The Shipyard has been home, storage or workspace for many Burning Man installations; Kiki Petit’s Eugiera, Nates Smiths first Fire Vortex, Ryon Gesink’s Eye Arch and Fuck Machine, Jim Mason’s Stockpuppets v2 and ICP, Jake Lyall’s Riot wheel, Borg 2, Liam McNamara’s Clocktower,  Neverwas Haul, Lepidodgera by Rachel Norman, Mike Thielvoldt, Lira Filippini, and Jake Haskell.  Currently, projects for this year’s Burning Man, FishBug and Gee-Gnome, are busily being completed.  Non-Burning Man projects abounded here as well: Girlmark’s Jonny Appleseed processor, Kristies Flyer by Liam Mcnamara, Matt Synder, Peter Luka, Shannon O’Hare and Kimric Smythe, Exxon Valdez Disaster, the Peef-O-Matic powertainer off-grid solar biodiesel 3 phase power system, Destroy the Universe 4 and 2, Dan Goldwater’s Monkeylectric Project, Osseus Labyrint’s Modern Promethius performance (developed here), Barbara Kruse’s Firebirdees built as part of Therm and the Escape From Berkeley (by any non-petroleum means necessary) road rally.

Egeria by Kiki Pettit photo by meuon

Clockworks by Liam McNamara and crew photo by Gabe Kirchheimer

Eye Archway by Ryon Gesink Photo by Mike Woolson

In the beginning of its life, The Shipyard confounded the logic of proper Berkeley Building Department etiquette, by falling in love with the flexibility and durability of the Shipping Container.  Unfortunately, in Berkeley’s eyes, the shipping containers the artists favored as architecture were not considered proper building material.  This innocent misunderstanding prompted the city to turn off power to the facility.  Berkeley being in the dark as to the renegade gang that occupied The Shipyard, did not realize the avalanche of creativity and power hacking they instigated by pulling the plug.  The artists, scientists, gearheads and junkyard enthusiasts, promptly started making their own power and ran the facility off grid for five years.

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Have you heard of “The Harrisons”? Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison are leading pioneers of the eco-art movement. Most often you will see them referred to as “the Harrisons”. They have been working artists for almost forty years, collaborating and crossing disciplinary lines. Much like many other cultural innovators they pay no attention to lines; to them everything is fair game for appropriation in their artwork – biology, history, ecology, architecture, public utilities, urban planning, etc. By repurposing these disciplines they have been able to create a “dialogue to uncover ideas and solutions which support biodiversity and community development.” Their dialogue has often extended outside the context of art leading to changes in environmental policies.

But why are they important? Art and culture at Burning Man have not been created in a vacuum; we have ancestry and the Harrisons I include in that lineage.

They will be lecturing tomorrow at the recently opened David Brower Center in Berkeley.

Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison
Presented with the Long Now Foundation
Wednesday June 10, 02009
7:00pm – 9:00pm
2150 Allston Way,
Berkeley, CA 94704

The World Ocean is a Great Draftsman, 2009. Where the Island of Britain becomes many islands as the ocean rises 100 meters

Wed. May 27, 2009
New Orleans, LA
(the backbone of middle Amerika; the soggy bottom of Old Man River)

Hi. I’m Summer Burkes. I just moved from the crispy Bay Area to the sweet warm fog of New Orleans and as a DPW/Gate desert rat, I experience a swampy deja vu on the daily. Here are the top ten similarities between Burning Man and New Orleans I’ve noticed so far.

1. You can walk down the street with booze in your hand, all the time.

2. You encounter random parades, second-line marching bands thrumming with brass and drums to hoardes of ass-shakers, and sexy “pony” girls pulling a modified shopping cart chariot with a man dressed as a flamingo.

ya heard?

3. Sometimes it smells. And you love it.

4. Everybody parties, including the teetotalers, because they know that death is certain – but life is not.

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Red Eye Diner, 2008; image by Nightshade

If you dropped off your Burning Man recycling at one of the free 24-hour drop off centers in Reno-Sparks, perhaps you’re wondering what happened to your cans and bottles? Here is a summary of the free drive-thru recycling project operated by Save Mart in the Reno~Sparks area for burners during and following the week of Burning Man.

The total amount of recyclable materials dropped off in ‘08 was about three times larger than in 2007.

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Participant MOOPing, 1998 (photo by Chad Slattery)

MOOP, in Burning Man speak, is Matter Out Of Place.  Trash such as paper plates, beer cans, bottles, cigarette butts, grocery bags, etc. often hit the ground and become MOOP.  Basically anything at ALL that isn’t native to the playa is MOOP, doesn’t belong there, and needs to be picked up off the ground by you and me.

All are welcome at Burning Man, and in Black Rock City (our playa home), we LEAVE NO TRACE.  Each and every one of us is responsible for the impact that we leave on the Black Rock Desert. At Burning Man, there are no public trash receptacles. You take your trash with you, and you take it off the playa with you. Radical self-reliance.  This has always been at the very core of our culture.

Of the tens of thousands of citizens in Black Rock City, perhaps the folks hardest hit by MOOP fallout are the Theme Camps, those hardworking people who create those special places for you to rest, heal, eat, imbibe, dance, and party.  As you can imagine, their already-difficult job is made much harder when you, citizens of Black Rock, visit their camps and leave behind your MOOP for someone else to clean up.  So, don’t do that.

“But,” you may ask, “how do I do that (especially while I’m busy having a good time)?”  Well, I’ll tell you. Read more »