BEAM 1.2/FUNGUS PRODUCTIONS

KENJI WILLIAMS OF FUNGUS PRODUCTIONS

How/when/where/with whom was Fungus Productions conceived?

Fungus Productions was conceived in 1995 while I was attending film school in Toronto and Boulder, Colorado. At the time I was in the process of making the film "Moment Utopia" which took me to many different parts of North America: Lakota reservations, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Toronto. It came out of the enormous transformation that the rave scene had on my life. I feel blessed that I was able to translate my experiences and with what I was learning in school: learning the language of film, scoring films, writing all sorts of music.

I wanted to start a company that would not only be a foundation/ record label for my musical projects, but to also create consciousness enhancing media, media and events that would push the boundaries of peopleís awareness of themselves and of the natural, understand the connection between them...kind of like what happens when you ingest some fungi!

I think my integral source has always come from music. I seriously pursued violin since I was 7 years old until I left for university, so music has been a vital part of my creative process. I have always felt that music is a universal language, it has enormous powers to evoke The Spirit. It is a gift to be able to translate such feelings and ideas through music that cannot be explained otherwise. But, I think everyone is a musician, and everyone has that potential in one form or another.

Other than music, the natural world (including humans) have always supplied me with plenty of jaw dropping experiences. I was sort of a suitcase child when I was growing up! My father traveled for a living at the time, and the whole family would uproot from my home of Washington DC most summers. It sucked in that it was alienating, and prevented a feeling of geographical security and community, but I spoke Japanese, English, and Spanish, and experienced both Eastern culture and European culture as I was growing up in America. I think this was my greatest education, interacting with different realities and reflecting upon them. In any case, I think these experiences inspired much of my interests that I have today in cultural phenomena, what holds a culture together, and why? How is an identity of a culture created and maintained?

Another source of inspiration has come from a desire to heal my body from an accident I had 6 years ago where I messed up my spine pretty badly. Since then, it has been a long and difficult trip in becoming aware of my body, and finding what it needs to heal itself. Before this, I really had no interest in mind-body healing, but now it just seems to tie in so well with everything else that I’m doing. The health of the planet is reflected in the health of everything in its biosphere, including humans. No wonder we live in an age of epic, health and psychological problems. I have just recently become a part of a research project in Berkeley that will use sound and bio-feedback to heal different parts of the body, experimenting with different music and tones through electromagnetic transducers to stimulate certain points of the body. Essentially acupuncture, but with audio and vibration. Its all very exciting!

I think it is more of a necessity rather than an option that human culture revitalizes spiritual ritual, mysticism, and a re-discovery of the sacred. Essentially, a shift of mentality and spirituality needs to occur in the next century if we want to sustain this planet and ourselves. The way the western world is setting the standards of consumption of the earth's resources will deplete our biosphere in our lifetime. This is no hokey-pokey stat.

Thankfully, the bus is in motion now. It's happening, one has to decide whether you’re on it or on the sidelines. I have really learned a lot from practicing Tai-Chi in this class I am taking. The way one can harness and direct unbelievable forms of energy through body and mind movement is pretty amazing. There’s no reason we as a human species do a sort of global Tai-Chi in shifting mass forms of energy and consciousness. Yeah this sounds New Agey, but why not? It would be fun! I think rave culture is pretty interesting in that, on a basic level, raves are energy engines, sources of rivers of energy happening on a global level waiting to be directed into a strong current with direction. Right now, for the most part, they are just about partying. Don’t get me wrong, we have to have fun or else we’re screwed. I just think we can re-direct all this energy into more of a focus, or purpose in a common consciousness. I believe its starting to go in that direction, this is just the beginning of a long journey.

We basically need a new reality, a new way of doing things, a new way of living, of relating to one another. The modern myth has led us to a culture that breeds alienation, miscommunication, loss of enchantment, and unsustainable consumption practices that are just plain unhealthy for everybody. We need to create community through celebration, use technology for educational, healing, and sacred purposes instead of facilitating convenience, genocide, and playing genetic Lego for the sake of curiosity and money. The modern world has completely lost touch with what is sacred. We’ve lost touch with that immediate experience of the transcendent through ritual and celebration. We’re just starting to realize this, and gatherings such as raves have the potential to serve the purpose of regaining this connection, and re-discovering the awe and wonder found in mysticism.

As for politics, I think politics are essential in all of this, but it is miniscule in importance compared with the power of our imaginations and our spirit. In addition to voting for our political leaders, we should vote for reality with our imaginations!

I believe the most ultimate technology we have available to us is our own brain and our own body. I am quite fond of what computers and digital technology can do, but quite frankly, I think they’re overrated. Computers have the ability to empower people, I can create an entire album or video from conception to final CD-form in my bedroom if I wanted, that’s pretty damn cool, but my back and my brain often hurts after being around this stuff for too long, you know? Technology, just as anything, is fine when it’s balanced with everything else.

I think the Internet will be a vital platform for communication and creating autonomous societies, alternative monetary systems, and helping shift people’s consciousness, but it all means nothing without the PHYSICAL!! A virtual community means nothing without the physical community as its foundation. A virtual culture communicating on the Internet is a wonderful testing ground for fostering new possibilities, but we have to bring what we learn from this into our physical world and make it happen.

Amongst all the hype of the modern world about technology, we are forgetting ourselves, and often putting the needs of technology before the needs of humans. Do we control technology, or does it control us?

MOMENT UTOPIA: A 30-min video documentary exploring the potential of rave culture and techno rituals, its connection with tribal culture, and the need for expanded consciousness and grounded spirituality for our generation.

"...Moment Utopia is an important voice in the attempt to establish an intelligent and positive view of 'rave' culture. Visually the film is beautiful, with stunning cinematography...[it] presents the viewer with a larger context for everything, and ultimately that is the only way to see beyond the pettiness of much of rave and of society in the 90's, and plant seeds for the future-beyond rave." - XLR8R Magazine

www.fungusproductions.com -- Revamped web page featuring fungus products, audio/video netcasting, comic-strip style storytelling, education, social action.

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