to a special gathering... the latest
in a flow of events happening since 1980 in California, Hawaii, Texas, Singapore, Australia...
...and now gathering in a new kind of Gathering Place... easily reachable by you no matter where in the world you physically exist...
...an annual flower that blossoms again and again around these words:
"We are creative individuals who enjoy bringing
separate worlds together, and at our Gatherings help each other to visualize a spectrum of possible futures, and build tools to sculpt the best of them."
Welcome to our 45th Annual Gathering
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News for 2025: your trusty trustee/organizer is recovering from shoulder surgery, so not much new typing here for 2025.
Expect an even more informal gathering than usual.
So we won't be going like our 15+ hour worldwide marathons of our last few years... instead, probably ~8 hours most likely in 2025.
Drop in and out and in and out as you like, and expect to experience different small convivial conversations with different mixes of participants (and different occasional sharings of visuals) each time you dip into the flow.
Relative to the US Mountain Time Zone, here's a rough forecast of the flow:
11am pre-gathering:
A Complete Unknown
+
NOON: A Gathering
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1pm: A Coop for Climate
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2pm: A Coop for Eartheartists
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3pm: An Inter-Silo Synergy
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4pm: An Inclusive Circle
+
5pm+: An Open Line
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Overall, we expect the unexpected, as we share our special blend of interaction among creative, cocreative, and ecocreative humans in between the phases and throughout the flow.
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overall, as usual, a fractal mix of complementary opposities... and, as usual, this one will be different than any of our past ones ;)
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If you are curious to learn more backstory, feel free to dig in below for plenty of history and antique pixels.
(((HOW - TO - GATHER)))
(((in 2025)))
WHERE?
Your Computer
(hopefully with a nice big screen, good-sounding speakers, hi-res video camera, and a quality microphone)
Your Browser
(hopefully Chrome or Firefox, freshly updated to the latest version)
Your window for diving in is 8 hours, starting at these times:
11AM US PACIFIC TIME ZONE
12 NOON US MOUNTAIN TIME ZONE
1 PM US CENTRAL TIME ZONE
2 PM US EASTERN TIME ZONE
7 PM GMT / LONDON
8 PM LAGOS / AMSTERDAM / CET
9 PM TEL AVIV
12:30AM INDIA
3 AM PERTH / SINGAPORE
6 AM SYDNEY
9 AM HAWAII
and all other time zones welcome too :)
JOIN US WHENEVER YOU ARE ABLE AT ANY TIME DURING THE 8 HOURS AFTER THESE START TIMES
....and now, some goodies from our pastimes...
The first 4 hours of our first day (Sunday Feb 20) will be a combination of welcoming, memorial, introduction, EARTHEART Birthday Party, and Reunion Vortex. We begin with an informal memorial for graphic arts pioneer Marvin Pearlmutter, who passed at 95 years old on Feb 12, 2022. AND: we'll have a mini CartoGraphics Gathering (why we started putting maps inside of hearts 40 years ago... to how we pioneered the digitizing of maps into Macintoshes... to how one of us played an inside role in creating Google Maps for Mac... to how GeoSpatial computing lies at the heart of Climate Science).
All big-hearted folks are welcome. Remember, you are a sweetheart when you care for other human beings... and you are an EARTHEART when you care for Mother Earth -- when you carry the health of EARTH -- the well being of the whole living ecosystem -- in your HEART.
The middle 4 hours of our first day (Sunday Feb 20) will feature our hallmark Circle where many voices get to be heard... and will increasingly get to the heart of the matter -- to the Eartheart of the matter. Bring your voice & visuals to an EcoCre8ive Conversation exploring what's happening... and what could be happening... and what we can help make happen... and what toolmaking could amplify effectiveness... on the path to Climate Security and Ecosystemic Health.)
Our final 4 hours of our first day (Sunday Feb 20): We invite our folks in Australia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Bali, Hawaii, & other Asia-Pacific locales (including western US timezones) to join in at the 8-hour mark for a special welcome, which will be 7pm in California & 11am the next day (2022-02-21) in Perth/Singapore. Come celebrate the 20th Anniversary of our 2002 Perth Australia Gathering and meet a fresh new crew of folks from all around Asia Pacifica.
