[NB - This is a rough version received just in time for the update. It will be revised and corrected shortly! - JE]
The Gravite Zero Festival took place in France from the 23 of october until the 1st of november, year zero. It was separated in three cities, Nantes-Tours-Paris, to experiment the AAA triolectical ideas, by moving in several directions at once.
The Festival started with the installation of the exhibition "5 years with the AAA", in "Le Caf", an electronic caf in Tours. It was for us a good opportunity to present vaious AAA materials from the last 5 years, including : AAA Posters from the Vienna 97 Intergalactic Conference, the 98 Bologna one, the Space 1999 festival in London, and the World-Information.org Future Heritage Music Event ; various leaflets or bulletins' first pages (A3 format) like "Ad Astra", "Escape from gravity", "Gravite Zero", "Suspension in Reality", "Everybody is a Star", "Space 1999 special issues", "Reclaim the Stars", etc... ; various graphics like the classic "Rave in Space" one, the "Pimax" and "homo volans" from AAA 333 Bologna, the "AA ISS", "Reclamez la Station Mir !", etc... ; also toys, spacefood, and various media invasion exemples.
The video team (Coline Fomekong, Rgis Lescoublet, Ewen
Chardronnet) of the Gravit Zro Festival was invited in Nantes at UTOPIA, one
of the biggest Science Fiction Festival in Europe, including a Cinema competition,
Litterature and Comics.
This was made possible with all the efforts of Riccardo Balli from AAA 333 Bologna,
Valerio Evangelisti, the famous bolognese Science-Fiction writer and AAA good
friend, Bruno Della Chiesa, the founder of the Festival and artistic director
of the litterature section.
The AAA went on thursday at the Utopia Festival. We arrived in Nantes through
the Jules Verne Avenue. Despite the fact that the Festival started on tuesday
with for example the presentation of "Mission to Mars" - a pure Nasa propaganda
movie - by Brian De palma himself... During its own festival the AAA provided
a text against the US program "revolution in the military affairs" and Nasa
propaganda in movies such as "Space cowboys" by Clint Eastwood, or "Mission
to Mars".
With press cards it was possible for the GZ video team to shot all that we wanted
incuding conferences, debates, movies competition, litterature convention, etc...
We interviewed writers or movies directors such as Andrej Zulawsky, Enki Bilal,
Valerio Evangelisti, etc... asking various questions about space, time travel,
etc, or about the AAA.
The first debate I assisted, took place in "Le Caf Littraire" of Utopia, organised by Roland Wagner, with : Norman Spinrad, the famous US writer of "Jack Baron" and especially author of the recent "Russian Spring", an uchronian book against militarisation of Space ; Jean-Michel Truong who wrote some years ago "clonage interdit" ; H.H. Loche, the danish writer of the northern europe "new wave" that is not really science fiction but may be a sort of "surrealistic" view of the modern society ; and Rodolfo Martinez, a spanish SF writer. The debate was around Artificial Intelligence and idea of consciousness.
The program of the thursday SF Thema Music Night in Le Lieu Unique was around the "Rave In Space" Cd from 22h00 to 02h00, with A.N.T.I. (Vividian Axxiis, ex-AAA Penhars), Stupid Dog (Ellipse, AAA Tours), Ewen XKV8 (Hangars Liquides, ex-AAA Rosko). On friday, "La cuisine" residents of Le Lieu Unique was programmed, and on the saturday, "Beat Actione" from Bologna.
In Le Lieu Unique we met all our cosmorades from Brittany, like A.N.T.I.(who also played in Vienna 97), Attila, the GZ video team, and aaaers from Douarnenez, Quimper, Rennes, Nantes, Tours. The party was really cool. Good sound, drinks, digital video, etc... This was the real start of the Festival.
We appreciate the helps of Jean-Pierre Bochetti from Le Batofar in Paris and Kitty from Le Lieu Unique, to organise this "Autonomous Astronauts in the mix" party on thursday night in this big and nice Cultural Center, Le Lieu Unique (www.lelieuunique.com).
On friday morning (we didn't sleep so much), the GZ video team was ready to assist at all the conferences. The first debate, "Le droit du serf" was about the rights of the writers. With Ayerdhal, Jean marc Ligny, Pierre Bordage,... They presented their bad feeling about their state of slavery. Then, at 10h, we assisted at the presentation of the AELITA, european association for a different literrature, with Valerio Evangelisti who is the president, Patrick Gyger from "La Maison d'Ailleurs" organising the network from Switzerland in this big SF well known place, and Bruno Della Chiesa from Utopia.
The third debate was about the SF on the Internet with a member of noosfere.com.
Then at 12h, I gave an interview in the hall of Utopia for the AAA video. Coline Fomekong and Rgis Lescoublet stayed in Nantes on friday and saturday for a debate about "gods, devils, and demons" and to interview Valerio Evangelisti, etc... I needed to go to Tours for the AAA video night.
