2015 Art Installations

All artworks in these listings will be presented by these artists on the open playa in Black Rock City. Honoraria Art H has been awarded a grant by Burning Man Project. Registered Art includes all other projects that have registered for placement on the open playa in BRC. You can learn more about the BRC Art program here.

2015

11:55 Reformation Portal

from: Truckee, CA
year: 2015

Far away in the Deep Playa, an uncommon union of conflicting ideals results in acceptance, transcendence and harmony.

2pir

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

(Part of Charnival). 2πr. Two concentric rings. The inner ring detects movement and translates it into fire exploding up from the ground on the outer ring. Presented without any visible theme, it is a blank slate for the user to perform upon. It seems to lend itself to thoughts of magic, though it could just as easily be seen as a tool for a performer, a conductor’s orchestra, or any number of other interpretations.

Acavallo

by: Quill Hyde, Acavallo
from: Tonasket, WA
year: 2015

A strikingly geometrical stylized ship, fully real, with every detail functional and if not elegant, at least whimsical. The ship has weathered beautifully! The patina is incredible.

The clean lines of the rigging and the structures (the straight steel and catenary ropes) belie the thorough engineering, and all of the elements blend visually into a complete, balanced piece. It just breathes fun and style!

Akle' the Dragon

by: Swig Miller
from: Santa Monica, CA
year: 2015

Akle’ the Dragon will be watching over the Playa this year. She’s a majestic white dragon, almost 50′ in length with magnificent wings reaching up 20′ in the air. She’s sitting sitting like a lion or dog atop a large red boulder with her tail winding over two more. She’s made of smooth cool concrete to give a feeling of solidity and endurance.

Akle’ represents the guardian nature of dragons, that of spiritual beings watching over us. Akle’ was born as a tribute to the artist’s dog Elka who past away during the construction of this project.

arborealisforest

by: Noam Turgeman, arborealisArt
from: Berkeley, CA
year: 2015

Arborealis: A space for people to co-create
Inspired by nature and infused with technology. Arborealis, the magical forest, comes to life. A place to gather and harmonize, the forest responds to movement and reverberates with mystical melodies. Illuminated with ethereal projections at night, it shelters visitors during the day. A respite, a place that invites you to make connections and play.

Arbour

from: Surbiton, England
year: 2015

Emerging from the study of geometry in sacred architecture, this artwork has been inspired by the dendritic forms of medieval vaulting. Medieval architects used the arched geometry of ribs and vaulted ceilings to achieve a soaring lightness and elevate the spirit; the architecture had a spiritual function. We have digitized these geometries and manipulated them in parametric models to design a contemporary structure that achieves the same objective.
The Arbour celebrates life through geometry, which underlies the structure of so many life-forms. The Arbour’s soaring ribs draw our gaze heavenwards and inspire us to reach for the stars.

Arc of Reflection

from: Cotati, CA
year: 2015

The Arc of Reflection is a steel pipe arc, 17′ high at pinnacle, with 44 chains of 6″x6″ mirrors. The mirrors rotate in the wind and can even spin. Viewers can dance, fire spin or use their personal lighting in front of it and see what happens.

Art Car Bus Stops

from: Pine Mountain Club, CA
year: 2015

Hurry up and wait for YOUR next experience at the Art Car Bus Stops! Why live in a world where there are no schedules, where burners remain unsure of where or when to find a ride on an awesome art car? Because we like the confusion! Why stop now?

Axayacoatl

from: South San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

Axayacoatl (pronounced: ah-shy-ah-co-ah-tul, meaning: serpent mask) is a 20’ tall, 13’ wide copper effigy of Quetzalcoatl’s mask with a translucent copper screen warrior in his mouth. Flame effects and interactive LED lighting allow participants “behind the curtain” to put on an impressive display to those approaching. Large physical levers and wheels form the interface for participants who want to play “wizard” to those approaching the mask. Participants may climb his stair stepped tongue, enter the room created by the swallowed warrior’s head and look out through his eyes.

Baltic Altar

from: Baltic States - Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia
year: 2015

The room (15×24) has black external walls and mirrored clothing inside. To get into the room participants go through a narrow passage (5×24) that has black clothing strips hanging from the ceiling at all of its length creating a claustrophobic sensation. When a person finally enters the space they see a glowing platform (15×10).
Participants are greeted by a Krivis (shaman) who leads them to a mirror altar in the center of the platform which comes alive as a musical instrument if you interact with it. The altar allows participants to compose music as easy as Lego pieces: sound loops of basslines, drums, melodies & vocals can be combined in thousands of different variations by placing special controllers on the instrument’s surface. This includes recordings of Baltic folk artists using traditional instruments, electronics, hip-hop and more. Up to 4 people can interact with the cube at the same time, creating their unique melodies.

Bamboo Tea Hut

from: santa fe, NM
year: 2015

The Bamboo Tea Hut is a portal of possibility; a meeting place for lovers, strangers, and cosmic rangers; an acoustic guesthouse for didgeridoos, guitars, sitars, drummers, and hummers; a haven for late-night adventurers; a sanctuary for sanctified silliness; and a playground for interactive sound. In addition to hosting tea parties at sunrise and sunset, we are serving Guatemalan cacao blessed by a chocolate shaman. It’s the ultimate heart opener! At the center of this beautiful, organic structure is the Tree of Knowledge, a living, breathing encyclopedia comprised of mind-blowing facts and ideas about the universe crowdsourced from desert dwellers like yourself. The Tree of Knowledge also features an interactive sound installation.

Bannerline Project

from: Carson City, NV
year: 2015

Welcome to the Coney Island of the MInd! Surrounding the Funhouse Maze structure this year, is an interpretation of traditional sideshow banners from the 1930s to the 1950s. Often hawking the lurid, morbid or the taboo, banners lured the carnival “peeps” to spend their nickles to see the forbidden exhibits “on the inside”.

Billed as “ALIVE!- SHOCKING!- AMAZING!”- and brightly colored, sideshow banners were the alluring bait that made the sideshow a fixture of the carnival culture for more than a century.

In recent years, sideshow art has gone from being nearly forgotten, to being recognized as a uniquely American cultural art form.

Step right up! Stop! Look through he doorway!! It’s all on the inside!

Barterdog

from: Mammoth Lakes, CA
year: 2015

Your wandering across the open Playa, a slight breeze is blowing from the East, your nostrils catch a whiff of the comforting aroma… Sizzling Hot Dogs. Is your mind playing tricks on you? You keep following your senses and suddenly it appears! A Hot Dog Stand on the open Playa, how could this be? Some burners search for years and never encounter Hot Dog bliss, believing it only to be a myth. Others fulfill their hot dog destiny Burn after Burn. If your lucky and the Playa Sprits are generous, you Too will become part of this legendary Hot Dog fantasy. Barter Dog has been traveling the open Playa since 2002, randomly gifting Playa Dogs to the citizens of BRC. Are you worthy of the gift “FUEL TO BURN BRIGHT”

Be the Menagerie

from: Sebastapol, CA
year: 2015

Be the Menagerie

Be the Menagerie is a common interactive carnival amusement extraordinarily done. A Tintamarresque for photo ops, the creatures to be inhabited are imagined from various epochs and contextual sources—mytho-mechanical beasts for instance—set in surreal environments and painted in neo-medieval style.

Beach Front

year: 2015

UP HERE, water is a constant. The Alaskan Constitution declared it a public resource, but now we worry about rising sea levels, wetter winters, and drier summers. While felt acutely in Alaska and the Arctic, changing water resources will affect the global community. As researchers, scientists and artists flock to the North, we look to the South, seeking to expand this dialogue in the unlikely yet poignant location of the Black Rock Dessert. Beach Front is an interactive light installation inspired by the role of water in a rapidly changing global climate. A suspended canopy of lights that mimic a sheet of water, Beach Front encourages participation from viewers and natural elements like wind, examining the interdependence between humans and natural forces. Each human-generated ripple illustrates our influence on the rapidly changing water that surrounds us; conversely, able to function solely on wind input, Beach Front acknowledges nature’s ultimate autonomy and self-regulation.

Becoming Human

from: El Prado, NM
year: 2015

Becoming Human is a 30-foot tall sculpture of a robot, which occasionally smells the flower in its right hand. The sculpture hopes to inspire viewers to ask questions about technology and nature, and the value of slowing down.

Bismuth Bivouac

from: London, England
year: 2015

Inspired by the geometry from the crystalline growth pattern of the element Bismuth, the Bismuth Bivouac is a playful pavilion celebrating the orthogonal geometries that exist in natural Bismuth crystals to form an intriguing cubic structure, with spiralling disruptions on each face, governed by the golden ratio. From a distance, it appears as a solid cube but intricate spaces can be discovered when you get closer. The iridescent colours of crystal translate into the proposal through coloured LED, built into the lumber structure, so at night the pavilion gives the same visually mesmerizing, colourful effect of the crystals in nature.

Black Mirror

from: Marietta, GA
year: 2015

A playspace at night, shade sietch by day. You are on the outside looking in, or the inside, looking out. Stand before the black mirror and your gestures and motions will be interpreted in light and sound. Everything you see and hear bends to your will. You are the sorceror’s apprentice. Wield your power well.

Black Rock City Time Out Corner

from: Chicago, IL
year: 2015

Black Rock City Time Out Corner.
Have you had transgressions? Displayed unburnerlike behavior? Someone in your camp not wash their dishes? Spill bacon grease on the playa? Send them to the Time Out Corner, so they see the error of their ways, refocus, reflect and do penance

Black Rock Observatory

from: Lancaster, CA
year: 2015

Black Rock Observatory is a mobile astronomical observatory dedicated to the celebration of the nexus between art and science. Showing the universe as art is an admission that the truth is sufficiently beautiful and that it deserves our attention.

A tourist office for the rest of the universe; a series of wooden domes derived from the Small Rhombicuboctahedron and designed by architect Gregg Fleishman, where the secrets of the universe are revealed by powerful mirrors, optics, experiments, art, performances and interactive exhibits.

The sphere is the universe’s answer to the form problem. Orbs above; orbs below. Echoes of the outer planets, the domes lie in a remote space requiring skills, effort and patience to reach. Eyeballs and color coded lasers fondle the planets overhead while ‘zards, ‘nauts and ‘bots conduct experiments below.

Blunderwood Portable

from: Boston, MA
year: 2015

A giant, climbable typewriter with a shaded hangout space. The keys have sensors that drive projections of letters on a “paper” screen. Each day we will place a new physical poem, 16’ wide by 40’ long, next to the typewriter. It will meld poetry, sculpture, light, projections, and sound.

Bohemian Cafe

from: San Diego, CA
year: 2015

An escape from the chaos of the playa, the Bohemian Cafe is a place of rest, relaxation, and solitude for the weary traveler.

bOOth

year: 2015

The bOOth may appear as a common tollbooth but the gatekeepers within will requires require full compliance in order to allow persons and vehicles access to the playa beyond.

brainchild

from: Berkeley, CA
year: 2015

Brainchild embodies two of the elements of creative exploration i love most- celebrating the inquisitive spirit of play and exploring the plurality of forms that can be expressed through biologically inspired shapes and patterns found in nature. The branching head area of the sculpture serves as a playful interactive space where participants can become literal neurotransmitters providing the necessary synaptic activation for the piece to come alive. Lighting elements with proximity awareness sensors responding to the movements of participants as they move through the piece will add an additional element to the piece at nite. The sculpture as a whole emanates a contemplative yet engaging quality. Our hope is to create a safe environment for participants to engage in a playful and intimate experience.

Breaking Free

from: Minot, ND
year: 2015

Breaking Free: Many have shared the experience of breaking free from the things that bind us in the default world through our time with the Burningman community. My personal experience with Burningman and the community has been a freeing and spiritual one. Not only has it renewed my faith in humanity, but through the community I found my love, my heart, and my future. “Breaking Free,” is a direct expression of my journey. My hope is that you will see this piece and not only appreciate the freedom I have found, but reflect on your own journey, your own place in the world, how you’ve changed, and what freedom means to you.

Brickhead EARTH

from: Haverstraw, NY
year: 2015

Colossal ceramic brick human head reminiscent of the temple carvings of Angkor Wat or the great Olmec heads of Central America, a contemporary relic of a civilization not yet past. Site specific sound and light elements will be incorporated into the artwork.

Brobdingnag

by: InterArte
from: Berlin, Germany
year: 2015

Brobdingnag is one of the countries Gulliver visited during his travels. It is the land of the giants. We want to recreate the situation of traveling to a foreign place where one has to reconstruct his ideas and thoughts of what is reality, how are things and objects really and how they appear.
The chairs will be so tall, they can only be climbed with the help of someone else. So people will have to come together, and support each other getting up and down. The stage like situation invites burners to interact and play with the environment, slip into the role of a child or a lilliput and with their own body, experience a different concept of size. In the presence of the giant table and chairs, the viewer will feel physically diminished and will be returned to the experiences of childhood adventure.
The sensation of being thrown off balance by the striking discrepancies in the scale of this setting is an invitation for people to think about existing structures in the default world

Camp LonerVille

from: Las Vegas, NV
year: 2015

You are loved. Need a reminder? Come visit Camp LonerVille.

Camp LonerVille is the physical manifestation of an audio project that strives to express: being alone is a shared experience and unconditional love for others simply because they exist.

Carnal Connections: Love is an Illusion

from: Reno, NV
year: 2015

Is it Love or Lust? Carnal Connections explores the duality of sexual desires, infatuation, obsessions.
Love has become an Illusion: quick hook ups, casual encounters, and religious condemnation.
Look in the mirror, see: true self, illusion, lust, limerence.

Castle Blocks

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

Castle Blocks provides you the opportunity to design and build your own brick castle or other structure using many large cardboard blocks.

You can satisfy your architecture or construction interests by building structures that may be original, that represent real world architecture, or perhaps one that is as tall as you can engineer.

More importantly, you can then share the artist’s childhood by spectacularly toppling your structure with your friends after it’s determined complete, which is sometimes a matter of varied opinions …

Awards will be named in several categories based on photos you submit of your work and its destruction.

Chaotick

from: Palo Alto, CA
year: 2015

To an Ignatz novelty clock with a tetherball-like escapement, the artist applied a familiar Burning Man transformation: “Really big, and on fire.”

Charnival

from: Toronto, Canada
year: 2015

The Charnival will be comprised of rides, games, and themed interactive installations designed to mimic Coney Island at the height of its popularity. Gates, decorative carnival elements, lights, and sounds will direct visitors in the heart of the Charnival where the vibrant ambiance is in full swing, spectacles abound at each turn, and the carnival as we know it finally lives up to its thrill‐seeking potential.

