Float Into Paradise, by Vision magazine

This is an amazing article about floatation therapy and Float Spa San Diego, written by long time floater, Sydney L. Murray:

Holistic Practitioner Review

Float Into Paradise

by Sydney L. Murray

As I was walking into the session room at Float Spa San Diego, I was mesmerized by a photograph of large salt formations from the Dead Sea. The space was very clean and inviting and I was instantly impressed by how soothing it felt. Speaking to Mark Lesicka, one of the co-founders of Float Spa, along with his wife Maylou, I found out that he had sought out the practice of floating to alleviate chronic pain. Traveling to London, they learned much about the practice of floating. After the Lesickas’ return, they opened Float Spa.
If you haven’t ever floated, you are missing out on an amazing experience. I love the feeling of being suspended in warm soothing water. As I allowed myself to “lift,” I initially had the image as seen in the classic film 2001 Space Odyssey of a body floating out into space with the person’s arms and legs extended. I was weightless. Not bogged down by the hectic pace of my life, I was floating and my mind drifted into a peaceful and open space.
The next night, I experienced very vivid and memorable dreams. I mentioned this to Lesicka, who has also experienced the benefit of having more lucid dreams, as well as the ability to recall them with clarity. He said that there have been studies which show that floating creates a bridge between the left and right hemispheres of the brain, which might explain having the experience of a more conscious dream state.
Floating has been around in the United States since the 1970s but was initially developed by researchers at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in the 50s when studying the effects of what they called Restricted Environmental Stimulation Technique or R.E.S.T. Since then the float tank has been used in health care, medicine, fitness training, sports science, education and the healing arts.
Scientists have estimated that up to 90 percent of the brain’s work is derived from the stimuli of our routine external environment. Gravity, touch, temperature, light, and sound affect the muscles, the nervous system, and the organs of the body. The float tank screens out our external physical stimuli, allowing for a pure state of sensory relaxation.
This lack of stimulation of the nervous system triggers a reaction known as the parasympathetic response. Muscle tension, blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen consumption are often reduced dramatically. Stress hormones are reduced as well and are replaced with uplifting endorphins.
Discovered by NIMH researchers in 1976, endorphins are literally a natural source of elation, happiness, or what some have called a “natural high.” They can also help alleviate fatigue and chronic pain, while improving higher brain functions such as learning and memory retention.
And the good thing about the float tank is that it all happens without much effort for the client. You just enter the tank, lie back and float. The tank is the temperature of your skin, which is 94.5 degrees. It is filled with an Epsom salt mixture of about 30 percent which, when combined with your body’s natural buoyancy, allows you to float in a small amount of water. Float Spa San Diego’s website illuminates the use of Epsom salt and why it is so valuable to our bodies: “One of the earliest discoveries of magnesium sulfate, the scientific name for Epsom salt, occurred back in Shakespeare’s day in Epsom, England (where the compound was first distilled from water) which explains the first half of the name. The term salt probably refers to the specific chemical structure of the compound, although many people mistakenly assume it refers to the crystalline structure of Epsom salt, which has an appearance similar to that of table salt. (Table salt, of course, consists of sodium chloride, so it’s an entirely different substance than magnesium sulfate.)
Magnesium is the second-most abundant element in human cells and the fourth-most important positively charged ion in the body, so it’s little wonder that this low-profile mineral is also vital to good health and wellbeing. Magnesium is a major component of Epsom salt and also helps to regulate the activity of more than 325 enzymes and performs a vital role in orchestrating many bodily functions, from muscle control and electrical impulses to energy production and the elimination of harmful toxins.
Studies show that Magnesium is an electrolyte which helps to ensure proper muscle, nerve and enzyme function and is critical for the proper use of calcium in cells. Another benefit is that it can help prevent heart disease and strokes by lowering blood pressure, protecting the elasticity of arteries, preventing blood clots, and reducing the risk of sudden heart attack deaths. Magnesium may also reduce inflammation and relieve pain, making it beneficial in the treatment of sore muscles, bronchial asthma, migraine headaches and fibromyalgia.”
The seemingly subtle mental and physical effects of floating can greatly improve your powers of emotional control and sense of wellbeing. Negative emotions and many unwanted habits seem to melt away in the tank, along with any physical tensions and the stresses that accompany them. Smoking, alcohol dependence and weight control problems can be effectively lessened or even overcome—and sometimes these changes can occur spontaneously. Research suggests that compulsive behavior patterns such as these are linked to low endorphin levels in the body. In fact, according to experts at NIMH, the float tank “is the only technique ever shown by controlled studies to be effective over extended periods of time.” Studies show success rates of 81 percent in eliminating or sharply reducing smoking, 61 percent in reducing alcohol consumption, with similarly impressive results in combating weight control problems. In the deep theta state that comes with floating, you experience increased access to and control over subconscious mental processes. You can literally become the master of your own mind.
So if relaxation, stress reduction, the lessening of chronic pain and the ability to remember your dreams more vividly are just a few of the many benefits you may desire, then floating is for you. Try it today—it just might change your life.

