Photo of mural in Olinda, Brazil by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen

My article about why Burning Man lacks a recognizable literary style has prompted a vigorous debate.  One interesting contention that several people have made:  a clear written aesthetic does emerge at Burning Man.  It happens as graffiti.

Jared wrote:

“The scrawlings on the Temple, the Man Base and other sculptures are the literature of Burning Man. (Aside: don’t bring art to the playa that it’s not okay to write on; writing on art is following the principles of Participation and Radical Self-Expression.) Burning Man has distinct graffiti that you won’t find anywhere else in the world.”

nncoco said:

“There is definitely a language of the Burner that I am aware of. Kind of a cross between New Age religion and rave goer. I’t is recognizable in the written word a poetry seen in places like the temple walls, camps, art, blogs, forums and the center camp stages.”

Ellie said that Burner writing “Might just be written on a wooden platform. Or in a port-a-potty. Often embodied in the most ephemeral of forms.”

And so on.

It’s a great point, one that I hadn’t considered.  Certainly graffiti can be art – even literary art.  The writing on the temple walls is absolutely part of our culture, although I question whether many of the people writing it are considering stylistic issues at the time.

I’m not convinced, though:  I don’t recall seeing any graffiti that struck me as “only at Burning Man.”  Quite the contrary.  The graffiti seemed as ubiquitous in its style as in its presence.

But I could be wrong:  perhaps someone can do a literary analysis of Burning Man’s graffiti to make the case.

But even before we consider the content, I’m stuck on Jared’s contention:  “don’t bring art to the playa that it’s not okay to write on;  writing on art is following the principles of Participation and Radical Self-Expression.”

Is it?  For any piece of art?  Not just the Temple and the Man and other pieces that are explicitly looking for it?

Is vandalizing someone else’s art actually an artistic act of self-expression? Read more »

This dictionary has a lot of words in it, but picking a “word of the day” is not a literary culture.

John Curley once wrote that many of the world’s greatest photographers come from around the globe specifically to take pictures at Burning Man.  It’s obvious why.  Burning Man has pioneered a unique visual aesthetic.

Look at a picture:  there’s no question that it came from Burning Man.

It’s not just photography.  Look at sculptures, or installation art:  there’s no ambiguity which are in a “Burning Man” style and which aren’t.  Some people at Burning Man may do other things (God bless ‘em) but Burning Man has still pioneered a distinctive look in the fine arts that many imitate but no one else really owns.

Architecture?  Same thing.  Fashion?  You betcha.  Sure you’ll find people in all kinds of outfits out on the playa … but when we talk about “Burning Man fashion,” we all know what we’re talking about.

While the arts at Burning Man are very diverse, the fact remains:  for years Burning Man has been the center of major new trends in all the visual arts, and is still going strong, its distinctive influence only growing.

What about music, though?

That’s more complicated.  However many of us wish it were different, Burning Man definitely has a distinct sound:  a week of throbbing dubstep is practically synonymous with “Burning Man.”  Again, not the only thing you’ll hear out there (I for one sing sea chanties, and Adrian has been evangelizing mash-ups for years), but definitely a signature.  If someone says “Burning Man music” that’s what most people think of, and everyone knows it.

Unlike with the visual arts, however, I don’t think a serious case can be made that Burning Man is pioneering this sound.  In fact, it’s fairly derivative of rave culture and club music.  Sure, many of the world’s greatest DJs come to Burning Man to perform, but where the photographers are coming to take pictures that they couldn’t possibly take anywhere else in the world, the DJs are coming to do exactly what they do elsewhere for an audience.

It’s probably fair to say that Burner culture has an influence on that music, but we’re not leading the aesthetic.

That’s a pretty big jump down in influence from the visual arts to music.  And when you get to the written word the influence disappears entirely. Read more »

This could be you.

After I read the paper Moze wrote about the development of the Temple and what it means, my first thought was: “Well shit, now I have to prank the thing.”

I get an itch whenever someone even talks about Burning Man’s “cosmology” (and Moze talks about it very well). I think one of Burning Man’s biggest strengths is that it actively resists hermeneutics. Given how Burning Man is experienced and the expectations of the community, a “correct” interpretation of Burning Man – or even a collective one – is difficult, perhaps impossible. I like that.

So being told what the temple “means,” even in very general terms? Having it explained to me that it’s a space that Burners define in certain ways and treat with a given set of protocols? Yeah, I want to fuck that up. Badly.

But I won’t.

Not because it’s sacred … not because I don’t think it deserves it … but because the asshole-to-comedy ratio is just too damn high. Because while you may leave all your preconceptions and inhibitions and all your sacred cows in the dust when that naked Greeter gives you a really inappropriate hug, the one thing you always take with you is your basic humanity. Burning Man does not burn that away. Read more »

A ceremony raising the John Frum flag on the island of Vanuatu

I belong to a large but informal group of Burners whose unofficial motto is:  “Fuck the theme.”

We came to Burning Man for Burning Man:  the theme added nothing to the experience.  All it did was give complete strangers license to tell us things we already knew about Evolution, or to go off on predictable rants about the American Dream.

If Burning Man was Santa Claus, we felt, the theme was an icicle on Blitzen’s ass.

Not this year, though.  This year’s theme is a mind-fuck.  Because … well … let’s talk “Cargo Cult” through.

What’s very likely to happen this year is that:

• tens of thousands of Burners
• in flashy costumes
• who are attending a ceremony where we burn a 40 foot tall wooden man and dance around him

are going to create camps and installations satirizing Cargo Cults because they:

• dress in costumes and
• build sculptures of air strips and bunkers
• to dance around.

