26C3 - 26C3 1.15
26th Chaos Communication Congress
Here be dragons
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Weaponizing Cultural Viruses |
Aaron Muszalski
Aaron Muszalski (Google: sfslim) is a context hacker, experience artist, and a highly weaponized vector of thought contagion, determined to bring about societal change by any memes necessary. The organizer and collaborator behind countless flash mobs and art happenings in the San Francisco Bay Area, Aaron specializes in creating ephemeral spaces that encourage direct participation and the demediation of experience.
He co-founded "Paul Reubens Day", a bawdy celebration of self-gratification in which participants dress as disgraced children's television star Pee Wee Herman and parade from porn theater to public square, and once led over eight hundred zombies in a shambolic attack on a San Francisco Mayoral debate.
A veteran of Industrial Light + Magic (George Lucas' Academy Award winning visual effects facility) he worked on such films as "Galaxy Quest", "Sleepy Hollow" and "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace". Prior to joining ILM, Aaron worked at LucasArts, contributing to such titles as "Rebel Assault", "Dark Forces" and "The Secret of Monkey Island". He now teaches visual effects compositing around the world, including at Lucasfilm Animation Singapore, San Francisco's Noisebridge hackerspace, and the San Francisco Academy of Art University.
Since 2007, Aaron has helped build the eponymous central effigy at Burning Man, an anarchic, ephemeral festival held in the Nevada desert. A longtime contributor of art to the event, his previous creations there include a collection of one hundred 2.4-meter tall dominoes with which participants could freely interact, and a giant (18-meter long) Rubber Duck whose wings opened to reveal a Jazz nightclub and casino inside.
He is a regular contributor to the art and culture blog, Laughing Squid and a guest host for BoingBoing Video, showcasing noteworthy aspects of edge culture. He spoke at Monochrom's Arse Elektronika conference in both 2007 and 2008, and his essay "Behind The Green (Screen) Door: The Inevitable Future of Visual Effects in Pornography" was published in the first Arse Elektronika anthology.
When not busy immanentizing the eschaton, Aaron enjoys riding motorcycles and annotating his copy of TiHKAL.