For more information about Float Spa San Diego please call 858.279.3301 or visit www.floatspasandiego.com.

Let There Be Delight Incandescent plasma: aurora in a bottle.

Let There Be Delight

Incandescent plasma: aurora in a bottle.

By DeWitt Cheng

Printer-friendly version | Send a letter | E-mail story

December 10, 2008

Ed Kirshner's "Blue Lightning Party."

Solid, liquid, gas, plasma. Plasma is the high-energy, cloudlike fourth state of matter. It is abundantly found in the universe in suns and stars, but occurs on earth only in lightning and the aurora borealis — and, of course, plasma TVs, and now plasma art: airtight glass sculptures outfitted with high-voltage transformers that increase the electricity's frequency high enough to ionize and energize the neon and xenon. If you've ever watched the silky, liquid effects of a low-temperature orange-pink-blue flame in a guttering fire, the hypnotic, organic ebbing and flowing of plasma incandescence may appear similar to you.

Seven artists who work with plasma are showing their light sculpture at the Float Center. Neon and glass expert Bill Concannon of Crockett is showing a "Neon Coke Bottle" standing beneath an archway of colored bottle necks, everything radiant. Kinetic and neon sculptor Ken Herrick shows a work resembling a black clock dial with glowing linear elements spiraling out from the center — astronomy, perhaps, as seen by Muybridge and Flavin. San Francisco sculptor and woodworker David Hollister makes perverse conceptual art in "Persephone," hiding his plasma within a long sealed gray box so that turning the piece on makes no visible difference whatever, a wry take on Greek mythology's nymph trapped in the underworld half the year. Ed Kirshner shows "Blue Lightning Party," a model car boasting eight glass cylinders firing plasma, wheels with plasma rims, and plasma klaxons or horns; the intense red glass of his "Plasma Cherry" tempts the viewer even as the lightning discharges inside give pause. Sculptor Norman Moore explores his interest in myth and metaphor with an architectural structure entitled "Dream" that simultaneously suggests hourglass, goldfish bowl, crystal ball, emperor's orb, and alchemist's alembic. Co-curator Michael Pargett's "Carry-on" is a waffle-foam-padded aluminum briefcase housing a glass tube or bat filled with gas — an excellent solution to the portability/protection problem. Allison F. Walton, curator and gallery co-owner, is showing "Plasma Xenon Head," a blue glass robot's head that will eventually be completed with a body. Four lyrical abstract paintings by Sally Rodriguez complete the show.

A closing party and free plasma educational presentation by Ed Kirshner will take place January 10, 6-9 p.m. Plasma Nation runs through January 10 at the Float Center (1091 Calcot Pl., #116 Oakland). TheFloatCenter.com

Show to display Artist's responses to Iraq

Show to display Artist's responses to Iraq


By Angela Woodall
Oakland Tribune

Not since U.S. troops pulled out of Vietnam has the country experienced such raw emotion as provoked by the war in Iraq, now in its fifth year.

