2011 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.

Airship Victoria Prototype X3

by: Kristian Akseth, Andrew Boyd, Stacey Reineccius
year: 2011

Born out of the recent airship renaissance, and a desire to create an interactive performance art installation, the Airship Victoria blends modern and historical technology to provide a unique spin on airship design and architecture.

Through the integration of art, science, air, and electricity the operators of the Airship Victoria will create a floating three-dimensional art installation.

This ambitious project is only the beginning, and we are all excited to see to what heights the Airship Victoria will soar.

URL: http://www.airshipvictoria.org/Airship_Victoria/Welcome.html

Another Door

by: Calen Barca-Hall, Paul Hempstead
year: 2011

I can make out the shape of an intricate framework of doors in seemingly constant motion, opening and closing, closing and opening. Figures explore the structure, weaving through its doorways, curious about what it all means. Above the structure there is a complex tangle of belts and wheels, spinning and turning in an intricate ballet of mechanical functions. The ropes cross in all directions, looping around hoops attached to the doors and connecting each door to several others.
URL: www.anotherdoorproject.blogspot.com

AURORA

by: Charles Gadeken
year: 2011

AURORA represents the secret clubhouse, the magical wardrobe, the portal from a practical reality into a real life fairy tale connecting and inspiring all of us to play.

A weeping willow tree rises 30ft in the air, its trunk and copper leaves reflecting the sunlight across the desert. The trunk is both solid and transparent, created from tubing bent in sinuous lines and are joined together in a spider web with thousands of hand curved rods. The roots rise out of the ground, creating resting places for people to sit.

During the day, AURORA provides a place to rest under its shade. At night, it dazzles the sky with light. The branches outline the willow in spectacular bursts of color. Bands of light pass around the tree: greens, yellows, reds and ambers – a dazzling show that constantly changes as the tree moves through the seasons of its life.

Balloon Chain

by: Robert Bose
year: 2011

Strands of helium filled balloons wander the sky both day and night.
URL: balloonchain.com

Bapteme du Feu

by: Anton Viditz-Ward
year: 2011

Baptκme du Feu is a twenty-foot wide spinning platform of steel. Burning wood is dropped from above onto it, send sparks and fire to its perimeter. It symbolizes throwing ones self into the impossible in hopes of it being possible.
URL: totallyawesomewow.com

Bike Course

by: Kurt Westerlund
year: 2011

Bike Course is a 4-piece bicycle challenge course.

Billion Jelly Bloom

by: Rob Lord
year: 2011

Billion Jelly Bloom is a Burning Man art project to float an undulating luminous jellyfish bloom through the night playa. Our mobile performer-articulated jellyfish sculptures attract, interact and participate in spontaneous playa encounters.
URL: billionjellybloom.org

Caged Pulse Jets Rev 2

by: Christina Sporrong
year: 2011

Caged Pulse Jets Rev 2 is an interactive, kinetic sound sculpture. The caged birds are five spinning pulse jet engines of various sizes that create a range of percussive and droning tones. Through a completely new and interactive interface, the public can create sound compositions ranging from the symphonic to the cacophonous while they are held captive by the fiery jets spinning by their own thrust.

charon

by: Peter Hudson
year: 2011

Charon is a life sized three-dimensional stroboscopic zoetrope focusing on the last rite of human passage, death.

This piece will physically engage participants in a vigorous genuflection of sorts to bring life to Charon, the gondolier to the afterlife. Charon asks them to reflect on their own mortality and ponder how to give and get the most from their brief time here on earth. The artist’s hope is that they will not dwell on their ultimate demise, but ponder how they might make their own lives richer and more meaningful. Recent losses in the artist’s life give him reason to consider the piece a final farewell and bon voyage to those who are cherished, gone but not forgotten.

Chew My Balls

by: Liz Medina
year: 2011

Chew My Balls will playfully engage all of the senses to bring its participants back to their own adolescent experiences. People will be able to go inside the 17 ft high gum ball machine where there will be hundreds of floating balloons, resembling gumballs. Before entering, each person will be offered a gumball of their choice. Once inside, people may dance to the music, play with the gumballs, and chew them.

City Lights 2011

by: Gary Long
year: 2011

Citizens of Black Rock: City Lights will bring solar powered lighted sculptures to the dark back streets of BRC. Your corner street signs will be enhanced with its own unique light sculpture.

The Cyclameleon

by: Tyler Fuqua
year: 2011

The Cyclameleon is a giant, illuminated reptile that is powered by four humans via a custom, multi-person bike. By day, the Cyclameleon crawls about, picking up passengers and basking in the hot sun. By night, it glows like a radioactive reptilian, illuminated in countless ways. The Cyclameleon has the ability to change colors to either blend in or stand apart of its surroundings.