Unfortunately, it was impossible for us to have Valerio Evangelisti at "Faries", the bookshop in Tours, on friday afternoon, cause of the the press officer of Rivages Publisher (and may be cause of me). Valerio was definitely too busy in Nantes.
I arrived in Tours at 5h. The "space pop all stars" night took place from 18h to 02h in Le Caf, the same place of the exhibition, with a presentation of various AAA videos including :
- AAA 333 Bologna video : the 98 Conferenza Intergallatica talks and rave in space ; the TV sessions and media invasion of Riccardo Balli for his AAA book "Anche tu astronauta" (castelvecchi) ; the 1999 AAA Convention in Rimini.
- The Space 1999 video by Mikey with various things shot during the "ten days that shook the Universe" including : East London, South London interviews ; protest against militarisation of space in Lockheed Martin Building wearing spacesuits ; performances with Raido, Disconauts and Inner City aaaers ; etc.
- "AAA Aoteraoa Balloon Launch" by Barry Briant from New Zealand : a small balloon launched in Hamilton center town, with the car run to follow it. Like the brasilian ones... wwww.freelunch.co.nz
- A special dedicace by Ergo and AAA Tours to Valrie Morraja, including three short movies :'Cuisine extra-terrestre' 1996,'Alson 3' 1997, 'Wild Strawberry' 1999. NVM productions(images : V. Morraja - sound : N. Vanony). - "The Liner", a 97 short movie : psychic attack against the mothership, the "Big Library Franois Mitterrand", by AAA Rosko, AAAA Cosmos and AAA Paris Nord.
The music was provided by Bill Bush, son of George Clinton, with : Sun R "heliocentric", Funkadelic "Cosmic Slop", and various space pop songs from the space age. Until 2HOO.
We also gave a presentation on the internet of the Noordung Zero Gravity Project from AAA Slovenia (http://www.noordung;telekom.si).
We provided texts like Lola Chanel zero-g experience report (AAA Vienna), sex in space texts , and the one against militarisation of space.
The saturday night party took place in a cave near the river "Loire" in Tours. A trip in the center of Earth for the troglo-astronauts. It was the day to welcome our italian cosmorades, Riccardo Balli and Agostino Malafronte (aka SAM.01) from Bologna, and Andrea Brighenti (aka Mu B) from Trento.
The party was a small one (not more than 60 astronauts). Severin from Ubris (Desir Clinique crew) started to play speedcore and noise.
Then DJ Balli provide us the famous sound of Sonic Belligeranza with their first vinyl (with Helicotrema, Gerard Z and Ewen XKV8). The record is called INDAGATIONS SERIOUS AND COMICAL AT AROUND 333 bpm and is constituted by one side the SERIOUS one of experimental break-core and furious industrial drumnbass and one side the COMICAL one of innovative art/speed-core with samplings from the cult Hammer House of Horror movie The Devil Rides Out ( Terence Fisher, 1968) and from Sal e le 120 giornate di Sodoma ( Pasolini, 1975). This record is to be played at the Pimax lift-off that will happen in Bologna, the 24th of october. Esoteric space technology.
Then ISAAAC from Peace Off records and AAA Byrinthe, a new AAA group in the north of Paris who plan to organise the tuesday network meeting, started a live act, with two amigas and turnatables. Great sound. A harshcore session !
Then A.N.T.I. continued to give us harsh beats with the amigas until the end. The exact time of the end was quite unclear, considering a practical time travel, changing from summer time to winter time in the night. One hour of difference, we lost the Greenwich meridian time and went to bed. The sunday and the monday was for us a good opportunity to chill out a bit. Having beers at Le Caf , the AAA Headquarter, psychogeographical trip under the rain in Tours, the old Rabelais' city, talking about Virilio (You should reed the "strategie de la deception"...) at the Protat(TT)rioteau flat where the AAA 333 slept, visiting Severin, eating pasta.
We woke up quiet early on tuesday. We left Tours at 12 to go to Paris with the italian car. Balli, Mu-B, SAM.01 and me stopped in Amboise to visit "Le Clos Luc", the last house of Leonardo Di Vinci. Now it's a museum very proud to show the flying machines and others.
But we didn't have so much time. We'll had to be at the Montparnasse train station in Paris at 16H25 to catch Nigel Ayers from Nocturnal Emissions (aka AAA Kernow).
Nigel took the ferry boat from PLymouth to Roscoff during the night. Infortunately, a big hurricane was on Brittany and Cornwall. It was impossible for him to sleep, and to not have sea (space) sickness. He arrived in the early morning in Rosko and then took the train to Paris. So we arrived in Paris, found Nigel and took the way to Le Labo, a place in Jean-Pierre Timbaud street, (a very famous area cause of the hundred bars around) in the north of Paris.