In response, the FLOAT Gallery in Oakland has organized "Human Remains," a thought-provoking exhibit of artists whose work revolves around the Iraq War, which began March 2003. The show opens Thursday — seven years after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon — and runs until Oct. 11.

On Saturday, the gallery will host an opening party from 6 to 9 p.m. at its 1091 Calcot Place location, featuring mixed media, film and spoken word. It is located in unit No. 116 in the storefront of Cotton Mill Studios. The gallery's owners, Filomena Serpa and Allison Walton, live in Alameda.

The requiem and performance will include paintings, works on paper, color photography of soldiers serving in the war, camouflage ball gowns, mixed media, music video, filmed performance and spoken word.

Some of the artists included in the exhibit are: Bill Stoneham, Collin Harris, Marty McCorkle, Melissa Sweat, Janeyce Ouellette, Anna Tsiarta, Kari Ann Owen, Tony C. Yang, Diego Marcial Rios, Anastasia Winter Schipani, Bernard Rauch and Marisa Handler.

Poets will include former members of the armed forces, Iraqi citizens and others speaking out about the war in Iraq. The entrance fee is $2 and includes free refreshments and snacks.

Sensory deprivation tanks in the media: FRINGE on FOX

What can you say... Altered States in 2008.

AUTOEROTICA, East Bay Express Critics choice this week

EAST BAY EXPRESS

CRITIC'S CHOICE

AutoErotica

"Nobody with a good car needs to be justified," declared one of Flannery O'Connor's fictional characters, accurately assessing America's century-long embrace of the gospel of gasoline with all the fervor that any jealous, justifying god could want. Prayerful motoring has declined these days, what with the rising cost of burnt offerings, so AutoErotica, a nostalgic/satirical look at our gearhead folkways, is both timely and timeless. Here are Philip Hall's romantic digital photographs of exotic 1930s Bugattis and Delahayes, and iconic, resplendently finned 1950s Vettes and Caddies; Bill Silveira's eccentric, humorous sculptures made from salvaged auto and other mechanical parts -- including a '55 Cadillac front end mounted like a taxidermied animal head; and Laurel True's gritty but elegant alt-material mosaics, immortalizing anonymous patches of roadway replete with skidmarks, cracks, and potholes. Through September 6 at theFloatCenter (1091 Calcot Pl., #116, Oakland).510-535-1702 (call for hours).

-- By DeWitt Cheng

Voted Best of the bay, by the SF Bay Guardian!

BEST DRUG-FREE ALTERED STATE

Kelly Vogel at Float: Best Drug-Free Altered Stat
GUARDIAN PHOTO BY CHARLES RUSSO

Sometimes other people are just too much to bear. And it's always their fault, isn't it? The guy at the liquor store forgets to stock your brand of cigarettes. Some yuppie in a fancy car nearly runs you off the road. Your manager fires you, your landlord evicts you, your friends diss you. Don't you wish you could just make them all disappear for a while? Well, if you've ever seen the movie Altered States, you know all about sensory deprivation chambers, those weird water tanks psychology students use to study brain chemistry and sleep cycles. In a deprivation chamber you are utterly alone. Your body is suspended in warm water, your ears are submerged so you can't hear a thing, and it's totally dark, odorless, and soundproof. The entire world melts away, and you're left with raw brain waves. Outside of a ketamine trip, it's the most detached experience humanly possible. Lose yourself at Float, then, an art gallery with a room full of deprivation tanks.

1091 Calcot Place, Unit 116, Oakl. (510) 535-1702, www.thefloatcenter.com

The Art of Floatation won … Best of The East Bay Award 2008!

