some goodies from the

HISTORY

of our Ecocreative Community traditions:

EARTHEART (starting 1982),
Digital Valentines Days (starting 1981),
Graphics Gatherings (starting 1980), and
Creative Futuristics (starting 1979)


Looking back over 4 decades of Creative Futuristics...

a flow of GATHERINGS happening at least once per year every year since 1980 in California, Hawaii, Texas, Singapore, Australia...

... during 2010-2020 transitioning into, and in 2021 settling into, 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."



February 14, 1981

the very first

Digital Valentines Day

Graphics Gathering




Antique pixels! The 1981 poster that started the DIGITAL VALENTINES meme tradition.

(( Printed on one of the world's first color computer graphic printers, we had to print these out one-by-one, several minutes each. Poster designer Trudy Reagan, RAMTEK printer provider Penny Robertson, and Gathering organizer Howard Pearlmutter stayed up all night as the only people in a big cold Silicon Valley industrial office building nursing the printer along. When the printer finally broke down at around 4am, we had printed about 150 copies. In the following days we handed-out and mailed-out those 150... and magically just over 150 people actually showed up to the Gathering! The energy was electric, a digital media revolution was ignited, and the tradition keeps going even 4 decades later :) ))



Now, 4 decades later, as dawn breaks at the beginning of our next 4 decade macrocycle,

we have been joining together with our fellow creatives, cocreatives, and ecocre8ives

in
  • RECREATING the spirited pixelogeny of the early Cre80s monthly Graphics Gatherings
  • SHARING art, imagery, decor, voices, smiles, & mutual self expression atop 2021's worldwide interactive audio video venue
  • GATHERING as we continue our credibly incredible 41 year evergreen annual tradition of inventive culture
  • CELEBRATING The 40th Anniversary of the First Digital Valentines Day
  • HOLDING the health and well being of Mother Earth in our hearts
  • BRAINSTORMING for next year's 40th Anniversary Celebration of the Birth of EARTHEART -- Feb 1982 reincarnated in Feb 2022
  • ECOCREATING Ecosystemic Health
  • SEEDING the Next 40 years of the Ecocre8ive Community









Eartheart of 1990, from our 10th Annual Digital Valentines poster





New to the Gatherings? Start here...




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 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, open to all, 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 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 fee, there is never any soliciation of donations, and no money donations are accepted if offered. So the only way you can contribute is to contribute your own creativity, your own time, your own energy, your own good will -- to combine with what others contribute, and make the best possible Gathering that we can co-create.





The even finer print


If you are reading this on paper...
for more info, past years' posters, how to participate, email invitations to upcoming Gatherings & late breaking news...
please visit:

www.digitalvalentines.org/gathering.html





A Graphics Gathering?

A Graphical Gathering?

A Gathering of Graphics?

For a sampling of past years' posters,
and special stuff of interest to
artists, technologists, ecologists, and anthropologists,
please click on these links:

2001 FINAL SINGAPORE POSTER

2002 02 22 FINAL PERTH AUSTRALIA ECOCREATIVE POSTER

Historical Roots of the Graphics Gathering:
(adventurous artists meet graphical geeks at dawn of multimedia revolution, 1980-81 onwards)
...and the inside scoop on 2003 ;-)

1994 MAUI (Usenet posting) 14th Annual Gathering of the eCOcre8ive Community

2004 FINAL EL PASO EARTHEART ZIA SUN POSTER

In 2018 we had a sweet in-the-flesh Gathering at Namaste Tribe in El Paso, and made a big print poster for it, like in the good ole days, so if you missed out, here's your second chance to grab a collectors item:
((click here to download the 2018 poster))




The 1981 poster that started the DIGITAL VALENTINES tradition.

The 1982 poster that started the EARTHEART tradition (and a decade later inspired the design of a US postage stamp):



Now, to get a richer taste of the Cre80's -- dive into antique pixels.