Traveling through Amsterdam in fur pants - as a Theme Camp ambassador.
Burning Man is overflowing with lessons. One that I’m becoming increasingly aware of is that life is more awesome when you live as an ambassador from a Theme Camp.
Last week, during my Hug Nation broadcast, I discussed what Theme Camps are and how they have profoundly affected the way that I interact with the world.
Love,
Halcyon )’(
Theme Camps are arguably the cultural lifeblood of Burning Man. Participants gather their friends to camp together, establishing a common theme on which to base the interaction they hope to engender with the citizens of Black Rock City. As free form and wide-ranging as they can be, from the sublime to the ridiculous, Theme Camps create an ambience, a visual presence, and in some way provide a communal space or provide interactivity. As such, they are very much the cultural engine of Black Rock City.
So we went to the source and did some interviews with a (wildly broad) representative sampling of camp organizers, including Bad Idea Theater (an entertainment camp), Kidsville (for families and children), Root Society (a dance camp), Suspended Animation (a BDSM bondage camp), and the Golden Cafe (an exotic bar). We asked them a whole bunch of questions, as you have read in our prior posts, and for this final post we ask them: “How do you Leave No Trace?“.
Before we start, a little lexicon. MOOP is Matter Out Of Place, or things that don’t belong where they currently are. LNT is Leave No Trace, and Burning Man is the largest Leave No Trace event in the world.
To read more about each camp click on the link that is the name of their camp. Here are the results of that interview:
Kidsville: Kidsvillains understand the village’s responsibility to uphold the larger Black Rock City community’s commitment to Leave No Trace.
photo: Susan Becker
As articulated within Burning Man’s 10 Principles, LNT exists out of respect for the environment. The phases of incorporating LNT principles into Kidsville’s planning include education, participation, and follow-up. Bridging all of these is communication.
Education: Each year Kidsville’s Master or Mistress of MOOP, a volunteer, prepares Kidsville’s LNT Plan. A couple of months prior to the event the LNT Plan is emailed out to all of us and is also posted on the internet. It is required reading for all Kidsville families.
Participation: Each Kidsville family is expected to keep their own camp area clean of MOOP, and each Kidsville citizem is expected to take person responsibility for keeping ALL of Kidsville clean. We share ideas for ways to keep individual camping areas clean. During the event, it is not unusual to see parents organizing groups of children to participate in “walking the grid” to clean up MOOP in community areas.
Follow-up: After the event, the Kidsville Mayor and/or the M. of MOOP emails out a report to our community regarding the condition of the Kidsville area after most families have left Black Rock City. If specific camps left behind MOOP, that is reported out to the community (peer pressure is often effective!). If the LNT violations of a specific camp are particularly egregious, the Mayor may inform that family that they are not welcome as part of the Kidsville community in future years. Another part of follow-up involves reviewing and discussing (online) the Burning Man Organization’s LNT map following the event. And, as mentioned previously, we communicate, communicate, communicate regarding LNT.
[Tyronus first set foot in Black Rock City in 2002. His Masters Degree in Urban Planning, experience in responsible real estate development and silver tongue have earned him the position of chief communicator for Vertical Camp, where he promotes the ideas the structure communicates. Urban infill housing has the power to create better communities, and quality of life as a result. This post is part of the Metropol Blog Series.]
Vertical Camp
Black Rock City has always been a city planner’s dusty dream. From its thoughtful layout to its interactive streets and its perfect bikability, many of us wish our cities and towns in the default world were so engaging. You could even describe it as radical urbanism, if you haven’t already.
The streetscape of any city is important. Factors such as setbacks, the types of uses that line a street, and the massing of structures all govern our views, our movement, and often our moods. Black Rock City provides several different neighborhood environments – from the dense, packed activity of Center Camp and the Esplanade to the comparatively suburban corner of 8:30 and H. Along the way, the structures can be incredible feats of temporary engineering. On the other hand, one can’t help but feel a little uninspired by the sight of a beat up, blown out tent, its last stake tied off to a sagging piece of shade cloth.