BEST ART GALLERY/ALPHA-WAVE RETREAT

The Float Center

1091 Calcot Pl., Ste. 116, Oakland, 510-535-1702, TheFloatCenter.com

Stressed — us? The electronic workplace — the paperless office — was going to end all that, wasn't it? Remember when the Internet was supposed to make work obsolete? Okay, the future was way oversold, and now instead we're all prey to Madison Avenue 24/7/365, and right on track for the chummy billboards of Minority Report, and Too Much Information. Flotation is one solution; it's the modern equivalent of the monastic retreats of the early Christian Desert Fathers — except that we don't have to live in a cave or hole (like Terry Jones' jumping gymnosophist in The Life of Brian) — just spend an hour in body-temperature saline water and silent darkness every now and then. Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy (REST), to use its original designation, vanquishes stress and increases alpha-wave activity and endorphin levels (relieving chronic pain); it improves blood circulation, energy, and concentration; it also detoxifies the body and lowers blood pressure. The Float Center features a professionally curated art gallery as well (co-owner Alison Walton is an artist), by the way, with colorful, intriguing contemporary paintings and sculptures, so your eyes will get a treat both before and after tank time.

+++

It’s not really Alpha, unless you’re playing with a robot in the gallery. But in the sensory deprivation tanks / Floatation tanks.... it’s all about Theta waves, Choose double dip on the endorphins with a deep tissue massage in our urban art space.

EBX is an amazing local paper, and great supporter. We love that their elite team selected us for this honor. Here’s to floatation therapy becoming the next best local artistic chill!

Finally the 1st video in the Robots Are Art series

Artist and founder Frank Garvey of Omni Circus a Robotic cabaret in San Francisco.
Shows off Go Boy, as we set-up the ROBOTS ARE ART, show and contest last December. This has nothing to do with floatation, just art!

Seriously get that head out of your butt! Three cheers for the De-grumpy tank!

It’s funny that every once in awhile a new or semi-new floater will have some kind of life epiphany after a good floatation therapy session. It’s not unusual for someone who had been afraid of taking risks, or trying new things will exit the float tank willing to open up and make long overdue changes in their life. Or even the remarkable 1^st time floater, who is both afraid of the dark and the water, exits the tank after having a great float and overcomes their own fears.

I know rare people who, after just a single float decided to leave their longtime lucrative career and start something entirely new, focusing around quality of life rather then simply the path of the almighty dollar. Just one float!?!

Bad economy, what if, should have, could have, we all at times find a way to … for lack of a better term, get our head stuck up our butt. Simply over thinking too many options in life, or not allowing ourselves to sort things out in a rational positive manner. Stop, be grateful and enjoy what’s around us, clear your head, and follow your path. Oops, so easy to forget.

Yep the last few weeks I have needed a float to break a grumpy unsettling moment, exiting the tank really happy and with a clear head, ready to be productive.

One of my Canadian buddies is flying in tomorrow, she had been struggling about what job to take and in what country, to the level of self abuse. She even continued to over think her recent decision to stay in Canada, and the process became even more painful. So escape Vancouver where she can’t find a float tank, so why not come float in Oakland. Just get the head back on straight before starting her new position. What an excellent idea.

After 17 years of floating, it still amazes me how a simple hour of buoyant silence can reset our brain out of mega grumpiness.

Once called sensory deprivation tanks, then floatation tanks and now perhaps de-grumpy tanks, a new name for an old school solution.

A majestic presence in our floatation tanks

This morning I received a call from Liz Mamorsky, one our amazing artists and she told me that she heard Muriel Maffre from the San Francisco Ballet talking about FLOAT, Floatation Center - Art Gallery on public radio KALW 91.7 Artery arts program.

How cool is that! I knew she was a dancer when she came to float, but not really how important she was. What an honor to have her come float with us in our art space.

I love it when art and floatation collide.

Piedmont Post Associate Editor Todd Kerr reviews Below The Surface at the Float Gallery

At FLOAT Gallery, see Beneath the Surface

By Ross Todd Kerr
April 3rd 2008


The FLOAT Center is an urban spa located in the Jingletown district of Oakland, where patrons find comfort in saltwater floatation tanks. The FLOAT Center is also an art gallery curated by Fil Serpa and Allison Walton, arguably one of the hottest curatorial teams in the Bay Area just now.

