Holiday Buy-pass...the Anti-Christmas Party ....!?%&#@%*?

Holiday Buy-pass...the Anti-Christmas Party ....!?%&#@%*?

Let’s skip all that holiday tradition and celebrate without an ounce of Christmas cheer, please join us for: The T R A N S P O R T Anti-
Christmas party & closing celebration...

t r a n s p o r t yourself beyond the usual!
Saturday December 19th, 6 to 9pm, at the FLOAT gallery.

This year, instead of buying-in to the consumption hustle, come enrich your senses at the FLOAT Gallery, to celebrate an artful awareness project.

Replace the usual material escape! Come look into your life, with a free psychic reading...
& Give deeper... to someone special in your life, with discount FLOAT gift certificates available only at the event.

The Genie will summon up live "scratch guitar" for your ears.

About the exhibit:
In this project, a car dies to give life to awareness, from one transformative vow:
I will never again own a fossil fuel burning vehicle.
Witness the t r a n s f o r m a t i o n : a public interactive awareness process, a chance to make art with a usually untouchable machine.
Witness the d e c o n s t r u c t i o n : a live sculptural process, with each unhinged piece unearthing new questions in participants.
Inspired inside the floatation tanks—with their own ability to transport us—this project will now come alive right next to them. See a powerful film of mechanical and self-deconstruction. Sit down inside car-part-artwork sculpted into an experiential living room. Bring your hands to kinesthetic pieces, offered for your own reconstruction. And follow our evocative wall of visual artwork welded with introspective writing. All inviting a new space to open up in you, to t r a n s p o r t your own life...

About the artists:
Drake Logan founded apostrophe' productions as a vehicle for interdisciplinary art and awareness process projects designed to raise public empathy around issues of social justice and self-expression, ranging from fossil fuel consumption to transgender visibility. When not facilitating interactive art, she still paints on canvas or the street. Logan is a doctoral student in Clinical Psychology at The Wright Institute. apostrophe@resist.ca
Julia Robertson is an artist and activist interested in promoting social change through interactive video and art projects. She created a non-profit production company, Pinch Me Films, with the mission to create and distribute educational videos for youth. Robertson is currently working on her MFA in Social Practices at The California College of the Arts. www.pinchmefilms.org

About The Genie
The Genie is an avant-garde guitarist, performer, and musical pioneer best known to audiences for his 'scratch guitar' shows, a unique performance involving live looping, slide guitar, beatboxing, unconventional syncopation, and various original techniques which he has crafted.

Hear music and see videos at www.myspace.com/thegenie

FLOAT, Floatation Center – Art Gallery 1091 Calcot Place, Unit # 116 (located in a store front loft of the historic cotton mill studios) Oakland, CA 94606
510.535.1702
info@thefloatcenter.com, www.thefloatcenter.com
Directions

Floatworks kicks out a lovely video of Floating!

Check it out!

Step #2 drake’s deconstruction, black rock city 2009, by Dave Raphael

Check out drake’s deconstruction, black rock city 2009.

http://daveraphael.com/blog/?p=1202#respond

An amazing photographer Dave Raphael has documented the destruction: http://daveraphael.com/blog/?p=1202#respond

Come check out the Opening party this Saturday... 6-9pm
http://thefloatcenter.com/gallery.html

More images of FLOAT artist work, and floaters

Coming to the FLOAT gallery November 1st

t r a n s p o r t

Through the looking glass, a Mad Tea party coming to the FLOAT Gallery

Through the looking glass

Three artists reinterpret Wonderland...

Mad Tea party on September 26^th 6-9pm with live Jazz by "ManOverboard" and Bubbling Absinth spiked tea if you dare!

Show runs Sept 21^st- Oct 31^st

Join artists Bruce Tamberelli, Darwin Price, & Yvette M. Buigues for the opening reception of “Through the Looking Glass.”  Prepare to be amazed by strange and wondrous works of art. Enjoy the jazz stylings of  'ManOverboard' . You'll be grinning like a Cheshire cat! 

