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.2016
#Monkey Luck
#Monkey Luck is a sculpture of the fire monkey seated on his firey throne. According to Chinese astrology, the fire monkey (the symbol of luck and audacity) only appears every 60 years. Celebrating 2016 year of the fire monkey. Made by a fire monkey as a gift of luck to all the playateers.
1:44 Alcyone Portal
The 1:44 Alcyone Portal, located at 1:44 and near the trash fence, is a continuation of the previous two years of Portals at Burning Man and the thirteenth year that Portals have been coming to Burning Man (see TransPortals.org). It is a 50 foot diameter Playa colored wall with Playa colored carpet to provide shelter and a container for the interaction of participants. It has the Vortrex wind and solar power unit in the center surrounded by an icosidodecahedron geometric stainless steel mirror structure that is the shape the Earth’s grid is evolving to. It also has hidden in the wall the low frequency feedback device the Quasar Wave Transducer that vibrates the entire space with cat purring like tones as well as a high fidelity sound system to reproduce Tibetan bowls, tuning forks, vocals and other sound healing recordings. A number of other artists will be collaborating synergetically to share their talents and creativity to activate the space with installations, art, sound healing journeys, tea service, ceremonies and other consciousness evolving activities. See last years 11:55 Reformation Portal video to get an idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp-6zOlw1-c
@EARTH #HOME
@Earth#Home is Laura and Jeff’s eighth installation slated for Black Rock City. Built of steel and lit with LEDs and fire, @Earth#Home is a love letter (no pun intended) to Burning Man participants, reminding them that to come to Black Rock City is in essence to come home. It’s a touch stone for the belief that it’s the art that makes the event come alive, that inspires us all to embrace and promote Burning Man’s ethos and principles every day of the year, across the globe.
____ ____ - Roshanai (Illuminate)
ROSHANAI is a path of enlightenment, shifting colors in static form. Along this corridor, perspective changes and opposites unite. Islamic mathematical art is married to the great Western landscape, serenaded with the voice of your heart and the whisper of the Playa.
ROSHANAI comprises two double-walled panels that create a 108-ft long tunnel of light and sound with a 3-ft corridor. The sides of the hallway rise from 8-ft tall at the ends to 12-ft tall at the apex in the middle. Simultaneously, the panels sink into the ground to form a shallow valley. Fractal arrangements of Islamic geometric patterns are cut into the outside panels, lit from within to illuminate the patterns and cast fantastic night shadows. The entrances will be 16-ft tall gates inspired by the Great Mosque of Isfahan in Iran, pointed arches filled with sacred geometry. The inside walls are smooth and lit in solid colors by daylight-visible LED spotlights embedded in the edges of the floor.
A RAT's Nest
You see a mischief of rats in a nest. You assume that they are rats because they look like big ugly mice with beady eyes and long hairless tails. But what if they really aren’t rats at all? What if they are actually aliens disguised to look like rats?
ADT-Art Discovery Tours
These are public notice signs that establish a starting point for bike tours given by the ARTery team members. This large pink and black sign will inform participants of the availability, timing and physical direction of bike tours along with additional information on playa-art. These signs will (hopefully) be co-located with the Art Car Bus Stops which will provide some seating while people wait. Citizens on foot may get lucky if a passing by art car stops and is willing to pick them up.
Adventure Vending Machine
Can Burners be brave and redefine radical participation? LAME Arts, a Bay Area art collective, is creating an Adventure Vending machine that dispenses adventures created by you! Push a button: go on a community-created adventure, receive a special token, and return to unlock a community-created gift!
The Adventure Vending Machine will be in the 9 o’clock side campanile at the Man Pavilion. Use it to find the next great thing to do at Burning Man!
Adventure Vending Machine
Can Burners be brave and redefine radical participation? LAME Arts, a Bay Area art collective, is creating an Adventure Vending machine that dispenses adventures created by you! Push a button: go on a community-created adventure, receive a special token, and return to unlock a community-created gift!
The Adventure Vending Machine will be in the 9 o’clock side campanile at the Man Pavilion. Use it to find the next great thing to do at Burning Man!
Amalgamated Debris Assemblage
Involving the public in the ‘Amalgamated Debris Assemblage’ Guild’s art, not only in vision but in tactile experience, is irresistible and anticipated! The ‘artist participants’ of the public are welcome to the ADA booth to create their own vision in assemblage of ‘found objects” – pieces/parts from the Golden Age of American manufacturing, and the castoff debris of society! Portraits, beauty, free speech, etc. coupled with guidance in assembling into vision when needed by the Guild artists! It’s okay to handle, tool, and work and arrange… and see, and do! PLACEMENT in the moment, because YOU say so, and the magnetism used by the assemblage artist, interacts with the whole of this epicenter of Guild creativity. Art created can be taken, given away, picked up later, or labeled ‘free’ for anyone to take. Transposed and balanced with the public build, “The Creative Cavern” is a solo art experience booth where the artists can create in private – the artwork within will be unveiled at the end of the week!