Dragon Smelter

by: Danny Macchiari
year: 2011

By day, a gold and black Viking ship. By night, a dragon breathing fire from its tail and mouth, with flashing neon light throughout its body. The change, from day to night, and the occasional flame all show how variable are our icons, our daily experiences, and how we need constantly need light shed on our experiences.

Exsuscitare Traiectus

by: Orion Fredericks
year: 2011

This is monolithic reliquary that holds a sacred space for the passage of the astral and physical.

I wish to communicate through physical reality the opportunity for anybody to take this passage and awaken to a new potential. You are imbued with inspiration and reflection, by experiencing your own evolution. All of your senses will have acknowledged transformation of passage.

Face Forward

by: Christian Ristow
year: 2011

Face Forward is a super-sized human face in which each of the major muscles and facial functions responsible for the creation of expression is individually controllable from a simple control station. These stations are arranged in an arc around the face, approximately 30 feet from it. Groups of people may assume control of the face, and attempt to make it laugh, smile, or make other recognizable expressions. The possibilities are endless!

FIRE BIRDS OF THE FIFTH DIRECTION

by: Charlie Smith
year: 2011

These creatures are wood fired metal fire cauldrons that will stand 12ft tall and will represent four mythic bird creatures. There will be patterns cut into the bodies of the sculptures that will illuminate by internal fire by night. The wings will have designs pattern that will project shadows by day. The headdress of each sculpture will be stylistically designed and represent four regions of the world. these sculptures will surround the man marking four directions 45NE, 135SE, 225SW, 315NE degree marks along the outer edge of the Great circle. These sculptures will serve as congregation areas for the participants of the event to celebrate and tour the C.O.R.E. project. a final transformation of the four birds will take place as they join together as “ONE” for a final eruption on Saturday night.
URL: www.howhowhow.com

Garden of Monkey Retrospectus

by: Iron Monkeys
year: 2011

True to their philosophy, the Iron Monkeys have again used steel to consecrate space. The Garden of Monkey Retrospectus is a snapshot of the artistic development of the Iron Monkeys over the past five years and a rebirth of artistic creations from their past.

The 30′ wide, 60′ long Garden is framed by 6 12′ tall scrollwork steel columns. Inside the perimeter of the Garden sit sculptures from previous projects: a Tree Spire (2007), “the hand” from In’cu-nab"u·lum (2009), and Zen Fire Gardens from The Crossroads (2010). All of these pieces have been updated for their encore performance on playa.

During the day participants can relax on benches in the Garden, and at night they can warm themselves by the fire from the columns, lay under the flickering flames in “the hand” or draw in the flaming sand of the Fire Zen Gardens.

Garden of Rockets

by: Christopher Schardt
year: 2011

A short walk in from the Esplanade, the Garden of Rockets is a large triangle of rope light, with three kinetic sculptures that are propelled by propane ramjets:

4pyre² was first seen in 2010. Its ramjets spin around in vertical, horizontal, and diagonal circles, tracing out a sphere.

PyroGoRound delights in its sheer multitude of flames and shapes and motions – a 28′ diameter structure rotating overhead with 3 rotors and 6 ramjets.Up and down and round and round, like a carousel.

Pyroticulation is a pivoting 10’ arm with two 6′ pivoting rotors, each with a pivoting ramjet. A mathematician’s delight, its complex motions will appear to be a mystery at first. Time-lapse photographers will notice that the paths of the ramjets resemble a spirograph.

Each machine is fully controllable by visitors. Benches are placed around the triangle for viewing, relaxing, and gathering.

Georgie Boy: Fallen Queen of Broadway

by: Mister Jellyfish
year: 2011

Inside a seedy motel room, a failed robotic actor suffers a mid-life crisis beside his equally animatronic dog. Beneath a 27 foot tall art deco sign, the crumbling brick exterior offers a cut-away view of attempted opulence-- the interior of a life-size, voyeuristic diorama. Participants are encouraged to push a big button on a fancy kiosk and spin the “Wheel of Fame” in a desperate attempt to restore Georgie Boy’s name back in lights-- accompanied by one of many bad show tune productions.