So book a float, with our mad as a hatter special and check out our Mad tea party on September 26^th. Great art, costumes, live music and wild libations!

FLOAT Gallery

1091 Calcot place #116 oakland

510-525-1702

Thefloatcenter.com

Only 4 more weeks of brilliant playful creatures, and junk yard kinetic art

Come check out “The Moose Must Persuade the Duck”
Encaustic Drawings & Monotypes by Cheryl Finfrock,
Kinetic art by Sudhu Tewari

Show runs through September 19th, 2009, Call for appointment M-Sun 10am-10pm
Both of these artist’s work is based in the exploration of seeing the world though childlike dreams. For art is the breath between the work and its viewer. Sometimes random and playful, it is the process itself that allows the collection of intention midstream. In this way, the Moose must persuade the Duck, as the work is pointing to a vision. Look, see it isn't all just all a thought experiment.

Cheryl Finfrock is an internationally known artist that creates monotypes, paintings on paper, canvas and wood. Narrative expressionism, humor, and symbolism are central throughout her work. Recent exhibits span US and Europe including New York City, San Francisco, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Berlin, Copenhagen, Montreal, Olomouc, Paris, and Sofia.

Sudhu Tewari is an artist, instrument builder, tinkerer and improviser. He has also been called a junkyard maven, bricoleur, and young-audio gadgeteer. An early interest in disassembling alarm clocks and coffee makers gave rise to electro-acoustic instruments constructed with the remains of discarded stereo equipment, kinetic sculptures and sound installations.

Moronic Urban Myths of Floatation Therapy (Sensory Deprivation)

Today I had a large crew of students come to float in my tanks, when I asked the main person in the group how he found us, he told me that his psychology professor told him it was a great way to hallucinate, and it is really fun.

Seriously should this professor really be teaching anyone anything? Dream state yes, theta waves yes, fun, most certainly. But without the use of drugs no hallucination’s in any commercial tank.

I have heard these and many more moronic myths about float tanks, such as…

People freak out (None in the history of commercial floatation tanks)
It’s claustrophobic, and it will make your more claustrophobic (Imposable without proprioception)
You will lose your bowels as soon as you get in the tank (Honey if you have that kind of a problem, we suggest you simply stay home until you get better)
You must use a tampon, or the salt will get inside of you (What are you smoking?)
You will absorb all the sodium, and it’s bad to be in salty water. (There is no sodium in a floatation tank)

Fortunately these ridicules urban myths are said by people who have never floated, and are just tossing out moronic opinions, as they apply butter to a burn. Thankfully my customers are far more evolved then them.

Please feel free to offer more Moronic Urban Myths of Floatation Therapy, as I suppose I should begin to keep a log.

June is all about Art in the East Bay!

June marks many art crawls around the east bay and specifically around the FLOAT Gallery.

Support your local artists, and come explore the wonders of the east bay art scene.

East bay open studios, June 6^th, 7^th & 13^th & 14^th

Jingle town Arts & Business Art Walk, June 6^th, 7^th & 13^th & 14^th

Estuary Art Attack, Art around the Island. Galleries open every 2^nd Friday of the month, 6-9pm.

Enjoy!

You can now float with an owie!

Ok, here's the deal... It's always been that you cound not float in a floatation tank when you have a new cut or wound, that has not healed over. The salt is just not going to allow that to happen.

Well now you can... I must say I just love my brilliant customers. 3M is now making a product called Tegaderm, it is a waterproof bangdage that comes in many sizes. Normally any bandage would simply not work in the tank... until now. In addition you can even float with a cast, another fine tip from my customers.

So the next time I hurt myself, I will no longer wait to recover before I get to float!

Hmmmm sweet, new float pod on the market

Our Fine friend from London Tim @ Floatworks, has developed a new tank called the I-sopod , not to be confused with the Isopod.

I'm quite sure that his vast years of experience has resulted in an amazing floatation tank. I look forward to trying it sometime soon.

Gillian Kendall of Curve Magazine Floats in Austrailia?