Vertical Camp Under Construction
Vertical Camp has been improving upon the built environment of Black Rock City, and we’ve been doing it through building up. We’re a group of designers, planners and real-estate types (along with an assortment of brilliant and talented creators) who want to challenge the dominant land use patterns that exist at Burning Man. Since 2005, we’ve utilized re-usable scaffolding to create an efficient and comfortable tower structure that houses dozens of campers in individual, private apartments.
[This is the second in our series of three posts about Theme Camps for the Metropol Blog Series.]
Theme Camps are arguably the cultural lifeblood of Burning Man. Participants gather their friends to camp together, establishing a common theme on which to base the interaction they hope to engender with the citizens of Black Rock City. As free form and wide-ranging as they can be, from the sublime to the ridiculous, Theme Camps create an ambience, a visual presence, and in some way provide a communal space or provide interactivity. As such, they are very much the cultural engine of Black Rock City.
So we went to the source and did some interviews with a (wildly broad) representative sampling of camp organizers, including Bad Idea Theater (an entertainment camp), Kidsville (for families and children), Mal-Mart Mega Store (a parody camp), Root Society (a dance camp), Suspended Animation (a BDSM bondage camp), and for this post we have added the Golden Cafe, an exotic bar. We asked them a whole bunch of questions, and we’ll present more in future posts.
In these interviews the theme camps responded to questions about how they encourage participation and contribution and whether they create consensus out of conflict within their camps. To read more about each camp click on the link that is the name of their camp. Here are the results of the interviews:
How do you manage participation and contribution within your camp?
Bad Idea Theater: The camp is run as a co-op, with each member being a co-owner of the project. Each member funds the project with dues and is responsible for working shifts in the public area as well as responsibilities in the private camp area; there are no exceptions to this rule. Contribution and participation are required by each member as a requirement of being a camp member. As a co-op, every member agrees in advance to work schedules and all camp plans. The vast majority of camp members are veteran Burners who are very familiar with what it takes to run a full time theme camp on the Playa.
[Affinity, a Burner since 2000, was legally married on the Playa in 2001, and was wedding coordinator and then training coordinator at Burning Man, before becoming the Black Rock Arts Foundation (BRAF) Social Media Coordinator and an Advisory Board Member. She interned with the Human Awareness Institute for 10 years, and is a craft dilettante. This post is part of the Metropol Blog Series.]
Destiny Lounge Theme Camp, 2009
Theme Camps are arguably the cultural lifeblood of Burning Man. Participants gather their friends to camp together, establishing a common theme on which to base the interaction they hope to engender with the citizens of Black Rock City. As freeform and wide-ranging as they can be, from the sublime to the ridiculous, Theme Camps create an ambience, a visual presence, and in some way provide a communal space or provide interactivity. As such, they are very much the cultural engine of Black Rock City.
As part of the Metropol Blog Series, we thought you might like to know more about how Black Rock City’s Theme Camps are formed and how they operate. So we went to the source and did some interviews with a (wildly broad) representative sampling of camp organizers, including Bad Idea Theater (an entertainment camp), Kidsville (for families and children), Mal-Mart Mega Store (a parody camp), Root Society (a dance camp), and Suspended Animation (an BDSM bondage camp). We asked them a whole bunch of questions, and we’ll present more in future posts. Here are the responses we received for the first set of questions:
Barbie Death Camp and Wine Bistro, 2006
What is the purpose of your camp?
Bad Idea Theater: Our stated purpose is “To Serve and Project”. We strive to create a safe and entertaining social space along the lines of a friendly neighborhood tavern. In order to be considered a true “Metropolis”, a city must have at least one gin-joint, and a third-rate moviehouse. We are honored to help fill these vital roles.
Kidsville: The purpose of Kidsville is to provide a unique and fun space specifically for children and their families within the larger Black Rock City community.