Our second day (Tuesday Feb 22) : 12 hour flow from "eartheartbreak" to "healtheartheart" ... via ecocreativity around the idea of "coop 4 climate":
40th Anniversary
of the very first
EARTHEART
Digital Valentines Day
Graphics Gathering
Antique pixels! (and some antique pseudo-pixels too ;)
The 1982 poster that started the EARTHEART meme tradition.
(and a decade later inspired the design of a US postage stamp)
Eartheart of 1990, from our 10th Annual Digital Valentines poster
Eartheart of 1991, from our 3rd generation embroidery extravaganza
Why do we put these things together? First and foremost, to bring our best to meet the ultimate challenge of our times: to restore the health and well-being of the planetary ecosystem. To bring the potency of creative technology into service of healthy ecology. To battle the onslaught of Climate Chaos. To do our part in healing Mother Eartheart.
To bring forward values of creative liberty and humane compassion; fairness and equality; individuality and diversity; peace and love; respect and revival; integrity and wholeness.
To leave behind the destructive patterns of our inherited cultural immaturity, and fire up our creative passions to step into the future and live a life worth living.
And so that also means we do this to have a blast, meet our peers, learn from each other, stimulate and be stimulated, appreciate and be appreciated, build bridges between separate fields of wisdom, and share tools that empower individuals to envision, express, implement and enliven. Many creative, unique people find the Gatherings highly motivating and some have gone to great lengths to attend. We're grateful for their participation -- and for yours.
As always, the Gathering is free of charge, non-commercial, activistic, futuristic, and lots of fun!
Our "Digital Valentines" meme aptly symbolizes one of the primary aims of the Gatherings: synthesis -- bringing separate worlds together. Join us in creating symbiosis between the scientific and the emotional -- the computer and the human being -- the mind and the heart.
Join us in showing and telling and sharing... in seeing how it all fits together, seeing the big picture, seeing the longterm worldwide effects of our actions -- so we can all become better, humbler, wiser co-pilots for Spaceship Earth.
Each Gathering is a creative variation on the tradional themes we've evolved over the years; each one provides a safe haven for people to share creativity with one another, and at the same time each Gathering is a novel and unique work of art in itself.
Since each gathering is made up new and fresh and has never happened before, they can easily be seen as experiments in expanding the envelope of creativity, co-creativity, and eco-creativity.
Sometimes, its as pure and simple as opening up space for good folks to gather. As simple as a time and place for good folks speaking out and being heard. As simple as joining the circle, and sharing wisdom. As simple as getting passionate people who know why into the same space with talented people who know how.
Like any good work of art, the Gatherings resist pat definitions or easy comparisons. Traditionally, however, it's safe to
say that our events time after time curiously attract a magically balanced diversity of unique individuals on the cutting edge of social change -- who envision, design,
program, animate, sculpt, write, diagnose, architect, invent, invest, analyze, synthesize, research, develop, consult, advise,
speak, facilitate,
coach, teach, train, meditate, stretch, massage, heal, garden, sprout, juice, cook, farm, feed, nourish, stimulate, provoke, harmonize, legislate, execute,
adjudicate, interpret, implement, entertain, compose, perform, photograph, paint, critique, code, provoke -- and in countless other ways influentially participate in creating the state of the art.
And as our community co-creates the state of the art, we naturally provide tools for activism, platforms for activists, and activation of movement beyond the art of the state.
Since 1980, the Gatherings have been attracting a wide range of creative thinkers who are revitalized by the opportunity to interact with their counterparts in other fields. Now we welcome you to gather with us.
The fine print:
For the Gatherings themselves,
there is never any monetary fee,
there is never any soliciation of money donations,
and no money donations are accepted if offered.
So the way you contribute is to show up --
and contribute your own creativity, your own expression,
your own time, your own energy, your own good will --
to combine with what others contribute,
and make the best possible Gathering experience that we can co-create,
and the best record for ecocreative posterity.
Thanks for making it all the way to the bottom of this long page!
Maybe that means you are curious to know more? To learn some of our history accumulated over 4 decades?
Maybe you're curious to take a look at some of our past years' posters, and see some antique pixels from the early eras of the digital media revolution that our Graphics Gatherings helped to midwife?
Just click and visit:
