Villages form the cultural topology of ConFest. As 'social sculptures, dynamic social installations' (Marko), these theme-specific camping zones are the sites of both Conference and Festival. No ConFest is the same, as most of these on-site locations and their features undergo mutation between events. Each event is characterised by the appearance of new villages, mergers, clusters and satellite groups who have perhaps not yet achieved or desired the status of a 'village'. Some villages may disappear altogether, perhaps only to re-emerge in the same or a different guise. Proposed productions/areas are usually designated 'villages' after they have been allocated funding, sought, via proposal, from the DTE budget at meetings prior to the event. Regardless of funding, villages - home to the manifold organisations, therapies, co-ops, collectives, tribes, individuals on-site - are spontaneous productions providing supportive environments for the transmission and exchange of 'traditional' or more proto-alternate knowledge and praxis.

According to Cockatoo, ConFest is a 'vast school of consciousness'. The curricula appear in an extensive corpus of workshops (up to 300 at summer events). Many workshops are conventional fare and have gained popularity. Others are novel, obscure, positively strange, even fantastic. The format of workshops varies (open discussion, debate, lecture/demonstration, game, body movement/dance, theoretical/applied) and is often multiple (with shifting emphasis throughout their duration). Workshops are a popular psycho-spiritual educational forum wherein the nineties 'esoteric tourist' (Goodman 1990:51) of the mind, body and spirit, has a smorgasbord of personal development stratagems from which to select. ConFesters have always had their 'choice of gurus, avatars and panaceas' (Wendy 1984). Some run healing workshops as primers for rural weekend retreats or city businesses. Others experiment with novel psychotechnologies. Yet, workshops also facilitate discussion on a range of social and political issues contesting spiritual pathos, nuclear family, drug prohibition, sexual repression and environmental abuse.

Many are not attracted to villages as such. Novices, especially, may rather choose a site for its geographical desirability. Also, there are many, particularly the site crew, who do not 'do workshops'. 'Never done a workshop. I've never had a massage', boasts Janet. Alleging he had never attended one either, Spinifex voiced the sentiments of many, claiming 'the whole ConFest is a workshop'.

The following list provides a vignette of each village present at the five events,25 sketching their composition and purpose, and noting the events at which each appeared (Maps). Some villages were characterised by a miasmic flurry of workshop themes. In some cases there was no clear explanation, other than practicality, why many workshops occurred in a particular village space. For example, workshop holders may just happen to be camping nearby; or other, more appropriate locations, may be reserved.

Alternative Technology (Toc IV)

A display run by the Alternative Technology Association, an organisation promoting the use of renewable energy technologies. The 'Energymobile', a nine ton mobile energy and technology display vehicle, and the 'Solar Shuttle' were present.

Art (all events)

Situated on the bank of a billabong, this has been one of ConFest's most popular zones. Normally, the Art village features a mud pit ('primal ooze'), body painting, evening fluoro parties, 'the fridge' (a giant Coolgardie safe for people), a sauna, a kid's water slide and a 'sweatlodge'. Accommodating up to fifty people, the 'sweat' is a wood fired steam tent, often scented with essential oils.26 After lying in the mud pit, it is common for people to stand at the edge of a bed of hot coals to dry the mud, creating a natural body plaster which later acts as an exfoliant. This is a collective process. Once dried, many have their bodies painted, by themselves or others. They are painted naked, partially clothed or mud splattered - using water based or fluorescent paints or even ochre. Many people, particularly at the summer events, wandered around the site in such chthonic uniforms.

Celestine Prophecy (Toc IV, Moama IV)

Also called Macchu Picchu (after the Inca citadel in Peru believed to be a global sacred site), the facilitators of the village were inspired by the insights contained within the prosaic New Age religious tract The Celestine Prophecy, a book which prepares its readers for the coming spiritual reawakening.

Circus (Birdlands, Moama IV)

With a geodesic dome at its centre, a fluoro-coloured space for workshops and performances on fire juggling and twirling, tight rope walking, and kids games.