Anisoptera
This sculpture is called Anisoptera and consists of two very large, colorful dragonflies. They are sculpted out of metal and glass.
Arborealis Forest
Come together to create new shared experiences enhancing those bonds through music, visuals and shared activity.
Arborealis an interactive environmental multi-sensory art installation that incorporates many different elements together to create a life changing experience for its visitors.
Visitors entering Arborealis affect the sounds and visuals the installation produces, creating a space that is ever changing and alive.
Art Car Bus Stops
Two bus stops will be made from two different cities, LA and Denver. The LA bus stop will look like a real LA city bus stop, complete with the ability to tag and also a burner themed commercial poster. The Denver Bus stop will be expertly crafted out of wood and have a winter theme. Our farthest bus stop is a sign post, next to the trash fence, with signs pointing to all the art and landmarks for the lost burner. We have two other bus stops that will be nicely placed for people to rest and engage in a cultural discussion, whereever they get placed.
Arte Della Luce
Behold the giant Etch-A-Sketch of light! Artists and makers can use the mechanical gears and pulleys to create large drawings via solar pyrography. Travelling through our time portal, visitors can also observe and operate other digital fabrication tools from the future like laser cutters and CNC routers!
Ascension
Ascension is a reflection of one person’s journey of self-discovery pertaining to love. For many, the concept of being “in love” is defined by default society. Romantic plots in pop culture so often have characters falling in love uncontrollably to finally find “happiness”. Society teaches us that the responsibility of our happiness lies on the shoulders of others. We spend so much time looking for happiness – love – everywhere but the one place we’ll find it: within ourselves.
Ascension conveys a new definition of love: when separate, whole individuals form a partnership that reinforces their individuality while creating a unit where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Each person is growing as a whole individual first and foremost. The partnership reinforces this while bringing them both to a higher level, together. Through this symbolism, Ascension creates a space that inspires people to reflect on self love, loving others, and love as it relates to their world at large.
Automata Equis
From the back of a horse one becomes a spectator of their surroundings. Their placement is frequented by many but distant enough they emerge unexpectedly from a sudden whiteout. They are along the way to a desired destination but only increase anticipation as their constant trudging leads nowhere.
Avaricia (Greed)
Throughout history the ruling classes have attracted and utilized the creative genius of the brightest minds to build and preserve wealth and power. In reciprocation the inspired have sought out the wealth and resources of the rich and powerful to realize their dreams. Resulting in some of the most inspirational and destructive forces that the has seen from the time of the Renaissance to present day.
Awakening
Awakening is a large scale interactive steel sculpture of a human head and two hands emerging from the ground. The head and hands are 20ft tall and the hands are placed an “arms” length away from the head with palms facing inward, as if the giant being is looking at its hands for the first time.
The interior of the head is a darkened room that participants can enter and serves as a theater for viewing the outside world through the eyes of the head, as well as a control room for movement of the hands. Using optical lenses in the eyes, the head is a stereoscopic camera obscura that focuses light from the outside and projects an image onto the back surface of the room. Participants are given 3D glasses to give the image depth with the perspective of a giant being. The field of vision of the projected image is nearly 180 degrees vertically and horizontally, which gives the viewer a sense of immersion. Each eye has a high-intensity spotlight to illuminate objects in its view at night.
Axis Mundi
A huge geodesic dome with large streaming panels of fabric attached as its crown, sheltering a sacred circle of life-sized handmade goddesses, is Axis Mundi. Inside, five glass women stand holding space in a healing circle of the feminine. Come enter this transformational arena – a circle of glass! Hand-cast thick blocks of glass, sculpted with reliefs of the female form and arms outstretched in compassion, welcome Participants. The circle they surround seems closed, yet calls you to duck under to enter. Overhead are spirit-charged oil paintings of soul stirring imagery, continuing the healing work of this place. Bells blow on the wind overhead. The space is alive, pulsing. At times it will be a quiet healing meditative space and other times there will be drumming, rattling, journeying, ritual, or even ecstatic dance for those who dare join in, or just watch and be changed. Find your center, your Axis Mundi.
Be Da Vinci's Banker!
You’re welcome to this selfie-friendly frame provided to take pictures of yourself or somebody else as an ancient-style banker in different poses. Chose the one fitting best to your self – or the opposite!
