Antonio Lopez's blog

Erik Davis's new collection of essays, Nomad Codes, covers a vast, rhizomatic net of high weirdness. There are plenty of folks out there following their inner weirdo, which should lead them straight to Erik's work. Reality Sandwich checks in to see what it's about.

Reality is just a dream? OK. But the mass media are the dreamlife of corporations. Inception's dream stages naturally mirror capitalism's hierarchical state. So is Inception just another corporate media mindfuck, or does it actually say something about the nature of mind?

When staring into the eyes of media, I often wonder who or what beckons me. James Cameron said that the Na'vi are like our higher selves. Connecting to this realm is like a purification dream.

2012 the movie is not about consciousness transformed or reborn. To get at the film's deeper meaning, we have to take it for what it is: an out-of-body flight through the corporate dream world's restless vision of collapse. 

Jaycee Dugard's abduction story is part of a larger media myth and the story of civilization. Is there a link between mass mediated madness and kidnapping?

Are we evolving an ecologically oriented global consciousness, or just a technologically efficient corporate brain? It depends on whether or not we can decolonize the future.

Chakaruna -- bridgers -- weave between the sacred realm and complex realities of global organizations, working as “servant-leaders.” From Buddhism, to punk, to corporate boardrooms, servant-leaders are necessary catalysts of the emerging evolution.

Ann Elizabeth Moore's Unmarketable challenges hipsters and artists to reconsider selling out communities to corporations. Can culture jamming survive cooptation?

Can media tap into a kind of liminal space like shamanism? By leveraging the collective intelligence and participatory components of the contemporary pop commons, Battlestar Galactica illuminated the historical tension between humans and their technological tools.

The "consumer sublime" is the idea that people seek increasingly more stimulating media to "awe" their senses in the same way we once encountered the sublime within nature. So what happens when we experience the Grand Canyon in an Imax theater instead of the real thing?

Van Jones argues that the division between environmental and social justice activists falls into three polarities: ecology versus social justice; business solutions versus political activism; and spiritual/inner change versus social/outer change. Can his call to replace the “versus” with a “plus,” help build a new coalition for social justice and the environment?

As the economy shrinks, Americans need to reevaluate prosperity to generate new meaning in their lives. Are we always aspiring to a utopian future rather than being grateful for what we have?

If cool hunters are appropriating subcultures, than we need to reaffirm ourselves as ethical communities. If advertisers want to sell us products regardless of their social and environmental impact, perhaps we should exile them to a place where they will no longer hurt anyone.

When I discovered yesterday morning that Obama had won, I wept. And wept. Is it an exaggeration to say the global village's heart is opening up?

Photos of the so-called "lost" tribe of the Amazon generated a huge mediasphere buzz. But now that the images have been called a "hoax," it's worth probing what these images say about us, and not the people depicted in them.

How can we harmonize our approach to media with the principles of ecology? It's time for a more holistic understanding of media.

Adidas plants thought bombs with a viral video about urban gardening.

The release of a controversial video game whacks the piñata of media fears, causing a wave of hsyteria and debate. Enter Grand Theft Auto IV.

An exciting documentary project highlights an emergent global culture and its push for change.

Neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor talks about her stroke and how it taught her the brain's access point to inner peace.

Over time, even the slickest propaganda cannot hide murder, torture, or illegality, especially when a global society is increasingly transparent. But we often forget that propaganda makers are susceptible to their own deceptions.

Decentralized networks, smart mobs, collective intelligence, open source software, biopolitics, the emergent social Web and the integration of love percolate the New Edge, yet how do we use all these sexy, geeky, quasi-spiritual concepts to deconstruct the global empire of control and build a movement in response? Welcome to the first Reality Sandwich reading group, featuring Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire by Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt.

Will.i.am's video tribute to Obama is making the Internet rounds. But does it say anything of substance?

On May 10, Pangea Day will combine music, film and visionaries around the globe. If the world were watching, what story would you tell? [video]