Community (Toc III & Toc IV)

Sited on the periphery at Toc III, this was an experiment in communal living (called Community Springs at Toc IV). It was stressed that those camped at the village (about 35 people) must be committed to a community process of shared tasks and responsibilities. Cedar explained, since DTE 'wasn't going to change, what we had to do was change ConFest from within ConFest'. Therefore,

we camped right off the edge ... There was regular workshops there, and we had dinners every night which worked really well. We built ourselves a Coolgardie safe. We got some resources, scavenged them from around the site. And I put on the board most nights, 'communal dinner - come and bring some ingredients'. And that worked really well, and we got about the same number of people every night for dinner. Some of the people from the area would go off and eat elsewhere, but we'd have people from elsewhere coming and eating dinner with us and cooking and stuff. And just the cooking and working over something simple like that can really bring people together.

Workshops here included discussions on economic reform, unemployment and permaculture, and it was the site for Les' 'spontaneous drama', a workshop designed to improve individual wellbeing and community relations through 're-living the stories of past tragedies and traumas [and, in the process] creating new endings'. Les figures that the process originated in the Philippines, where historically opposed villages would come together to re-enact past conflicts, but with the crucial twist of exchanging roles. This process, he suggests, places participants in 'sustained reflection'.

Cosmic Celebration(Toc III)

A space available for a diversity of workshops, such as I Ching, 'ancient chanting and harmonics', 'astrology chart reading' and a 'discussion on dream symbolism'. Yet, the 'main event' here was a Psychedelic Spirituality workshop consisting of lectures (neurochemistry, responsible usage and spiritual and political ramifications) and 'hands-on', or experimental, phases. Co-chairing the early phase, Pipit had a fascination with the connections between spirituality and psychedelics:

I felt there was a great expansion of interest and experimentation associated with in particular the rave movement from the early 90s, and its subsequent evolution and fusion with the hippy trance thing. I think I was envisaging a 90s neo-psychedelic revolution. The ideas of Terrence McKenna for example were just beginning to gain currency. But at that time, there wasn't a lot going in the way of accurate science and experienced, reasonably level-headed people with sensible (e.g. harm reduction) advice.

The latter, 'shared experience' attracted 50-60 people who were requested to BYO LSD 'sacraments'. The aim was to ingest the sacraments and explore 'the epiphenomenality of a group of conscious people, communing meditatively & focussing on each other and common themes' (Svendsen 1999:40). Though an 'extraordinary event', apparently the larger meditation circle dispersed into smaller circles and groups who wished to traverse the wider event. Kurt, the principal facilitator, held similar workshops from Toc III through to Moama V, becoming the victim of an extraordinarily vicious rumour campaign (ibid:26-7) (see Chapter 8). He is skilled in designing spaces which he claims 'maximise the high semantics potential of the experiencing, so that the journeyers can walk away with greater self-organising integrity in navigating the terrestrial reality they are privileged to be incarnated in' (ibid:39).27

EarthSharing (Moama IV & V)

A solar powered stage for spontaneous ensembles, poetry and theatre sports. The space also promoted EarthSharing, the local branch of a world movement inspired by social philosopher and economist Henry George. EarthSharing is

dedicated to achieving economic justice for all people, and to reforming the way we treat our limited planetary resources. [It] connotes that we have a responsibility to share access to natural resources equitably - and to be mindful of the rights of future generations by caring for the global environment. (brochure)

Affiliates subscribe to the laws of geonomics ('Law of the Earth') holding that 'the Earth (land and natural resources) should be the equal and common birthright of all humanity'. Associated with Tax Reform Australia, they believe that the primary source of community revenue should be an annual rent on natural resources over which title is held, rather than through an employment inhibiting production tax (from pamphlet). Workshops on geonomics and tax reform were held on this site (Jessika).

Food Not Bombs (Toc IV and Moama IV)

Also called the Anarchist village, such a presence goes back to the mid-eighties when the Redfern Black Rose Anarchist Collective organised the Self Management village at Baringa I and II, and Glenlyon III. Food Not Bombs (FNB) consisted of a kitchen/communal eating area and workshop/bookstore space. Each day at Toc IV, the FNB kitchen provided meals (organic vegan food supplied by DTE) at midday and in the evening to ConFest participants and workers (including food sent to the Gate crew). Their aim was to encourage 'a sense of community' around the village by providing free chai and fresh fruit throughout the day. There were several workshops per day conducted on a range of themes (including: vegan cooking classes, animal liberation, women and violence, ecosabotage, the politics of drugs, legalisation of hemp, alternative medicine, Koori land rights, squatting, theatre, permaculture, punk, alternative media, transnational corporations and boycotting, and the abolition of work). Both events had an anarchist library stocked with a range of material from Brunswick's Barricade Books.28 Most of the material was given away at Moama IV.