Through May 17, the FLOAT Gallery is showing Beneath the Surface, an exhibit of visionary paintings and illustrations on paper by Liz Mamorsky as well as interactive assemblage sculpture by Paul Baker.

In her youth, Liz Mamorsky was a child star in New York and currently does voice work for radio, television and games, including Sims 2, Sam & Max, and AVampyre Story. Mamorsky is also a prolific artist, who has been exhibiting her visionary paintings, studio furniture and sculptures since the 1960s. For a sampling, go to lizland.com.

Paul Baker is an assemblage artist who creates interactive sculptures that are carefully constructed to entertain children of all ages. His ongoing series: Machines for Living are built intentionally to help us examine our lives and evoke memories, through insight and humor.

The FLOAT Gallery is located at 1091 Calcot Place #116 in Oakland. For more info, go to floatcentergallery.com or call 535-1702.

Yet another creative way to stop the world...

This has nothing to do with floating....

The Depths of the Subconscious

Liz Mamorsky's paintings and Paul Baker's sculptures deluge the imagination.

"Cyclorama" by Liz Mamorsky, 2007

By DeWitt Cheng

April 9, 2008

The subconscious, according to Surrealist theory, is the source of creative authenticity; it's a reprise of the ancient notion of the artist as inspired and god-possessed, and today most artists try to balance instinct with editing, imagination with logic. In Beneath the Surface at the Float Center, the works of Liz Mamorsky and Paul Baker emerge from such complex thinking, and consequently reward prolonged viewing. This venue is ideal for such a show, since water traditionally symbolizes the subconscious: dark, formless, and dangerous, but also full of potentiality.

Mamorsky's oils on canvas depict a mythic world teeming with animal spirits. Exuberantly colored and packed with detail, the paintings combine Cubism, Art Deco, and Surrealism (particularly Paul Klee and Max Ernst) with older folkloric traditions: the compartmentalization of larger forms, the textural delineation of scales and feathers, and the compulsive ornamentation (horror vacui) recall the animist wood-carving traditions of the South Pacific and Pacific Northwest; the serpents and birds recall aboriginal or Native-American cosmologies. Mamorsky's totem animals both crowd the picture plane like puzzle pieces, archaically, and seem to flow transparently into each other, in modern ambiguous, contradictory space, psychic rather than physical. In "Beneath the Surface" and "Bounce," a mass of faces confronts the viewer — like demons beleaguering St. Anthony in his Egyptian desert hermitage, or masks winking and scowling at Ensor in his Ostend studio. In "Over the Rainbow" and Purple Stocking Yellow Pumps," assemblages of faces set into organic abstract structures have sprouted walking legs. Mamorsky's drawings on amate bark paper also are being shown.

Paul Baker's Machines for Living may take their name from modernist architect Le Corbusier, but they clearly aim at more than rational industrial design. These intricately wrought assemblage sculptures, fabricated from a miscellany of materials (mahogany, brass, ivory, crystal, ball bearings, artist mannequins, playing cards, roller skate, starched collar, steam engine, phonograph rolls, and semipetrified mammoth tusk), become palaces of memory and musing in the Joseph Cornell mode, but with a satirical, absurdist, Duchamp/Westermann bent. Sporting hooks, drawers, handles, labels, charts, winches, springs, and knobs, each piece is a combined dollhouse, miniature stage set, shrine, and Victorian apparatus of inscrutable intent (e.g., "Fog Machine," "Landing Alignment Computer"). The artist, who studied medieval reliquaries, encourages viewers to tinker and explore, using his work to unlock "free association and personal memory." His notes on the works are illuminating as well, citing Jules Verne, Sisyphus, Nicolas Poussin, acanthus leaves, and the Girl Scouts. Beneath the Surface runs through May 17 at the Float Center (1091 Calcot Pl., #116, Oakland. TheFloatCenter.com or 510-535-1702.

