Regeneration Festival: An interactive weekend of exploring altered states of experience at a site of outstanding natural beauty in the Surry Hills, near Dorking, Surry, UK.

FRIDAY 20TH – SATURDAY 21ST JULY 2012

(camping through to Sunday 22nd 1pm)

info@regenerationfestival.org.uk – www.regenerationfestival.org.uk

Regenerate (v. ri-jen-uh-reyt) – 1 bring or come into renewed existence. 2 impart new, more vigorous, and spiritually greater life to (a person or institution etc.). 3 reform oneself. 4 invest with a new and higher spiritual nature.

REGENERATION is a 3-day residential event at which everyone will be a participant. A festival unlike any other, it will integrate live and interactive arts, live music, expanded cinema & multimedia installations with academic talks and discussions, all with the intent of exploring altered states of consciousness through creativity, intelligence and mutual cooperation.

Participants are encouraged to camp at the event site to establish a sense of community and ‘regenerate’. Regeneration will combine the fun of creative play with awe-inspiring immersive environments and thoughtful academic discussion. The event attempts to address the problems of our troubled times by asking, ‘is the solution to our problems inside of us? Can altered states of consciousness, however they are achieved, offer insight and a sense of renewal, both for the self and for society at large?’

Continuing a stream of public events investigating this hypothesis, including the Wellcome Collection’s High Society exhibition (2010) and an inter-disciplinary conference at the University of Kent, Breaking Convention (April 2011), Regeneration sets out to harness the setting of an enjoyable weekend of festivities in the country to incubate and deliver outcomes that enhance the understanding of such modes of experience in a balanced, unsensationalised manner.

The component of the event devoted to talks and discussions will be convened by writer, researcher and academic Dr. David Luke under the banner, ‘What do psychedelics mean?’ Talks will be given by Dr. Luke and a host of eminent academics and researchers in the field, including clinical psychiatrist Dr. Ben Sessa and medical & ecological anthropologists Dr. Cameron Adams and Dr. Anna Waldstein. The talks will explore the possible benefits psychedelics offer contemporary medical, psychological and sociological research and will explain their effects.The discussions will feed into a live exploration of the ways in which the psychedelic experience has influenced the arts, with particular emphasis on time-based media.

On Friday and Saturday evenings participants will have the opportunity to experience specially designed interactive installations and performances forming a multimedia environment created by filmmaker Lorna Love (who will also produce a video of the event) and the Bardo Light Show, with an expanded cinema performance by artist Sally Golding. Utilising a hybrid of cutting edge and vintage technology, the environment, while exploring and referencing the psychedelic experience, will accentuate participatory pleasure, while facilitating the sharing of an altruistic, communal experience. Enhancing this mix of audio-visual pleasures will be an expertly curated programme of live music (from the likes of The Time and Space Machine) and sound-art perfor mances (by Sterling Roswell, among others), DJs (including Mat Blackfuzz Poison Ivy League) and screen ings of films (including Solar Flares Burn For You, a programme of British short experimental films (1967-73) from the BFI National Archive).

For more information please visit: www.regenerationfestival.org.uk