Burning Man 2004
Part 1: The Fabled City
For most people, the first question is still, "What is Burning Man?" There are lots of other people who can tell you the whole history better than I can. Books and magazine articles about Burning Man are showing up more and more. Even so, it remains relatively unknown in mainstream culture, which is probably best for everyone.
Briefly, Burning Man is an annual gathering of artists, hippies, engineers, anarchists, utopians, polysexuals, and other assorted wierdos. It happens out in the alkalai flats of Nevada and lasts for one week. People drive in and set up camps, which range from simple tents to elaborate theatrical and interactive productions. The population grows to about 30,000, Nevada's 7th largest city.
It's called Black Rock City. It is the fabled city of ancient legend, appearing in the desert for a short time and then vanishing without a trace.
Time flows differently here. We come from our overbooked lives and spend hours doing nothing but waiting for the sun to go down, but boredom never sets in. The familiar rules don't apply. You walk the streets with people painted blue and green, people sporting wings and horns and gas masks, people twisting hipster fashions into nightmare carnival interpretations, and people who just don't wear anything. 12 foot tall bicycles and motorized cupcakes roll past. Dust storms kick up and obscure the surroundings. And night and day, you can walk into anyone's camp and they'll be happy to visit with you. It's a dream world, made up of familiar pieces but all in the wrong context. It's the Fairyland of the old pagan stories, where chaos reigns, all is mutable, and if you're not careful you'll be transformed forever.
There are no street lights, so at night you wear lights to make sure roving bicycles and art cars don't run into you. What kind of lights? All kinds. Fun fair glow sticks and bracelets, flashing bike lights, multicolored Halloween prop lights. EL wire is popular; it glows all along its length, and with the proper attachments can be programmed to pulsate or change colors. People use it like neon lights to enhance costumes and make pictures. One guy was covered in an EL wire circulatory system and digestive system. Others simply loop the wire into flashing random scribbles. At night, raucous music blares from all directions. Glowing figures are visible everywhere in the distance. Slow moving motorized shapes--a large human head, a scorpion with flaming sting, a double-decker dance club with flame-shooting smoke stacks--make shifting circuits of the playa. Lasers bisect the sky. Gouts of sculpted fire erupt all over the place.
Black Rock City is laid out in a great semicircle, with orbiting streets named after the planets and radial streets named after hours on the clock. (The street names change according to each year's theme. This year: The Vault of Heaven.) In the center and from 11:00 to 2:00 is an open space with no camps, which is just called the playa. Scattered around the playa are freestanding sculptures and installations. My favorite activity was biking around the playa and seeing what I could stumble across. Things like a 30 foot high inflatable underwater fungus, or a collection of giant metal flame-belching bugs, or a small mask and pair of hands quietly emerging from the ground. Generally there is no artist name or statement of intent, just a vision to take as you will.
In the center of the playa is The Man. The Man is a large stylized figure, who stood (this year) atop a geodesic dome. Under the dome was a gallery of interactive art. One device let you aim a radio message at the star of your choice. Another piece allowed people to make audio recordings, which were later played back for other audiences. Two vertical strips of multicolored LEDs formed pictures if you twitched your eyes back and forth, causing the light to streak. On Friday night, Man, dome, and gallery all get burned to the ground.
Past The Man, on the midnight axis out on the playa, is The Temple. Last year it was The Temple of Honor, this year it's The Temple of Stars. It looks like its made of the scraps from one of those wooden dinosaur models, but the pieces are large and thick and designed to hold the weight of crowds of people. The Temple of Stars had long narrow walkways on both sides, and a large multi-leveled structure in the middle. It was a quarter mile from end to end, with outlying spires of more dinosaur bone scrap material. It took them until mid-week to finish construction. On Saturday night, The Temple gets burned to the ground.
Black Rock City has a few cardinal rules: there are no spectators, only participants. Drink lots of water. Nothing can be bought or sold (except for ice and coffee, sold at specific locations). And, leave no trace. When it's over, you take all your garbage with you. Whatever gets left behind by those too tired or stoned or inconsiderate to pack out, staff and volunteers collect. The dry lakebed is left vacant and lifeless for another year.