The 2+ hour float, a not to be missed experience

After 17 years of floating I always thought that 1 hour was all I needed, but in the last few months I have discovered the wonders of a 2+ hour float.

It's amazing, feels like 1/2 hour and you exit the floatation tank wanting more. I now understand what my select few regular floaters experience in this increased time frame. It is often said you can’t make up for lost sleep, but with the amount of unparalleled rest you receive, I have to challenge that theory. Powerful, brilliant and lasting.

Here is a little about one customer’s recent experience of trying a longer float:

“It was amazing the 2 hours seemed like 30 minutes and when I got out of the tank it was something I didn’t expect I was energized, and felt 10 years younger and all my ADD symptoms were gone including the back pain I had been having for the last few weeks.

The next day I noticed I was happy; really happy, much happier than I had felt in months.

I have suffered with ADD all my life along with symptoms that go with it such as depression, anxiety and social anxiety. I just had the most replenishing rest I ever had, far superior rest than sleeping in my own bed.” Kari- SF

Other 2 hour’s floaters that float at the gallery include very accomplished musicians, who use the tank to work through writer’s blocks, brainstorming and to prepare themselves for upcoming events. I now truly understand why.

Material Evidence Is the East Bay Express critics choice this week

CRITIC'S CHOICE
Material Evidence

After Marcel Duchamp disparaged the merely "retinal" enjoyment of painting, and even the very odor of the turpentine, many artists looked askance at pictorial sensuousness and a love of materials, rather like puritan church fathers ashamed of having bodies and urges. This sort of iconoclasm is emphatically not operant with the mixed-media paintings of Peter Boyer and the plasma light sculptures of Ed Kirshner at The the FloatCenter. Boyer's powerful abstractions in black, white, and ocher join calligraphic gesture, textural contrast, and collaged cutouts. Intuitively adding and subtracting materials until the elements cohere into a "presence," Boyer exploits the accidents that inevitably occur: "I want the paintings to be these objects of contemplation through this wrestling process that I go through with them." Ed Kirchner's Kirshner's elegantly engineered glass vessels, with their dazzling, phosphorescent light discharges (inspired by the aurora borealis), are clearly the product of another type of problem-solving, albeit one conditioned by scientific principles and incessant experimentation. Kirshner, who decided to become an artist in his fifties, explains his lambent alembics, transcendent marriages of art and science: "I strive for a formal simplicity ... using finely balanced, responsive, self-organizing plasma that seems to take on a life of its own." Material Evidence runs Tthrough March 16 at The the FloatCenter (1091 Calcot Place, #116, Oakland). TheFloatCenter.com or 510-535-1702.

-- By DeWitt Cheng

Finally an International Floatation Center listing!

Ever wondered where to find a place to float while traveling internationally?

As luck would have it a serious floatation fan has created an unbiased site to do just that. Check out Marks new site that allows you to find a place to float both in your area and, around the world. http://www.floatfinder.com/

Floating through life just got easier!

Gotta love floatation studies!

Today a wonderful man Tim, owner of Floatworks sent me a link to a new 2007 study on floatation from Karlstad University by Sven Åke-Bood, below is a bit about it:

Bending and Mending the Neurosignature: Frameworks of influence by flotation-REST (Restricted Environmental Stimulation Technique) upon well-being in patients with stress related ailments.

