Stewart Brand

"Stewart Brand majored in biology at Stanford [University in California], where his teacher was Paul Ehrlich, a population biologist.

"Stewart Brand, a student of [Gregory] Bateson's, was himself a legendary promoter of cybernetic holism". --Kevin Kelly (in Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines , 1994).

1960-1962 -- US Infantry Lieutenant.

Became a photojournalist and multimedia artist, performing at colleges and museums.
Designed and performed shows: "America Needs Indians" (1963-1965); "Why Haven't We Seen a Photograph of the Whole Earth Yet?" (1966); "WAR:GOD" (1967-?).
Exhibits: with Gordon Ashby, "Astronomia" (1964); with USCO, "We Are All 1" (1966).

Member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters.
Received Acid Test diploma, 1966.

Designed public events: "Trips Festival" (1966); "Whatever It Is" (1966); "World War IV" (1967); "Liferaft Earth" (1969); "Demise Party" (1971); "Life Forum" (1972); "New Games Tournament" (1973).

"Brand organized one of the key events of the LSD era, the 'Trips Festival' held in San Francisco in January, 1966. It was to be the last of a series of events dreamed up by Kesey called 'acid tests', group acid-dropping sessions aimed at exploring the idea of a 'group mind', a state of collective psychic intimacy that caused individual minds to melt into one single, seamless consciousness....

"Brand clearly saw the acid test as a new type of public event, one that could, given an appropriate dose of organizational and entrepreneurial flair, rival a rock concert. Brand was not interested in Roneoed handbills; he hired an advertising executive as publicist and -- hard though it may now be to believe -- set about attracting business sponsors. Brand's commercial pragmatism and boy scout enthusiasm resulted in a sort of huge village fete, one that attracted an estimated 10,000 people and perhaps, though this goes unrecorded, a profit. It was so successful that a New York promoter reportedly wanted to book the acid test for Madison Square Garden (which the Pranksters would only agree to, according to the Trips Festival publicist, if it was renamed the Madison Hip Garden)." --Benjamin Woolley (in Virtual Worlds , 1992).

"He felt that there was a serious handicap imposed on humanity by the fact that, in the mid '60s, no one had yet published a satellite photograph of the whole Earth (the cloud-banded blue orb, in space). Brand felt that the image of the Earth in the round would be a natural catalyst toward a holistic appreciation of life on Earth. Remember, these were Cold War years. The political divisions among nations, the enmity of human groups, was terrifying when coupled with incredibly powerful technologies, especially (but not only) the technologies of warfare.

Brand went around to college and university campuses and paraded around wearing a sandwich-sign asking, 'Why haven't we seen a photo of the whole Earth yet?'

It is sometimes deemed that his campaign expedited the publication of such photos. And this was one source for the title of his Whole Earth Catalogs." --Joel Russ (in a personal e-mail, Tue, 22 Apr 97 11:50:42 -0700)

In 1968 he was a consultant to Douglas C.Engelbart's pioneering Augmented Human Intellect program at SRI, which devised now-familiar computer interface tools such as the mouse and windows.

Married to Lois Jennings (1966-1973).

Edited and published the Whole Earth Catalog (1968-1971).

Director of POINT Foundation (1971-1974). [formerly the Portola Institute]

1972 -- Wrote the first article about the computer lifestyle for Rolling Stone, entitled "Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums", chronicling the fringes of computer science at Xerox PARC, the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, and MIT.
Received National Book Award for Contemporary Affairs.

Editor of CoEvolution Quarterly .

While editor in chief of the Whole Earth Software Catalog (1983-1985) Brand organized the first 'Hackers' Conference', which has since become an annual event.

Instigated the WELL ('Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link'), a local area computer network in the San Francisco Bay area (located in Sausalito, California).

Married to Patricia Phelan.

Lives on a tugboat in San Francisco Bay (Sausalito, California).

Influential.

Douglas C.Engelbart