I tried it

Womb Without a View

Looking for some alone time? Try a sensory deprivation tank. By Gillian Kendall


It was a typical weekend evening, and my partner and I were companionably complaining about bills: the mortgage, the damn insurance on everything, the vet expenses for our four aging animals. I told her, “I get tired of being a grownup.” Sometimes I want to be a kid again, with
someone else to not only pay the rent but also clothe and feed me, take me out for fun
and then, when I’ve had enough, take me home and put me to bed. I want to sleep in
a place both warm and dark, preferably a waterbed heated to body temperature—as
womblike as possible. I get that womb-y escape from isolation tanks. Also called float tanks and sensory depravation tanks, they are large, waterproof, soundproof boxe in which the user floats on a bed of water thick with Epsom salts, basking in dark, warm, private silence. I
first floated when I lived in downtown San Diego, a city so sunny and lively that it frayed my nerves. For relaxation, and out of curiosity, I took the plunge into isolation. It’s a little like death. After I had a calming drink of herbal tea in the anteroom, a soft-spoken receptionist led me to the changing room to get ready for my soak. There I stood alone in a large, dark bathroom
with piped-in, ultra-soft New Age music, getting ready to face infinity—for an hour, at least.
I shed my clothes, put in earplugs and applied Vaseline to any little cuts or scrapes on my
body, so the salt wouldn’t sting and interfere with my bliss. Then I opened the lid of a coffinlike box and peered inside. Strewn with Epsom salts, the water smelled like the ocean and looked like molten glass. Stepping in, I felt nothing at all—the water was exactly my body temperature—and once I leaned back, floating was inevitable. Well supported, I sank only slightly, my knees and breasts staying above the surface. With my face well above the waterline, I breathed in the steamy, salty air with gratitude. I couldn’t go under if I tried, and no one was going to
bother me for a long time. I took several minutes to close the top of the box, because
I knew that once the lid came down, it was going to be utterly dark and a little weird. (Claustrophobes, take note: There’s no lock on the lid and you can open it with a touch at any time.) But once I shut out the light, I wasn’t afraid of the dark so much as fascinated by the noise and color inside my own mind. What came to me was a slow, gradual peace, like going into a dreamless sleep. The day’s worries and my recent emotional upheavals melted away, leaving
me feeling safe and protected. In my timeout from life, I was free to think things through, to meditate or pray or do nothing at all. Also, I saw a light—not enough to interfere with my relaxation, but a sure, small beam of white, like a star, coming from the far end of the tank. I thought there must be a pinprick opening in the seal of the lid. Later on, when soft music wafted into the tank to suggest that my soak was over, I dressed and was reborn to the world of light and sound. As I drank a second cup of chamomile, I told the receptionist
about the light leak. “Oh, really?” he said. “I doubt it, but I’m always looking for an excuse to soak. I’ll go check it out.” Ten minutes later he came back grinning, drying his hair. “There’s no leak,” he said. “We get sent in there all the time to look for lights—red, gold, white—people
see all kinds of things. Whatever you saw, it wasn’t coming from outside.”

Hippie 3.0 is now!

Hippie 3.0 is now!

Over the past month, we have noticed a growing movement of hippie identification, from the local Eastbay hippie hangout to hearing the self identification of friends calling themselves hippies. And we think this is a good thing.

The dictionary defines a hippie as one who doesn't conform to society's standards and advocates a liberal attitude and lifestyle.

Being a hippie is a matter of accepting a universal belief system that transcends the social, political, and moral norms of any established structure, be it a class, church, or government. Each of these powerful institutions has its own agenda for controlling, even enslaving people. Each has to defend itself when threatened by real or imagined enemies. So we see though history a parade of endless conflicts with country vs. country, religion vs. religion, class vs. class. After millennia of war and strife, in which uncounted millions have suffered, we have yet to rise above our petty differences.

