This newspaper is an accompaniment to the 2006 Free Soil Bus Tour: A journey through the techno-utopian beginnings and environmental currents of Silicon Valley.
  Working in many ways as media-based artists, we found it relevant to question the impact of the tools we use and our practice on the environment. This lead us to question the local and global impact of the high tech industry, an industry that is often considered clean but in fact uses a vast amount of natural resources, electricity and produces gigantic amounts of toxic electronic waste.
When asked to do a project for the Zero One and International Symposium for Electronic Arts, we thought it was a perfect place to critically engage in the questions we were facing in our research.
The tour is a biodiesel bus journey carrying 30 international artists and curators through the techno-utopia beginnings and environmental currents of Silicon Valley.
 

10am
Bus takes off!

Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition's Toxic Tour
Led by Ted Smith
Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition (SVTC) is a diverse grassroots coalition that engages in research, advocacy, and organizing around the environmental and human health problems caused by the rapid growth of the high-tech electronics industry.
www.svtc.org/

Drive By's
San Jose Canneries
Advanced Micro Devices, Sunnyvale
Romic Environmental Technologies, East Palo Alto

Peninsula School, Menlo Park

Oyster Mushroom Bar/ Mycoremediation:
A recipe to reverse disasters.
Led by Diane Whitmore

The Arming of Desire: Counterculture and Computer Revolution.
Lecture by Lee Felsentstein

Lee Felsenstein - sysadmin of the pioneering wide-area network Community Memory, contractor for Processor Technology, hard-working moderator of the Homebrew Computer Club, and designer of the Pennywhistle modem and the Osborne One - has lived a life constantly interwoven with the history and philosophy of computing. Through it all he's pursued Ivan Illich's ideal of ”conviviality,” insisting that technology attains its highest purpose only when it becomes understandable, approachable, repairable and usable by ordinary people.

Moffet Field Lunch

Computer History Museum

5pm
Return to ISEA/Zero One/San Jose

Possible Readings:
The Annihilation of Time and Space from River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West
by Rebecca Solnit
Free Soil Bus Tour Audio Trax:
Music central to, or at least tangentially related to silicon valley history, including the psychedelic and protest music of the anti-vietnam generation, the technological tinkering of the homebrew computer club, re-use of excess technological waste, and digital/network musical innovation. expect bleeps, bloops and folk songs.

A Computer Recycled:
A three minute stop-frame animation of an attempt to dissemble a computer into all of its components.
Solar Bread Oven Demo:
DIY solar bread ovens made from 100% post consumer waste.
Homebrew Homebrew
Dont languish in thrall to the hulking giants of the American Macrobreweries! Liberation is at hand! In the grand tradition of the original Homebrew Computer Club, this beer shows that good things happen when you D-I-Y!
Homebrew Homebrew was created specially for the Free Soil Bus Tour @ ISEA 2006.
Homebrew Homebrew is Open Source!
1. Boil 5.5 lbs Bavarian Wiezen liquid extract.
2. Add .75 oz. Tettnanger hops boil half hour.
3. Add some Irish Moss.
4. 55 minutes after first hops, add .5 oz. S saaz hopps.
5. Cool to 75 F then add Hefewiezen Ale yeast.
6. 1 week in the bucket, 2 in the bottle!
South Bay vs. North Bay Jam
Hand picked, homemade fruit jam made with blackberries fed by the San Francisco Bay Delta and peaches fed by the South San Francisco Guadalupe River and Coyote Creek.