Jim Mason CV

Jim Mason CV 75 Elsie Street. San Francisco, CA 94110 jimmason@whatiamupto.com Links to all current and past projects: www.whatiamupto.com
Project Experience
9/06 - now	*Founder and Director: ALL Power Labs. www.allpowerlabs.org* ALL Power Labs is an incubator for open source power hacking. We work to generate physical tools and information resources for people exploring alternative energy as an endeavor of DIY creativity and inidividual experimentation. We believe that a bottom up, participatory, network ecology in energy is just as possible as it has been in computing. And we expect the consequences of such self-determination in energy will be no less transforming than they've been for computing/communication tools In time APL will grow to include an information database and workspace covering all forms of power generation and conversion. This will be somewhat of a rerolling of my previous Rosetta Project: ALL Language Archive (see below), but over the topic space of power engineering. Oddly, similar problems of information architecture, digital resource curation and dissemination/use of the results exist between linguistics and power.
9/06 - now	*Co-Founder and Director: Escape From Berkeley (by any non-petroleum means necessary). www.escapefromberkeley.com* “Escape from Berkeley” is a multi-day road rally of alternatively powered vehicles, starting in Berkeley, CA each year, and ending up in some far off destination. Part engineering problem, part artistic opportunity, the rally challenges contestants to start their “engines” on something other than petroleum based fuel, and by any means necessary, cause their “vehicles” show up at the destination five or so days later - using only fuels/power/motive force scavenged “for free” along the route. All types of vehicles are welcome. All schemes for non-petroleum based transport are encouraged. In short, everything is permitted– just as long as your “fuel” is from a non-petroleum based source, your acquisition of “it” does not require money, and you start the race with no more than 10kwh of “it” on board.
3/02 - now	*Co-Founder: Power Tool Drag Races. www.powertooldragraces.com* Blown Big-Block Belt Sanders . . . Nitro Burning Funny-Saws. . . Wheel Standin' Weed Wackers . . . it's . . . Power Tool Drag Racing. In the 50's and 60's aerospace engineers in LA basin raced roadsters and hot rods on El Mirage dry lake. 40 years later, geeks and IT engineers race hacked power tools down 75' of two lane press board at Ace Auto Salvage in San Francisco. Seen on Discovery as a TV series in 2004. Replicated and now run in Seattle, Amsterdam, Israel and Sacramento.
10/01 - now	Founder and Director: The Shipyard Artspace . www. theshipyard.org The Shipyard is a collaborative build space for large-scale mechanical, kinetic and electronic artwork. Built from 50 shipping containers arrayed around the perimenter of a 20,000 sq ft outdoor lot, the Shipyard provides a flexible space to create ambitious large-scale art and technology projects. The Shipyard combines slumming Phd Engineers, Burning Man artists, and various rotten kids to create an unusual churning of art, technology and culture hacking. Often immitated, and now offered retail as DIY Maker culture, The Shipyard has for 8 years been a deep skunkworks that feeds the Bay Area engines of Art and Innovation.
10/99 - 3/06	*Founder and Director: The Rosetta Project- ALL Language Archive. www.rosettaproject.org The Long Now Foundation* Lead the creation of the world's largest online archive of digital language materials, as well as a physical artifact of the same as a new contemporary "Rosetta Stone". Developed a strategy for the dataquest, an innovative digital architecture to organize and serve it, and team of experts to orchestrate it. Project Summary: The Rosetta Project is a global collaboration of language specialists and native speakers working to build a publicly accessible online archive for all documented human languages. The goal is to create the most broad and complete reference work on the languages of the world to date- a reference work of relevance for academic educators and researchers, as well as language learners and endangered language communities. The archive is built through an open contribution, peer review process, similar to the strategy that created the original Oxford English Dictionary. The goal is an open source “Linux of Linguistics”, combining the efforts of thousands of scholars, native speakers and linguistic associations around the world, with a primary focus on languages currently in the extreme states of endangerment. In addition to voluntary contributions over the web, the project also orchestrates formal collection efforts at Stanford, Yale, U.C. Berkeley, and the Library of Congress and our offices in San Francisco. Rosetta is the "linguistics node" of the NSF National Science Digital Library, and was suported by a major NSF grant in 2004 - 2006
4/00 - 6/00	*Coordinator: From Mono Lake to Death Valley: An Artistic Exploration of Pleistocene Hydrology* (Stanford University Continuing Studies)** A cross-disciplinary workshop combining Geology research and Land Art practice to image and trace an ancient system of lakes and rivers that stretched from Mono Lake to Death Valley at the end of the last Ice Age (http://www.terrestrialmap.org/CSPcourse.htm).