Chirality

from: Seattle, WA
year: 2015

The human form is the most complex tensegrity structure, bones held in compression among a sea of tendons in tension. This freeform tensegrity structure is a generative form meant to inspire and prompt reflection about the forces at play in our own bodies.

Chiromancy

from: Chicago, IL
year: 2015

Chiromancy – By Erin Banwell and The Freakeasy

Church Trap Organ

from: Lawndale, CA (Los Angeles Area)
year: 2015

The infamous antique pump church organ, controlling the LED light installation piece of twisted exploding music sheets, is sure to lure participants to any stage. Located in Center Camp, the sights and sounds will fill the air and call to the strollers to stay and play. The piece is one that demands interaction, as it is a blank slate. It also has a dramatic light show that is triggered by its musician that is mesmerizing to a large audience of listeners.

Cirque de Reflexions

from: Surbiton, England
year: 2015

The Cirque de Reflexions immerses Burners in a reflective experience. It plays with the literal reflections created by mirrored facets and provokes personal and inward reflection. The intriguing outer walls resemble ornate Chinese folding screens. Once inside Burners will find a mysterious mirrored crystalline sculpture which will reflect their crazy decorated bodies in its multiple facets and encourage spontaneous and uninhibited performances. The tattoo imagery of the intricately laser-cut petal walls is inspired by the magnificent Tattooed Ladies of the early 20th Century Travelling Carnivals. The ‘skin’ of the Cirque celebrates these Ladies as early pioneers of Radical Self Expression. It reminds us that our bodies are our personal canvas and how we paint, ink, pierce and decorate them, clothe and conceal them, flaunt and expose them, remains our own very personal choice. Elegant mirrored images of contortionists in the lower panels also celebrate the marvels of the human body.

City Lights

from: Los Angeles, CA
year: 2015

The City of Lights team provides artists with a basic solar light fixture and stand to create their own light sculptures with their own materials. These sculptures are then mounted on the BRC’s sign posts. Workshops during the event will provide battery lights for folks to incorperate into their own gear.

Clown Teabagging Eruption

from: Toronto, ON
year: 2015

(Part of Charnival.) Sometimes clowning is a mouthful. A mouthful of teabags in this case. Play this Charnival game to test your skill in teabagging clowns. If you can pull it off in time then you make the clown head erupt.

Cock 'N Candy

from: Orange County, CA
year: 2015

One game of skill, one game of chance, and one cone of cotton candy!

Colossal Skeletal Marionette

from: Charlottesville, VA
year: 2015

The Colossal Skeletal Marionette is a collection of rusty bones sourced from the desert and the mountains. It dances with the concepts of death and whimsy. You dance under the shadow of the Man. He will fall again. You are haunted by the ghosts of ancestors. They beg you to play with them. Nosce Te Ipsum. Know thyself. These represent big old bones from which we came, and to which we shall return. He’s just a Big Metal Puppet, and you can be his Puppeteer!

Compound Eye/"I"

from: Newark, CA
year: 2015

Compound I” glistens like a totemic pillar of eyeballs as light undulates over its multifaceted orbs. Mirrored spheres, surfaced with lens-like convex mirrors, stack one atop the other to a height of 18’, referencing compound eyes of insects, forms of Buddha heads and the Mandelbrot fractal at once.

Circling around “Compound I”, reflected light follows us…as if we are being watched. Looking into the shifting centers of the glistening lenses, we meet our own gaze. As we realize it is our own sight and form that animates these pupils, our sense of separate-ness from the art is challenged.

Stepping away, we see our image simultaneously contract/overlap with everyone else’ onto the mosaic globes before us- a composite of shared reflection.

The eye as instrument of reflection and the ‘I’ as object of reflection; boundaries blur between perspectives of inner and outer, personal and collective, to convey a picture of interconnectedness, with us as facets of a compound ” I “.

Cosmic Oasis

from: Kamilche, WA
year: 2015

Cosmic Oasis is sanctuary located in Walk-in-Camping Area. Standing on the edge of the city at 4:30 and looking out into the barren landscape toward the mountain side, visitors will make out giant mushrooms poking out on the horizon. Travelers willing to go the extra mile to visit the Cosmic Oasis will be rewarded with shades, massages, fine dining and other magical experiences.

Coup de Foudre Project

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

Our installation creates an architectural space where we discover how to collaboratively control a large musical tesla coil. Participants ascend into one of three control towers placed radially around the coil. Each control tower is a two-layer Faraday cage, built in the austere and elegant style of old lighthouses. Inside, they find an odd artifact that can manipulate an aspect of the tesla coil’s performance. Through collaboration, the coil reaches its peak performance and sends 20′ arcs of lightning to the control towers.

Cuberosity and the Tree of Life

from: Silver Spring, MD
year: 2015

Cuberosity is a steel frame cube buried halfway into the playa covered in shade sails, which will feature projected imagery from within. Inside there are planned and impromptu performances and workshops such as aerial silk performers, music, hooping lessons, dancing and meditation sessions.

CuddleLingus Treasure Box

from: Las Vegas, NV
year: 2015

Pssst…In the deep playa lies the CuddleLingus Treasure Box! Take a peek inside and you will discover a myriad of wooly, warm, and wondrous supplies for the chilly traveler. Adorn yourself in argyle, flit about in fuzzy furs, and, once you are looking fabulous, leave a message to your fellow travelers! Prepare to be marked by the Warm & Fuzzies!

Dancing Serpent

from: Oakland, CA
year: 2015

Just as we are a sect of homo-sapiens which grows lush in our desert habitat, one imagines that everything about our city – the striped tents, the night beacons, the strange crawling vehicles, the unexpected flames – are equally living products of the rare atmosphere of the playa. One imagines what creatures might evolve there in the heat and the dust, with the sun and the wind for power, with a peacock’s urges to be admired day and night, with a joy in the solitude and the rough edges of the natural world that spawned them. What life forms might develop as the denizens of the Carnival of Mirrors if their constituent molecules were dust and rust and sunlight?

An answer to this question is The Dancing Serpent which will be a 14 foot long sculptural metal serpent constructed as a mobile. Canvas sails hang from the serpent to catch the wind, causing the sculpture to swim gracefully through the air, and propane flames sprout from an array of outlets along its spine and jaws.

Dino-LIGHT!!!

from: Philadelphia, PA
year: 2015

DINO-light
Created with the talent of 1000’s of painters, this 26′ fossil remnant of the please-a-saur dinsosaur glows sharply in the night, calling forth all mystical and magical creatures. Its skin is an ultraviolet storybook of endless evenings and days of dance celebrations and gatherings where rhythm and rhyme became encased in colour and design.

Doktor Malvoye's Travelling Stationary Clinic & Puppet Theatre

from: Crockett, CA
year: 2015

Doktor Malvoye Knows All! Doktor Malvoye Heals All! Something is ailing you and only Dr Malvoye can treat it. Be seen, be healed at Dr Malvoye’s Travelling Stationary Clinic.
Daily hours posted.
~ All treatments fully guaranteed not to be deadly ~

The clinic is never actually closed! Come play at the Dr Malvoye Puppet Theatre…. it’s always open! No previous medical or puppeteering experience needed for this totally random interactive show.

dopascreens

from: El Segundo, CA
year: 2015

dopascreens is an interactive light sculpture that encourages participants to reflect on personal smartphone usage in today’s always-connected, hyper-stimulated, and instantly-gratified society. Using mannequins as analogs of the human population, the installation invites participants to surround themselves in a circle of inattention, such that they may feel alone together.

Dr. Hyas Balze Boardwalk Soul Exchange

from: San Diego, CA
year: 2015

Deep in the back alleys of the carnival midway, the flickering lights of a forgotten marquee beckon you. A hooded figure calls to you, offering you tokens in exchange for a glimpse at your soul. Just beyond, behind the curtains, the colorful games appeal to your sense of whimsy and excitement, and all it takes to play is for you to weigh your soul. Will you place a token on the scales and join the dark merriment?

Dr. Thelonious D. RUM Medicinal Thump Thump Magical Healing Excursion

from: Harrisville, NY (Adirondacks)
year: 2015

Dr. Thelonious and his family of Vagabonds each with peerless pedigree, through the use of rhythm making bait, captivate and inspire the clever and naïve.

Trawling the crowds, mesmerizing and enticing chumps and marks with peculiar oddities found, burners vie through games of chance for the opportunity to express their “unearthing” as they build their drum.

All candidates are gifted with carny totems and icons; only the courageous stay and build, those perennial souls who hurl themselves into the unknown of their personal darkness and light.

This installation is a vehicle whereby intimate interactions are cultivated while supporting the burner making their own art on site. Ideally, this art is vital and poignant, illustrating the journey towards what lies beyond the mask with each drum being a personal canvas. Capitalizing on the “immediacy of the interaction” and the “possibility within the moment,” the facilitation team acts as lead, rudder, usher and guide as both move towards their mutual unmasking.

Dragon Masters Presents "Wicked Art Piazza"

from: Oroville, CA
year: 2015

The Wicked Art Piazza is where we invite Burners to see Claude the fire breathing dragon and other fun interactive sculptures.

Dragon Smelter

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

The Dragon Smelter was originally designed and constructed by artists Daniel Macchiarini and Moises Luarte for the 2000 Burning Man event and has been used at various Burning Man events since. Its primary function is to promote recycling by facilitating limited art in action smelting and casting production events using recycled aluminum cans. The Dragon Smelter itself is a kinetic piece of sculpture which is made up of 60% recycled materials. It contains a propane-powered reduction furnace for the aluminum melting, has a rotation causable for safely pouring it into sand molds which contain designs by the artist and participants who learn to make casting molds through artist workshops. The Dragon Smelter also has fire effects which blow fire out the mouth and tail sections overhead.

DREAM

by: Jeff Schomberg and Laura Kimpton
from: Reno, NV
year: 2015

DREAM is a 12 foot tall steel sculpture that will be a gathering place and land mark for the citizens of black rock city.

Dreamland

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

Inspired by the wonder of childhood carnival rides, Dreamland is an immersive and interactive environment that encapsulates the energy of the Carnival of Mirrors. A whimsical experience of vivid colors, dazzling light and flame transport participants to the world of spectacle and the carnivalesque. Dreamland evokes not only the carnival of our collective memory, but that of our dreams: a fantastical space that stretches and warps our perspective, and shimmers and glows at the edges of our consciousness. Tranquility envelops us as we step into its shadows. It exists as a reverie–its leisurely intoxication punctuated by ecstatic pandemonium when submerged in its interior.

El Diabla

by: Crimson Rose and Iron Monkeys
from: Seattle, WA
year: 2015

On the first Monday of the event, Crimson Rose extracts a flame from the sun to light a fire in El Diabla, a special cauldron located in Center Camp. For the flame to continue burning it must be stoked, disturbed and kept alive throughout the entire week. On Saturday evening, fire is transferred from El Diabla to the Luminferrous, and processed to the Great Circle and shared with the Fire Conclave before the Man is released in pyrotechnic delight.

EMPIRE

from: Oakland, CA
year: 2015

Project EMPIRE intended to explore our tiny corner of the solar system in a secret interplanetary mission. Instead, these travelers, not tourists, ended up traversing the wondrous universe and are finally able to come home with the help of alien technology. The vehicle that arrives is equal parts sculpture and performance art.

Endless Prospect of Life and Wonder Biodiversity Sphere

from: Albuquerque, NM
year: 2015

The Endless Prospect of Life and Wonder Biodiversity Sphere is a 60-inch fire pit featuring over 35 endangered species as well as scientific information, both cut in and expanded out from the sphere. Mallets allow one to play music, or noise, on the sphere. Reference board provides information for learning and the chance for burners to write their thoughts. Lit by fire and/or bright LED lights. An excellent photographic opportunity!

epiCurious

year: 2015

A simple desk and chair surrounded by quietness. It seems so out of place, yet so inviting. What is that on the desk? A box of curiosities. Why are you so curious?

Equanemone

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

Equanemone is an interactive, immersive, volumetric (true-3D) LED display. An array of tentacles hang from a ceiling, each containing RGB LEDs controlled by a central computer. Participants wander through these tentacles as if clownfish in a sea anemone, immersed in a three-dimensional world of light and color.

Equanemone features interactive light shows developed by talented programmers from the larger Burning Man community. All software and hardware is open-source; anyone can participate in making the art.

Some of the patterns on display:
– Music from MIDI instruments (keyboard, drums) visualized in realtime splashes of color
– Dazzling video projected into the 3D space
– Fish navigating a virtual fishbowl
– Participants stand inside a star field, accelerating to warp speed
– Lights move at the participant’s command when they wave a hand over a special controller
– What’s it like to be inside a lava lamp anyway?
– Fire, rain, and so much more!

Exposure Enclosure

year: 2015

This project, both a sculpture and a structure, explores wood joinery and tensegrity. Made of several bent plywood ribs it is an open ovoid volume. Minor riblets nest within each major rib. The ribs and riblets interlock with the use of a mortise and tenon joint system, this allows the riblets to pivot. Light, shadow and shape are in flux with new arrangements of the riblets.

FaIRE Hockey

from: Toronto, Canada
year: 2015

(Part of Charnival). For those who like fire, air hockey, and music this is a chance to combine all three. Players will get to shoot the puck around on a Reubens table. Center ice will be on fire, so players are strongly encouraged to keep their hands on their side of the table.

Fire Helix

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

Fire Helix is a 12′ tall rotating double helix made of aluminum with flame poofers located at dna nodes firing parallel with the ground. Control pads that surround the piece allow participants to fire the poofers causing the helix to spin.

The double helix is the building block of life. Fire is one of the building blocks of civilization. Together we believe there is an elegant mix of meaning that draws the mind to the ephemeral questions of what brought us here and what will we do with the fantastic tools and opportunity we find ourselves surrounded by.

There is something about fire in motion that captivates us in both mind and spirit. The moment becomes everything and we lose ourselves in the purity of the now. As the mind unwinds in this state we often have realizations that only occur when everything else fades into the background. This simple captivating experience is what Fire Helix embodies.

Fire Kettle

from: Denver, CO
year: 2015

A hammered copper basin that is full of sand. When the sand is lit, it burns in the valleys, as if fire follows one’s fingers. The fire burns in pulses, like lightning strikes made of fire.

