Deliria 2: A Mondo 2000 Techno-Counterculture Gathering @ Gray Area
The second gathering of the techno-counterculture opens with the San Francisco premiere of Nova ’78, Craig Baldwin’s Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America, and Tony Parisi and Marina Berlin’s AI God Answers Your Questions, and it continues with the mad Mondoids, techno rhythm & vibes of Cyrnai, the incandescent boundary transgressions of Guillermo Gómez-Peña and much more. Expect a phantasmagoric combination of film, conversation, speculative technology, and eccentric visual chaos.
The Deliria events combine the hackerly exuberance of the tech underground with the prankster spirit. We will be resisting dystopia while dancing and japing amidst the new wreckage and the promise of its ruins to come.
A little history (very little, actually):
In June 2025, writer, musician, and main Mondoid R.U. Sirius and his allies sponsored Cyberpunks, Mutants & Mondoids Come to the Gulf of Deliria.
It was a (re-)gathering of the tribes, a mad convocation of the vibrant 1990s counterculture/technoculture. That event affirmed the spirit and resilience of The Others, those outside the moneyed techno-elites who seem determined to bring about an insane, anti-human technocratic feudalism.
The first Deliria event was a reminder that the countercultural “freaks in the machine” are still here, engaged in creative play with technology, its contexts, and its contents. With the Deliria theme, we enacted a mocking embrace of the metatextual madness that is 2020s America.
Now, we’re doing it again, returning to the Strait of Deliria for a two-day festival, bringing you even more media, music, joyfully corrosive performances, effervescent personalities, and zeitgeist-skewering prognostications.
We look forward to seeing an even larger, maniacally engaged gathering of cyberpunks, mutants, and mondoids on August 12 – 13 at Gray Area in San Francisco.
Program Overview
Wednesday, August 12
5:30 – 11:45 PMFilm, Conversation & AI DivinationThe August 12 Ticket includes the SF Bay Area premiere of Nova ’78, conversations with Rudy Rucker, Tony Parisi, and Marina Berlin, a screening of Tribulation 99, and more.
On Day one, seeThe Bay Area Premiere of Nova ’78 featuring William S. Burroughs, and lots more mutant madness.
Wednesday Program
• 5:30 PM | Doors
• 6 PM | MC David Gill opens the show
• 6:20 – 8:20 PM | San Francisco premiere of Nova ’78, introduced by V. Vale
• 8:20 – 8:40 PM | Break
• 8:40 – 9 PM | Rudy Rucker interviewed by David Gill
• 9:10 – 10 PM | Tony Parisi and Marina Berlin present Jenoko, the AI God, answering audience questions
• 10:15 – 11 PM | Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America, directed by Craig Baldwin
• 11 – 11:45 PM | Hangout
Nova ’78 (2025)
6:20 PM
Directed by Aaron Brookner & Rodrigo Areias | San Francisco premiere | 78 min
Restored from newly rediscovered archival footage, Nova ’78 captures the legendary Nova Convention, where William S. Burroughs, Patti Smith, Frank Zappa, Allen Ginsberg, and other countercultural figures came together in an explosion of art, ideas, and rebellion.
Thursday, August 13
3:30 – 11:50 PMTalks, Readings, Music & PerformanceThe August 13 ticket includes the complete daytime and evening program of talks, readings, film presentations, music, performance, and audience participation.
Day two puts the technocounterculture on full display, moving from crypto-world provocateurs and old-school internet rebels to memories of the wild and woolly Mondo 2000 cyberpunk era.
The daytime program brings together photography, film, conversation, and countercultural history, while Cyrnai, Your Leader, R.U. Sirius & Phriendz, Digital Dead, Virtual Pretenderers, and Guillermo Gómez-Peña / La Pocha Nostra take over the night with hypnotic sound, mutant performance, and plenty of chaos.
Thursday Daytime Program
• 3:30 PM | Doors
• 4 PM | MC David Gill opens the program
• 4:20 PM | Marc Franklin photo exhibition
• 5 PM | Filmmakers Brian McGleenon and Joe Haughey discuss Degens: Down & Out in the Crypto Casino and share selected clips
• 5:20 PM | Author Annalee Newitz
• 5:45 PM | Mondo 2000 book reading with Shira Chess, R.U. Sirius, and Bart Nagel
• 6:20 – 7:50 PM | Dinner break, with DJ/VJ entertainment in the lobby