From high above, you’d think Burning Man was just a bunch of objects.

You take the vast, blank field of the Black Rock Desert, place items and humans in a C-shaped formation, and you have yourself a Burning Man.

Now that Black Rock City has found its shape, it looks more or less the same from orbit year over year, although it scoots around the playa a little bit. Our festival of spontaneity begins to look pretty repetitive from high up.

How much more Cargo Cult does it get? We build our city of cars and altar of sticks, we burn the altar, we demolish the city, and then we do it again. We keep having this festival to blow up reality or whatever we’re doing, but reality keeps on being real, and we keep building this C-shaped pile of objects over and over again. Does this not meet the definition of insanity?

Read more »

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 »

photo by Portaplaya

Since the year 2000, there has been a Temple at Burning Man, and when we talk about the Temple, most people think of what started that year with David Best and Jack Haye, and became a long line of temples that have graced the playa. The Temple has evolved from what became a memorial to their friend into an “emotional nexus” of our community, where thousands make pilgrimage each year to remember those they have lost, to celebrate and affirm life, to heal and to forgive.

In 2012 I was fortunate to meet many of the people who are involved with building the Temple each year and to research what I came to believe are some of the essentials of understanding what the Temple at Burning Man has become. It is a place where our community goes to unburden itself and it is a representation of our maturity as a community as well as a natural manifestation of something sacred in the City of Black Rock.

photo by Portaplaya

Proposing to be the one who builds the Temple at Burning Man is serious stuff involving quite a bit of work within an existing structure of volunteers and other Temple minded folks to create something for the community.  One question that was raised over and over again as I spoke with people who have done this before was that you should not ask yourself  “WHAT am I doing this for?” but rather “WHO am I doing this for?”

For many Burners, the Temple is a vital place where those who build it possess a solemnity and a respect for that process. It is also a place for those who attend the event to use for grieving or celebration of life in an environment that is in contrast to a lot of the rollicking and outrageous things happening elsewhere on the playa that week in late summer.

photo by d’andre

Walking around the Temple at the middle of the week, I personally get overwhelmed by the amount of emotion that is focused like a beam in there. It is as if, from its inception each year, to all the planning and all the hands that build it, then when the event begins and it becomes “the largest collaborative art project” on the playa; that the energy of so many caring people turns whatever sublime Temple structure is built that year into something far greater than any art project.

Stopping to read the remembrances of so many loved friends, family and pets who have passed on, seeing the pictures of so many of them, pausing at the altars and shrines where people have lovingly placed tokens of their lost one’s lives, well, that can really get you right in your plexus where you feel that big sorrowful empathy wave. The Temple is a profound space where some of us who have lost loved ones can let them know that they are still loved and missed, but that it is all ok, they can pass and we can move on.

I’m a large, somewhat dim and oafish fellow, and I can only stay in there for so long before I have to walk away from it out onto the blankness of the playa with the Temple behind me, and breathe deeply so as to not betray the tough guy façade I live behind.

It is a heavy place.  If you’ve been there, you know what I mean.

photo by Steven Fritz

Regardless of who builds the Temple, it is always something spectacular and special. There are bona fides and expertise that are a prerequisite to building the Temple at Burning Man and I was privy to finding out what some of those were this year.

I’ve written an article about what I discovered after being on playa (and attending the Temple construction before leaving for Black Rock City) for the building of this year’s Temple of Juno. I was able to research and read some of the intellectuals who’ve written about the concept of the Temple, including Lee Gilmore, Sarah Pike and Larry Harvey; and I had the pleasure of speaking with some of the folks involved with building Temples through the years including David Best, Jessica Hobbs and Jack Haye. The article is on the Burning Man website and is titled, Spirituality and Community: The Process and Intention of bringing a Temple to Black Rock City.

Burning Man would like to have a conversation that explores what you feel about the Temple and to get your insights on it since it is really your Temple. Please read the article as it is meant as a starting point to stimulate discussion. Our community loves discussions and the Temple is something many of us have very strong feelings about. Feel free to read the article and post your thoughts here.

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 »

The Bay Lights, artist’s rendering

Remember this? Well, the fundraising and permitting process was a success, and the project is moving forward!

That’s right, long-time Burner, Disorient founder and artist Leo Villareal is creating the world’s largest LED light installation on the San Francisco Bay Bridge. Workers started attaching 25,000 white LED lights to the bridge in October. The installation is 1.8 miles in length and 500 feet high; the lights will be switched on early in March 2013 and will remain for at least two years.

Leo was inspired to create programmed light installations by his experiences at Burning Man in the mid-90′s, wandering in the darkness without any points of reference. The New York Times just published an article about Leo and the Bay Lights which includes the story of Leo’s Burning Man roots … here’s an excerpt:

“Like most of the crazier ideas that come out of San Francisco these days, the Bay Lights owes its genesis to Burning Man, the end-of-summer bacchanal on the Black Rock Desert playa where overworked Silicon Valleyites and underworked counterculturalists gather to stay up all night, party and cross-pollinate. Davis is a longtime regular at the festival and says that for him it conveys “a sense of spectacle, a sense of wonder and awe, a sense of generosity and shared experience. But he was growing frustrated with the annual ritual and becoming aware of a fundamental disconnect between the magic on the playa and the drudgery of daily life. How could he bring the beauty he saw every year at Burning Man back home?”

The project’s website, www.thebaylights.org, features a video animation of the project as it will appear in action. You can sign up on the Community page to receive bi-weekly updates on the project, including info on public events.

For those of you on Facebook, please like The Bay Lights page, and check it for updates.

I met Nichon three years ago when she volunteered for Media Mecca.  I almost didn’t let her in:  she wanted to take pictures for Burning Man, and we don’t do that.  She’s from the Netherlands, and I’d recently been burned by a lot of Northern European would-be volunteers.  She’d just gotten a degree in fashion design, and if that doesn’t display poor judgment I don’t know what does.

She made it on the team somehow, though – demonstrating great people skills and a gift for problem solving.

She stayed just long enough to accidentally quit.

Nichon noticed that Media Mecca lets a group of pinhole camera enthusiasts use some of our space as a darkroom.  It’s been happening for over a decade now.  I’d honestly forgotten about it.  Nichon couldn’t get it out of her mind.

After her first Mecca shift she walked up to me and said “Hey Caveat, I think I’ll work with the pinhole camera people from now on, okay?”

She honestly had no idea that she was quitting my team to go work for somebody else:  she thought ‘well, they work in the same space, it must be the same group.’

I considered saying “No.”  I considered giving her one of my three lectures on volunteer responsibility – probably number 2, the one where I’m disappointed but still your friend and we can come back from this by working together.

Or maybe throwing a fit.  I love a good fit.

But I could tell, looking at her, that she’d found a passion.  This wasn’t flaking on a volunteer commitment so much as it was discovering a new cause.  And what’s the point of coming to Burning Man if you’re not allowed to discover a new passion?  Saying “No” to that defeats the whole point.

So I said “Oh, okay.”  And quietly wrote her off the schedule.

By the end of the week Nichon was running the pinhole camera group, and has been a co-leader ever since. Read more »