This comedic piece observes the western obsessions with youth and entertainment. It draws inspiration from this year’s theme in observing rise to celebrity, fall from fame and mid-life crisis as "Rites of Passage" themselves. The codependent interplay between the flamboyant main character and his abusive pet Pomeranian accompanied by other animatronic characters quickly engages participants to interact with this tragicomedy macabre.
URL: www.MutantVehicle.com/Georgie_Boy.htm

HELLEVATOR

by: Chris Callor
year: 2011

LuciFurr is oh so lonely down in Hell. Have you earned your right to pass into paradise? Find out as the HELLEVATOR takes you 12,256 miles below Playa. Black Rock City’s only underground attraction. It’s easy to find….simply look for the the elevator shed with the big wheel on top of the HELLEVATOR sign. Sinners, Burners and Angels are welcome.

Is Land

by: Sarah Cockings
year: 2011

Increasingly the real is being flattened. Is Land turns that on its head. A chunk of fantasy dreamscape robbed from the 2D and dropped off in 3D.

A Light Hazing

by: Matthew GT, Aaron Zeilegs, Josh Howell, Andy Heom, Quasam Baouni, Sam Alcorn, Ben Kalenik
year: 2011

The project explores alternative methods of architectural lighting and ephemeral phenomena by creating a blank canvas for expression within an otherworldly environment. It can only be fully realized through the participation of its inhabitants, who create temporary collaborative artwork on its surface. The pavilion is a passage way of varying space and experience through a photoluminescent structure that can be painted with UV light pens creating a temporary glowing image. The sun will also charge the glowing material, and thereby directly store and re-emit light energy through the night. Visitors are removed from the sensations of the outside world and immersed in a world of interactive color and texture.

Merry-Go-Round

by: Cara Deleon and Joe Hobson
year: 2011

Merry-Go-Round is an interactive visual and aural experience. Visitors have the opportunity to interact with the installation much like they interact with life, choosing to have influence over events or allowing events to transpire without interference. Within the piece participants experience pre-programmed images, but they are also providing images. While in the space the visitor can choose to move about the space, dictating the sounds and images present, or lie down and look at the ever-changing landscape and sounds. Every time the participant returns to the space the experience is different. If they see their previous experience projected when they return, they will perceive it differently, creating a new understanding despite the continuity of the structure. This mimics our journey through life in that we understand and progress through passages of time, reflection and memory.

URL: merryinstallation.tumblr.com

Nelumbo Nucifera

by: Michael Emery
year: 2011

Nelumbo Nucifera uses steel tubing to suggest the outlines of a 50 foot lotus flower opening up and through the playa mud.

The lotus is used for its potent symbolism of the Hero’s Journey. With roots sunk in the rich unconscious mud of material existence, the hero pushes upwards, through pre-programmed layers of body, personality and psyche, opening eventually into the freedom of conscious self creativity.

Participants journeying to the heart of this opening lotus flower must pass through several layers of petals. In the outer layer petals are only implied with simple steel outlines. Inner petals become more tangible. White fabric defines a membrane. At night these petals come alive as screens for LCD projected imagery designed to reflect upon our various rites of passage. In the last layer, petals become seats surrounding the turning diamond core of the flower. Opportunity for creative self-reflection awaits the participant.

NIT WHIPS

by: Vincent Leclerc
year: 2011

NIT WHIPS is a playful interactive installation that fosters the creation of a luminous spectacle by the passersby.

Participants in the NIT WHIPS installation engage with tall poles, making them oscillate in order to generate rich light compositions that evoke the mythic Northern Lights.

Orgasm

by: Bryan Tedrick
year: 2011

"Orgasm" is a 20′ tall x 8′ diameter steel vessel which can be filled with wood and burned. It balances on a shaft which can rotate 360 degrees. The shapes which form this vessel include an inner basket made of stainless steel and an outer receiving structure made of regular steel. The interior shape is phallic in form and the receptive portion is meant to be vaginal. This coming together of the male and female climaxes when the wood filled interior is set afire representing orgasm.

Parallel Lives

by: John Hagar
year: 2011

Parallel Lives appears as a glowing, six-foot square fluorescent cube ringed with el-wire. Up close, however, the installation calls for participants to decide what images will appear in a sequence of novelette images in order to cross four thresholds of post-modern life: Transformation, Relationship, Pilgrimage, and Illness. Some image-based stories provide choices with consequences; others end well or badly regardless of a participant’s decisions, just like real life. After the first novelette is complete, participants may proceed to create a second, parallel life on the same side of the cube, similar in terms of the affected ritual but mysteriously different in terms of choices and outcomes. Parallel Lives seeks to gently remind us that what at first appears as failure may prove more meaningful than success; and while individual voyages present dangers, set backs, and fear, it’s never too late to make everything different.