Fire Tetris

from: Montréal, QB, Canada
year: 2015

Fire Tetris will blow the minds of participants with flaming edge technology and razor sharp gameplay. The classic video game tetris is played on a board blown up to epic proportions. Each square of the board is a steel box open at the front, creating a grid. The tetris pieces descending down this metal grid are rendered in flame, courtesy of 200 flame effect heads.

In addition to the traditional single player mode, Fire Tetris can be played with four participants in multiplayer mode. Each player controls one aspect of the piece’s movement: left, right, rotate, and drop. While video games can be an isolating pursuit, this dramatic, highly visible metal monolith encourages cooperative play as well as appreciation from a larger audience while participants ANNIHILATE BLOCKS WITH FIRE.

Firmament

from: Oakland, CA
year: 2015

A vast, star-shaped, domed ceiling of lights and motion. Moving images of shooting stars, Hubble photos, aurora borealis, and various visions of heaven are depicted by 21,000 LEDs hanging 10-15’ above the ground. Find the hidden camera in the middle to add your face to the mix.

Flack in the Box

from: Boston, MA
year: 2015

(Part of Charnival) Crank the knob, the flack will bob; immolate the grinning yob.

Flaming Hookers

from: Scarborough, ME
year: 2015

(Part of Charnival.) Flaming Hookers is a 12-foot-tall flaming ring-toss game that encourages participants to get hookin’.

Flow And Wonder

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

Flow And Wonder is 8 feet tall wooden sculpture in the shape of a tree, covered with 800 RGB LEDs. Around the structure, 4 stands with hand motion sensors translate the hand gestures from the participants into patterns of light flowing from the roots of the tree all the way to the branches.

At most 4 participants can interact with the installation at the same time, leading to interesting effects as they synchronize their movements.

It is meant to be a beautiful, colorful installation that inspires a sense of awe and wonder.

Fly by

from: Reno, NV
year: 2015

Team Peter Hazel Mosaics has created a 16ft tall Manta Ray sculpture. Composed of recycled glass, stained glass and metal. The light will reflect beautifully through it during the day time and it will leave a colorful shadow on the desert ground. At night it will be lit from multiple locations around the base of the sculpture so that the sky above it will appear to have a halo of color surrounding it, calling to burners to come and interact with it.

FoxCarn & the Betel Store

from: Taiwan and China
year: 2015

Race against the robot overlord of the Chinese factory floor. Win demonically sexy Taiwanese treats and perils in the betelnut booth. This is a parody of Foxconn, the Taiwanese-owned manufacturer of iPhones, both villain/hero of our consumer society. The betelnut beauty, unique to Taiwan, is a provocatively dressed woman vending legal stimulants in neon-lit booths on the roadside. Evocative of the carnival peep show, she is also a lightning rod for debate about gendered labor.

FoxCarn lets burners experience both forms of capitalist exploitation. They enter for a chance to outrun the robot overlord through the factory floor obstacle course, performing menial tasks like putting stickers onto goods, assembling tangrams, taking naps. If they win, they can “escape” to the betelnut booth, where they must use their bodies to create desire for the goods they just made. Manufacturing, commerce, consumption, exploitation, and spectacle coalesce into a garish temple to modern consumerist society!

Fractal Expansion

from: Invermere, BC CANADA
year: 2015

A rotating, expanding and contracting geometric matrix, Fractal Expansion is the structure of Space-Time. It is the flower of life brought into 3dimensional space. By understanding this structure, one can understand the way in which all things expand and collapse. Consisting of 8 star tetrahedron, Fractal Expansion can show the radiative side of nature and when collapsed into the 64isotropic vector matrix it reveals the contractive side of nature. The ying and the yang. This structure has perfect symmetry from all angles.

Francis the Fantastic

from: Toronto, Canada
year: 2015

(Part of Charnival). Francis the Fantastic is an interactive fortune teller. Participants can scry on his crystal ball to earn a fragment of his wisdom – and a display of his fiery power!

Gateway of Inner Light

from: Carbondale, CO
year: 2015

Gate of Inner Light is a “gateless” gate that allows the viewer to walk through and fine oneself’s inner light.

Giant Kaleidoscope

from: Richmond Hill, ON, Canada
year: 2015

The giant Kaleidoscope is a re-imagining of the classic childhood toy. Traditionally, a kaleidoscope is a triangular prism, comprised of mirrors with loose beads or pieces of glass held at the end opposite the eye hole. When rotated, the moving pieces create colourful patterns with an effect that is absolutely mesmerizing. Our intention is to give the viewer that same feeling of awe, as when they first looked through that tiny eyehole as a child.

This kaleidoscope has been scaled up to eleven feet long and the colourful beads have been replaced with colourful humans. The scope manually rotates within a cradle at a height people can easily look through and even climb inside. Lights around the openings frame the image, accentuating the triangulated pattern and provide a brilliant invitation to explore. Everyone becomes an integral part of the interactive experience – Voyeurs become participants and the adventurous become part of the world within.

Glazier's Gate

from: Paso Robles, CA
year: 2015

The concept for this piece is to take the traditionally exclusive, elite, and delicate medium of a stained glass window and translate it into an outdoor, widely accessible piece using only materials such as plywood, cement, paint pigment and mirror. To take something mostly associated with religion and indoor churches, and evolve it into something to be celebrated for everyone who wanders by, while still maintaining the essence of intricacy, self-reflection, and community gathering traditional to the medium.

This evolution also opens up a world of tactile interaction that was previously unaccessible with stained glass windows for fear of shattering and destroying the art. The piece at its core is a delicately-patterned piece of art that can be safely experienced hands-on and visually via distorted reflections from mirror pieces.

The structure resembles an archway from certain angles and colorful reflective spokes coming out of the playa from others.

Got Framed

from: Los Angeles, CA
year: 2015

Got Framed is an inviting, playful and highly interactive art piece that supports and promotes community participation, encouraging passersby to BE THE ART. Step up, climb on, take a photograph, ‘monkey around’, change the image, and invite others to join in. Have fun interacting with a large scale art piece and make a memory to take with you!

The interactivity inside is designed to be discovered. Solar powered, touch sensitive pads will be placed throughout the frame. As people interact with the frame, the sound and lighting activate, encouraging contact, imagination and exploration.

This piece is in honor of my Abuela, Rosamelia, and is an opportunity to acknowledge the incredible support that I am so grateful to have had growing up and to pass it on. To inspire self expression, to call up the performer, the artist, the brown sheep and the nut. I imagine the joy that will happen as a result of Got Framed to be a mirror of her gifts to us.

Hall of Mirrors Arcade

from: Gaithersburg, MD
year: 2015

Larger-than-life sized arcade pieces (Giant Pinball, Foosball Reimagined, Jumbo Pachinko) , each with beautiful themed artwork by artists from the DC and Baltimore Burner communities. Tons of cooperative play and interactivity!

Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow

from: Mountain View, CA
year: 2015

Silicon Valley has long been heralded as the epicenter of technological innovation. They are the creators of the Internet, the keepers of the Google search, the denizens of Twitter. And because of them, no longer do questions go unanswered. Whenever someone wants to know who that guy was in that movie, or how that magic trick was really done, the answer is a few keystrokes away. That air of mystery has vanished from the world, replaced with the oversaturation of easily accessible information.

The South Bay Burners seek to restore that magic and mystery with Hare Today, Gone Tomorrow. A top hat, long forgotten by the desert, provides refuge for those clever enough to unlock its secrets.

Hell Blazer

from: Toronto, ON
year: 2015

(Part of Charnival.) Hell Blazer the fire infused strength tester Charnival game. An eight foot pitch fork hand crafted by the devil for Earthly access to Hell Fire. This pitchfork spits fire when a human tests their strength to activate LEDs and blasts high above the Playa.

House of Lights: Maze of Wonders

from: Arcata, CA
year: 2015

“House of Lights: Maze of Wonders” is an interactive fun & quirky take on this years theme. Visually this will be a treat to burners who venture out deep playa. Participants will be able to spot the installation from far away as a bright glimmering light and as they make their trek out to deep playa the maze will begin to materialize out of thin air & suddenly they will be confronted with with a dazzling house of lights. This Maze of wonders will be a treat to the eyes, the color combinations and depth the lit up walkways, helium balloons and the 20’x20′ back-lit centerpiece theater are sure to amaze carnival goers! The theater in the center will be showcasing a fine selection of classic era carnival flicks along with a random dash of psychedelic projections. But before being able to rest to watch a flick with their burner buddies or bunnies House of light attendees must first decipher their way into the center piece and it will be not be an easy feat for those who lack the patience..

Humanity as a Hole

by: Wholly Humans
from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

The Whole of Humanity is a library out in the open playa. It’s a quiet space to reflect, facing the vast space of the desert.

The library is stocked with second hand books, donated by other burners who found them meaningful and who want to inspire someone’s journey.

There are also themed empty notebooks. Citizens are invited to write in these and share their human experience.

HYBYCOZO - Deep Thought

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.” – Douglas Adams

I guess we must have discovered it! Because for this year’s HYBYCOZO we are building something even more bizarre and sublime. Deep Thought, the centerpiece of this year’s construction zone, will take the form of a triambic icosahedron. A what?! A shape made of 60 gold filigree panels which will cast colorful shadows far and wide onto the playa. Within Deep Thought, a place for contemplation about life, the universe and everything, is where you will find yourself completely immersed in an interwoven patterns of geometry and light. On the outside, forming an arc, other golden polyhedrons will be placed to create a grounds for a mesmerizing cosmic zoo, community zone, and a collective zooooooom.

Identity Awareness

from: Sammmamish, WA
year: 2015

Who are you? What mask has society put on you that you continue to wear? Did you put it there? The world continues to tell us how to dress, what to eat, what to think and who to be at war with. What is worse than all those things is having others choose our identity.

Illumacanth

from: Oakland, CA
year: 2015

The Illumacanth is a massive fishy monster surging up from the ground, with mouth agape and brain alight. Its dark, deeply textured exterior surrounds a bright, reflective interior, into which one may venture through its toothy jaws. Elevated over its open head is a halo of silver bird-fish which dance and spin. Flame effects and undulating lights enliven this mysterious beast, and invite the participant to rest on its fins, gather inside, and sneak through its gills. The Illumacanth is a free-standing, interactive sculptural installation made primarily of metal. It provides seating and gathering space, and features flame and light effects as well as kinetic elements.

In-Sight Out

from: Prague, Czech Republic
year: 2015

When he comes near the tent, it attracts him with flashing arrow “In-Sight Out. Come, if you dare.”

There he sees a sign with a challenge: “Come alone or with a few friends. Take a trip into your soul.”

Then he walks into the tent to see that it is almost empty, except for a few paintings in the shadows. It is dark in there, he can barely see. But just enough to find his way to one of the paintings. Then the faint light quenched. He sees the scene there:

A man who craves power so much, that he sacrifices the lives of others. He sees that this man is him, it has his face. It’s part of he who craves power much more than looking after others.
He goes further and sees another scene. Again illuminated with another faint light. He sees himself covered in luxury furs, and a horrible death of many animals.

After a few minutes and more paintings, he finally comes out. Outside of the waxworks of the human soul. His soul.

Everyone carries demons. It is up to us if we give them life.

Include the Cleu

year: 2015

Include the Cleu seeks to provide a moment to fully experience what it means to be a conscious being on planet Earth. The labyrinth provides a contemplative experience on the playa, a special place where participants can take as long as they like to walk individually or with others on the intertwining circular paths representing the miraculous synchronicities of Consciousness, Life, Earth, Universe. The swirling colors and sounds of the playa just beyond the colorful paths and flags of the labyrinth make a backdrop for the fascinating panoply of creativity on the playa. Within the labyrinth, participants find a calm center, a space for musing and meditation, or a peaceful moment of At-Onement. In a magical box at the base of a large Cleu, participants may find a clue to their own lives or even be led to CleuCamp where they can get a Cleu brainwashing and copper Cleu pendant. Like the rube at a carnival, Include the Cleu simply offers a fresh perspective, inspiring wonder and delight.

Infinite Community

from: Los Angeles, CA
year: 2015

Infinite Community is the Los Angeles Burning Man Midway art project for the Carnival of Mirrors. Six of Matt Elson’s Infinity boxes will be placed in the Midway for interactive transformational experiences.

Inflection

from: Shoreline, WA
year: 2015

Inflection is a suspension bridge. It goes nowhere, but the goal is the journey, not the destination. It is a hanging challenge with a literal twist; a problem which exists only to be overcome. The traveler will experience an easy ramp, a gentle glide onto the bridge, followed by wicked curves and a pointlessly difficult bend in the middle. The translation across the twist signals a transformation in the challenge, the point at which the journey’s end is in sight. Lights adorn the structure and pieces underneath the bridge, allowing for quiet reflection.

Inner Reflection: The Chapel of Meditation

year: 2015

Chapel of meditation and inner reflection for all. A black cube with arched openings in each vertical face aligned to the cardinal directions. Inside is a white rotunda with alcoves in each corner holding sculptures representing a variety of cultures/religions. In the center is a pendulum stylus that will incise patterns in a Zen garden. During scheduled times, the garden will be active with propane fed fire trails.

InnerSpace Chakra Lighthouse High Witness Tower

from: Malibu, CA
year: 2015

InnerSpace Chakra Lighthouse High Witness Tower will be available to all who explore the deep reaches of the playa and the deep reaches of their consciousness. A high witness tower was created on Black Rock Desert to allow individuals a place to rise above the sources of confusion on the ground and in their mind…
an inner space lighthouse for the seekers to look inward while looking outward, a place to integrate their experiences to gain a more profound understanding of the journey.

Interstellar Emissary

from: Los Angeles, CA
year: 2015

Interstellar Emissary is a beacon in the night for space travelers: a brightly lit disc visible in the night sky beyond the Man and the Temple. As visitors approach, they see that the disc is a form familiar to many, a message to spacefaring civilizations. The Emissary includes real messages sent into interstellar space, which may be intercepted by distant civilizations thousands of years hence. It is also the portal to the Black Rock Observatory.

Journey Into The Mind of the Man

from: New York, NY
year: 2015

See what he sees,
Hear what he hears,
Modern technology has allowed us travel on a fantastic voyage into the very eyes, ears and mind of the Man.
No telling what you will find inside…

Kinetic Forest

from: Reno, NV
year: 2015

Kinetic Forest is a wind sculpture consisting of six horizontally oriented paddle wheels mounted on tall poles. The paddle wheels come in three sizes, two at 146” in diameter, two at 116” in diameter, and two at 92” in diameter. The pole come in three heights, with the smallest paddlewheels being mounted on the tallest poles and the largest paddle wheels being mounted on the shortest poles. This height and size arrangement takes advantage of an old Hollywood move trick called “forced perspective” and gives the illusion of a great deal of height separation. Burners attending the event occasionally need a place to relax and contemplate. This sculpture with its gentle overhead motion, and kaleidoscopic dance of light and shadow, will provide Burners with such a place.

