huge sculptural creatures, meets fire."

ZeroOne San Jose, A 7-Day Festival of Art on the Edge

Order advance tickets from: http://01sj.org/content/view/217/52/

Location: Behind South Hall. Almaden Blvd at Balbach St. (bet. Almaden Blvd & Market St.) Five blocks from San Jose State University.

[Official SRL History:] Survival Research Laboratories was conceived of and founded by Mark Pauline in November 1978. Since its inception SRL has operated as an organization of creative technicians dedicated to re-directing the techniques, tools, and tenets of industry, science, and the military away from their typical manifestations in practicality, product or warfare. Since 1979, SRL has staged over 45 mechanized presentations in the United States and Europe. Each performance consists of a unique set of ritualized interactions between machines, robots, and special effects devices, employed in developing themes of socio-political satire. Humans are present only as audience or operators. Go to: www.srl.org

2. Thur Aug 10, 2006, 7 & 10pm, Ryoji Ikeda from Japan at Recombinant Media Labs, S.F. Naut Humon Presents Japan's leading electronic composer/artist, in a visual/sonic concert. "In the artist's works, music, time and space are shaped by mathematical methods as Ikeda explores sound as sensation, pulling apart its physical properties to reveal its relationship with human perception...Ikeda & RML present a special multichannel version of his live AV datamatics concert. $15. www.asphodel.com or call 650-255-8947 for more info.

2A. Tue, August 29, 2006 8pm sharp; doors open 7pm! RE/Search presents a JEAN JACQUES PERREY concert. Recombinant Media Labs, 763 Brannan/bet. 6th-7th Sts, San Francisco. $15. Venue holds 200 people or less, so reserve tickets!

Jean Jacques PERREY, resident of France, will play a live concert in San Francisco of "Happy Retro Moog Pop"! In the 60s, the 77-year-old composer produced some of the most amazingly inventive/humorous music ever collaged together with a razor blade and tape, on albums like The In Sound From Way Out.

Jean Jacques will play the Ondoline, accompanied by Dana Countryman. This personal concert will be legendary and you will be glad you were there in an intimate setting--rabid fans of the music of Perrey and Kingsley should not miss this event! Please tell your Incredibly Strange Music collector-friends about this. (Their new CD collaboration, The Happy ElectroPop Music Machine, will barely be available for autographing at the show - official release date Sept 25, 2006)

Hardcore Jean Jacques Perrey fans are urged to fly in for this ultra-rare concert by the 75-year-old musique concrete genius, who has been absent from the stage for over three decades (contact us and we will reserve tickets for you).with humor, the Dada spirit, and long-lasting beauty, too. Call or email us for more information!

A note on the concert setting: Recombinant Media Labs seeks to foster radical methodologies for experiential engineering; exploring performative processes which expand the formal aesthetic and technological boundaries of spatial media synthesis and surround cinema. (Tana & Bryan are the RML facilitators. Executive producer: Naut Humon)

For more info: <http://www.danacountryman.com/concert/concert2.html>http://www.danacountryman.com/concert/concert2.html

and http://www.jeanjacquesperrey.com/jjp/news/news.html

3. Sat Aug 12, 6:30pm. Channel 29, cable TV. CounterCulture Hour - a talk show hosted by RE/Search founder V. Vale. Set your VCR/DVD recorder to 2nd Sat of month, 6:30pm. TBA.

4. An Appreciation of A SCANNER DARKLY by Stephane von Stephane, ex-Search & Destroy staffer.

Why [not to] go see A Scanner Darkly?

Because THEY don't want you to...

Or maybe they do...?!

Maybe THEY DO want you to see it because THEY know it will make you Paranoid...

Yeah, that must be it. THEY want us to be Paranoid. Control by fear. That makes sense.

Or does it?

Maybe they don't want us to see it because then we will KNOW that THEY do exist and are In Charge. Secretly plotting to render us impotent by getting us ALL addicted to drugs, t.v., My Space, sports, already KNOW where we are at any given moment because of the G.P.S. in our cell phones...they read our e-mails and listen to our phone conversations. They watch us have sex with their infrared satellite cameras!!!!!

OR maybe they DON'T do any of that but just lead us to THINK that they do which has the same effect anyway.

WHERE will it all END?

A Scanner Darkly is a film based on a Philip K. Dick novel. Other of his sci-fi adapted for screen include Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report. There is always reason to be paranoid in his imagined future. Clearly this strikes a chord with [paranoid] thinking [aware] individuals.

I loved Scanner director Richard Linklater's Waking Life (2001), also an animated film. At the end of Waking Life a character (played by the director) speaks favorably about Philip K. Dick. So, it must have been fantastic fun for Linklater to work on this project.

I think maybe the film suffers from being too true to the novel and not hollywood-ized enough for the general public; there isn't back story or character development. But the animation is beautiful and the acting is superb.

It is worth the price of admission just to watch Robert Downey Jr. tweak to perfection. P.K.D. was into speed (the world's nastiest most vile drug). And just as the movie Spun shows the more disturbing side of this drug, it also has a bit of a fun with the spun-out characters. I would have wanted to see more

improv druggie riffs with Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Woody Harrelson, and Downey Jr.

The film is dominated by scenes with the 'vague blur' suit worn by Keanu's narc character. The suit allows the wearer anonymity with its chameleon-like functions so people have no idea who they are really viewing. Keanu ends up assigned to spy on himself and his tweaked out 'friends'.

Reminds me of Howard DeVoto lyrics; from Shot By Both Sides;

.."Why are you so edgy, kid?"

asks the man with the voice.

One thing follows another.

You live and learn, you have no choice.

Shot by both sides...

I don't ask who's doing the shooting.

Shot by both sides....

We must have come

to a secret understanding...

Rent Waking Life even if you've seen it already. Watch it again.

My favorite scene is the guy with the megaphone, driving around ranting about corporate/government control of our lives (probably true) (or not) and how we need to propel the human spirit to the fore to combat this [real or imagined] trend.

(always a good idea regardless).

And go see A Scanner Darkly....

Or maybe NOT.

THEY might be watching you watch it and where would that lead us? Just where

THEY want us!!!

It's a conspiracy...but go see it anyway.

[Just remember-you didn't hear it from me...]

and check out Howard DeVoto/Magazine's website shotbybothsides.com for more

Paranoid lyrics and such.

∑ Stephane von Stephane

NOTE: Because we are sending the new PRANKS book to the press now, and because of the SRL show Aug 11, this is a shorter than usual newsletter. We MAY send out another August newsletter to include what we left out--links, other sections, feedback from readers, etc. Thank you.

() V. Vale has a couple of interview quotes in the following video shot at the Frankenstein Theory & Robotics Exhibition, at BOCA & RX Gallery thru July 15, curated by Kal Spelletich (BTW, GREAT SHOW!):

http://www.sfboca.com/art.html

AUGUST 2006 RE/Search eNewsletter written by V. Vale & contributors. Newsletter and website powered by http://www.laughingsquid.com

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() J.G. Ballard Conversations