Isolation as Innovation?
What we can learn from alt-fests
From the Desert
Burning Man, the media’s darling ‘alt’ non-music festival, has gotten lots of press in the past few years for evoking an ethos of radical inclusion, communal effort, and civic responsibility. But recently, the festival seems to have outgrown itself. What was once supposed to be a hyper-liberating event evangelized by fête-goers has now become one constrained by its growing all-the-rage status.
Although I’ve never gone, here’s the fest in a nutshell: a progressive libertarian convocation where free-spirited denizens pilgrimage to the Northern Nevada desert and partake in experiences of extreme self-expression and decommodification (read: setting alight large artistic structures in the hopes of Leaving No Trace and trading for goods/services without financial transactions).
Over the past few years as the festival has become more…mainstream (*shudder*), fest-goers have voiced critique, however: once devoted to fostering a community of radical self-reliance, BM is straying from its principles and becoming absorbed by outside forces. Besides a rampant media fetish (example 1, example 2, example 3), the introduction of the Green Tech Fair in 2007, a themed tent where for-profit eco-companies showcased their products, imbued the festival with slight commoditization. This situation, offering select individuals/businesses to promote their wares, caused a rift among some of Burning Man’s most faithful; they intimated that the event has jumped the shark. Case in point: this year, Mark Zuckerberg helicoptered in for the day to “experience the city.”
In some ways perhaps BM’s current status is understandable; a super libertarian community is not free from size constraints—it also has to adhere to Malthusian population principles or something along these lines. Regardless, I think there’s a new soon-to-be ‘alt’ festival media darling, and I think it’s going to be more successful.
To the Sea
Ephemerisle is a self-proclaimed floating festival of freedom, community, and creativity. If Burning Man is makeshift homesteading, then this aqua convocation is rudimentary seasteading. Participants construct an autonomous village of boats and barges on the Sacramento River Delta and inhabit it for five days. During Ephemerisle 2013, participants built autonomous islands for the first time and used art boats for transport around the temporary archipelago. And if that doesn’t convince you, consider this gem on the website:
Ephemerisle has elements of Burning Man in the early 1990s: a new adventure into an alien environment, with discoveries, adventures, and mishaps along the way.
But here’s the thing with seasteading: I think it might be more successful in promulgating the whole libertarian anarcho-free community ethos.
The simple reason, sure, might be geography: you’re more isolated on water than you are on an island; cacti-dotted landscapes are still connected to the mainland, and are therefore more prone to influence. This essay by Nick Szabo offers a different perspective on the success of island communities, specifically discussing the island countries of Japan and Great Britain:
We have seen how the ability of Japan and Britain to defend their farmlands from foreign invaders, via their island positions and strong navies, allowed them to have high farm productivities and use marginal lands between medieval and early modern times, despite unfavorable soils and climates. The productivity of property was greatly improved by the lowered costs of securing that property.
Basically, by not having to protect their territory, island communities can devote more energy and resources to promoting national productivity and national consciousness. If we extend this argument to the progressive ‘alt’ festival, it would seem that those which isolate themselves as much as possible will be more successful in preserving and maintaining their ideology. For Burning Man, the desert (isolation) was an attempt, which worked well for a while, but alas, Oregon-trail-like expeditions by media and corporate folk have laid stake to the BM Nevada enclave.
Detaching from Land
Ephemerisle, because it is an island and thus more isolated, disincentivizes media and corporate folk from meddling with its libertarian community. As a result, fest organizers and participants can devote more energy to espousing their ideals of art, learning, and community.
This reasoning hews closely, I think, also to the recent Blueseed venture, a startup incubator located on a barge in International Waters off the coast of Cali that will skirt U.S. visa laws and allow skilled non-U.S. entrepreneurs to work for Silicon-Valley companies. Again, if we follow Szabo’s line of reasoning, Blueseed no longer has to secure its property from U.S. laws (i.e., adhere to U.S. laws), and can now devote more resources to acquiring international talent and creating profitable startups.
I think what all this teaches us is that creation/innovation/promotion of values occurs best neither in pure isolation (see: Revolutionary Catalonia, Free Territory, Glenn Beck’s Galt’s Gulch) nor in constant engagement, but in a mixture of the two. It might be simply reductionist to say balance is important, but…it is. However, if you’re trying to create an alt festival—or anything, really—consider detaching yourself from land, and heading out to sea.