Past Life Photo Booth

by: Laurel May
year: 2011

The Past Life Photo Booth beckons users to proudly claim a mediocre, average or slightly villainous former incarnation and in doing so, accept a friendly, playful nudge toward personal growth. Visitors to the Past Life Photo Booth will receive a past life trading card to remind them of their former selves.
URL: www.pastlifephotobooth.com

Perpetual Motion

by: David Boyer
year: 2011

“Perpetual Motion” is a kinetic wind-driven sculpture consisting of a tall curving tree-trunk like armature supporting three wind-driven paddlewheels. The unusual shape of the ornate kinetic elements is reminiscent of something Captain Nemo would have designed. As daylight comes and goes, and the playa winds grow and recede, Perpetual Motion provides the viewer with an ever-changing dance of light, shadow, and movement.

The Pier

by: The Pier Group led by Matt Schultz
year: 2011

"The Pier" is a stage for serendipity, a platform for peaceful participation, and a ramp for rambunctious rendezvous. Its is a 300 ft. long pier jutting forth from the playa. The Pier starts on the playa surface and rises at a gentle 1.9 degree angle ending 10ft. above the playa. The Pier is disheveled and dangerous, from a bygone era that never existed.

Rack Attack! Mutant Centipede Bike Rack

by: Mark Melnick & Maya Lowry
year: 2011

What would happen if a giant, mutated centipede/scorpion crawled out from beneath the playa and began to attract the bicycles of Black Rock City residents from miles around? Based on the philosophy of Form vs. Function vs. Fantasy, Rack Attack! could look like a sculpture on its own or function as a secure, well-lit, large capacity bike rack. When Black Rock citizens are looking for a place to lean or lock their bike in the vicinity of Rack Attack! interaction will inevitably occur.

reOnion Project

by: Zsolt Αdαm, Juli Laczkσ, Dαniel Feles, Pιter Debreczeni, Andrea Sztojαnovits
year: 2011

The installation is garlic-shape structure reacting the visitor’s resonances with light and projection. The structure is divided into six cabins.

The cabins are covered with UTOPLAST recycled plastic overlay. Output is defined by the entering visitor, generated by her\his resonances. (breath, heart beat, body temperature)

ReOnion installation is a initiation ritual to a special physical and virtual space with its own rules. It is a connecting sphere of inside and outside, me and them, you and I.

We hope to help our visitors and spectators to a discovery of inner and outer mental space and of communicative resonance.

The Right of Pezzage

by: FJ Cava
year: 2011

The Right of Pezzage is a 15-foot tall chicken-headed yellow Pez Dispenser that dispenses words of wisdom, items of pezzage, and fun.

Rock Inferno

by: Dennis "Zoo Money" Lambe, Chris "Smokey" Lavelle, Jeff "Valence" Sweetman, Ray "Neutral" Somers, Jen "Monster" Swanson
year: 2011

Rock Inferno is an interactive fire art video game. The player uses a guitar-shaped video game controller to "play along" with a classic rock, modern rock, or metal song by following the note track projected on an eight-foot wide screen. When the player strums a note correctly, one of five flame effects mounted above the screen sends a burst of fire into the air.
URL: www.arsoniccreations.com/rockinferno.shtml

The Serpent Twins

by: Jon Sarriugarte, Kyrsten Mate
year: 2011

The Jormungand (Midgard) and Julunggul (Rainbow) serpents sit between two worlds; the old world that needed and revered them and the present which has shunned such monsters as fears metamorphosed into mythical form. Our present world has left behind these harbingers of destruction and physical embodiments of “the ultimate task” (usually the task of slaying such beast) as so much fantasy. Much as a child puts away his imaginary playthings when he becomes an adult, the dreadful serpent that exists in so many of the world’s cultures’ myths has been put aside. All these now modern civilizations went through this same rite of passage; that of dismissing myth and legend to depend merely on science and fact. Our two serpents will render in metal and cast off materials these mythical beasts by using modern science; restoring ancient mythos to the Burning Man community.
URL: www.serpenttwins.com

The SuperConductor

by: Singularity (a group of people)
year: 2011

Once the sun goes behind the mountains and the city erupts, the SuperConductor really comes to life. What was once a gigantic mirror is now an interactive orchestra of light with 1008 5′ round pixels, each capable of producing over 16 million colors in user-controlled coordinated animations and behaviors. The BIG RED Button should be used wisely!
URL: www.s-conductor.com

The Temple of Transition

by: Chris Hankins, Diarmaid Horkan and the International Art Megacrew
year: 2011

The Temple of Transition is a place of ritual and transition, a place where we both remember and look ahead, a place of ending and beginning.