The way of the hippie is antithetical to all repressive hierarchical power structures since these are adverse to the hippie goals of peace, love and freedom. This is why the "Establishment" feared and suppressed the hippie movement of the '60s, as it was a revolution against the established order. It is also the reason why the hippies were unable to unite and overthrow the system since they refused to build their own power base. Hippies don't impose their beliefs on others. Instead, hippies seek to change the world through reason and by living what they believe.

The Hippie transcends petty differences, by promoting love and tolerance. In Hippie language, this means accepting others as they are, giving them the freedom to express themselves and not judging people based solely on appearances. The Hippie movement is symbolic of a signpost on the road to freedom. Freedom to do what you want and follow the flow of life allows for utmost personal growth and mind expansion.

If this is the wave of the future, well we embrace our inner Hippie and those who identify as such.

"Hippy is an establishment label for a profound, invisible, underground, evolutionary process. For every visible hippy, barefoot, beflowered, beaded, there are a thousand invisible members of the turned-on underground. Persons whose lives are tuned in to their inner vision, who are dropping out of the TV comedy of American Life"

Timothy Leary (The Politics of Ecstasy) 1967

Floating a Mills College Student

Floating meditation unique experience

by Kim Harris in Sports & Health

In the tank, my body bobbed in space. I couldn't tell where my limbs ended and the water began. Were my eyes open or closed? Was I drifting from side to side? After a while, I decided it didn't matter. I was floating. "It's sensory deprivation, but in a good way," said Allison Walton, co-owner of FLOAT, Floatation Center-Art Gallery in Oakland.

I too noticed an alleviation of my fears while floating. After the initial nerves wore off, and I was able to enjoy weightlessness, I noticed a very clear change in my thinking. I was no longer a separate entity from the water. I had become the water, and the skin-temperature water made it feel as if I was floating through space. The pain and tension in my back and neck melted away.

After my float, I felt the clarity that many clients describe. I was awakened to every sense. The hot shower was extraordinarily refreshing, and the cup of green tea that Allison had made was soothing and warm in my hands. I drank the whole cup in five minutes. The artwork in the gallery was more colorful than when I came in.

Just a select few select paragraphs from Kims entire story.

Lions, and Tigers and Shamans .. oh my!

For my birthday this year. I decided to check out a modern day Native America Shaman named Emaho. Some of my amazing floatation therapy customers have been following him for over a decade, and I decided to find out why.

The Event was amazing, great food, great fire dance and common sense old school life wisdom.

Here is a bit more about Emaho:

Emahó is an American Indian shaman who has been organizing seminars in Europe for more than 20 years. Firedance is a part of them. Born as a Catholic, mother was Spaniard, father an American Indian from the Tewa tribe.

Emahó passed through Buddhism, he is a catholic bishop of the Antioch church, he became a Hinduist and mainly he is 'a child of life' as he says. His teaching is about how life is very universal and above all religions.

The ritual of firedance took him 7 years under unusual circumstances and has now dedicated it to people living in Europe as a gift. Six months a year he is working at the seminars.

Answering the question 'what is happening during fire dance?' in an interview for the Respekt newspaper, Emahó said: “The spirit of people is a black space. Splendid, divine, completely black space. It is Life. And at his edge there is a rainbow moving light. It is a dream-like body of every human being. All people are born like divine beings, fascinating and spontaneous. But all injuries and disappointments are like grains of sand clogging up this dream-like body. We have no notion, how much these grains affect us inside, induce diseases and problems. During the firedance I can see dreamlike bodies of people dancing with me and I work with them. I remove all grains of sand being like weight. All of us have them, we are weak, critical, unfair, confused and injured.

So... get your shaman on... it's a great ride.

Yelp and the Business of Extortion

Kathleen Richards, Managing Editor of the East Bay Express a wonderful independent local paper posted this article about Yelp today.

Although this article has nothing to do with floatation therapy or art, we appreciate her coverage of the local businesses that have experienced the flip side of the Yelp experience.

Our customers have been leaving wonderful reviews on us since we opened, and as of now only 50% of these 5 star reviews still exist, since we won't pay yelp to advertise with them.