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Kantza: Amazonian Multimedia Kickstarter Campaign

Posted by Rick MG at 09:10, 08 Jul 2012

I just wanted to give a shout-out to the Kantza kickstarter, a campaign that's nearing its goal but just needs a little more help to reach it before the deadline next week. Amazon Voice is behind the project, a group striving to create a multimedia network in the Amazon rainforest for indigenous communities.

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Kantza is a film project envisioned and produced by members of the Shuar nation, indigenous caretakers of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Through collaboration with professional video and audio technicians the tribe intends to share the beauty of their culture as well as the struggle to preserve their homelands. Furthermore, the skills gained by making their own movie will offer on-going opportunities to document culture, share wisdom and engage the global community in ways that support social and environmental justice.

It's a terrific initiative, one that empowers the Shuar people to make their own film, from their own perspective. It's especially inspiring to see how quickly the Shuar took to the multimedia technology, professional filmmakers all along:

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The team at Amazon Voice found it astonishing that upon exposing the community to laptops for the first time, the Shuar people were easily able to navigate the computers and use music editing software to create professional tracks in just a few short hours of lesson. In response to our amazement, they replied, “We have been doing this in our dreams our whole lives.”

Like their neighbours the Achuar and other Amazon tribes, communal dreaming is integral to the daily life of the Shuar. The Kantza project itself began with a dream; the Tawasap village chief dreamt of a media centre that neighbouring communities could use to communicate with the outside world, a collaborative creative hub for the Amazon. It's William Gibson's Neuromancer, rainforest shaman edition.

In recent years the Daily Grail has developed a keen interest in shamanism and indigenous traditions of the Amazon, from Wade Davis to ayahuasca, and the Kantza project is one we heartily recommend you dig deep for to support. Ancient wisdom in exchange for technological shinies is a fair trade!

Comments

Terrific Kantza News!

#1

Member since:
2 May 2004

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13 hours 47 min

Posted by Rick MG on 10 Jul 2012 at about 08:29.

With only 6 days to go, the Kantza kickstarter has reached its goal! With over $15,000 raised, 234 backers have ensured the Shuar people of the Ecuadorian Amazon will be able to create their film, and maintain a media centre to communicate with other tribes and, jusr as importantly, the outside world - us. :-)

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Neuromancer

#2

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Posted by red pill junkie on 10 Jul 2012 at about 16:28.

It's William Gibson's Neuromancer, rainforest shaman edition.

I once read a comic about this giant computer network where everybody would log on a-la Matrix to play games —rather brutal ones, it turns out— but the interesting thing is that the story also showed Native Americans being able to 'access' this virtual world without the use of any technological interface. They only employed the same traditional methods of prayer and hallucinogenic plants to 'upload' their consciousness into the computer network.

I always thought that was cool :)

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Native Technology

#3

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2 May 2004

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Posted by Rick MG on 12 Jul 2012 at about 09:33.

Do you remember the title of the comic?

It reminds me of the Otherland series, by Tad Williams, about a vast virtual reality that takes on a life of its own. A Kalahari Bushman named !Xabbu is a key character -- his language gives him unique computer coding skills.

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