Becoming the Master/Mistress of Stones: The Arts of Buon Fresco Revealed
Student Artists will learn the various actual old time techniques over several days to create a fresco (block) from scratch to take home. As part of our commitment to up-cycle we will utilize and recycle actual (old foam insulation) building materials. Participants will learn to recreate various historical stone mixtures that compromise the the surfaces of the block, complete with plastering, cartooning, and finally the stages of painting the actual fresco with pigments. This artifact creation will be followed by (and applied) techniques to ‘age’ their artwork with the patina and craquelure of passing time. The result? A beautiful, yet portable and tangible, aged piece of buon fresco that becomes their momento of inspired learning at Burning Man. 😉
Bells of Vitruviano
In keeping with the 2016 Burning Man theme, DaVinci’s Workshop, we have designed a set of four bells and ringing mechanisms after a design of Leonardo daVinci. These will be placed in four campaniles around the Man Pavilion to call Burners on the hour to come and rotate the Man, who is modeled after the Vitruvian Man drawing of daVinci.
Berimbau
Berimbau is an extension of an existing art installation, Projeto Mangueira and an adaptation into reflecting more of the Brazilian culture and relating it to the Burning Man theme 2016 – Da Vinci.
Berimbau is a music box that works by spinning. Once it spins, it plays capoeira music by a Brazilian instrument, purest in Brazil’s culture; Berimbau – a single-string percussion instrument, a musical bow, from Brazil. People can walk through the spinning cylinder look at the Brazilian instrument ( there will be 8 of them ) and listen to capoeira music. Capoeira is a system of physical discipline and movement originated among Brazilian slaves, treated as a martial art and dance form.
Biggest Little Horseshoe On The Playa
Biggest Little Horseshoe on the Playa is an 8 foot tall steel horseshoe with the words “Good Luck” proudly stated overhead. It beckons the passerby to walk thru and receive the good luck wishes of the spirit horse… or possibly a wise crack from the jackass!
Biodiversity Sphere "Endless Prospect of Life"
The Sphere depicts the importance of biodiversity. Originally a 500 gallon propane tank, we carved 45 endangered creatures and flora from around the planet. Participants may enjoy playing the sphere using attached mallets. The sphere is pretty during the day and mesmerizing at night, especially when lit inside by fire, providing some heat for a chilly night, or by LED lights. It’s a great gathering spot, complete with a table to hold your drinks!
Black Rock Blind Tiger
The Black Rock Blind Tiger is a rustic, vintage speakeasy deep within the playa, containing many oddities, gadgets, and alluring objects. Participate, explore & immerse yourself to experience the magic of the Black Rock Blind Tiger. On the outside of this mysterious structure, there are gears at work—rumbling away, while producing delicate gifts. Enjoy the view from the widow’s walk, crowned with a charming cupola. Invent your own experience by touching, exploring & playing with all of the intriguing objects. Try gazing into the windows to see the playa past. Explore each of the objects, as some will help keep you warm on those magical, chilly playa nights. Figure out the clues to determine the password which will allow you inside, but keep in mind—all the clues of yesterday will rapidly change to keep the Blind Tiger and its mysteries concealed. Once you’ve unlocked the pathway to the inside, enjoy the swanky speakeasy, dance to jazz, and receive your own personalized prescription.
Black Rock City (Steal Your) Thunder Co.
Black Rock City (Steal Your) Thunder Co.
A container full of thunder from the BRC (Steal Your) Thunder Co. is placed deep in the deep playa, designed to add another unpredictable element to a list of weather phenomena that Black Rock City is so famous for. Citizens of Black Rock City may milk its spring-like titty to produce better, louder thunder to use as a soundtrack to whatever’s going on around the container.
Black Rock Observatory
Heading off into deep playa, participants will approach two strange but familiar forms. Maybe a day dream or echo from last year’s burn? Drawn to it, the observer will discover structures with astronomical inspirations. Two domes will beckon like a couple of plywood planets. Upon closer exploration, one dome is a gallery abuzz with science and experimentation. In the other, discover a telescope 8 feet tall where Burners can view planets, distant nebula and galaxies. Outside the domes is the Open Air Planetarium, where eyeballs will fondle naked eye planets, while hands fondle a 4.5 billion year old meteorite.