King of Fun

from: Portland, OR
year: 2015

The King of Fun is meant to be an individual interactive experience tailored to the specific user. Using a pulse sensor the person currently interacting with the piece places their hand on the sensor. While reading their pulse the machine lights up around the King inside to the rhythm of their pulse, making the experience unique to the participant. While reading the pulse the King begins to shake his instrument of fun, a Martini shaker, while he contemplates their fortune. After 30 seconds the King speaks his words of wisdom and the participant is presented with a quest dispensed from lower in the machine that will challenge them to perform a specific task or quest that will send them on their playa journey. We believe that while giving a fortune would tell them WHAT will happen, sending them on a quest sends them somewhere to MAKE something happen. They become participants in the Black Rock City experience rather than spectators.

Krewe of the Dusty Playa

from: Mandeville, LA
year: 2015

On the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina founding of Burners Without Borders, the Krewe of the Dusty Playa presents a Mardi Gras-style float that offers a humorous critique of our two homes, New Orleans and Black Rock City. The symbols of the gentrification of NOLA neighborhoods that have survived both time and storm will be juxtaposed with the plug and play camps that are at the center of so much discussion in the Burner community.
A large, colorful, papier-mâché, jester’s head created in the style of the Krewe of Rex will adorn the prow of a Mardi Gras float. The structure will be like a griffin, but instead of the head of an eagle and the body of a lion, the float will have the head of a jester and a body of a travel trailer.
Made using traditional New Orleans papier-mâché float construction, the float will be constructed using many of the same techniques, materials and by the same artists that carry on the tradition of Mardi Gras as members of New Orlean’s Krewe du Vieux.

Laffing Sal

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

Laffing Sal is a replica of an iconic automated character that was built during the 1920s. Her primary role was to attract carnival and amusement park patrons to funhouses and dark rides throughout the United States. She is accompanied by a raucous and rowdy laugh and is twice as large as the original.

Last Flamethrower

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

(Part of Charnival) An awesome opportunity to engage directly, personally, and intensely with the elemental power of Fire.

Participants at the Last Flamethrower are escorted by the crew within a fenced zone and gifted with control of a major piece of heavy metal: An imposing device that projects a stream of burning gasoline into a garden of sculpture, making the various targets come alive with fire and light.

The Last Flamethrower is a part of the Charnival collection of interactive fire arts and games and is guaranteed to fill the darkness with heat and light.

At the Last Flamethrower participants have a unique and unforgettable chance to explore their personal interactions with power, fire, and all around bad-assery. It is an experience not to be missed.

Latent Light: Shadow Mirror

from: Santa Clara, CA
year: 2015

Shadow Mirror creates the experience of a person separating from their shadow as they move in opposite directions through a plane of light. It does this using a moving canvas of glow-in-the-dark fabric and a vertical beam of light from a blacklight tube. This art is best experienced at night. It is part of the series Latent Light, which explores the interaction of light, motion, and time.

Life Cube Project

from: Dobbs Ferry, NY
year: 2015

The Life Cube is an engaging, interactive, art-driven environment for the expression of goals, dreams, wishes, and aspirations. Citizens of BRC inscribe their thoughts on message-walls and on wish-stick postcards deposited into the Cube. In the spectacular finale, the Cube and all the wishes are burned and sent out together into the universe. The Life Cube features a 24’ high architectural design with stairs, pillars, mirrors, posts, and high places inviting Playa visitors to walk through, climb, hang-out, touch and interact. The community can express themselves on write-boards, contribute to the tapestry wall, and watch painters creating collaborative murals all week long. At night the cube takes on new life with spectacular lighting that enhances the drama: wall-washers, spots, strobes, lasers, and psychedelic lights add brilliant color that changes interior rooms and spaces, sending rainbows across the dark Playa landscape and illuminating the art and people around the Cube.

Lightstriker Trial of Strength

from: Saugerties, NY
year: 2015

The Light Striker Trial of Strength project is primarily inspired by the high striker game, which is most common to the circus sideshow and carnival setting. The Light Strikers will stand at an imposing but approachable 10 feet tall and will vary in form. Lighting will be embedded into the forms on hierarchical levels activated through the main track of the striker. The ball struck by the force of the lever will trigger switches to these lights, so that if the ball is struck to the top of the Light Striker then all the lighting on the form will be activated.
The main interactive component is the high striker mechanism. Attention is focused on the person wielding the hammer, and the blow that lands causes an primal spike of energy which emanates upwards and outwards. The goal of the Trials is to create a shared space of luminosity and exuberance on the playa. This would create a harmonizing space where and people can share these experiences and also forge new friendships.

Lil Al

from: New Orleans, LA
year: 2015

Lil Al is a A 60′ long roaring wooden alligator effigy and symbol of the NOLA burners coming together as a community. It’s a group effort that raises awareness of our love for each other, Mardi Gras, and Burning Man. The first rendition of this art was created to represent our spirit at the T-Bois Blues Festival in Larose, Louisiana about an hour south of New Orleans on a family owned alligator farm. This installation is the embodiment of how Burning Man can bring so many wonderful people together like family and encourage them to drive a giant lizard 2,000 miles across the country just to watch it burn among friends.

Little House on the Playa

by: Moral Turgeman, RAISE THE MORAL
from: Los Angeles, CA
year: 2015

The Little House on the Playa is a cabin like structure covered in mirrors. It is a place to dive into different perspectives of ourselves and our surroundings. Look for the unconventional entry and discover binaural beat sound therapy, a suspended heart sculpture and a crystal lit shrine. Home is where the heart is. Access the home within you.

Loquacious and Lovely

from: Kingston, NY
year: 2015

Two majestic unicorns, Loquacious and Lovely, face each other inviting participants to sit upon them. Brought to life by the riders’ rocking motion and voices of passersby, the unicorns begin their conversation. From idle babble to intimate gossip, no topic is spared as the unicorns discuss it all.

LOVE

from: Odessa, Ukraine
year: 2015

LOVE is a sculpture by Alexandr Milov. It demonstrates a conflict between a man and a woman as well as the outer and inner expression of human nature. The figures of the protagonists are made in the form of big metal cages, where their inner selves are captivated. Their inner selves are executed in the form of transparent children , who are holding out their hands through the grating. As it’s getting dark (night falls) the children chart to shine. This shining is a symbol of purity and sincerity that brings people together and gives a chance of making up when the dark time arrives.

LOVE ILLUMINARIUM

from: Emeryville, CA
year: 2015

Come Discover A Shining LOVE Beacon In The Darkness.

The Lucky Will Discover This Love Oasis In the Desert.

The Courageous Will Pass Through The Mystic Portal.

Into A Magical World of Wonder & Amazement.

Enter The Inner Sanctum of the Heart of Love & Light.

Be Immerssed In A One Of A Kind Experience.

Your Heart & Spirit Will Be Blessed By Cosmic Rainbows.

Inspiration & Transformation Await the Weary Traveller.

Love Tester

from: Berkeley, CA
year: 2015

Burning Man is a sexualized environment where participants try to channel their intentions and extinguish their frustrations. “Love Tester” challenges participants to harness a meditative state amidst the sensory overload of our physical environment, and calls into question the sexual vs spiritual aspects of love which are often obscured by desire.

It is said Kundalini, a snake, lies coiled at the base of the spine, close to the sexual organs. Traditions of Tantra claim that meditation can clear blockages at each “chakra”, thus permitting Kundalini to rise up the spine to the crown of the head.

This piece is inspired by the vintage arcade cabinet, “Love Tester”, where a grip is squeezed, causing a stack of rainbow light bulbs to rise, to a level supposedly indicating one’s aptitude as a lover. Rather than trying to raise the lights toward Kundalini and enlightenment, participants will try to extinguish the lights, top-down, in an attempt to quell their desires and quieten their mind.

Lumiphonic Creature Choir

from: New York, NY
year: 2015

The Lumiphonic Creature Choir is a giant twelve-headed creature by Synarcade Audio-Visuals that people can directly play and interact with.

By jumping onto different floor pads, Burning Man attendees can personally make each of the twelve audio-visual heads sing, beat-box or recite fragments of prose.

Part digital, part sculptural, part mystical, the work is a strange futuristic oracle that comes alive at night… pronouncing strange destinies to decipher and unravel!

Synarcade Audio-Visuals is interested in presenting a deeply interactive work that whilst being futuristic and showcasing the latest in cutting-edge technology is still startlingly human. The Lumiphonic Creature Choir literally showcases the human face and the human voice in all its strange wonder and allows the playa audience to become 21st century storytellers, remixing phrases and sentences from the Creatures into new narratives of their own.

Create thyself.

http://www.synarcade.com.au/lumiphonic.html

LunaCity Arcs

by: Humans Out Of Place
from: Vancouver, Canada
year: 2015

LunaCity is a 3 tiered arc of stairways and ladders to the moon. The sculpture culminates to an interactive moon chair sitting high in the clouds .

Lutrix II

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

Lutrix II is a monolithic structure, four faces of procedurally animated, evolving light. Complexity arises from algorithmic patterns that animate color and shape across the faces of the cube, undulating with subtle variations over time.

Macabre Penny Arcade

from: Baltimore, MD
year: 2015

Baltimore’s Edgar Allan Poe themed penny arcade brings forth an era of the Carnival Midways of the past to the present. It is a place of interactive fun and spectacle; an asylum of playfulness, mysticism, arcana, and swinging pendulums.

Madelena the Mer-Pony

by: Quill Hyde
from: Tonasket, WA
year: 2015

A mer-pony on land, and slightly uncomfortable about it – symbolizing the tension that comes from being caught between two worlds. Meant to inspire that certain feeling! A fish out of water, a horse in the sea.

Mangueira

by: Daniel Strickland, Brazilian Burners
year: 2015

Considering Burning Man’s 2015 theme “Carnival of Mirrors”, we decided to design a project to work with the idea of transparency, reflection and the energy exchange every participant can have with the piece.

The idea is to naturally bring different ways of interaction with the piece, considering that its structure swivels around the body and it consist of tunnels filled with water. When in motion, it gives us a sensorial illusion that messes up with our labyrinth making each experience personal and unique.

The objective of the installation is to face the unexpected, its about recreating itself through the presence of each interaction.

“Mangueira” challenges us through sensorial illusions where you don’t expect much when you see it, but everything changes when you experience it. Its and individual or collective journey, you are free to chose.

Mars Molecule

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

These pieces playfully straddle in-between the mental and material realms resembling ancient artifacts of an advanced civilization with origins not necessarily earthly or human for that matter. There is sacred geometry existing throughout the structures, with surface patterning that could double as a symbolic language or hieroglyphs.
It’s meant to invoke in the observer a sense of our inner connectedness with a consciousness that seems to exist throughout the universe. The physical representation is of a clue, puzzle or mystery that points to the infinite story that started before us, and will continue long after us – like peeking through the keyhole into another place, time, or dimension, as if a portal had opened and this is what fell out.

Mazu Goddess of the Empty Sea

from: New Xishi City, Taiwan
year: 2015

You walk through the dust and heat of day, beyond the heart of the city, and from the haze before you emerges a shape that is both plant and place, flower and temple, both open and contained. No fence keeps you out, but one hundred and eight lanterns mark out the space, like a fairy ring in the forest, like the hundred and eight beads of the Buddhist rosary.

Through the archway you walk. Up the long, low steps, the muffled sound of your tread meets the familiar clunk of wood; the music of a seaside pier rises from the dust, invoking the sense of some long lost place where water once stretched out to kiss the horizon. Below, the improbable sounds of water and the briefest hints of ocean blue tickle the imagination. From above, eight dragons of fire and steel peer down, watching you, or look out into the distance, waiting.

And again, the thing that is neither quite plant nor place seems to hover at the edge of defining, the green rooftop like a lily pad, the great lotus rising up out of the dried mud and the memory of water, each petal big enough to sleep in, open out from this improbable tree, this pillar of memories.

Inside, past and present blend and dance together. Old rites and new technologies bring fresh form to venerable, ancient practices. There is hidden circuitry here: casting the moon blocks reveals the will of the gods in a panoply of color and light. The breath of dragons explodes outward in answer to prayer. The goddess herself has been known to appear, if the moment is right.

You leave the temple, clutching message and map, and the sound of music finds your ears. Drums, gongs and shouting voices emerge from fantastical shapes, finned and spiny, nautilus-headed dancers and demons with a thousand eyes walk out of the dust, beckoning you to join them. You wonder, for a moment, if you are in fact in a desert, or in the memories of an ancient ocean, seeing the dreams of the sea floor dancing past.

Mechateuthis

from: Elko, NV
year: 2015

Mechateuthis is a mechanical giant squid wriggling on the ocean floor. It’s many mechanical effects including arm and tentacle movement, eye movements, beak snapping, fin waving, and more, are controlled and powered by hand cranks to be turned by burning man participants. The piece is meant to show the strangeness and beauty of the natural world together with the fascinating mechanisms crafted by man.

Medieval Gogo

from: Crested Butte, CO
year: 2015

Medieval meets GoGo.
This 26 foot tall patina steel tripod hangs the cage of both.

MEDITAT3D

from: Santa Cruz, CA
year: 2015

-The sculpture designed by Lincoln Nunes and co-produced with Leif Aimes have a simple mapping projection system reacting with the audio of the ambient, the interaction can be created by small pieces of mirror and reflective paint, and using th projectors of our ARTCAR we gonna be able to do daily performances on the meditating MAN.

_the MEDITATING MAN reflect our state of meditation looking to all tha magic, he’s gonna be seating on the play looking to his young brother standing all week UP… the meditating man is a mirror of each one of us in the middle of so much natural beauty, of the place, of the people and of each one bring to there to be WATCHED!!!

Medusa Madness

from: Petaluma, CA
year: 2015

Medusa Madness. Dare to stare lest you be turned to stone.