Prior to Toc IV, DTE provided FNB with funding for cooking ware and utensils which they used at their village, and borrow to outfit their urban mobile kitchen. According to their information sheet:

From that moment [Toc IV] Food Not Bombs had gone from strength to strength. Armed with a mobile soup kitchen, a van and a fast growing collective of people, Food Not Bombs is out on the streets providing free vegan food for anyone in need.

Inspired by anarchist free food kitchens operating with the same name in the US,29 FNB Melbourne began in January 1996, and by 1997 they were operating four kitchens a week (Fitzroy Street St Kilda, Swanston Walk outside Timezone, Smith St Collingwood and Church St Richmond outside 'McDeaths'). They collect otherwise discarded vegan food from markets, shops and wholesalers and re-distribute it through these kitchens and by drop-offs to community centres and schools.30

Anarchists like those at FNB are most critical of ConFest, questioning what they see as the transient frivolity implicit in the Market and workshop culture - suggesting 'ConsumerFest' as the more apt title. For Acacia, 'a lot of people now come to ConFest with the idea that it's kind of a theme park ... the Disney World of alternative lifestyles, and they just move from workshop to workshop and rock up at them and say what have you got to give us?' Indeed, for many ConFesters, who select from a chic smorgasbord of vegan fare, DiY techniques of spiritual enlightenment, neo-hippie paraphernalia and fashionable words of wisdom, the commitment to an 'alternative' lifestyle is as temporary as the event. This freewheeling egocentric consumer attitude was the subject of a workshop 'why your alternative lifestyle won't change anything' held at FNB at Moama IV. Acacia explains:

The label 'alternative' is overused, misused, and has come to mean very little ... [A] lot of people come up to ConFest and it's their one week of living a different life, and experiencing a different life, and then they go back to living a really normal life in Melbourne. And I guess we really have problems with that idea, and we also have a lot of problems with people who really don't have any politics apart from, you know, they see wearing hippie clothes and occasionally going off to a festival and doing a bit of fire twirling is ... creating some kind of alternative to the mainstream paradigm. And it's just not true. It doesn't change anything. So ... they should maybe think about extending their politics just a little bit further to ... creating actual alternatives to mainstream things.

Forest (Moama IV & V)

[T]he more activists get involved in DTE the more ... you're gonna get people actually doing something, rather than just believing having seven days walking around in the nude is fucken alternative. (Banyalla)

Activists from GECO (Goongerah Environment Centre) merged with other groups such as FOE, OREN (Otway Ranges Environment Network) and TWS (The Wilderness Society), to form Forest at the Moama events. Forest is the principal node for activists on site. The village has functioned as a fund raiser and recruitment centre for logging blockades mounted in East Gippsland and has promoted the defence of the Otway Forest. It has consisted of an organic/vegan kitchen and workshop spaces were information (including photo displays and films) about the current state of forest management, boycotts, blockades, and skills in regard to tree climbing and rigging are disseminated by experienced activists involved in a host of anti-logging campaigns and protests. Banyalla is a GECO stalwart. A one-time Greenpeace canvasser, he is frustrated with DTE's inertia - what with:

old hippies still running around the place, ya'know, the old pot bellied men, that ya'know like to get their gear off and walk around ... They've got good capabilities in running a ten thousand [participant] ConFest right, but that's as far as they want it to go - just fun loving, all that sort of shit, right. (Banyalla)

Belalie is generally critical of ConFest:

It's a really escapist culture ... I don't think it's sustainable. Like all of the food just gets trucked into the place. It's still very cash orientated ... It's a holiday camp rather than like a community village. But [he concedes] it's good, I mean it opens doors.

As Banyalla descrys, despite the political vacuum in DTE and for all the shortcomings of ConFest, it actually holds the potential to open the floodgates. Generally, he argues, since there are various social justice and environment problems in Victoria, 'you have got great political clout' if you take 10,000 people from a New Year festival and 'challenge the status quo'. You can 'do some pretty heavy negotiations'.