There’s a kind of subversive genius here:  Burners who take “Cargo Cult” at its easiest, laziest interpretation – look at those crazy people who have bizarre beliefs and perform useless rituals – are inadvertently putting themselves in the cross hairs.  Judging strictly by the superficial, the difference between “Burning Man” and a “Cargo Cult” is the difference between ABC and CBS.  They’re not the same thing, but a casual observer might never notice. Read more »

They all want tickets

Have you come up with a theory about how Burning Man should handle ticket sales yet?

If not, congratulations:  you’re the only one.

My blogging colleague Jon Mitchell wrote about a pre-Halloween brain-eating session to discuss how Burning Man should handle ticket sales to groups – if it does that at all.  I attended that meeting because there was an open bar, and am pleased to report that their signature cocktail was a combination of black vodka, blue Curacao, and Sprite.  It was delicious.  Especially when you really stirred it around so the layers mixed.

The other thing I noticed was that of the 30-some people in attendance, there were 40-some theories about how Burning Man could best handle ticket sales – it was as though “radical incompatibility” were the 11th principle.

My impression is that discussions were equally convoluted at the Burning Man staff retreat.  I wasn’t there (I’m a volunteer), so I can only confirm that while the Org staff were out talking about the future of Burning Man I opened a bottle of 25 year tawny port which had a taste of leather and chocolate on the back palate.

There are no questions in this world as inflammatory and divisive as questions of identity – which is why what should be the bland and technocratic discussion of how to sell tickets gets so many people so worked up so fast.  How we handle ticket demand is widely seen as an indicator of who we are.  Burning Man is the participants – and the participants are the people with tickets.  Aren’t they? Read more »

Paul Addis was a few years older than me, and had been around Burning Man a lot longer. I bumped into him twice off-playa, made fun of him in print once, and know two long-time community members who at one point considered him a friend.

That was the extent of our connection – yet I find myself pushing his recent death before me wherever I go, a burden that does not belong to me but that I cannot lift alone.

Maybe this is because our community has lost several stars from its constellation this year, and while I didn’t know any of them, the sense of loss is cumulative, building up until those outside the funerals are in mourning too.

Or maybe it is because Paul, in his own troubled way, was trying to do exactly what we all are: he was trying to be an artist. He was trying to burn brightly. He was trying to act on the inspiration we all get from our common heritage in Burning Man and the Cacophony Society. The devil’s in the details, but from a thousand foot view he would be seen on the same path as all the rest of us.

I mean … we’re all crazy. Let us not forget that for most people in the world, the act of going out to the desert to build a giant man and burn him is itself far crazier than the decision to burn it on a Monday instead of a Saturday.

But I think what really troubles me is the way in which his leap reminds me of just how easy it is for any of us to fall through the cracks.

We like to think Burning Man can protect us.  Instead, I fear that Paul Addis represents the limits of radical inclusion. Read more »

Not one of the major contributors to Macro economics was a Burner.

A recent discussion I was having about the future of Burning Man raised the question:  “is it really part of Burning Man’s values to do end runs around scalpers?  Is that a key part of the mission?  What’s wrong with letting the Market decide who goes to Burning Man?”

Let me stop right here to say:  I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT HOW BURNING MAN WILL HANDLE TICKET SALES IN THE FUTURE – DON’T ASK ME.  LIKE MANY OF YOU, I OCCASIONALLY TALK ABOUT THINGS I HAVE NO INVOLVEMENT WITH.  THE SAN FRANCISCO GIANTS, FOR EXAMPLE … AND THE U.S. SPACE PROGRAM.  THIS WAS THAT KIND OF CONVERSATION, HAD WITH SOMEONE WHO WAS NOT A REPRESENTATIVE OF THE ORGANIZATION, AND HAS NO INVOLVEMENT IN BURNING MAN TICKET SALES.  HE WAS ALSO NOT AN ASTRONAUT. THANK YOU.

Most of you are turning a little red now – I was – but it’s a relevant question.  What is the appropriate relationship between Burning Man and market capitalism?  “Decommodification” is a key Burning Man principle … yet when Burning Man is critiqued from the political left, it’s generally for not being decomidified enough.  There are people who see the fact that we still sell tickets as proof that we are in league with Halliburton.

When it comes to capitalism, where’s the sweet spot for Burning Man between “Too Much” and “Oh, for God sake get a job you smelly hippie”?

Is “creative destruction” creative enough for us? Read more »

Okay, not these headlines.

The title of Adam Rothstein’s essay about the Burning Man experience is “Burning Man is Grey.”

You and I might disagree, but it’s a clear reference to his contention in the text that the one thing everyone who goes to Burning Man has in common is the fact that, after a week in the dust, we’re all the same color.

At least, that was the case when the essay appeared in “The New Inquiry.”

When the essay – the exact same essay – appeared in Salon, it was called “Burning Man on its last legs.”

Salon also gave it a subhead:  “With rising mainstream knowledge of the event, it’s lost almost all of its creative and subversive spark.”

Thank God they told us!

To get that conclusion out of Rothstein’s piece, you have to read between the lines, in French, wearing Groucho glasses.  The idea is barely touched on, and certainly not argued.

What likely happened here:  the relevant section editor in Salon, seeing an essay about Burning Man that s/he wanted to re-title, quickly decided that – based on the fact that some guy on Facebook said he was so over Burning Man – the essay must support the idea that Burning Man is “on its last legs.”  Which is also controversial, and therefore will generate clicks.

Is it just me, or does journalism resemble performance art more every year? Read more »