Metaheart

from: Marshall, NC
year: 2015

METAHEART: a mirror-clad, 3D form that rises 23′ from the desert floor. With its 3 arching support arms, the heart motif can be recognized from any direction. In the center (the heart of the heart), dwells a geometric jungle gym, that rotates under human power, while the 3-tier base supports the structure with minimal
impact to the Playa (no holes!). METAHEART is about discovery. Exploration reveals different aspects of the geometry, as the shape appears to change depending on
the viewpoint. Interaction brings the sculpture to life, as its sub-powered heartbeat keeps pace with its rotating centerpiece. At night there is more to discovered.Computer-driven LEDs pulsate to the beat, and 3 red lasers, each at a 33 degree angle atop the sculpture, sweep in synchronization. A next level of audio-reactive
light shows is unlocked only by the proximity of a sufficiently loud art car.

Mirror Blaze

from: Toronto, Canada
year: 2015

(Part of Charnival). The Mirror Blaze is a hall of mirrors with a secret hidden inside: a single flame effect, shielded by quartz glass and two-way security mirrors. The effect fires intermittently, filling the maze with its reflections. Participants enter via an opening on one side of the maze, then feel their way through in near-darkness – the ground level will be lit with LEDs – punctuated with fire.

Mirrored Pendulum

from: Mill Valley, CA
year: 2015

a mesmerizing giant mirrored pendulum swings hypnotically by gravity.

MOiRE / MoRAY

from: Fountain Valley, CA
year: 2015

This project is an installation scale manifestation of the moire effect. Its pattern and visual porosity varies depending on one’s point of view in relation to the piece. The small shade structure is meant to be a safe place for BRC citizens to find shelter from the sun, wind, or dust.

The project is made almost entirely of robotically steam bent wood. Each strip of wood is unique and precisely steam bent by a robot to ensure nuanced variation.

Moisturizer

from: Neu-Ulm
year: 2015

Feeling dry? The Moisturizer will be surpringly refreshing.

Molotov et Immolato: Les Bouffons BrÌÈlant du Ciel

from: Brighton, MA
year: 2015

(Part of Charnival). Two nondescript, bulbous shapes rotate slowly & serenely around a central, illuminated tower. One drops, the other rises, at the top of its arc, fire illuminates surface cutouts revealing Immolato or Molotov, flaming apparitions of the restless Burning Clowns of the Night Sky.

One good, the other evil, both aspects of the human senses of humor & amusement. Things are funny that are bad & things are funny that are good. This strong cross-over is unique among the emotions. It is damn near inexplicable to understand why one thing is humorous for one group of people, but falls flat for another. Ponder the mysteries of the funny-bone while enjoying the visceral attrraction of fire in the sky above you.

Moth Box

from: Mill Valley, CA
year: 2015

Moth Box

multi-sensory environment

from: Tempe, AZ
year: 2015

Primordial Egg- Light, sound and space environment. Transport yourself.

Mutant Tivoli

from: Nordic Countries: Sweden / Denmark / Finland / Norway
year: 2015

A traveling circus from the nordic lands has arrived! The frozen north hides humor and horror and requires you to be resourceful to survive. To make it through the winter you must preserve your food, your thoughts, and your experiences but you never know what will come back out of the jar. Come to our Tivoli where you can play a game to make a change, and winning will cost you an arm or a leg.

Mutoscopes

from: Farmington, UT
year: 2015

Mutoscopes – Step back to the late 1800’s and early 1900’s and enjoy motion pictures before the advent of digital technology. These machines are often referred to as peep shows.

The images you see can be sped up or slowed down to create a visual effect that suits your viewing pleasure.

Reels changed daily at 9 Am, Noon and 9 PM.

Watch everything from dancing girls, entertaining skits, to naughty late night shows shown at the theme camp. There will be a total of 43 different reels to view. The images will be PG & PG-13 during the day. They will change to R, NC-17, & XXX after 9 PM.

MYSTICAL MIDWAY

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

Professor Grimaldi’s TENT OF MARVELS & MYSTICAL MIDWAY makes a command appearance at this year’s festival, called in from realms both STRANGE & MARVELOUS!
The Midway opens its gates to those who would peer into its mirrors and encounter its Characters.
Guest may SPIN FORTUNA’S WHEEL and discover their ALLIES.
A “Mythopoetic, Commedic Ritual Initiation’ awaits inside THE TENT OF MARVELS to those who would dare dive deeper into its mirror.
You may encounter such Midway Characters as:
PROFESSOR GRIMALDI: Who are you on The Mythic Stage?
LADY FORTUNA: How do you call upon the power of insight?
The DARK HARLEQUINS: How do you kill your own joy?
The SNAKEOIL SALESMAN: How are you fooling yourself and others?
The BLUE MYSTICS: How can you rewrite a better story? What inner Magic do you wish to share more of in the world?
Mr. NOBODY: What fear do you wish to release?
His HOLINESS SOCKANANDA: Do you wish to achieve SOCKHEAD?
ROYAL ORDER OF MYSTIC JESTERS: How are you or can you be of service to others?

Mythic Mirrors & Catalyst Cards

from: Berkeley, CA
year: 2015

A small but infinite playhouse of frames and mythic mirrors… where you can inquire and crystallize keys & gifts into the form of Catalyst Cards, get reflections from the Mythic Oracle, and capture your multi-dimentironal self in the Shape-Shifter Photo Studio. The Oracle reflects back our own dazzling beauty, our archetypes, allies, true essence, and our deepest desires, dreams, and inspirations. You walk away from this catalyst portal with not just an experience but a card to remind you or a whole deck of playing cards to make your whole adventure more mythical and interactive.

Neverwas Haul

from: Vallejo, CA
year: 2015

The Neverwas Haul is a 3-story Victorian house on wheels that is self-propelled by a motor driven from the ship’s wheel on the Command Deck. While riding the Haul, participants will be able to sit on the Lounge Deck or ride in the Engine Room to many of the art installations on the Playa. Participants are encouraged to tour the Haul while it is parked on the Playa or in our camp at 3 and G. The Haul is built from 75% recycled materials and has become the icon for the Steampunk movement and allows participants to go into a fantasy world where Victorian fashion and science fiction combine.

New Orleans Sunken City Sideshow

from: New Orleans, LA
year: 2015

Set in the middle of a bayou the backdrop from a long forgotten 10 in 1 Sideshow with entry arch framed by posters proclaiming assorted “freaks and oddities” presents a stage of assorted carnival acts, mischief and improvisational performances with something much more mysterious once you are lured into the inner sanctum

Oasis of Lodo

from: Piedmont, CA
year: 2015

The Oasis of Lodo is an interactive game board. Players walk across the surface of the board to play games such as Pong, and Breakout. Around the boxes are flags that create a space for the game board.

Opus

from: East Palo Alto, CA
year: 2015

Opus exhibits duality in form and function. It is a sculpture, and a piece of public art. It is also a climbing wall. Its base looks like a zigzag of straight lines and right angles then flows upward like bubbles in seltzer. Standing 8 feet tall, its whispered promise of the view from the top is hard to resist. Climbing it feels like the most natural thing to do.

OraculTang

from: Moscow, Russia
year: 2015

The human mind resembles a monkey – constantly moving, lightly hopping from one thought and emotion to another one, stopping for long at one issue and in brief at another. We absorb the information in the quantities we are unable to digest, we “play monkey”, share the information with other people in and out of place not always realizing the meaning of words.
Such is OraculTang – hairy anthropomorphous eager to have any talk about life, God, love, currency rates but mostly about the conflicts of a modern human, primarily about inner and outer freedom.
OraculTang is watching the audience acutely with his only eye reacting to their behavior, replying gesture to gesture, word to word. Its cage – covered with mirrors top to bottom – gives the impression of an endless abyss from which our oddish prophet is addressing us. The speech of the monkey first incoherent still reveals age-old wisdom.

Own Way

from: Moscow, Russia
year: 2015

OWN WAY is represented by five heavenward stairways. Each of them leads to a certain room, a destination unknown in the beginning.
Just as we start moving towards great objectives, our own stars, we never know where we would find ourselves. Will the result be foreseeable or will we face something absolutely unexpected? No one is able to answer this question in the beginning.
Intersecting, stairways form a pentagram, the most ancient and probably the most ambiguous symbol. On the way of the humanity its meaning was changing so frequently and so strongly that it seems that this symbol also participates in this cosmic masquerade with us.
A rainbow which connects the sky and the ground crowns the piece.

Papillon

from: Eagle, ID
year: 2015

Papillon.
Mosaic of mirrors reflecting a transformation to True Spirit.

Pavilion Gates

from: Oakland, CA
year: 2015

I have designed four gates as the entrances to the Pavilion at the base of the Man. These are inspired by the entrances that traditionally welcomed visitors to carnivals around the world, in which one enters by walking into the mouth of an enormous head. There are 4 entrances: one is an evil-curious devil, the other is a pop music nerd girl named Lulu, one is a tiger inspired by William Blake’s famous poem, and the last is a pair of elephants with sad eyes that ask you to “abandon all despair” was you enter (should you prefer not to walk into the mouth of a frightening figure).

Penny the Goose

from: Alameda, CA
year: 2015

Landing on the Black Rock Desert is a 12 foot tall Canada Goose. Her feathers reflect the sun by day and ground illumination at night. Feathers that are made up from shades of both Canadian and American pennies. The attraction is in being drawn in by the illusion of pennies being feathers.Landing on the Black Rock Desert is a 12 foot tall Canada Goose. Her feathers reflect the sun by day and ground illumination at night. Feathers that are made up from shades of both Canadian and American pennies. The attraction is in being drawn in by the illusion of pennies being feathers.
The year marks the return of this sculpture which made it’s debut in 2013 at Burning Man with only Canadian pennies on it’s back. This year, Penny has been redesigned and will have American pennies on it’s front side. A brighter and more effective light scheme will also be used this year.

Pentamonium

from: Issaquah, WA
year: 2015

Pentamonium is an interactive carillon with 5 harmonious bells in its belfry. It is made of tubular steel and recycled bicycle parts painted in a variety of colors. A 16 foot column, supported by 5 arched legs, is topped with a mirror encrusted whirligig. Each leg supports a mechanism which rings one of the 5 overhead bells. Each mechanism invites interaction and the 5 notes encourage collaboration.

Philly Phreak Show

from: Philadelphia, PA
year: 2015

The Philly Phreak show is a museum of Oddities and a Phreak Show celebrating strange artistry, one-of-a-kind talents and stories that connect us with our humanity. Curiosity will lure the audience into our tent of rarities. Cabinets will be filled with “specimens” and a variety of artifacts in a spooky Victorian inspired atmosphere. Nightly a museum curator, evil scientist, creepy clowns, etc. will greet guests to enter for intimate performances and games. Our regional inspiration is Philadelphia’s favorite strange medical collection, The Mutter Museum.

Pinball Machine

from: Wisconsin
year: 2015

You enter a zone where your identity is fluid. Who are you? Alive or dead, male or female, popular or isolated? It all can change.

Pinea Arbori

from: Las Vegas, NV
year: 2015

Pinea Arbori is a sculpture that investigates the energies in the brains of beings. In particular the piece is a representation of a pineal gland enclosed in a mutant brain like tree. The piece studies the energies of the brain and through the use of automation, a Tesla coil, the activation of the Pineal Gland and the opening of the Third Eye. Through this expression, Pinea Arbori is meant to generate conversation on the energies of the universe as well as those inside our own brains.

Playa Girl

from: Laguna Beach, CA
year: 2015

Playa Girl is hand carved from a recycled, laminated pine wood beam. The art on the pedestal stands 8 feet. With her hands over her head and her head high in the nude, she represents all that Burning Man stands for, freedom of expression, beauty, love and strength of each person to move forward in life, head high, reaching for their future.

Playa Playground

year: 2015

The BRCMA Playa Playground will give visitors at the airport a chance to unwind. Come fly the planes swinging from an 11′ tall see saw. Fullfill wingwalker dreams on a teeter totter airplane. Gallop away on a bouncing horse. Enjoy the excitment at this gateway to BRC.

Playaquarium

from: Silver City, NM
year: 2015

As one approaches Playaquarium, one sees a large school of fish on the bottom of a now dry lakebed. These are native fish to Black Rock City, 12000 years ago. There are shimmering mirrored columns flanking the fish giving the Burner a panoramic view of the school, but also transforming the playa. The mirrors compress the surrounding mountains, placing the playa in a different place or time.

At night as one gets near to the edge of the school bathed in ‘water light’ the fish at the edge glow brightly briefly and transmit their excitement to neighboring fish sequentially, giving the illusion of movement within the school.

Ploetry II

from: Palo Alto, CA
year: 2015

Ploetry – the Playa Poetry Project is bringing inspirational prose to the Playa – but not our words, YOURS! In 2014 “I Am But Wood” a poem written from the point of view of the Man, was carved from planks of wood, and hung from a backlit tower the shape of Black Rock City. This year it is joined by “The Temple of Promise”, a new “ploem” written from the point of view of the temple. Visitors are invited to sit and write their own prose with the provided paper, pens, and clipboards, and all submitted poems will appear on the Ploetry website and may also become next year’s ploem.

PlyFi Interactive Kiosk

from: Tucson, AZ
year: 2015

Our PlyFi Kiosk – the paintbrush of our art – is an iconic pyramid with a dish at the top. Unlike “Eye of Providence” on the Dollar Bill, ours is a four-sided tetrahedron, a basic component of network topology, each 6-foot vertex connected to the other three. This little teepee-like structure is a solar powered interactive web server that can function standalone, without access to the web.

Using the PlyFi Kiosk and their mobile device, participants will be able to send a message to the artists whose art they have been inspired by. Named pieces will be listed. These messages may be accompanied by a self-portrait. The artists will have a summary of the commentary of their audience, the selfies will be combined into a mosaic.

Thumbnails of individual participants will be assembled into a funhouse-mirror distorted view of the Man. Participants will be emailed a web address for viewing, downloading, and playing “Where’s Waldo?” so they can find themselves… again.

Polka Pig

from: Albany, OR
year: 2015

Polka Pig is a whimsical, interactive installation, wooden gear- driven with each of the 4 sides having an individual crank. Painted with black light paint and lit at night with black lights. Polka pig is on one side, crank-driven musical instruments on another. The third side has a show of hands, The fourth side a Geneva gear, and a rotating Pee Wee Herman is in the center of it all, leering or smiling – it’s up to interpretation.