The overarching purpose of the current thesis was to assess the long term effects of a treatment program involving flotation-REST for the experience of pain, from the point of view of variables connected with Melzack´s neuromatrix theory, and to examine the extent of a potential attention-placebo effect in connection with flotation-REST.
The first study (Paper I) aimed to investigate long-term effects of flotation-REST four months after treatment. Seventy patients participated, diagnosed as having stress-related pain. Participants were randomly assigned to either a control group or a flotation-REST group and participated in a total of twelve flotation REST or control sessions. Results indicated that pain areas, stress, anxiety and depression decreased, while sleep quality, optimism, and prolactin increased. Positive effects generally maintained four months after treatment. The second (Paper II) examined the potential effects of attention-placebo. Thirty-two patients who were diagnosed as having stress-related muscular pain were treated for a period of six weeks. Half of the patients were also given attention for a period of 12 weeks, while the remainder received attention for 6 weeks. Participants in both groups exhibited lowered blood pressure, reduced pain, anxiety, depression, stress, and negative affectivity, as well as increased optimism, energy, and positive affectivity. The third (Paper III) investigated whether or not 33 flotation sessions were more effective for stress related ailments as compared to 12 sessions. Participants were 37 patients with stress related ailments. Analyzes for subjective pain and psychological variables typically indicated that 12 sessions were enough to get considerably improvements and no further improvements were noticed after 33 sessions. Finally, the fourth study (Paper IV) aimed to examine whether and how the combination of therapy and flotation tank could be used to treat patients with severe stress problems. Two women on long-term sick-leave participated in the study, which was carried out over a period of one year. Four overarching themes were generated: the therapeutic work model, transformation of feelings, self-insight and meaning. These together constituted a “therapeutic circle” which after a while transformed in to a “therapeutic spiral” of increased meaning and enhanced wellbeing.

It was therefore concluded that flotation tank therapy is an effective method for the treatment of stress-related pain.

This link has the entire 87 page PDF about the study for you reading pleasure.

Get your '08 FLOAT on

Get your '08 FLOAT on

By Justin Juul

Doesn't it sometimes seem like the world is working against you? It's bad enough those days when you wake up feeling like shit for no reason, but it really sucks when things just get worse from there. And it's always their fault, isn't it? The dickhead at the liquor store forgets to stock your brand of cigarettes. Some yuppie in a fancy car nearly runs you off the road. Your manager fires you, your landlord evicts you, your friends diss you. Sometimes other people are just too much to bear. Don't you wish you could just make them all disappear for a while? Or better yet, don't you wish you could disappear?

I mean let's face it, even if you could temporarily get rid of all those other assholes, you'd still be stuck with the biggest asshole in the world: yourself.

Keep reading ...

When the wheel of contentment begins to rotate downward, most of us turn to drugs, go into workaholic mode or -- for those who can afford it -- go on a vacation. But all that stuff is too predictable and it often leaves us feeling worse. What if there was a way to temporarily disconnect from life without any of the usual consequences?

Well, if you've ever seen Altered States, you know all about sensory deprivation chambers, those weird water-tanks psychology students use to study brain chemistry or whatever. It's supposed to be the coolest experience in the world, something like meditating on acid.

In a deprivation chamber you are utterly alone. Your body is suspended in warm Epsom-water, your ears are submerged so you can't hear a thing, and it's totally dark, odorless, and soundproof. After a minute or two in an isolation-tank, the entire world melts away and you're left with raw brain waves. Outside of a bad ketamine trip, it's the most detached experience humanly possible. Sounds great right? The only problem is that the tanks are hard to get access to unless you work in a medical lab or live in Spain or London where they've become fashionable for some reason. Not anymore.

The owners of FLOAT, an urban art gallery in Oakland, got their hands on some tanks a couple years ago and are offering their services to the public. A psychedelic dip in one of FLOAT's tanks is the perfect cure for those post holiday-with-the-family blues. Just strap on some Speedos, shut your eyes, and forget about those assholes (and yourself) for a while.

New Year Package at FLOAT – 3 Floats for the Price of 2 ($140.00)
1091 Calcot Place, #116 Oakland
510-535-1702
www.thefloatcenter.com

digg • del.icio.us • sphere • google

Posted by Marke B. on January 07, 2008 02:04 PM | Permalink

Artist & War Poets Call for Entry

Artwork influenced by the Iraqi war
All media types encouraged.
We are also looking for War Poets.
If interested please call or send
website link or images to: 

Info@TheFloatCenter.com

ROBOTS ARE ART

ROBOTS ARE ART

A DIY Show & Contest

Show runs through Jan 17/08

Opening on December 13 ROBOTS ARE ART a DIY Robotic art show & contest made a kinetic splash. During the opening party December 15^th the robotic art was judged by Monty, from ANYBOTS the first humanoid robot of it's kind, and David Calkins, President of the Robotics Society of America, and founder of the international RoboGames.