A tourist office for the rest of the universe, 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.
blue lotus
The 2016 Man will see a beautiful “Blue Lotus,” designed and built by Blue Lotus Camp, blossoming on playa with its unique oriental charm together with modern minimalistic taste. Standing 12 feet tall in the sandstorm is a structure, 50 feet in diameter, made of freshly cut green bamboo,wood, and fabric. Its bamboo pistils with long flags on top will wave to the Man in the distance, its 12 PVC framed and fabric covered petals will undulate with roaring wind by its side, its far visible LED-lit figure will warm home-goers’ hearts at night. Representing the harmony of heaven and human, “Blue Lotus” will integrate the Burning Man spirit seamlessly with the Black Rock Desert environment and provide eye candy to our fellow brothers and sisters, and at the same time, bring tranquility and peace to this land that we love.
bOOth
bOOth is a whimsical gateway from here to there, or maybe from there to here?
Burntanical Garden
When we’re sitting by a fireside, all of our senses become absorbed in the experience. The calming focus of attention relaxes and calms us. The Burntanical Garden provides the multi-sensory stimulation of fire through a collection of one-of-a-kind art pieces. It is a respite from the chaos and sensory overload of the Playa.
Fire Art Pieces – Each art piece is a unique creation from a different artist. The fire-art pieces utilize standing flame to create a calm, sociable atmosphere; a place to keep warm, and to make friends. Individual art pieces are arranged within the garden, with seating, to create a space to appreciate each piece. Pyrocents ensure participant safety and answer questions about each art piece.
Fence – The 20’x30′ garden is bordered by a steel panel fence. Fence panels are constructed of rectangular welded square steel tube frames. Individual artists will ‘fill-in’ the blank canvas with cut sheet steel designs, which are welded in place.
Carousel Candeo
Carousel Candeo – a psychedelic manifesto, a glittering kaleidoscopic merry go round that in motion fuses the artist, installation & community.
Cascadia Serapeum
Cascadia Serapeum is a large scale Art Experience built across Vancouver (BC), Seattle and Portland for Burning Man 2016. Inspired by the Library of Alexandria, the structure is classically Ancient Greek in style; however, a closer look reveals things are not what they seem. Inside are walls of books, sculptures, a secret room, and more, all centered around a flaming chandelier. Once inside the secret room, one will encounter a podium atop which sits a giant glowing community book for all to inscribe. Preconceptions will be challenged through play and exploration.
Just like the Library of Alexandria, part way through the week, the Serapeum will burn to the ground, leaving ruins behind. The structure will now take on a second life, as people are able to experience the romance and magic of the folly. In the center of these ruins, the podium and Community Book will sit, appearing unscathed by the fire. Beauty and community will continue on, altered but unmoving.
Catacomb of Veils
Catacomb rises like a rocky outcropping off the desert floor, evoking Black Rock Point itself. It is a ruin of a previous society– a remnant of our collective search for moments of quiet, introspection and reflection. It is a journey of discovery and a descent into a subterranean world.
A path winds up to the Narthex at the eastern Pyramid and from this vantage point, the inward descent begins. Ancient relics of a collective history grace the walls as shafts of light illuminate effigies and offerings. These are moments in our primeval memory, inviting us further downward and inward into ourselves. The journey culminates in an inner sanctum– a sanctuary of veils– a confluence of concealment, revelation and sublime beauty.
Celestial Gears
The Celestial Gears themselves are a set of 32 interconnected painted wooden gears in the symmetry of a dodecahedron, held in place by a dodecahedral cage. Rotating any one of the 32 gears causes all the rest to rotate. The environment of the Celestial Gears will invite participants into a space to touch and turn the Celestial Gears. Mounted at the center of an icosahedral dome tent, the gears motion will cast moving shadows on the tent walls. By rotating the Celestial Gears in the tent, light and shadow emanating from the center of the Celestial Gear will dance across the translucent walls of the space. Participants will be amazed at the simultaneous motion of all 32 gears, as well as the motion of the shadows on the tent walls.
Celestial Mechanica
Celestial Mechanica is a glimpse of our solar system that is only allowed by means of an artistic lens that we are providing for you. Because of the massive scale of our solar system it is very difficult to imagine what all of it looks like working together as one. Celestial Mechanica will allow us this privilege. From a distance it may not be clear what we are looking at but as we approach it becomes instantly clear what this is. First we step into a loosely fenced area that is for pedestrians only where all of the Gas Giants are whirling above us. As we get closer to the Sun we can see the Rocky Planets at eye level spinning around their orbits around the Sun. It is now time to step up onto the catwalk via 4 staircases that lead up to an elevated walking area where we can really view the complex mechanics, feel the heat from the Sun’s fire effect and see the orbiting Rocky Planets, now slightly below us and separated by a handrail so that we do not disturb their delicate orbits.
chaotick
Inspired by a nineteenth-century German novelty clock, this reliably erratic flaming tetherball swoops and spirals through the Black Rock night: tick … tick … keeping exact playa time, more or less.