Prairie Wind Chapel

from: Venice, CA
year: 2015

Excavated from a dust bowl near the border of Oklahoma and Saskatchewan, the Prairie Wind Chapel was once the heart of the roving town of Aeolia until a tornado wiped it all from the map. As the sole remaining structure of this ghost town, the chapel captures the pilgrims’ peculiar affinity for worshiping the wind and the beautiful mysteries this silent force creates on the open plain. Twin copper wind harps flank the canvas chapel, enticing lost travelers with a dreamy siren song. Towering over the altar is a 40 ft. steel windmill which pumps a Victorian reed organ and two wood and metal pipe organs. Evoking the melancholic demise of the wind worshiping Aeolians, modern pilgrims can play three wind-powered keyboards, filling the restored chapel with the ephemeral sounds of yesterday. The Prairie Wind Chapel welcomes all wayfarers with its songs!

Pyrokinesis

from: Toronto, Canada
year: 2015

(Part of Charnival). An eight headed flame effect connected to a wireless EEG sensor, visualizing your brain’s electric activity with fire.

R-Evolution

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

Constructed of steel rod and balls and covered in stainless steel mesh, with LED lighting effects, R-Evolution is a 48 foot tall sculpture of a woman, Deja Solis, standing firmly with both feet on the ground, eyes closed, arms open at her sides, palms forward, a peaceful expression- present.

The culmination of The Bliss Project, a series of three monumental sculptures of a woman, Deja Solis, expressing her humanity, R-Evolution like Bliss Dance and Truth is Beauty, is intended to demand a change in perspective… to be a catalyst for social change. She is intended to challenge the viewer to see past the sexual charge that has developed around the female body which has been used for power and control, to the human being. We hope to inspire men and women to take action to end violence against women, making room for women’s voices, thus allowing both women and men to live fully and thrive.

Redd on the Playa

from: Tucson, AZ
year: 2015

Fifty clay salmon fish rising from the playa floor – Is it a mirage or images from long ago?

Reef Pass: A Threshold Between Worlds

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

While walking in the desert, a light breeze picks up. Large fish hang from poles, float and oscillate in the wind while a strong and steady presence looms over: a 12 ft wide Manta Ray shades the playa from 10 ft above.

The Reef Pass is there for a minute, for an hour, to recharge, exchange and nourish us. Like the manta ray does at the pass, fixing itself in space and time, it replenishes itself as it faces the current. A divider between the worlds of the lagoon and the ocean, the reef pass is where all spirits meet.

At night, from the distance, a massive ray floats in mid air, lighting the surrounding area with its glow. The art takes life in an array of color with bright fish swinging in the wind. The spirits are well alive and a symbol of transition between worlds, the Manta guides you through the night.

Reflect

from: Las Vegas, NV
year: 2015

If you want to understand the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency, and vibration.-Tesla
The intention of this piece is a tribute to create awareness for suicide prevention. This is an abstract conceptual image of a giant tear drop frozen in the position at the point it impacts water. The peak of the structure reaches 20′ tall by 42′ wide in diameter.The scale represents the tears people left on earth shed when someone takes their own life.The drop combines with a snowflake, then creating dimensional angels to represent the unique individuality of each person.The octagon footprint creates a fungshui feeling.A rainbow of stairs surround the center tower, representing the peaks and valleys of life. Inside the portal entry is a chakra of color. Second story window seats can be climbed up on, to look out from a higher view.Music played inside will all be of a vibration of the 432 or 528hz frequency creating a vibrational healing chamber amplified with crystals.

Reflecting Pool

by: Michael Emery
from: Santa Cruz, CA
year: 2015

Reflecting pools are an architectural and landscape device used to encourage contemplation. Usually a pool of water reflects an architectural form. This installation reflects the playa ground, the sky, and any passing phenomenon including the passing Black Rock City participant.This installation encourages contemplation.

Reflection

from: London, England
year: 2015

Reflection presents this years burners with an intimate setting in which to share their inner most confessions, secrets and tales, with the option to do so both openly face to face, or retain the mystery of their identity by sharing with a stranger through the pavilions semi private screen.Created as a result of rigorous testing of origami the pavillion is made of eight Spiralhedrons mirrored along all axis in order to create the enclosing plywood form and subtly embody Burning Man’s theme ‘Carnival of Mirrors. By providing an interactive base for participation Reflection is never fully accomplished without the burners involvement. By sharing their stories, burners create a unique experience manifested through the ideals of trust and sharing, which facilitates a special bond between the burners. Upon its burning at the end of the festival, ‘Reflection’ becomes a resting place for the confessions, secrets and stories of its burners, allowing new bonds to be formed.

Reflections of a Fire Sprite

from: Telluride, CO
year: 2015

Reflections of a Fire Sprite is a steel/wood structure made to rise and fall while set on fire. This segmented piece will be kept under tension via a spring-loaded base. A hand ratcheting mechanism will be used to drop the sculpture to the ground as well as erect it from a pile of burning debris. The project will be re-clad in wood and set on fire each night.

Reflective Resonance

from: Oakland, CA
year: 2015

An interactive musical playground attracting participants from near and far with engaging instruments, resonating sound, and reflective surfaces. The instrument installation will have reflective plate gongs hung vertically over large resonating chambers that will be placed in a circular formation.

Rendezvous

from: San Anselmo, CA
year: 2015

Rendezvous is a Carnival Nouveau gathering place. This eight foot tall laser cut wood piece consists of five ornate panels which cast intricate shadows by day. At night, Rendezvous will come to life with a mosaic of light, creating an inviting scene of color and ambiance.

Riskee Ball

from: Toronto, Canada
year: 2015

The Charnival will be comprised of rides, games, and themed interactive installations designed to mimic Coney Island at the height of its popularity. Gates, decorative carnival elements, lights, and sounds will direct visitors in the heart of the Charnival where the vibrant ambiance is in full swing, spectacles abound at each turn, and the carnival as we know it finally lives up to its thrill‐seeking potential. The center of the Charnival will feature Riskee Ball, our bank of 10 fire‐erupting skee ball machines.
Although the Charnival is made up of more than a dozen different fire art projects, built by hundreds of people from across North America, it is intended to be experienced as one massive installation. All pieces within it will be united in one footprint, encircled by themed art, colour pennant flags, bright lights, bike racks, and a whole lot of flames.

Rube Awakening - Magic Bike Rack Transformation Station

from: Las Vegas, NV
year: 2015

Rube Awakening – Magic Bike Rack is a glowing beacon on which to park and lock your bike while magically liberating your inner rube. Spark the emergence of your true playa self when fantasy becomes reality and vice versa at the transformation station.
Libertate to Rube’s delight
Lock your bike by day or night.
Sound and light by which to wonder,
Don’t forget to check your number!

Sabellidae (Feather Duster)

year: 2015

Feather Duster is a large metal art representation of the magnificent little sea worms whose fan-shaped bodies protrude from tubes, capable of shooting solenoid-controlled puffs of fire into the night sky.

Sask Playa Odditorium

from: Saskatchewan, North Bay, Shanghai, Argentina
year: 2015

Come to the Sask Playa Oddirotium featuring the oddest and most exotic species from the Orient, South America, and North America. Refresh yourself with midnight tea, ancient skin remedies, and join us for our taxidermy animation courses (electricity not provided).

Sassie's Chuppah

year: 2015

A chuppah is a sacred shelter, a temporary home in the desert traditionally used in Jewish weddings. Traditionally the chuppah is open on all four sides to symbolize the hospitality of the home and the covering represents the presence of the divine over the people in its shelter. This chuppah’s covering is made from heirloom linens handed down from female ancestors.
This chuppah is a microcosm of Burning Man, an inclusive, welcoming temporary home for everyone.

Serpent Mother

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

The Serpent Mother is a 168′ long sculpture of a skeletal serpent, coiled around her egg. Propane fire runs down her spine, with 41 poofers erupting from the top of her gleaming vertebrae. Reaching 20’ in the air, her hydraulically-actuated head and jaws chomp at the sky.

The serpent is a highly kinetic, participant-controlled installation. Fire effects are a major interactive and sculptural element of the piece, controlled by pushing buttons located on the ribs. The audience is invited to direct her movements, using controls that move the head and jaws, effectively making each show a unique event created by the participants.

Twice every evening, the operator crew will perform methanol shows, shooting multi-colored flames 40′ in the air from the egg, illuminating the night sky.

Shade Nation

from: Northridge, CA
year: 2015

The deep playa provides. This shade structure gives the weary traveler a nice place to rest on their way to or from the city.

Shining Desert

from: London, England, Great Britain
year: 2015

The mirror shows the viewer future and past, present and awareness.

Shiva Wind Garden

from: Sacramento, CA
year: 2015

Shiva: The lord of destruction and the lord of creation. What will you leave behind ? what will you create? … In this sacred place.

Shock-a-Chakra

from: Boston, MA
year: 2015

Those in search for enlightenment in the dark will step into our tent of mystery to discover three aura meters with two sets of corresponding buttons/switches by their left and right sides. Each meter has an ascending order of color LEDs representing chakra points on the body. Players will compete with others in their race to light up all the chakras, by holding down the correct order of matching buttons, thereby triggering the corresponding chakra lights to turn on. The buttons will have an image/phrase that correlates to the respective chakra meaning, in some way… Some of the buttons might be tricks! We hope to reignite the true search for one’s own elightenment, chakra alignment and openness by guiding players towards their personal discovery, beyond traditional meditation, with satirical stimulation and tickling of their senses.

Shrine of the Man

year: 2015

10x10x16 shrine

laughing sal

Sideshow Sven and Professor Lena's Midway Spectacular

from: Minnesota
year: 2015

The Minnesota Midway booth, Sideshow Sven & Professor Lena’s Midway Spectacular, occupies a 20 x 24 foot booth in the Midway. It has several large props including an ice fishing game, fortune teller box, wheel of fortune, raised stage, photo cutout booth and mosquito circus. Participants are sporting Paul Bunyan inspired circus clothing, and the space has decorations to match.

Simon Fire Edition 2.0

from: Seattle, WA
year: 2015

Simon, Fire Edition 2.0 is inspired by the golden-age of arcade games. “Carnival of Mirrors” evokes the need for tests of skill: e.g. milk jug ball tossing and popping balloons with darts. Simon, as a memory game, is by definition a test of skill and meets the Principle of Radical Inclusion by being easily accessible by its basis as a childrens’ game. The principles of Interactivity and Immediacy are met by a flame effect game. That is, the sculpture is animated by Interactivity and rewards the participant with immediate gratification proportional to the interaction, setting up a virtuous cycle. What the original game lacks, this project delivers: a win-condition with lighting, sound and flame effect display. Bluntly, we feel that a game of Simon within the “Carnival of Mirrors” theme with a light, sound and flame effect display is a winning combination.

SLRT

from: Manhattan Beach, CA
year: 2015

This year’s project will be the sixth out on the perimeter phence past the Man and the Temple. Once again, BlinkingMan Camp (’97) will surprise visitors to the deep playa with a little something on the phence – Cameras this year. Each will be adorned with recycled and random items. The cameras themselves do not work – they were heading for a landfill. Friends adopted some of them and their point of creative view adds to the eclectic “yard art” nature of this project. Every camera has a unique theme with a hidden meaning! Perhaps you discover it or you connect your own meaning to enjoy the visit. The deep playa is a gem, the citizens of the city that visit are rewarded with views and sounds many accidentally eschew. Please take a photo with your personal favorite and send it to me. After the event I will include it in a slideshow to be shared with the community. SLRT, where you capture an image of one of Black Rock City’s special places.

Smoke n' Mirrors (A Fire Inside)

from: Carson City, NV
year: 2015

A familiar sculpture to Burners rises 30′ off the playa… A Libertyesque’ sculpture called “Hand of Order”. Familiar because the first attempt, only 10′ tall was attacked by arson in 2007, only to return to the playa in 2008 this time three times bigger and still in-progress, again in 2009 carved and finished and standing in a distinctive, rambling pedestal, more like a pyre.

The majestic sculpture becomes eerie, as flames begin slowly consuming her from INSIDE her chest until the flames roar! The hole gets bigger as the sculpture hollows from the passionate Fire Inside her! The fire is extinguished before the sculpture looses structure. Later the delicate char textures will be hardened in a special finishing process developed especially for this all new fire art form.

The curious playa artifact will be shared in default from Decomps to public showings as far and wide as possible!

Come, watch her burn, starting at sunset Tuesday night; or in the case of high winds, Wednesday, sunset…

SOUL REFUGE

from: Santa Clara, CA
year: 2015

Soul Refuge is a desert mirage. It appears to be a lone standing wall of an abandoned house that has fallen after a disaster. The house is in rubble. The house up close, is comprised of human souls that make up the mortar and stone. As the house crumbles, these spirits are set free. The piece conveys escape, release and regrowth. It’s a visual essay on the theme of entrapment and freedom. As we travel through human life, we are broken down and destroyed. This loss enables us to re-create ourselves so we can transform into different type of being. The wall is a bright green, patinaed by desert sun, and the figures will blossom out of the firmament to tell their own haunted stories.

The house is a place of security which is now lost. It’s haunted by the lives that have resided there. As the dwelling crumbles, the freed souls flee into the new haven of the desert which is its own trap. This cycle of human life is our constant quest for that one ‘Soul Refuge’. (sole refuge)

Soul Seat prototype

from: Kirkland, WA
year: 2015

Soul Seat is a reflective, communal gathering space intended to bring awareness to our own individuality and the point at which we no longer are individuals, but are actually part of the Whole, or Oneness. The three large buttressed fins rising out of the desert floor represent our body, our mind, and our spirit; these are the foundations for supporting a balanced individual.

Soup Flavored Blankets

from: Willmington, NC
year: 2015

Soup Flavored Blankets is dedicated to bringing warmth to the wanderers of deep playa.

Sparkade

from: Sacramento, CA
year: 2015

The Sacramento Sparkade is an attraction that is designed to bring people back to the hot, dusty, shady, arcade of the annual Carnival. When the lights went down, the carnival awoke. Carnies tantalized and promised, hemmed and hawed. “Passerby beware, but not over here!” was the promise. Behind the tents, the seedy and profane were flowing with ease for those that were willing to venture back. As participants approach the Sparkade the first thing they will notice is the Wheel of Misfortune Twister game wheel mounted to the informative and clearly labeled facade. As their eyes dart to the floor, the ominousness Twister pattern overtakes the entire floor space. Upon entering the stall, the participant will be drawn towards either the Self-Serve Selfie Station, Love Machine, Swag Glory Hole, or the Cock Ring Toss.

Spiritus Mortem

from: Reno, NV
year: 2015

Spiritus Mortem is the deserted temple of Raised By Wolves left in the depths of the deep reaches of Playa creating a beacon for wandering souls and fostering impromptu connection among unlikely strangers. Within it’s grotesque bone and scrap walls a fanciful magic awaits.

