Though ConFest accommodates diverse alternative orientations, I suggest that if there is an archetypal condition of authenticity on site, it is ferality. This chapter is organised into three parts. Part one introduces the radical ecological confrontationalism characteristic of an emergent Australian self-marginal youth milieu. Part two sketches the feral emergence detailing its subcultural assemblage. Following speculation about origins, I attend to respective traits: the feral spectacle, semi-nomadic subsistence, postcolonialist valuations of nature and eco-tribalism. 'Going feral', is a process which simultaneously indicates detachment from a state of domesticity, 'the parent culture', and identification with the natural environment. This biographical transition undertaken by thousands of young Australians, is a contemporary rite of passage pre-figuring reconciliation with indigenous ecology and peoples. Part three discusses the context ConFest furnishes for accessing and performing this desirable condition of human being.

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