A city built out of fragments found on the net. Mirages hinting at a world of ephemeral beauty and a forgotten people.

Conversations about different aspects of dis_reality, with Pablo Beneito, Hakim Bey, Santiago Lopez Petit, John Zerzan. Recorded by Lewanne Jones, Fred Barney Taylor, Joel Pomeroy and Abu Ali.

The Observatory Archives invites Hakim Bey to reflect on this subject as a contribution to OVNI dis_Reality. Hakim Bey is the pseudonym of Peter Lamborn Wilson (EE. UU. October 1945 - May 2022), an American writer, essay writer and poet who describes himself as an “ontological anarchist” and a Sufi. His 1990 work TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone made him famous. As well as writing a series of essays on the traditions of Chinese secret societies (Tong), Bey introduced the concept of the Temporary Autonomous Zone based on his research into pirate utopias. Bey has also written about figures like Charles Fourier and Friedrich Nietzsche, and on the links between Sufism and ancient Celtic culture. Along with these authors and theories, Situationism has also been an important influence in Bey's texts, which could be considered as an updating of its ideas for the present.

The Observatory Archives invites John Zerzan to reflect on this subject as a contribution to OVNI dis_Reality John Zerzan is an American anarchist and primitivist philosopher and author. His works criticize agricultural civilization as inherently oppressive, and advocate drawing upon the ways of life of prehistoric hunter-gatherers as an inspiration for what a free society should look like. Some of his criticism has extended as far as challenging domestication, language, symbolic thought (such as mathematics and art) and the concept of time. His major books are Elements of Refusal (1988), Future Primitive and Other Essays (1994), Running on Emptiness (2002), Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections (2005) and Twilight of the Machines (2008).

The Observatory Archives invites Pablo Beneito to reflect on this subject as a contribution to OVNI dis_Reality Pablo Beneito has a PhD in Arabic philology from Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He was professor in the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Seville, and currently holds the same post at the University of Murcia. He has been a guest lecturer at École Practique des Hautes Études de la Sorbona, Kyoto University (Asafas), Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora (Brazil) and the Toledo School of Translators (2002-2003). An Islamologist specialising in the study of Sufism, he has published first editions and and translations of Ibn Arabí: Las contemplaciones de los misterios, El secreto de los nombres de Dios, in Spanish and French, and The Seven Days of the Heart, in English.

The Observatory Archives invites Santiago López Petit to reflect on this subject as a contribution to OVNI dis_Reality. Santiago López Petit (Barcelona, 1950) was a militant in the workers autonomy movement during the seventies, and worked as a chemist for many years. He has participated in many of the resistance movements in the wake of the crisis of the Labour Movement. He is currently professor of Philosophy at the University of Barcelona, and participates in the Espai en Blanc foundation (www.espaienblanc.net). His books include Entre el Ser y el Poder. Una apuesta por el querer vivir (reissued Madrid 2009); Horror Vacui. La Travesía de la Noche del Siglo (Madrid, 1996), El infinito y la nada. El querer vivir como desafío (Barcelona, 2003), Amar y pensar. El odio del querer vivir (Barcelona, 2005) and La movilización global. Breve tratado para atacar la realidad (Madrid, 2009). He has also contributed to several collective books, and to magazines such as El Viejo Topo, Archipiélago, Riff Raff and Futur Antérieur. His books have been translated into several languages.

January 25, 2011. The fall of Ben Ali in Tunis on January 14, 2011, built beacons of hope in the Arab world. All the attention is in Egypt, where groups in solidarity with the young Alexandrian Khaled Said, killed by the police, are calling for Egyptians to take to the streets against the regime. The chosen date is January 25, National Police Day, seen as one of the pillars of a regime sustained for decades in the country and ruled by Mohammed Hosny Mubarak as a Western ally. But people, claiming freedom and social justice, breaks the barrier of fear, goes outside and begins a rebellion that will shake the whole world. Erhal - Leave - chronicles from within the 18-days-struggle that brought down one of the more stable dictators of the Middle East.