This is an old flat with a record shop, Sphenode, a distributor, Toolbox, and a place for association meetings, Le Labo.
The network meeting is organised by a big (and new) AAA group, the AAA Byrinthe, with guys who lives in the area of "Menilmontant", Joel, Gael, Nicolas, Eskender, etc...
In fact the meeting is an afternoon party (started at 3HOO until midnight) with live acts and djs : Isaaac, R.I.P.I.T., Hecate (Zhark, Berlin), Al Zheimer (HL), Gama Boy, Franois (AAA Paris Nord), etc...
The Italians went to visit Christoph Tool Box, to talk about "rave in space" cds and "333" vinyls.
At the same moment, I met Annick Bureaud, one of the leader of Leonardo France, who is very into Art and Space and the AAA ideas. She met Mark Servian few weeks before during his sick trip in Paris and wanted to meet AAA members. with Nigel also,we decided to go to a chinese restaurant.
I was surprised to hear her talking about various people I met at World-Information.org in Bruxelles : Konrad Becker, Marie Ringler, Marko Peljhan (Project Atol and Makrolab at http://makrolab.ljudmila.org), and also other autonomous astronauts like Michael Benson and Dragan Divadinov from Noordung Project, Kitsou Dubois (the dancer, visit http://www.zero-g.org.uk to reed the english version). She didn't know that Konrad and Marie were part of the AAA Vienna.
Annick is very into space and the arts. She invited me at the conference "cyberspace-outerspace" on the 25 of march 2001 in Boulogne-Billancourt, in the suburbs of Paris (www.olats.org).
"You can not take art into space" laughted Nigel. We went back to the Labo, and find the italians, Franois from AAA Paris Nord, and Rgis from the GZ video team, having good time. We took a beer and talked about the network and the future strategies.
I showed Jales'flat (Desir Clinique) to Nigel, because he was tired. He didn't sleep very well in the ferry cause of the hurricane... The party finished at OHOO.
The idea was then to visit the AAA Byrinthe launch site, that is the Menilmontant street, a famous one that climb near Le Pere Lachaise cemetary. Menilmontant is one of the most mixed culture area in Paris. A working class and immigrants area. Very famous for all his bars, cheap restaurants from everywhere in the world, and clubs too.
This menilmontant street is the launch site for all aaaers from the north of Paris. AAA Rosko used to be located at "Cit du Labyrinthe" like the AAA Byrinthe now, AAA Paris Nord used to live in this area also. The first bulletins were made there.
So, this was the halloween night, and there were lots of people outside, travestised, screeming in the street.
We walked up the street, stopping in various bars, distributing widely AAA flyers to all those zombies. Not the milky way.
The final night was the night for a "rave in space" performance at the lightship "Batofar" (www.batofar.org) on the Seine, juste above the mothership Big Library, "quai de la Gare" station. The party started at 8H with all the AAA videos shown on friday, with also visuals installed by SAM.O1.
I provided industrial and dub stuff at 10 waiting for the good moment for Nocturnal Emissions gig. Nigel came on the stage around 10H30 and started singing. "Rave in space", "sex in space", "naughty astronauts", "imagine this lightship is a spaceship", "rock'n roll", etc... Great anthem with post-jungle background. Great gig, very funny. A karaoke rock star on stage ! The public was really into it. A good atmosphere, and Nigel transformed the lightship into a spaceship.
Then Sonic Belligeranza started their livemix with Balli djing and Mu-b giving noise interferences. Very efficient. People appreciated the dissonance effects and cross over from drum'n noise to speedcore. Then we (XKV8) gave a short livemix with Ubald, but unfortunately he was sick and we were in 100% of our possibilities.
Finally Aphasic (aka Jason Skeet) arrived, as a space star, to give the famous Ambush sound from 1h30 until the end.
Great party for autonomous astronauts really into it.
We went back to Le Labyrinthe. Nigel to his hotel to take then the train and the boat to go back to Cornwall.
The last day was dedicated to talk about various futures strategies or self-historification process. We talked about stopping AAA, making AAA books and relationship with publishers, the Pimax event in Bologna at the end of november, or the end of 333 days plans. The Italians went on their way back to Bologna. Jason, Iec, Joel and me went to the after-festival apero and finally spent the last night at Gael's flat.
The Gravit Zro Festival was quite a music festival, a hard training week dedicated to "rave in space". The Festival was part of the 333 days. It was a great opportunity for every autonomous astronauts to contribute to the extension of a worldwide network. See you in space!
(Special thanks to Le Caf, Valerio Evangelisti, Bruno Della Chiesa, Ellipse, AAA 333 Bologna, Rgis lescoublet, Jason Skeet, Nigel Ayers, Joel and the AAA Byrinthe).