Star Tetrahedron

from: Ben Lomond, CA
year: 2015

this is a life size star tetrahedron
The main idea of this piece is to give the participant a new and useful vehicle to observe an aspect of their light-body which is rarely considered in everyday life. The piece must be interacted with in order to fully express it’s purpose.
As each individual engages the piece, they will have a unique experience, coloured by their own personal perspective of life, and interfacing with the inherent geometry of the Star-tetrahedron. (The fact that a large number of people will be able to experience standing within a physical representation of their own light-body may even be said to aid in our collective evolution

Stargazers Anonymous

from: Vaucluse, NSW, Australia
year: 2015

Stargazers Anonymous is a safe space for people in all phases of consciousness out in the deep playa. The temple on the trash fence. A meeting point and reverie for wayward travellers, forgotten tinkerers, dust ridden jalopy drivers, crumbling space bike riders, midnight picnickers, strung out desert shamans, sandy wayfarers, deep playa night time flyers. Lie anonymously beneath the galaxies, come gaze at the stars, safe from bright lights and stray mutant cars.

Storied Haven

from: Oakland, CA
year: 2015

She is the keeper of stories, holder of memories, steward of dreams. In a fairytale world where animals talk and children shouldn’t wander the woods at night, an enchanted home inside of a grand boot lures us. It beckons to wayward passersby with a promise of fantastical delight and dark mystery.

Straightedge

by: Ardent Heavy Industries
from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

A 2.7 mile long straightedge that BRC citizens can use to see the curvature of the Earth. Made of synchronized flashing LEDs, it periodically animates at the speed of seismic waves, to show how fast earthquakes travel.

strike a pose

from: Emeryville, CA
year: 2015

strike a pose is a robot constructed of up cycled car parts. designed to be manipulated in any manner the user can imagine

Sun Tower

from: Oroville, CA
year: 2015

2228 years after Archimedes is said to have destroyed an attacking Roman naval fleet using mirrors, we will bring the Sun Tower to the playa and try to set it on fire the same way.

This 30+ foot tall climbable tower will have a sun shaped mandala at the top. On friday around 1PM hundreds of particpants around the perimeter will be given mirrors to reflect sunlight at the center of the mandala where a target wad of cannon fuse will catch fire and set the rest of the tower alight.

Super Pool

by: Jen Lewin
from: New York, NY
year: 2015

The Super Pool is an environment of giant, concentric circles created from interactive circular pads. By entering the pool, you enter a world where play and collaborative movement create swirling effects of light and color. Imagine a giant canvas where you can paint and splash light collaboratively.

This years The Super Pool will be part of the amazing Mayan Warrior camp. Come find us nightly, as part of the Mayan Warrior’s incredible interactive dance floor.

SuperNovaPhota

from: Pikesville, MD
year: 2015

SuperNovaPhota is a mobile portrait studio using controlled flame bursts in-lieu of conventional electronic flashes. The three post-apocalyptic metal tripods are illuminated with various LED effects and present a gentle pilot flame before projecting a fire burst. Standing approximately 8′ above the playa surface, the caressing light of the flames warm groups, individuals, art cars, camps and anything else within the cameras frame. The synergy between the other-worldliness of the playa and beauty of fire lit portraits creates a unique experience and captivating images. All images are available for free download from www.supernovaphota.com.

Sustainable Magic Flowers

by: Sustainable Magic
from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

The Sustainable Magic garden awaits and rewards those who come close and explore its flowers. A colorful fusion of the organic and electronic, the Magic Garden will brighten your day–but especially your night–and leave you with a smile and the joy of knowing magic still exists in the world today.

Temple of Promise

from: San Francisco Bay Area, CA
year: 2015

A Temple’s purpose is to provide a safe space where the diverse and essential needs of the soul can take root and grow or surrender and find solace. This year, the Temple of Promise welcomes participants through an archway soaring 97 feet overhead. Once inside, the structure curves in on itself, tapering in width and height down to just 7 feet tall. Along the way, alcoves formed by the supporting arches, as well as wooden sculptures reminiscent of stones in a stream, create altars and semi-private spaces for individuals and smaller gatherings. The lines of the curved wooden walls draw the eye inward and create a canvas for written messages and mementos. As the path continues to curve, it opens into the contemplative altar and the heart of the Temple: a grove of three sculpted trees. The branches are initially bare. Participants will write messages on long strips of cloth and attach them to the trees, creating the gentle shade of Weeping Willows, increasing as the week progresses.

Temple of Sound

from: Dublin, Ireland
year: 2015

My installation will envoke emotions that only sound can create by using the power of the wind. There are 8 “D” shaped Aeolian harps which are complimented by four bamboo structures located on the primeter of the structure which will also produce sound when the wind blows through different sizes holes cut into them.

Temporal Boundaries In Flux

from: Los Angeles, CA
year: 2015

“Temporal Boundaries in Flux” is an interactive art piece designed to invoke the feeling of unease and despair when one inadvertently crosses an arbitrary and ever-moving social boundary. Electronic circuitry, motion sensor lighting, audio, flame effects, and post-apocalyptic elements combine to immerse the participant in a sensory experience that is unsettling and invokes primal urges. The majority of participants will experience the project by simply passing it by; deeper levels of interaction will be experienced by those who choose to interact physically with the piece. The viewer can choose to interact with the piece physically…or simply take the social cues and avoid the more interactive elements; this choice replicates the everyday choices we make in our social interactions, causing the viewer to rethink how they interpret the boundaries that are frequently crossed in our lives.

THE BALL

from: Los Angeles, CA
year: 2015

THE BALL is a 14-meter diameter interactive Flower of Life sphere. Although epic in scale during the day, THE BALL is designed to be an interactive gathering point. IR scanners read the movement around the base of THE BALL and translate the info into data that will cause the light emanating from the ball to pulse & chase making THE BALL feel at times as it is rotating like a gyroscope & at other times simply breathing.

the box

from: Oakland, CA
year: 2015

The Box represents the welcoming, yet mysterious and sticky nature of the human mind and the treasures that it may contain if visitors are brave enough to dive in and look around.

The DisCOmbobulator

from: Colorado
year: 2015

The Discombobulater is designed to be a large machine that appears to function as a fair style penny press machine. The front facing portion of the machine is a booth that has a live gypsy style fortune teller. On the side of the machine you encounter turning gears, noises, lights & play along improv as your token transforms. As you follow the coin’s progress along the machine you stop at several different points of interactivity, each designed to challenge your perception of what a real carnival game should be. Witty banter is the game here & a positive attitude & willingness to play along is how you win.

The Dode Project

from: New York, NY
year: 2015

The Dode Project is the collaborative effort of artists exploring the possibilities of repeating patterns. Geometric structures and repeating patterns are the building blocks everything in life, from our grided city to our DNA, and can be used to create things in any degree of complexity. Keeping in tune with the Burning Man theme of appreciating life and radical self-reliance the Dode Project came to being. This sculpture stands just over 11′ tall and is made entirely out of wood. It is supported by multiple wooden connectors that keep the structure standing with interlocking joints and tension. The sole use of wood and connectors that hold the structure together is the visual representation of using what is present in front of you efficiently.

The Family Jewels Project

from: Oakland, CA
year: 2015

The centerpiece of the Family Jewels is the Crown Jewel, a tall, four-sided faceted structure composed of triangular wooden “fins” resting on a geometric setting. The walls are coated with phosphorescent paint and glow brightly when exposed to UV or very bright light. UV-reactive glowing tubing wraps around and through the sculpture criss-crossing to create a colorful woven web of lacy geometric dimensional patterns. The edges are defined by LED lights that animate, illuminate, colorize and will interact and change colors in a dazzling display. Visitors can access the Jewel on a modified mechanic’s creeper for a unique perspective.

Flanking the Crown Jewel are two 15-foot tall “solitaires” — simple steel frames wrapped with thousands of feet of day-glow twine that creates an airy web of bright color in the day and glows brilliantly at night. The jewels will be lit by black light floods.

Angular shapes allow visitors to sit and stare or lean and gaze as they interact and enjoy the jewels.

The Field of Echoes

from: Marin, CA
year: 2015

The Field of Echoes is an interactive sound installation that transforms a piece of the open playa into a reverberant space where sound echoes and decays slowly as it would in a large enclosed space such as a cathedral or cavern. This pocket of altered acoustics contrasts strongly with the vast openness of the playa, transporting participants to a sonic environment that is at once familiar and new. Spoken words, hand claps, performances on musical instruments, and all other sounds made within the installation are rewarded with a lush, surround-sound response as they are echoed throughout the space by a number of small pillars rising above the playa’s surface, scattered across an area approximately 80 feet in diameter.

The FUNnel of Creation

by: Jeremy Evans, Reno Core Project
year: 2015

The FUNnel is a celebration of the creativity and dedication of artists from around the world that bring their art to the Playa. Artists and participants converge at Black Rock City and together they create the magic of Burning Man.

The base of the FUNnel is a 20’x 14’x 4’ semi-circular Mercator world map. Eight 24’ twisted steel spires extend from the map to support a map of Black Rock City suspended above the spires. After dark, flame effects and lighting are controlled by participants rocking on spring riders. When all spring riders are in motion, the light and flame effects reach their climax.

The Gallery of Infinity

year: 2015

The Gallery of Infinity is a sideshow attraction of reactive infinity mirror corridors. The LEDs within the infinity mirror panels change based on the movement of visitors. This art installation includes 3D sculptures built from multiple touch-reactive infinity mirrors and showcases infinity mirror paintings from Santa Cruz, CA artists.

The Heart Conversation

from: Sacramento, CA
year: 2015

The Heart Conversation is an installation designed to allow participants to share their internal states with each other in unique ways. The heartbeat from one participant drives the lighting and sound for their partner’s space, and vice-versa.

The installation consists of two adjacent wood booths with lighting embedded into the frame. When the heart rate monitors are engaged, the installation will begin to react with lights and sounds that are generated by the participants own biorhythms.

The light and sound created from the heartbeats create not only an intimate space and place for meditation between two individuals, but also creates a beacon for others to see far and wide.

The Infinity Tree

from: London, England
year: 2015

Scorched, dry, barren, the desert wilderness sits silent, still, soundless, lifeless, only the pale whispers of the delicate fauna can be heard. Whispering, softly a whisper becomes a murmur, gently a murmur becomes a sound before the faintest of echoes can be heard, it begins. At first a drop, motionless. Weeks pass, slowly, a drop becomes a trickle, trickling, creeping, a journey begins, weaving, the trickle meanders. With time it grows, a small stream flows, filling the cracks of the playa. A sapling emerges, twisting and winding it grows high above the ground, encircling itself, entwining itself. A figure of our memories, a myriad of our existence, its infinitude transcends time and like the stream to the tree we breathe life into the playa. A rest for our minds, a shelter for our bodies, a place not only to remember, a place to never forget. The Infinity Tree is symbol of what can never be lost, what will always be found, and what makes us who we are.

The Love Tester

from: South Florida
year: 2015

Come and see the colossal Love Tester, whose fame folds in the great orb of this earth! The Glass of Fashion! The Mold of Form! The highest of high class attractions! Test your love, seek the truth! At last, the marvelous and wondrous Love Tester before you! An enormously expensive and endeared challenge, taken by over Eight Crowns of Europe, now awaits your touch! Carried by hunchbacks from the humid and violent swamps of Florida, the stupendous Love Tester seeks a great lover in you!!

The Man's Tutu

from: Fort Lauderdale, CA
year: 2015

Is that the top of a carnival tent? No, it’s the World’s Largest tutu Fit for only the man himself. A 15ft tutu made up of 2000 colorful individual tutus that would be the perfect fit for our center main man. The Burning Man’s Tutu.

The Mask Factory

from: Houston, TX
year: 2015

Welcome One and All to the Fabulous Mask Factory. Enter the Magical Workshop to Create a New Face with lots of Wonderful Artists. You can Make a Face to fight your Fears. Or Make a Face to Change your Future. Or you can Make a Face to Find Real Fun! Enter the Workshop as one person and leave the workshop as another! You can Make a Mask that will become an heirloom for your grandchildren to make up stories about. Yaaaaaay!!! Meet new People! Become a New Person! Make the Face you want to become and walk out onto the Playa as That New Creature! Come One and Come All……To the Fabulous Midway of Fun Filled Fantasy…..and Masks!

The Pike of Mana

from: Helsinki, Finland
year: 2015

The Great Pike of Mana is inspired by the Finnish national epic Kalevala where it was guarding the river of the underworld and slain by Väinämöinen the seer. He then took the pike’s jawbone and made kantele, a magical harp out of it.

The piece is a collaboration project of students and alumni with backgrounds in Architecture, Art, Business, Design and Engineering from Aalto University in Finland.

The Universe Tree: The Butterfly Project

from: Reno, NV
year: 2015

The Universe Tree will rise like a monolith to stand at 6′ 5″ and be representative of a golden rectangle. The surface will reflect back to us the tree of life as the restful ancient and the spirit tree amongst the stars. Nestled within its branches many butterflies will rest in spherical clusters which will protrude from the surface and break free from the edges of the monolith. At night the orbs will glow in changes of color and later glow under black lights. On the butterflies wings will be one of four phrases: Love Each other * Help Each other * Inspire Each other * Forgive Each other
Participants within and without the community will have been invited to collaborate by making and bringing the butterfly components to be installed in addition to the artist made components. Other participants will have been invited to take a butterfly, carry it back to their community and on Sept 21 they will install their butterfly within their community or gift it to an individual.

TheMany

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

TheMany is a look at the many facets of one’s self, the many I’s that we can be, TheMany I’s that we have been and desire to be, and TheMany we see in ourselves while in reflection; immediate, post, and contemplative.

Totem of Confessions

from: Petaluma, CA
year: 2015

Come one, come all to the mystical Totem of Confessions, Michael Garlington’s newest Chapel! Experience cathartic release as you liberate your secrets, unearth the hidden lives of those around you, and test your fortune and powers for uncovering concealed nooks and hidden compartments holding relics and gifts from the artists’ own hands.

Upon approaching the 50′ edifice, whose design recalls ancient Khmer and Vedic architecture, revelers bask in the beauty and chaos of black and white photography in assemblage with salvaged and re-purposed mixed media. In the middle of the great room, a golden confessional stands as a portal to revelation and interaction with the art and other participants.

Mysteries and discoveries will reveal themselves in the installation’s details and will, in turn, inspire visitors to explore their own hidden meanings and inner worlds.