Here are some image and video links:

KTVU Video Link

NOVOSCENE image link

Robots served beer, painted paintings and even a disgruntled beggar robot roamed up and down the sidewalk asking for 50 cents. Ugobe Pleos played with the children in the crowd, who had an opportunity to shake Monty’s hand and get a signed autograph from the robot. And a small gold robot did a floating Zen version of Tai Chi.

Party goers won raffle prizes including a visit to anybots to meet Monty and Dexter in person, and free robotic magazines and travel mugs were dispersed to the crowd.

The exhibit encompasses a diverse group of robotic artists including mixed media, painters and kinetic artists. The Art is 100% violence free, and will focus on form, function, and fun.

Robotic Artists:

Cheryl Finfrock - Painter
Camp Peavy - Robotic artist
Mike Wilder - Robotic Artist
Willy Matsuno - Mixed Media (Prize Winner)
Max Chandler - Robotic Artist
Paul Gibson - Painter (Prize Winner)
Christoper Palmer (CTP) - Robotic Artist (Prize Winner)
Mark Murry - Mixed Media (Prize Winner)
Scott Wiley - Painter
Liz Mamorskey - Mixed Media
James Lovekin - Mixed Media
Paul Baker - Kinetic Artist
Nemo Gould - Robotic Artist (Prize Winner)
Al Honig & Dr. Johnathan Foote - Robotic Artists
Mark Galt - Robotic Artist
Frank Garvey - Robotic Artist (Prize Winner)

This is a not to be missed show!

FLOAT Floatation Center - Art Gallery in Oakland Magazine

IN THE SCENE

That Floating Feeling

“When you get here you’ll shower and shampoo; then you’ll float like a cork for an hour; then you’ll shower and shampoo again to get the salt off.” And no, I didn’t need a swimsuit. “Just bring

a brush or a comb. Everything else is here.”
Prepping me for what used to be called a sensory deprivation experience when I was a psych student in the ’70s was Allison Walton, the managing partner at Float, a “flotation center” and art gallery that she and her partner, Filomena Serpa, call an urban art spa.
The gallery showcases Oakland artists. Exhibitions change monthly, and the setting provides a relaxed, colorful, artsy atmosphere for the floatation-tank therapy sessions they offer. Research suggests that floating reduces blood pressure, relieves stress and tension, promotes circulation, stimulates creativity and a whole lot more. “It helps with jetlag and hangovers,” Walton adds, citing personal experience.
Stepping into the body-temperature water in which 1,000 pounds of Epsom salts have been dissolved—to keep one buoyant, remove toxins, facilitate relaxation and more—and wearing nothing but the yellow earplugs floaters are given to keep the ears dry, I wondered what to expect. I closed myself in, as instructed, lay down in the 10.5-

inch-deep water—and immediately popped to the surface, as Walton had said I would. She has floated for years for stress management. When traveling in London and Europe, she’d see many places to float. But in the United States, they were difficult to find. In the 18 months since they opened Float, they’ve noticed the resurgence of a trend.
And what better way to duck off and get instant relief from sensory overload? I quickly felt remarkably “held” and able to relax, alone with myself in the silence and the pitch dark, doing “the lazy person’s yoga,” as Walton called it later. When I left, my senses were alert. The traffic noises seemed magnified. Later, at the Alameda Library, the sound of a woman snoring and teenagers talking—usually distractions and annoyances—made me smile. Someone must have pulled my cork—or was I still floating? A week later my upper back tension had not returned, but I knew I would.
Float Floatation Center – Art Gallery, by appointment 10 a.m.–10 p.m. Tue.–Sat., 1091 Calcot Place, No. 116, (510) 535-1702, www.thefloatcenter.com.

—By Wanda Hennig
—Photography by Jan Stürmann