Full Info at www.midwestburners.com/interfuse .

The theme this year is Technophilia/Technophobia ! Below is a message from the Kansas Regional Contact Zay regarding the theme. I have big plans and would love to colloborate on some art too or at least help with making art. Regionals are a great place to test out playa ideas and Interfuse is my start to the summer fun season. Both of these equal a big WIN! If you have not been to Interfuse, it is amazing and not far from Iowa. I expect it to sell out this year so buy tickets when they go up early next year. I will send a message out.

Here is a bit about the theme:

Forwarded from post by: "Zay Thompson"
Thu Oct 25, 2007 10:10 am (PST)

Thanks for the great brainstorming and discussion of InterFuse theme ideas! The InterFuse 2008 Art Theme is now set and is described below.
--Zay, Midwest Burners


Technophilia/Technophobia
Technology: Do we love it or hate it? Does it isolate us or bring us together? Does it make our lives easier or does it add layers of complications? Do we own our tools or do they own us? Can we live without our technology? Can it live without us? We shape the world through our technology but to what extent does our technology shape our world views?

This theme is a study of modern life that is very relevant to us as burners. Modern technology is both a consumer product and a means to promote consumption. Yet it can also be used to create art and to connect us. Technology extremely enhances our creative abilities yet also enhances our destructive abilities. As we know from our experience with the fire arts, destructive technology can also result in positive beautiful things.

Burners are especially suited for examining our relationships with technology. We are some of the most technologically savvy people out there. We've used the tools of the internet to connect with each other and build a community like no other. We are intimately familiar with creating new uses for technology and subverting it to our own fun purposes.

At InterFuse 2008, we will mock, celebrate, exaggerate, demonstrate, and use technology to create. Bring your fearful or hopeful vision of our technological present and future. All robots, cyborgs, couch potatoes, slaves to the machines, Luddites, interactive tutorials, genetically enhanced humans, virtual selves, icons, nuts & bolts, flotsam & jetsam etc. are welcome! You can take this theme in any direction! Unveil a new and enhanced IF08 Theme version 2.0. Come set up your office cubicle camp, post-apocalyptic scenario, personal billboard, or cyber-utopia. Form a techno cult or create a reality TV game that has gone horribly awry. Show off your inventions, bio-fueled art car, or invite people to add to your open source installations. Create recycled trash art, build a DNA sculpture, or assemble something else so engaging that people find themselves sitting around it for 36 hours straight sipping energy drinks.

At the center of this technological cacophony will sit that most loved and most hated icon of modern technology, that mighty conduit of modern culture, that unmatched propaganda and marketing tool—THE TELEVISION! The TV will be large enough to serve as an open performance stage and projection screen. We will be filling our giant television with our own content. All participants are invited to create Premier Entertainment Programming and clever personal advertising to display on our TV. There must be NO dead air time!!

Our modern society churns out tons of STUFF! So, around the giant television will be piles of personal technology sculptures created by YOU. Bring an effigy of whatever technology you fantasize about burning. Does your cell phone drive you crazy? Build a larger than life cell phone with non-toxic materials like wood, cardboard, paper, cloth. NO BURNING ACTUAL PLASTIC TECH DEVICES! You could give your effigy evil teeth or put something in the screen to express it's annoying qualities. Put your art on the pile around the TV and watch it all BURN on Saturday night when we use our favorite medium, fire, to transform technology and reclaim it as an authentic tool of our imaginations.

Welcome to the Machine!