Vaulted, lofty, and delicate, five smaller Temples surround a larger central Temple. Within each Temple a different phase of life is marked and explored. Altars and shrines abound amongst intricately decorated archways, windows, and walkways. Peacefulness, reverence, and reflection suffuse every aspect of the Temples. Everyone is welcome, it exists for everyone…

Titanoboa

by: Charlie Brinson & crew
year: 2011

Titanoboa is an electromechanical reincarnation of the ancient 50ft serpent rendered extinct by past climate change. The project is a vehicle to provoke discussion, and to enable learning through the creation of a mesmerizing machine. Titanoboa experiments with mind-boggling modes of propulsion, and restores life to a terrifying beast the likes of which the world has not see for 60 million years. Dare to ride the snake and look towards the uncertain future of our beloved planet.
URL: http://titanoboa.ca/

Tower of Transformation

by: Joe Arnold
year: 2011

The Tower of Transformation is a metaphor for the passage from our self-imposed limitations to a world of pure, unbounded possibility. Formed of two distinctly different sculptures connected by a hyperbolic frame, the base of the sculpture contracts inward and is covered with battered armor plating and rusty chains that represent the defenses that bind us in self-doubt and self-censure, while the top is a perfect lotus blossom that opens outward and upward representing pure potentiality and possibility. The receptive lotus blossom enfolds the central spire representing the union of female and male energies and thus creativity become manifest. This work is symbolic of the rite of passage chosen by some to leave the world of limitations behind and blossom into a world of possibility and new beginnings.
URL: www.toweroftransformation.info

Truth is Beauty

by: Marco Cochrane
year: 2011

Truth is Beauty is the next collaboration with model Deja Solis. In Truth is Beauty’s final form, Deja is on her tiptoes, arms outstretched, head back, eyes closed, happy with herself and her truth. Ultimately she will be 55 feet tall and constructed of the same materials as Bliss Dance (steel rod/balls/stainless steel skin). In Phase 1, she will be 35 feet tall in the form of a classical greek sculptural torso. The 2-phase approach allows all of us time to stop, notice where we are, appreciate change and ephemeral moments on the way to completion and to bring participants further into the process by exposing it. It is the journey that makes the rite of passage meaningful. Truth is Beauty is on her journey and we all get to go along for the ride.
URL: www.facebook.com/truthandbeautysculpture

Tympani Lambada

by: Flaming Lotus Girls
year: 2011

Tympani Lambada is a sculptural embodiment of the structures by which we hear and balance, combining fire, vibration and sound to create an experience rich with visceral sensuality. The bone and membrane of the inner ear’s vestibular system is transformed into steel and fire.

Flame effects, LEDs and sound effects mirror the function – circular, sensory experience: smell, hear, touch.

Vast

by: Quentin Davis
year: 2011

Vast is an alternate reality bubble built by Zark Industries. This 18 foot dodecagon, apparently built from wood and fine Corinthian leather, was built as some sort of meat/technology interface. The outside is a intricate fleshy carapace inscribed with the symbols of some long forgotten civilization; obviously influenced by space travelers. Participants climb a ladder and descend into another reality, a portal into a fantastic micro-miniature world. Due to our enormous size as humans we can only enter these worlds with our imagination or the use of mind enhancements. Participants can also enter into this sphere as the Puppet-master, a miniature grotesque beast, part human (you), part TiniTech®.

Velocinema

by: Jonas Dovydenas
year: 2011

Velocinema is the bicycle cinema, which is driven by man power.

10 bicycles are placed in the special stands equipped with power generators and wired to the video projector, which uses the power energy created by people pedaling bicycles. While they pedal, they can enjoy movies on the screen (at night) or charge the electric devices (during the day). This is economical, ecological, sportive and interactive cinema. It‘s essence that everyone, who can cycle, can join in and generate the electricity which is used for powering the equipment.

The Wet Dream

by: Warmbaby
year: 2011

‘The Wet Dream’ is an uncanny desert oasis. In the heat of the day it will provide shelter with the gentle audio of falling rain, and the occasional thunderstorm. Being under a canopy of umbrellas reminds one further of the experience of rain, thus mentally cooling and calming them. By night the rain effect will be enhanced by a visual experience via white LED rope lights, descending from different heights above. The Wet Dream is uncanny, sculptural and constantly changing, it tickles the senses but also provides a place to congregate and turn participants into active contributors through gifting.

To mark the changes of sun down/sun up, as the rain lights are turning on/off, the space will erupt with stormy weather. For this period of time the LEDs and audio will act together as lightning and thunder.