Chasing the Pounder "RepoussŽ Cafe"
Visit the Repoussé Café and Chase a Pounder!
The Repoussé Café is here for your pounding needs…
Need a hammer? Done.
Need a punch? Done.
Need a chisel? Done.
Come over and chase some metal with a blunt object of striking force. Experience the thrill of making metal cringe with each blow from your mighty fist of fiery, furry, fuzzy, funny elbow. Watch as large boring pieces of metal become pounded into all shapes and sizes.
Cheese Maze
The Cheese Maze 2016.
Following on from our wooden maze in 2012, we bring you an even bigger and harder maze.
The walls are made of string so you can completely see through the maze.
Chicken
Step out of reality.
How far can you go?
Remember the safe word.
Chiminea Planetaria
A cluster of fiery hearths to warm up your nights! “Chiminea Planetaria” is inspired by the solar system as it was known in the time of Leonardo da Vinci. The traditional alchemical signs, names and attributes of each planet are cut into large steel spheres, transforming them into functional burn barrels. Burners feed the fires with wood from the “Sun” at the center of the system. As more participants join in to feed the “Planets” the fires shall burn brighter! During daylight hours, the decorated spheres become strange black globes on the stark white playa, a sculptural solar system landmark.
Chronosydra
Chronosydra is a reverse hourglass that runs for the week of Burning Man 2016. An abstract timepiece for Black Rock City, it sits deep in the playa awaiting your discovery. The hourglass is filling upwards with small particulates that float unhurriedly from bottom to top chamber; its translucent pellets catch the sunlight during the day and swirl like fireflies when LED lit at night. Like a meter that measures the growing creativity and energy around it, this hourglass fills steadily over the length of the event and stands full at exodus; full like an hourglass that has just been turned over, full like time itself has been turned back. Chronosydra is an art piece that mirrors the week-long transformation of Black Rock City, and playfully reflects on the way in which our time at Burning Man may reset, revivify, and refill us if we let it.
Claude the Dragon
Claude the Fire Breathing Dragon is a masterpiece of recycled parts, found art and unique metal and wood features that make it the most unique and interesting dragon on the planet. Claude has animatronics in the head with a movable jaw and fire breathing wonder. Since it took the artist over 30 years to perpetually create what is the current day masterful sculpture – it has evolved slowly, somewhat randomly but to an amazing degree of genius.Viewers often spend hours just looking at all the small to large parts that make up the total sculpture. For instance – recycled shovel heads make up the breast plate for the belly of the dragon! Come out and see for yourself. And often times Gabe the artist or his beautiful daughter will be there to share stories on how and why it came to be!
Cleu of Life
The Cleu of Life seeks to provide a moment to fully experience what it means to be a conscious being on planet Earth. Da Vinci would appreciate the Fibonacci sequence expressed by the Cleu with circles in the ratios of 1, 2, 3, 5. 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. Just beyond the colorful pinwheels and flags of the labyrinth, the artist/scientist/mystic in you can view 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 polyphonic Cleu brainwashing & copper Cleu pendant.
Clock Brothers
The Clock –
A large face stares at you and asks “How did it get so late so soon.?”
Commedia dell'Arte Morality Puppet Play
Commedia dell’Arte Puppet Morality Play: A renaissance-era puppet show, complete with ornate stage decor, lighting, and puppet characters with changeable costumes. Story lines will be provided for volunteer puppeteers, and improvisation is highly encouraged! The Orange County team will be staging their own shows throughout each day as well.
Some of the morality plays are based on the Ten Principles, and some infused with comedy. During the day, the shows are very kid-friendly, whereas at night they’re a bit more adult.
Concentric Smile
Concentric Smile explores the idea that a slight shift in perspective can greatly alter a person’s ability to perceive ideas, beauty, and emotion. This wide range of human perceptions is responsible for much of the disagreement, inequality, and division in our world. Regardless of our individual perspectives, allowing ourselves to stand in a new position can be very eye-opening. Once we understand the viewpoint of others, the answers to our questions become so much clearer.
Connection Station
The connection station is a place to rest, swing, share, connect, and make new friends, especially if you are feeling “lonely in the crowd”. It is a modified porch swing with colorful graphics encouraging passersby to have a seat and make a new friend. It is hoped that it will encourage participants at BRC to make new friends and connections.
Corral of Possibilities
Skeleton dogs flying? I thought only pigs did!!
