Media Meditation #1: feelin a little wormy…

http://www.goosepimp.net/archives/388

Wormtown. Two words that many people usually do not hear in conjunction with one another, but together make the name of one of my favorite places on earth. The weekend started on Friday morning, when I packed into a minivan with all the back seats taken out with 6 of my good friends, tents, sleeping bags, coolers, glow sticks, glitter, road signs, and a hitchhiker we picked up in Springfield…. all the necessities for a great weekend.

After waiting in line, carrying our stuff from the parking lot into the woods, and setting up our home for the weekend, we head to the main stage to catch our first show of the day. The rest of my time there can be summed up as a blur of music, lights, art, friends, vending and dancing, VERY little sleep, and an all around awesome time.


This is a video from Strange Creek, the festival held at Camp KeeWanee at the beginning of the summer, featuring Zach Deputy, who is a regular headliner at both festivals.

It was very interesting for me to go to a festival knowing that I planned to write a media reaction about the experience. This is mostly because, as a general rule, I disconnect myself from the media upon pulling into the parking lot. I turn off my phone, leave it in the car, and enter the festival world. When I further examined that idea, however, I realized that I may be disconnecting myself from the media of the outside world, but I am also submerging myself in music as a medium, and taking pictures, reading ads for upcoming festivals, and exchanging contact information with new friends so that I can reconnect with them when I get home.

It is only proof of how much of a role the media have in our everyday life. The soundboards from many of the shows I saw are already posted online, in addition to pictures and videos from the campgrounds and concert fields.


Clearly, there are some who celebrate Wormtown a little too heavily.... =) Thanks to to convergence of media, I'm able to share this with all of you!

I also realized how beneficial access to the media is for me as an artist. Throughout the festival, I was walking around vending my jewelry, and was able to take custom orders from people and give them my website and contact information through which I have already been contacted by several people who are interested in purchasing pieces that I didn’t have at the festival with me.

As much as I’d like to think that I can escape the media, I have also come to really appreciate what it adds to an experience like Wormtown.