I chose this photo because it is multiple images of the theme camps that surrounded us in 2003, those are our stars, Bollywood was across the street, Eye of Gawd next door, etc., etc., etc
I am home in San Francisco this afternoon, because for my 10th year I did “Burning Man Light”. Three days, four nights, but as always eye opening, hot, dusty, joyful, difficult, ya’know. But in just these few days I once again found my campmates facinating. We camped for several years with beings who bring peace as well as art to the Playa, and then a couple of years with the Bunnies, one year a staff camp and last year a bar camp filled with long time Burners, but where we were far and away the oldest people in the group.
I always find the “Who ARE my campmates?” interesting! This year we had a gaggle of newbies some of them software celebrities, crew from the the explOratorium, a rising international artist, a former art curator, a Playa luminary who is also a cartoon director and producer, our camp leader is a mechanical engineer and we have Gate and Artica staff as well as our own DPW Manager, and bringing up the rear, Moze and me, your bloggers.
So how does it come to be that there is this symbiosis of geeks, writers, artists, and engineers? Some of whom never stop working on the camp and some of whom barely contribute unless there is a request. I am sure that your camp also has some breadth and depth of engagement with Burning Man. Is there a type of person you can categorize as a Burner or those that you know would hate Burning Man and yet they end up coming to the Event and loving it?
So when you arrive home and are dreaming of Burning Man tell me a story of a campmate that in some way surprised you, or you did not expect to like and now adore, or about that “thing” that seems to happen, that camps get to a certain size and morph into some other entity, or how you could not imagine camping with anyone else. The camping with other people can be a huge part of Burning Man and I would love to hear more about it from you!
photo: Pete Slingland
Rathskellar wants you to get out of their camp.
Get out of their camp and do something, that is. The organizers of Rathskellar, a new theme camp “risen from the ashes of Spike’s Vampire Bar“, are asking all of their members to volunteer with at least one other group at Burning Man.
As Rathskellar co-founder Chris “BoyChaos” Bishop says, “Many of us already choose to work with other groups for the growth and benefit of our city. Making this a requirement to join our camp was a good way to encourage more people to do the same, and to show them the value of such participation.”
Their experiment is already bearing great results. At two recent DPW volunteer work weekends, the Rathskellar crew showed up in force, contributing their sweat, blood and beers to the many tasks needed to prepare Black Rock Station – Burning Man’s Nevada work ranch and permanent staging area – for this year’s event. The Black Rock Desert also benefitted from their efforts, with Rathskellar volunteers helping to clean the playa of nails and other MOOP (Matter-Out-Of-Place) which is sometimes brought to the surface by heavy Winter rains.
“These work weekends play a vital role in delivering on Burning Man’s promise to Leave No Trace,” says Chris, noting that “They’re a lot of work, but they’re also a whole lot of fun.”
View of BRC from the oil derrick
Sky High, Part I
A big wind storm blew in this afternoon and covered the city in a swirling fog of fine dust. Lots of people ducked for cover, but plenty of us pushed out into the abyss, looking for a good time. I gathered some of my crew at our camp and recommended a bike ride out to Crude Awakening to scale the oil derrick and look at the metal figures. We headed out toward 1:00 in hopes of seeing the city above the storm, and we got lucky. There was no line to climb the derrick, and the 99-foot structure afforded us a spectacular view.
The four of us hung out on top of the tower for a long time, watching the storm move around town, alternately covering one section and then another in swirls of playa dust. The sky above us was incredible, sunny and blue with miles of intermittent clouds stretching out to the horizon. The sunlight bounced around, rebounding off huge domes and then throwing shadows across the low dunes. The wind was blowing the whole time, but I never felt the derrick sway. This thing is solid. I wonder how long it would last on its own. We’ll never know though, because it’s going up in flames tomorrow night.
Gourmet spread
Camp
Tonight my campmates and I ate a delicious dinner and took showers to get ready for a big night ahead. Our camp seems pretty typical for a non-theme camp. We’ve got three trailers and two or three tents. A shade structure in the middle that consists of a custom-made awning and three parachutes held up with pvc posts and anchored by guy lines tied to rebar stakes topped with impaled stuffed animals. We’ve got tables and chairs and carpets and Astroturf. Ice chests and an inflatable swimming pool. We always have one or two new people, which makes it extra fun because we get to see things through their fresh eyes.