Cosmic Diamond
The Cosmic Diamond is a night-time beacon that invites aimless playa wanderers to the deepest depths of deep playa. A diamond is suspended at the top of the structure and illuminated with several thousand LED lights that create patterns ranging from soothing to nauseating. The height, size and brightness of the illuminated diamond makes it seems closer than it actually is, creating a fun optical illusion. Upon arrival, participants can climb into the partially enclosed base of the structure and control the diamond’s LED patterns using a series of joysticks in each corner of the pentagonal base.
Creative Cauldron
A solid wooden sculpture stands 10 feet tall x 8 foot thick, carved to a luster from a massive tree stump. It’s a carved depiction of The Man’s head lit up in carved flames — and the Firemeister will light a real fire, boring down into those chiseled flames to complete the sculpture, It’s a Fire Inside performance designed to survive the playa! Participants ascend a wobbly orchard ladder to tend the wooden cauldron of fire crackling deep into the carving. From the rim they will drive or suppress the flames with water and Burner breath, both through copper tubes as Firemeister Timeless barks! The fire will be visible across the playa so watch for it mid to late week, right up close to the temple on 12:00 … as the driving winds permit…
Cross-World
Crossword is an intellectual game with great possibilities for the development of creative abilities, memory training.Today is a very large number of people crossword puzzles when they go to work, when all waiting in the clinic, many seniors are addicted to crossword puzzles and unraveling.
We want to build a giant crossword allowing everybody to use their erudition or to know something new during while guessing the right answers. And there’s more – not only one flatness can be used – you can write on two or three sides of the square. Or the citizens of Black Rock can just climb on it and spent some time on the top of the crossword blocks.
Cyclops the Wonder Pony (old school animation)
The outer housing is cylindrical, with a wooden top, decorated with horseshoes. On the side of the cylinder is Cyclop’s eye, where the citizen will peer thru to witness the horses in motion inside. Below the eye is Cyclop’s mouth, where the citizen will use the teeth to propel the wheel, putting the animation into motion.
D'Oro de Sacramenti Regionale (Gold of Sacramento Region)
Upon entering the busy, rustic, guild space of D’Oro di Sacramenti common folk, tradesmen, merchants and nobles will walk though a logge facade. They will be greeted by our Guild Members and invited to craft custom weapons of Dragonswood and Valyrian wood.
Our Guild Tradesmen will instruct on skills and the precision of accuracy in the field of weaponry. Using the hand catapult and other weapons forged by our smiths.
All will be invited to enter into our Weapons Practice Gallery. Each visitor will select a projectile that either they have crafted in our Guild workshop or one made by previous visitors. The projectiles will be made from deconstructed, then reconstructed Stuffed Animals. Participants will be seated at one of our Practice Weapons, such as a giant slingshot.
Skills of persuasion and accuracy will be needed to hit the targets on our gallery wall. Some of the targets will illuminate with LED lights if hit, earning the participant a treasured object from the House Sacramenti –
The Golden Dragonbear.
Da Vinci's Labyrinth
Leonardo DaVinci was invited by the king of France to come to his court and create a labyrinth. The project is a participatory rendition of this labyrinth.
Dark Horse
Dark Horse represents Unicorn enlightenment. About 85% of horses are actually Unicorns, humans just can’t see their horns. This is because Unicorns are vibrating on a higher frequency than humans and the horns are actually beams of light shooting from their third eye. The light is special and magical and our eyes can’t perceive it. This sculpture aims to change this. Humans will finally be able to perceive Unicorn horns.
DaVinci Virus
Visually the installation represents a giant diabolical clockwork bacteriophage infecting the playa or planet. Symbolically the installation represents the connection between people, technology, and the environment.
Determinazione
Determinazione is a larger than life depiction of the DPW spirit. A twelve foot tall woman, dressed in protective, desert attire, pounding a fence stake into the Playa. She is braced against the wind and dust.
A Coyote gleefully encourages her to persevere against the elements.
She stands atop a 7′ high base, adorned with four bas reliefs, depicting scenes of the Building and Restoration of Black Rock City.
Dick Garden Strikes Back
Dick Garden Strikes Back is a triumphant return of the dildo field that got so much attention last year. It will feature about 200 dildos, planted and growing for the pleasure of all. The day’s harvest will be available at the nearby Farmers Market.
Dinner for 12
What might the Last Supper look like if you were to be invited in our industrialized world? The exterior shares statements of thanksgiving to ponder how they may relate to our lives and the lives of those around us. Greetings and Peace to all.
DISC-GO-SPHERE
The DISC-GO-SPHERE, by artist/engineer Matthew Davis, is an interactive kinetic sculpture that gives participants the experience of being inside a 3 dimensional moving version of Da Vinci’s “Vitruvian Man” sketch. It consists of a series of six pairs of concentric rings ranging in diameter from 8ft to 12ft that fold into a flat vertical disc. By operating the pedals, the rings begin to spin in multiple directions forming a complex spherical shape. Each person’s actions will alter their own experience and that of the other participants.