1/99	Founder and Director: The Terrestrial Map The Terrestrial Map is an Internet-orchestrated global Land art project that is tracing the physical pathways of various large-scale planetary systems. Started through an informal network of promoters from Interval Research, Stanford Geology Department and Wired, the project is an experiment in Net-based collaborative art-making, enlisting participants from around the world to create and install artworks to mark the physical pathways of various large-scale natural, cultural and information systems. The ultimate goal, unrealized at this point, is a "1:1 scale map" of the planet- a global collection of pathway markers, suggesting and tracing systemic relationships across towns and states, countries and continents. (http://www.TerrestrialMap.org)
1997-Sept 98	Development Associate: Headlands Center for the Arts Directed the annual membership campaign, event planning and database management for Headlands' renowned International Artist-in-Residence program. Responsibilities included the development and execution of the annual giving campaign; composing all fundraising letters, text and membership materials; developing and managing the organization's information systems. (http://www.headlands.org)
1991 - 1997	Founder and Director: New Guinea Sculpture Garden Project Conceived, organized, funded, and implemented a program that brought eleven Papua New Guinean artists to work on-location at Stanford University to create a major outdoor sculpture garden in collaboration with a cross-cultural team of landscape architects. The artists worked at Stanford for 5 months in 1994 producing 40 works in wood, stone, and paint, which are permanently installed in a one acre oak grove near the center of campus. (http://www.stanford.edu/~mjpeters/png/) Principle designer and builder of garden. Areas of responsibility included site concept and general layout, placement decisions for individual pieces, landscaping, and uplighting system for night viewing. Developed the permanent informational signage and educational materials for the garden drawing from my New Guinea fieldwork on myth and ritual. Developed all press releases, solicited media coverage, and functioned as the voice for the project on-site and at public presentations. Developed innovative community outreach programs including hands-on artist workshops; weekly artist/community gatherings; and site visits for diverse groups of local school children. Raised over $500,000 from individual donors, NEA, foundations, and corporations as well as in-kind donations in excess of $1,000,000. Organized over 200 volunteers to help host, feed, and entertain the artists; plan and implement fundraisers at the site; and assist in the construction of the garden.
9/90 - 12/92	Teaching Assistant, Stanford University. Developed my teaching and communication skills through running weekly discussion sections, developing curriculum, mentoring students, grading papers, and writing exams. Courses TA'ed: Sex Roles in Society, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, Ethnographic Film, and Medical Anthropology.
Major art installations, 1995 - 2000
	*Temporal Decomposition* A sundial built from 57,000 lb. of ice, frozen on-location in the Nevada desert and left to melt in the August sun. The installation consisted of a 12 foot diameter solid sphere of ice, with 200 clocks, watches and grandfather clocks frozen inside. This main sphere was surrounded by 12 foot ice obelisks at each of the four compass points. The main sphere decomposed into a pile of "time rubble" over the five day period of the Burning Man event. Each piece was piped with propane to create fire on top of the ice at night.
	*Desert Forest.* A massive-scale desert landscape of steel sculpted trees over two miles of the Black Rock Desert playa- a 40mi. x 20mi dry lake of prehistoric desolation. The forty individual sculptures were built from found rusted water pipe in forms inspired by ocotillo cactus. These pieces were arranged in response to the scale of place, sightlines to prominent ridges and features in the surrounding mountains, and the winding curve of the playa over its 40 mile stretch. (Black Rock Desert)
	*V-8 Walking Meditation* A contemplative journey to the heart of American spirituality. An 800 horsepower, blown alcohol dragster motor carried in a walking meditation by 14 Buddhist monks in saffron robes. The engine was hanging, while running, from the center of a 25 foot pole supported on the shoulders of the monks‹ somewhat like you would carry a deer back from the hunt. The performance asked, with absurdist humor, if the V-8 engine has been wrongly overlooked as an resonate object for contemplative introspection and meditative concentration. (San Francisco Arts Commision Gallery and Burning Man)
	*Fire Symphony (aka Impotence Compensation Project)* A 3-movement "symphony" of 5 vertical flame-throwers. The flame-throwers were arranged in a circle and projected columns of fire between 80' and 300'. The flame-throwers were played in a conducted orchestration of various patterns and melodies creating a high-altitude ballet of heat and light.(Burning Man)
	G7 Stock Puppets An Internet driven kinetic sculpture that tracks global stock markets with sever larger-than-life marionette puppets.
Education & Research
9/91-6/93	Masters degree in Anthropology, Stanford University. Concentrations in visual anthropology, gender and mythology. Masters project was a thesis and film on Kwoma political competition and negotiation as expressed through a multiple day sorcery trial in Bangwis village (see below).
6/89 -11/89 & 6/87 - 9/87	Fieldwork and Filmmaking in Papua New Guinea Extended on-site research in several Kwoma villages in Papua New Guinea. Research focused on the construction of gender in creation myths; gender, power, and secrecy in local artistic production; the politics and problematics of tourism; and the political dynamics of sorcery accusation and resolution. I also made two anthropological films: Two Angry Men(Masters project)- A cinema verite look at a rare Kwoma sorcery trial as political theater. Accused sorcerers use elaborate oratory to promote competing interpretations of responsibility, collaboration, and method that potentially rewrite the political landscape of alliances and conflicts to the benefit of the accused sorcerer and his clan. Tourism and Cultural Property- Relates the conflicts, dilemmas, and speculations of village "big men" debating whether to perform a secret yam harvest ceremony for a group of paying tourists.
9/85 - 6/91	Double B.A.degree in Anthropology and Philosophy/Religious Studies (with Distinction), Stanford University. Concentrations in cultural anthropology, cognitive anthropology, folklore, and German philosophy and Buddhist studies. Elected Phi Beta Kappa.
Honors and Awards
	First and Last Award for Outstanding Contribution to Absolutely Everyone, Anthropology Department, 1997 Outstanding Achievement Award, Stanford Associates, 1997 Graduated Phi Beta Kappa, 1991 Berman Prize for Best Undergraduate Essay in Religious Studies, 1991 Anthropology Field Research Grant, Anthropology Department, 1989
Languages
	Fluent in Tok Pisin (lingua franca of Papua New Guinea) and conversational Spanish.
references available on request