Voicecraft Dispatch | Invitations to The Big Dinner and Underground Philosophy

Local and online events coming up in May: Future Human and Fear and Beauty

Inviting the next Big Dinner

On Saturday 23rd of May, Voicecraft will host the next Big Dinner. It welcomes Simon van der Els, Sarah Janes, Pamela von Sabljar, Carl Hayden Smith, and Jon Garner creating art on the evening.

The topic is Future Human, and we’re going to be following a somatic-symbolic sensory process that Simon has been developing, and which he recently deployed at the Mind-at-Large conference, hosted by the Center for Process Studies.

The Big Dinner is a hybrid event. Part online, part offline. It invites people to host dinners around the world, while tuning into a live podcast / conversation format hosted by The Voicecraft Network.

On this occasion, it’s dinner time for Asia / Australia and NZ, and late morning / lunch for EU. (6am for ET if I remember correctly.) This time we have a few locations in Melbourne and NZ participating, ranging from 3 to 15 people attending each venue.

You are also welcome to tune in like you would for any online event, whatever time, with or without others.

You can learn more about the speakers, format, and find out when this takes places in your timezone at https://www.voicecraft.io/online-events/the-big-dinner-future-human

There you will also find a basic hosting guide available as a PDF.

We are running this event on a gift economy ethos. The intention is for The Big Dinner to have no financial barrier to entry, with the long term aim to grow as a context that connects networks around the world in dialogues that matter to the people showing up. Over the many years of this work, Voicecraft has collaborated with hundreds and reached thousands of people who are sincerely engaged with life and creativity. People who share in many of the same aspirations for culture and community, with a similar appreciation for depth. The Big Dinner looks to serve as a place of reconnection for these people and others they’d like to invite in. There’s no network membership required to attend.

I think there is something in the search for the right distance, the right boundary, the right membrane, here, which could be an important unlock for increasing the connections in and affordances of the broader field this work touches. The Big Dinner looks to create an interior of sorts, yet with more of an openness. A festival, maybe, with your own tent to return to. And if you’d like to connect with people afterwards, The Big Dinner space inside the Voicecraft Mighty Network is free to join. It’s self contained and doesn’t require full membership access.

Moving forward, I have seen VC backed startups offer micro grants to people hosting dinners in a bid to create ‘community’. I wonder if something like the Big Dinner could find a model that crowd-funds the same sort of thing for dinner hosts. Perhaps the gift economy ethos at a sufficient scale could enable this. It is after all more economical to host events online than it is in person (which continue below).

Again, to learn more, and book tickets to attend the next Big Dinner, use the button below.

Underground Philosophy: Fear and Beauty

The next Underground Philosophy takes place on Thursday 21st of May, on the topic of Fear an Beauty. Learn more @ https://www.voicecraft.io/events

I’ll keep this one short. It builds from conversation that developed in the after event conversation that followed the last event on Truth to Power (the first 20 minutes of which can be watched here.)

I love this venue and place to return to, and would love to see listeners in Melbourne step into participation…

Finally, today the Voicecraft Network channel released a dialogue on The Politics Of Movement, exploring the relation between art and violence. With Jurnee (Jurnma), Corey, Bek and Jon (who created some beautiful live art in response to the dialogue, attached below as an example of what kind of thing may come through at The Big Dinner.

Discernment on the Way,