Dragon Smelter Coin Press
The alchemists are in action, turning waste and scrap into gold! The Dragon Smelter Coin Crew is back, and will be smelting and helping participants create their own coin from 100% recycled material. This on playa workshop features all the tools, materials and guidance you need to recycle scrap aluminum into a coin, featuring yearly unique sculpted imagery. Proper training for all participants of any age included. Sick of coinage, currency and commodification? Necklace making materials also provided.
Dream Machine Guild
“Mind Loop” provides a test field to explore your sense of time and space. Blinking lights or anything that reflects light, even your body, will generate rainbow reflections in patterns. Create temporary sketches for new inventions right out of your mind! At this moment, everyone becomes their own Da Vinci.
Dreams of Flight
Two near-human scaled wire figures. Constructed of handwoven aluminum wire. Each with 120 high intensity LED lights illuminating every inch of wire.
Floating above the playa, suspended below large helium balloons, which often disappear against the night sky.
Whatever meaning the viewer brings will have to suffice. Typical comments involve beauty, wonder and uniqueness.
Dust City Diner
The neon sign of the Dust City Diner beckons visitors to have a seat at its horseshoe-shaped counter. A classic coffee urn brews fresh coffee while a short order cook works the griddle, his silhouette framed by a stainless steel backsplash. Bee-hived waitresses serve up grilled cheese sandwiches and ‘top off’ your coffee with a bit of sass. Every aspect of the diner – the sound of dishes clinking, the 1940’s music, a flickering neon sign are designed to embody the all-night diner experience.
The Dust City Diner is moved to a different location in deep playa each evening.
El Diabla
On the firest Monday of the event, Crimson Rose extracts a flame from the sun to light a fire in El Diabla, a special cauldron located between Center Camp and Esplanade. 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.
Electric Dandelions
Electric Dandelions are three 25-27ft tall light posts made to look like dandelions during the day and fireworks at night. There are 4,500 LEDs between the three Dandelions all controlled by an iPad. Participants will be able to control the project through a touch screen controller. The control station will be set 50ft away from the dandelions so that the controller can observe the changes. They will be able to control hue, saturation and speed and the project will also be sound sensitive to music and voice. Participants can sit or lay on at the base of the dandelions on platforms, simply so that they can enjoy the show above them.
Electric Renaissance (A Tribute to Cadillac Ranch)
An homage to Cadillac Ranch. In 1974 the artists collaborative Ant Farm buried ten Cadillacs in the Texas prairie, leaving only the tail fins visible. Cadillac Ranch has come to symbolize the demise of the dinosaurs that brought the American automobile industry to the brink of extinction. The emergence of the nose-section of a zero-emissions vehicle turns the image of Cadillac Ranch on its head. It suggests that, after a transformational journey through the bowels of earth, the automobile is being reborn as an environmentally-friendly descendant of gas-guzzling ancestors.
https://www.instagram.com/electricrenaissance/
Elephant Expressions
A large high density foam Elephant painted with white stucco. It will be roughly 10-12 feet tall, depending on the base. It will be lit up from the base by LED lights.
It will then we decorated by artist on the playa (before the burn starts) This will be a larger version of the Elephants that we will be letting burners decorate in the gild pavilion under the man.
Elephant Expressions/Radical Self-Expression, The Ten Principles of Burning Man
A ten part, ten year art project based on the Ten Principles of Burning Man. This year, in name of “Radical Self Expression” we sent out five hundred vinyl toy elephants to kids all over the world and asked them to express themselves by decorating them. We are then taking those elephants and displaying them at Burning Man under The Man as part of the Guild Workshops piazza.
Our aim is to bring awareness of the importance of creativity in a child’s life. Lack of funding has stopped art programs in many public schools across the country. We are figuratively and literally putting the crayon back in the child’s hand. We are also bringing 10,000 elephants to the playa this year and letting burners express themselves by decorating the elephants, and gifting them to fellow burners.
We chose to create a vinyl elephant for the kids to decorate because of the elephant’s outstanding memory. We are building positive experiences in children that we want them to remember for a lifetime.
We also sculpted the elephant into the shape of the Vitruvian Man, as a wink to this year’s Burning Man theme.
