Tales From The Playa are dreams and memories of events that took place at Burning Man, as told by its participants.

photo: Logan Mirto

Just a little note to say hello from Burning Man.  We miss you if you are not here.  Thinking of you.  As always there is a lot going on here. BIG art, lots of community and as always heat and dust, although it cooled off a little yesterday which makes me very happy.

And a little shout out to the Dust City Diner, we hear it is their last year on the Playa, and they are making the rounds to ensure all of their volunteers and people who have helped support them all these years are getting by to say farewell to them.

Photo by MonkeyBoy

And here is a small shot of the Man before he burns tomorrow night.

Media Mecca is hosting a meet up for Burning Nerds on the playa in the 2011. We did it last year and we’re doing it again! You are invited! Please join us!

When: Friday, September 2, 2011

Where: Ashram Galactica (8:00 and Engagement)

Time:  2:30pm-5:00pm

Enjoy cocktails and an afternoon mixer with the academics and scholars
of Black Rock City.

Do you teach, conduct or write or work with research? Do you wish you could?
Then you are a Burning Nerd!

Come join us for libations, entertainment and presentations:

• The 2011 Environmental Assessment process-Learning how to research BRC.
• Updates on the Census-new questions in 2011-Where they are from and why!
• The 2011 Non-Profit of Burning Man. How might academics collaborate?

OPEN MIC-for Burning Nerds to share their research!

PLEASE join us and RSVP to academics here: academics (at) burningman.com

Academics URL: http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/academics.html

Wait, that's ... that's not a Man. Where am I?

It might not be an overstatement to suggest that the single biggest challenge facing Burning Man as it transitions to a non-profit is explaining what-the-hell-it’s-good-for without making it sound like a therapy weekend or an erotic spa.

Why do we need to do this?  Well, one reason is that the Media Team frequently gets emails asking things like:

• “What bands are playing at Burning Man this year?”
• “How many stages do you have?”
• “How do I get my act in your lineup?”

Telling these people to look at our website and see what we really do only leads to return emails saying “I still can’t find the bands!  Except, is one of them named Temple Burn?  Are they playing at the Arctica stage?  Is that the main stage?”

Actually, wow, “Temple Burn” is a pretty killer name for a band … I’m calling it.  It’s mine.  Get your own band.  You can be:  “Dust Storm.”

Actually, “Dust Storm” is a pretty good name too.  I’ll need it when “Temple Burn” kicks me out for creative differences.  Hands off.

Your band can be “Gift Economy.”  It’s kind of a folk-rock thing, very 60s influenced, writes a lot of songs about peace. Read more »

Greatest ... theme camp ... ever ...

This may be out of left field, but that’s where I live: If Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-easy laugh) had gone to Burning Man every year, would he still have been self-destructive enough to send damaging photos of himself to women he only knew online?

The answer is: probably, yes. But I ask because I frequently hear people talk about Burning Man as though it were exactly this kind of sanity check. You’ve heard it too:

“Burning Man is the one place where I can really feel like myself!”

“I go to Burning Man to let my freak flag fly, and that gets me through the rest of the year!”

“Where did this tattoo come from? How far down does it … what’s Camp Thunder Ink, and am I really its mayor?”

The notion that Burning Man is a kind of therapeutic spa for creative spirits – the place we go to be gifted chicken soup for the soul – is even implied in our official language. It’s different from the “default world”; coming and going from Burner events is “decompressing” and “recompressing.” There’s a deep notion that coming to Burning Man is the equivalent of getting psychological work done, and this makes you better able to cope with the cruelties of a world where people don’t wear fuzzy boots before Labor Day.

If this is true … and I know at least three DJs who swear it is … then it ought to show up not just in the things we *do* in the default world (the activism, the saving the environment, the being the change we want to see – like Gandhi with glow sticks), but in the things we *don’t do* in the default world. “Decompressing” ought to save us from the kind of pressure that pushes us to do immensely stupid self-destructive things.

Read more »

OMG! Isn't she amazing!

Attaching her arm

The light in her eye

 
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Burning Man is trying to  figure out how to respond to the revolution in digital photography.

Old timers will tell you that cameras weren’t much in evidence in the early years of the event. But now you can’t help but see cameras everywhere on the playa –  from cellphones and point-and-shoots to expensive and sophisticated digital recording equipment that produces everything from stunningly artistic imagery to high-res but low-rent voyeuristic crap.

And the places that those pictures wind up is changing, too. Burning Man has always said it was fine to share your pictures among your friends and family. But what are friends and family these days, when you might have 1,000 “friends” on Facebook, or thousands of visitors to your Flickr or YouTube sites?

What happens to the privacy rights of, say, a schoolteacher who enjoys the freedom and empowerment of the Critical Tits bike ride? Should she have to worry when she gets back from the desert that her picture will be easy to find on the internet?

Last week, the organization gathered photographers, videographers, artists, event leaders, legal experts, technologists and just plain good thinkers to explore the ramifications of the digital revolution. Are Burning Man’s policies and procedures still up to the task of protecting privacy, preventing commercialization while still  nurturing the creative image-making process?

The discussions were heartfelt, impassioned, informed and on the whole amazingly constructive.
Much more work remains to be done, and a team of people, including the communications department and legal team, are charged with turning the talk into action items.

Here is some of what was said, plus, if you’ll forgive the intrusion, a little of what I think:

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Tales From The Playa are dreams and memories of events that took place at Burning Man, as told by its participants.

The building season has begun.  As Moze posted recently, the Honorarium List is out.  As one of this year’s honorarium artists I thought I’d give a little insight into how one comes to the conclusion to take on the monumental project of building The Temple for Burning Man.

A Dusty picture by Rick Egan

It all began Sunday last year on the playa. Sunday for me has always been a day of reflection. Last year I woke up in a very reflective mood as the dust storm was raging…”Why on earth do I come out to this god forsaken hole”… <cough, cough> …”Why do I insist on making art in this inhospitable place”.  Just as my pity party was in full swing my favorite art partner Rebecca Anders finds me and suggests we go on an OPA tour (Other Peoples Art tour).  She had been having a similar morning of woe and needed to get away.  Joined by Don Cain, of DSC, we went on a deep playa excursion to see what treasures we had missed during the week while we were installing Fishbug.

Fishbug aka Chimera Sententia by Rebecca Anders and Jessica Hobbs photo by nightshade, theblight.net

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Please join us for the dedication of Tree Spire, a permanent installation, on Thursday, December 10th at 12:30 pm.

A gift to the families and citizens that enjoy Whitaker Park!

Funded by Burning Man and exhibited in Black Rock City 2007, “Tree Spire” was the first project created by the Seattle art collective, the Iron Monkeys.  They created 4 fifteen-foot tall trees that were part of the “Mangrove”, a group of simulated trees fashioned from recycled industrial materials, surrounding the center-focused icon The Man.  These artificial trees were not burned: they survived to subdivide the blue of other skies.

Brought to the south bank of the Truckee River in downtown Reno, on the corner of Sierra Street and Island Avenue after the 2008 Burning Man event, the “Tree Spire” was displayed in the center of a collection of eight tree sculptures made by five different artist collectives called The Mangrove.  The creative works were made from construction waste and reclaimed materials.  The Black Rock Arts Foundation and a Project Grant from the City of Reno’s Art and Culture Commission funded this project.

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