Great Walk (Toc IV)

The Great Walk Network (GWN) acquired funding from DTE to co-ordinate a free food kitchen and to obtain equipment to continue and improve Great Walks in Australia. At Great Walk there were workshops on deep ecology, circus skills and story telling and the space was used to promote walks, especially a walk conducted in East Gippsland following Toc IV. The GWN is a 'loose conglomerate of forest activists and social change workers' who organise fully supported (often 10 day) walks through wilderness areas. The walks are described as 'a moving village' with walkers using a 'communal T-pee'. 'Often [they claim] people do not know each other before a walk but by the end there is a strong feeling of unity akin to the feelings which may be experienced by people living in a tribal village'. They provide 'a unique opportunity for people to experience the Australian environment in a way which is social, interactive and educational'. The GWN is ' non-profit', they 'celebrate and support ongoing environmental action' in Australian forests (from the GWN village proposal Feb 1996).

The Grove (Birdlands, Moama IV)

The village accommodated those connected to a ConFest inspired drug and alcohol free healing community north of Sydney called The Grove, which holds small gatherings (of 100-200 people) through the year, including Pagan quarterdays. One Grovey says of the gathering: 'it opened me up a lot more. You can just be yourself and people won't think anything of you, no matter what you do, what you wear or what you don't wear'. At ConFest, Groveys are free to reproduce their habituated permissiveness. Workshops included shamanism and Celtic chanting. Indeed Profth, who has 'a fair amount of knowledge of the old rites of England', says The Grove 'tends towards the pagan' and the shamanistic. Having travelled around America in the sixties when Ken Kesey gave him his Prankster name, Profth eventually ran Street Communes (about 30 communal kitchens, squats, networks on street level) which were set up all over England in 1969. This was before migrating to Australia in the late seventies where he met his partner, and Grove co-founder, Sassafras, at one of the Baringa ConFests.

Gypsy (all events)

This space on the event-periphery accommodates ConFesters who wish to camp in or near their vehicles. Hundreds of buses, kombis, vans and cars 'park up' in this zone.

Healing (all events)

Healing was combined with Massage at Toc III (where workshops included 'flower essences and gem elixirs', classic homoeopathy and 'life without therapy'). At the Moama events, the first aid centre accommodated a complementary approach to healing. With knowledge in both western (a medical degree) and eastern medicine (Chinese acupressure), Dr Marc has been instrumental in supervising this merger. At Moama IV there were 4 doctors and a variety of other healers (including naturopaths and Reiki practitioners) all volunteering to provide a free 24 hour medical service (though the doctors were paid a small sum from the village budget). Commenting on his position at ConFest, Marc says

I've always been the sort of alternative person amongst the western healers. And I came to ConFest and I was the western healer amongst all the alternative people. Even though I was into alternative stuff I had the western background, and, 'cause I was the only one with the western medical background, I was 'the western doctor' ... That's not really the way I look at myself, but for me it was a really good balance ... So I've found myself a little bit of a niche here.

Marc's confidence in the multimodal approach is such that 'we try to do the alternatives first, and only in a desperate situation go to the western drugs and western medicine'. In this open field of medical modalities, one sees suturing performed, antibiotics dispensed, poultices applied and herbal remedies prepared all under one roof. As Marc declares '[w]e're doing what any general practice would do and more I guess, cause I refer people for didjeridu massage and stuff'.

Kids(all events)

A conventional ConFest space providing specifically for children. At Toc III it featured a steel framed geodesic dome draped with a multicoloured silk parachute. Co-ordinators organise games, and clowning, maskwork, story telling and 'Oki-Do yoga for kids' take place. Most events are host to costume parades or even a 'rainbow serpent pageant' which spill out into the festival.

Koori Culture (Toc III)

Featured a 'bora ring' and was barely populated. Workshops here included 'Koori astronomy' and 'intercultural sharing'. The latter workshop - involving the painting of two multi-totemic murals at Arts - was initiated by two women (one Koori and the other from PNG) who later in 1994 organised the Cairns Indigenous People's Festival, modelled in part on ConFest.

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