Touffe

by: jason predock
from: san francisco, CA
year: 2015

Touffe is a conceptual art piece integrating light based art and site specific integration. Imagine entering the artery at night and seeing what looks like a giant cluster of glowing fish eggs suspended in the darkness. As you come closer you see perched in the rafters above the heads of onlookers and passersby a cluster formed from 50+ individually controllable glowing spheres gently progressing through colorful shades. As the night progresses Touffe evolves into a participant in the festival, bursting with multi color patterns of light, flashing, pulsing . . . dancing to the beats of the music. The possibilities of combinations are limitless. . . a cluster of fish eggs tucked into the ceiling, a parasitic mass pulsing to the music.
When i design a site specific art piece i consider concepts like topography, climate, etc. Meaning “cluster” in French, Touffe can take on many forms depending on the geography, architecture, local flora, etc.

Toxic Bloom

from: Cambridge, MA
year: 2015

(Part of Charnival). Toxic Bloom stands about 4 feet high, made of repuposed steel, and appears as a mechanical, rigid flower, with the petals opening up, exposing its stamen to the air. The piece was built in a manner to evoke both biological and mechanical elements, and is modeled as a hybrid between a Phage (the viruses that infect bacteria) and a plant.

The stamen emits the pollen of bloom, a 3-5 foot jet of colored fire, with fast switching between bright red, green, and yellow colors. As Toxic Bloom fires, it emits a howl from the venturi, a natural cry to its breeding partners as it emits its gametes.

Tree of (Im)Permanence

by: Nick Geurts
from: Wheat Ridge, CO
year: 2015

Tree of (Im)Permanence is a 20ft tall interactive musical tree consisting of polished stainless steel pipes forming the tree trunk and limbs supporting 25 polished stainless steel tubular bell chimes which have deep resonating bell-like tones. The base of the tree is an 8ft diameter circle, plasma cut by hand to form the tree’s root system. At the base of the tree trunk sits a children’s toy piano which has 25 keys with the bell chimes tuned to the corresponding notes. The keyboard is midi controlled with wiring that goes through the trunk and limbs that powers a solenoid to strike the bell chime, as well as powers on an LED light rod parallel to the chime that fades as the chime sound fades. The toy piano has an led strip that illuminates the keys at night. The base is also backlit by leds which light up when the notes are played.

Tree of Missed Connections

from: Alameda, CA
year: 2015

The Tree of Missed Connections stands to commemorate those people we have no way of contacting. It is a beacon in the desert, where metal branches stretch overhead and flexible vines arc towards the ground. At night, the tree comes to life as cascading light patterns dance from branch to branch. It is a place where those connected across time and space can find common exchange, where each traveler who arrives brings memories of those in their wake.

Tree of Transformation

from: Wheat Ridge, CO
year: 2015

The Tree of Transformation is a 20ft tall interactive musical tree. It takes the form of a twisting steel pipe tree trunk sprouting from a full-size upright piano. Three main limbs branch out to form a canopy and support nine steelpans with a four octave range. When the keys of the piano are pressed, solenoids are actuated to strike the pans in the correct location to play the corresponding note. Because some notes overlap between pans, there are a total of 99 solenoids but only 48 notes, which means that some notes will have multiple pans being struck resulting in a rich, complex sound, much like a steelpan orchestra.

As you approach the piece at night, you will only see the piano by way of a piano lamp which illuminates the keyboard, and a piano bench which sits in front of the piano inviting you to play. When a note is played, each striker also has a high intensity white led light that flashes, lighting up the branches and pans in a sequence following the notes being played.

TrEeD

from: Eagle Creek, OR
year: 2015

TrEeD is a giant tree bike rack that will will stand about twenty feet tall and will have roots that stretch out about twenty feet in four directions. The roots are made from square tube steel and every bend is a perfect ninety degrees. As they continue downward the parallel lines create the bicycle wheel holders. TrEeD will be able to hold 80 or so bikes.
The trunk of the tree will be about 3′ in diameter and there will be a bench that goes around the trunk creating a space for people to sit and chill. e branches will start. The branches will be made of all round tube steel to contrast the square steel of the roots. The branches will also have an organic flow to them and no two will be the same. At the end of each branch there will be a six inch round plastic globe covered in white fur. The globes will light up with color changing LEDs.
TrEeD is dedicated to Ted Welles, a beloved burner who was lost last year.

Triplex!

from: Mound House, NV
year: 2015

Triplex! invites you to come say hello and continue being your awesome beautiful self.

True Reflections Palace

from: Highland, NY
year: 2015

For the Carnival of Mirrors theme, the True Reflections Palace completely re-tinkers your perception of who you are with optically perfect, true reflection mirrors. They show you not just what you look like, but who you are and how you are as an animated, living human being! Backwards mirrors take all of our vitality away and present a flat and distorted version of ourselves. The design of the Palace will be using Giant Tinker Toys. Who knew you could build something big with them? Inside will be a warm, softly lighted environment that offers a host of interactivity and a truly unique experience – magical even! There’s a lot of science involved too, you can read some of the posters available. A lot of this makes perfect sense for why it should be so different, and so much better.
Prepare to see something surprising about yourself…you as a real, vibrant, and truly sparkling and happy human being. Or deep and genuine burner, with wisdom in your eyes. Or whatever is true about you – your true image actually reflects all that information correctly, so you can continue to be true to yourself. But be aware – you have to “be it to see it”. Don’t just stare at yourself – look in your eyes and interact! Ask questions about who you are, how you are, what’s going on. Look with a friend, eye to eye, smile, then look back as you see the real version of you. Who is the person that we see, who do we know, who do we love? You may need to get past your initial sense of how unusual it is, and no, you are not as asymmetric as your perception can be telling you. But then you can see something truly magical…the amazing burner that you really are!
To really make the point, look back to one of the backwards mirrors in the side panels, and notice how poorly mirrors reflect your true nature. Notice that the sparkle and light in your eyes just stops and you are staring, and more often than not, you become serious and doubtful.

Twisted Bristles 2x

from: Brooklyn, NY
year: 2015

Two 24′ Fiber Optic toilet brushes, helping guide burners to bathroom bliss amidst their deep playa excursions.

U2 Battered and Bruised Tour of Sadness

from: Sunnyvale, CA
year: 2015

U2 Battered & Bruised Tour of Sadness. Art work is a stick figure wooden collection of the band’s likeness in relation to their current physical and emotional losses. The band has sufferd the loss of drummer Larry Mullen’s father, and the loss of 30-year tour manager Denis Sheehan this year. Bono crashed a bike in NYC last year and sufferd eye, shoulder, and elbow injuries that are keeping him from playing the guitar on the tour. The Edge fell off the stage in Canada this year and hurt his shoulder.

Venus Lift - Mega Mikoshi

from: Japan
year: 2015

Borrowing some tradition from Japanese festive occasions, Mega-Mikoshi is a portable shrine that will carry the ideal beauty “Venus” in a giant flower bud as an idol supported by fans who physically lift the Mikoshi. As it goes out for a parade from the Midway booth, the flower will bloom at its climax when the music reaches its hype.

vibraj

from: Los Angeles, CA
year: 2015

vibraj (Haitian for vibratory) of, relating to, or causing vibration. This piece is about giving vibration a visceral experience through sound and sight.

walk on the moon

from: Bend, OR
year: 2015

“Walk on the Moon” uses a high powered telescope that tracks perfectly with the full moon, live video is sent to a projector sending a live 30 foot image of the moon onto the playa surface where viewers can literally walk on the moon.

Welcome Home

from: San Jose, CA
year: 2015

Bringing the indoors, outdoors with a cozy living room raised above the playa where every wall is a window.

Well of Darkness

from: Seattle, WA
year: 2015

Courage, Temperance, Wisdom, Justice, Honor, Gratitude

Well of Darkness is the third chapter in the mythology of The Guardian of Dawn. In this chapter the Acolytes, inspired by experience gained in the Agora of Light, leave their brethren and shatter forth, embarking on individual pilgrimages of virtue.

For the first time in their lives they were alone in the world. Initial interactions with people were bright with conviction and exaltation, each Acolyte advocating from the pulpit of their chosen virtue. However, they observed those with courage act without honor, justice act without wisdom. Idealism shaken, each wondered “How can any single virtue be the only light that guides one towards a life worth living?”

After an eternity of seeing only hope on the horizon, a dark, distant well appears. As each labored step brings them closer to The Well of Darkness the Acolytes begin to recognize their friends, who, just like them are dragging a box heavy with the weight of virtue.

What Do You Want To Say To You (working title)

from: Los Angeles, CA
year: 2015

A venue to meet with yourself, eye to eye. A mirror in a ring of lights.

Wheel of Self Reflection

from: Bolinas, CA
year: 2015

Seekers stand before the wheel on a slightly raised platform, beneath a lighted tetrahedron pyramid. On the platform is a qi field data collector pad. Above the platform, at the base of the pyramid, is another qi field data collector. The wheel has discs that are set to the seeker’s animal, element and polarity (based on Chinese astrology). The seeker selects a tarot card to act as archetype (and clicker as the wheel spins). The seeker then expresses qi into the collector pads, aligning the wheel with the seeker’s qi field. When the qi field is aligned, the seeker spins the wheel, which stops on the seeker’s fortune.

Sometimes the seeker is unable to grok the fortune. Our cosmologist sits in a special handling space toward the back of the tent. The calibrator refers cases to the cosmologist. Some seekers self-refer.

Wish You Were Here!

from: Richmond, CA
year: 2015

A 12’x8′ wood frame postcard featuring that classic vacation salutation. Asking participants to consider the magic, obviously picturesque quality of their present moment on the playa, and their place in it.

Playful humblebrag? My hope is that it will prompt at least a few visitors to consider, in a more romantic sense, what’s not in the frame. Sure, you might be having the greatest time ever, but isn’t there at least one person out there, not with you, whose presence and company would make make the moment even better? This piece is really for them.

Wonder Whoasis

from: Norwalk, CT
year: 2015

Wonder Whoasis: Come put your “heads in the clouds”, stop being grounded to reality & be free to imagine the unimaginable in a cloud out on the playa. It’ll be an airy, bright, soft, freeing space with white shag carpets, white fluffy pillows, refreshing mist that provides an oasis under the hot sun during the day & lightening storms to illuminate the dark night sky.

Wonderlust Arcade

from: San Diego, CA
year: 2015

Meandering along the Midway and you find yourself pulled into a vortex where time and space are one: Wonderlust Arcade! This impossibly long hallway lined with overly large childhood games is decorated in a 1920’s style. Games like: Simon, Connect 4, Battleship are being played by others consumed with Wonderlust. Exploring this hallway of coalesced time, you feel as if you are getting larger! Space is also compressing! By the time you reach the hallway’s end, you are GIANT! There you find a live Zoltar waiting! Searching for an escape, you enter a portal into another dimension ruled by the rich tones of a handmade organ performed by another chrononaut. This calmer world lacks spatial compression, the walls and floor are covered with curves, spirals and fun house mirrors, leaving you with the spins. You try your hand at the keyboard… As if your fingers were possessed, that tune you played as a kid fills the air. Your song ends and you make for the door, now with a sense of Wonderlust!

Wooden Nickel Carnival

from: Cedar Park, TX
year: 2015

The Wooden Nickel Carnival has traveled almost 100 years to your door step. Built brand new in the Spring of 1918, the Wooden Nickel Carnival is here to provide you with a good old fashioned time. We have many attraction to choose from! Come test your skills at one of our many booths. Looking for a job? We are hiring! Think you got what it takes to be a carnie? Well step right up and prove it! No matter what you are looking for, we got it all right here for you!

Word of the Burning Bramble

from: Somerville, MA
year: 2015

(Part of Charnival.) The Burning Bramble, a flowering, trailing plant of steel, brass, and copper, arcs nine feet into the air, hears participants’ questions or earnest desires for prophecy, and delivers its Word through flame.

Worthy

from: Santa Cruz, CA
year: 2015

When should we give a fuck? “Worthy” presents situations along a curved wall and lets participants vote whether they give a fuck or not about each (not whether they *agree* but whether they *care*). Pushbutton-activated electronic counters display the number of votes either way for each situation. Votes are summed throughout the event, and participants can recheck the tallies (and revote).

WTF?? What, the Fork??

from: Austin, TX
year: 2015

WTF?? What the Fork?? consists of two sculptures. The most prominent is a 16′ tall shiny fork, stuck into the ground. It represents the fork in the road, a point of decision and departure.
Standing in front of the fork is a 10′ tall obelisk in the shape of a turning post. Atop the post are motion sensors. When activated, hands pop up pointing the way to a new direction.
Spiraling down the obelisk is a plaque which bears the conundrum: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.” This is synonymous with the seeker who has many roads to choose. On the Playa there are no roads so the choices are limitless.

Xyophone

from: Neu-Ulm, Bavaria
year: 2015

Xyophone is an interactive sound installation. Visually only an empty space surrounded by six LED poles, it becomes alive with sound when people enter it and move around. Sounds are created from the person’s movements directly, turning the playa surface itself into a musical instrument.

You are Who?

from: San Diego, CA
year: 2015

You are Who uses lighting mechanisms and reflected images to playfully challenge visitors conceptions of self, engaging them both visually and mentally in a illusory experience.

ZAP!

from: Campbell, CA
year: 2015

Zap! is a real-life image of a lightning bolt striking the playa that allows people to use the energy of a lightning bolt to “zap away” their troubles. They simply need to just close their eyes and touch ZAP! with both hands, while at the same time saying “zap” and visualizing their worries being zapped away forever.

Zen Ball

from: San Francisco, CA
year: 2015

A meeting of minds on the playa! One mind set on focus, the other on peace and calm, two players face off over a circular carved zen table.

Without touching the playing field each player controls a ball with only the strength of their mind until one is victorious. The most aggressive will not win – this is a game of control without force. Only the zen will prevail.

Zooplankton

from: Portland, OR
year: 2015

Zooplankton is an art gallery and science lecture hall in Black Rock City. A skeleton of an ancient protozoa, a jelly-like plankton creature that once floated in our seas, Zooplankton shows us that science can be the basis of art. Based on sketches of Cyrotidea drawn in 1904 by German biologist Ernst Haeckel, Zooplankton is an interactive art installation that beckons visitors inside to experience art and science together. By day visitors can enjoy the biological art of Ernst Haeckel etched into the walls of the Zooplankton. Workshops and lectures will turn Zooplankton into a scientific classroom. By night the Zooplankton will charm visitors with its dazzling bioluminescence, triggered by body heat of those who venture inside.