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

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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!