Camp
We have a solar shower at our camp, and we use a kiddy pool to collect the gray water. We manage to take very few showers, and we use about a gallon of water when we do. Maybe two if we wash our hair. That’s really different from the amount we tend to use at home where water is free flowing and limitless. Where we don’t have to think about what to do with it when we’re done, because it goes down the drain. Out of sight. Out of mind.
I like that Burning Man reminds us to consider the stuff we usually ignore. You have to think about trash here. You have to deal with it. Does it motivate you to consume less, or do you just take all that shit and stuff it in a dumpster after the event? Does your camp separate glass and cans and plastic from burnable paper? There are recycle centers at all the Albertson’s in Reno now, so hopefully you’ll go there on your way home.
The girls at Ambush
Gate Rocks
My friends and I headed out as a group after dinner, aiming for the Ashram Galactica and points beyond. The Ashram was closed. Suck! We looked for a friend’s bachelor party but were given some bad beta and couldn’t find it. Suck! So, we hung out at Skinny Kitty Camp and drank some different teas and coffee and spirits, listened to a live band near the Smooch Dome, and went over to see a performance by Cirque Berserk at the Red Nose District.
At midnight I met a friend at the sculpture between the round bouncy trees at Center Camp, and we headed out to a raging party at the gate. Things were ramping up because of the imminent closing of the entrance to incoming participants. We climbed up on the tower for a while and celebrated with friends, looking out over the city on one side and out toward Gerlach and Empire on the other. Back on the ground, people were listening to music, tipping over burn barrels, setting off fireworks, dog piling each other, and jumping off structures. Driving around art cars and setting things on fire, eating things and drinking stuff. Yelling at people and taking their clothes off. It was excellent.
I was pick-pocketed by an expert. First he shook my hand and took C Load’s light saber off my utility belt, which I knew, but he made it disappear behind his back, which I couldn’t figure out. Then he hugged me and managed to steal the little ring off the end of my zipper. It’s a tiny metal ring that you use to pull the zipper up or down. It was awesome. I have no idea what else is missing, but I liked that guy right away.
I chatted with Combustible Russ and Steel Toe and DA. Railroad Mike and Sendo and a bunch of the bike club guys. Summer and Alexi. Luckily, there was a set of bleachers right there, so a few of us sat down for a while, laughing our asses off as people jumped around. Panties No Panties had a signpost with an arrow on it, and it made for some high quality exchanges with Bloody Knuckles. I can’t remember what else was flying around and/or breaking, but it was a ton of fun. I want to use the word debaucherous here, but in the self-indulgent lascivious lawless excess revelry sense, not in the vile perverse wanton depravity sense. You know?
View of the eight figures
Sky High Part II
We left the gate late and headed into town, stopping briefly at the commissary and one of the nearby camps. Then we met Entropy out at Homouroboros and piled into his art car for a trip to Crude Awakening. There was a long line at the oil derrick, but we took cuts and went straight up. (They told us to!) It was really nice up there. The air was warm and the sky was decorated with a zillion stars. We got a clear view of Black Rock City and the open playa. We bumped into people we knew from DPW and other crews, and hung out for a while with Steve 23 and Juicy at the bottom while they worked on waxing burlap. It was fun saying hi to people as they passed through the line.
After we left Crude Awakening, Entropy dropped us off at Doyle’s truck and we went in search of good music. We stopped at a bunch of different clubs and danced at most of them, but there was no hip-hop or rap to be found. It seems like that’s the case most of the time at Burning Man. I’m either missing the good stuff or it’s not here. Please let me know if you’re going to be playing real hip-hop next year so I can check it out.
We stopped at a friend’s camp and made breakfast just before dawn. People were wandering in from their night out, stopping to say hi and grab a bite to eat. We headed home as the sun came up, ending our night as others began their day. Time is flying.
- WSP