Enunciation
Enunciation is a cocoon of playable light. The piece creates space for participants to interact with the sculpture and each other. It contains many layers of interaction: viewing from afar, entering, playing the light field, and finally, using the light field as an instrument. The structure is made of triangular boxes of metal. On the interior-facing side, each box is outfitted with a laser cut back lit panel. The lights take input from simple buttons mounted in the center of various panels. With input, the panel alters the lighting scheme. Each press spreads effects and color across the surrounding panels, allowing for interplay between participants. Enunciation is a meditation on learning how to articulate oneself. The sculpture’s primary function is to create an instrument for shared interaction, which offers more articulation with increased input of people and their time. Enunciation offers a strange way to communicate, but with practice, much can be articulated without speaking.
Essencia La Playa
Essencia la Playa – the energy of the event morphed into the shape of a human heart. It is a welded piece of steel made from Harley fenders and perforated sheet of metal
It’s meaning is to describe how space is shaped by energy. How energy is influenced by desire. How desire is the flame created within the heart.
Space energy and desire is defined by this piece. It’s intent is to spark the fire, to ignite the possibility of culture. And once in place, it is the artist’s intent to have it symbolizes a beacon for our ability to create and manifest this dream.
Fantasy Dimension
Fantasy Dimension is to be assembled by a team of international artists who are contributing their time and energy to the single largest art project in the history of Burning Man — and the most transparently created. Fantasy Dimension will encompass the Temple and the Man Base, and be so large it will take two days (and nights) to burn. Seed money for this project is provided by a non-U.S. business professional who does not wish to be named.
Fantasy Dimension will encompass design elements of the pyramids of Giza, Angkor Wat, and the Taj Mahal. It uses locally sourced materials, and artist labor will be pulled from the eight continents of the world and Greater Northern Nevada.
Fire Flower
A strange bloom rises towering from the playa, luminescent and wild. The petals glow with ever shifting light and fire jets from the pistil and stamens. The flower draws in the passerby, and interacts with them via showy patterns and colors, aching for cross pollination.
Fire In Balance - In The Round
Like moths to the flame, FIRE IN BALANCE – IN THE ROUND will draw you ever closer to its molten and mesmerizing blaze. Built to foster discussion, the ever-changing patterns will sustain and propel your dialogue in ways you never knew possible. Come cozy up in this inviting space, it will leave your heart warm long after you’ve left.
Fireball Shooting Gallery
The Fireball Shooting Gallery has the look and feel of an old-school carnival shooting booth, but with the “firepower” and noise that Burners desire. Participants approach the booth and stand behind one of four mounted cannons where they personally load, charge and fire the cannon at a variety of moving and stationary targets. Each person can shoot up to three tennis balls if the line is long, or more if there isn’t a wait.
Firmament
A vast, overhead canopy of LEDs displays celestial, playful, psychedelic, majestic images while classical music emotionally supports an enveloping, comforting, communal environment below.
Flaming SeeSaw
The flaming see-saw is a 21 foot long golden see-saw. It is waiting for those riders who are brave enough to sit under its halos of fire. As riders rise up and down, big bursts of flame are shot out from over their heads. It is both intimidating and exhilarating. Fear is natural, but once overcome leads way to excitement and joy.
Flight 513
Flight 513 consists of nine interconnected wooden posts. Six posts are arranged into a rectangle and are wrapped in black curtains to represent the fusilage of the plane. Gaps in the curtains allow visitors to enter. Four posts hold up the ends of two aluminum poles and translucent plastic sheets representing the wings. Ropes connect the fusilage to the post that represents the tail.
Flocons
Flocons is a dynamic and evolving series of large-scale ornament-like sculptures, imagined and built by a collective of artists, to be displayed in a garden-like manner. Flocons is a shared creative experience in participatory art that displays the beauty of human collaboration and communal effort. As participants approach the series, they will find a collection of large free-floating sculptures, each as unique as the artists who created them.
AeolianFyre by Joshua Rooker & Chloe Veneneux
Alpha, Beta & Wings by Anna-Gaelle Lucy Marshall
Dreaming of Trees by Francis Kanach
Momotombo by Rachel Babenar
Fly Fast by Casey Bage
Planet Janet by Elizabeth & Mel Adams
Smoke Cloud by Kevan Christiaens
Snow Crystal by Sara Sebby
Fabrication by Seth Byrnes
Each Flocon is a window into the artist’s creativity, but each sculpture is only a small part of the whole. Not only will each piece be a reflection of an artist, the collaboration of artists in creating a larger work makes the whole larger than its parts.
Flow and Wonder
Come play with Flow And Wonder! A giant mushroom covered in a thousand color LEDs that you can control with your hands. Watch the beautiful colors glow and flow on the surface of the mushroom as you move your hands.
Flux
Flux are a series of magnetic ferrofluid sculptures that exemplify the wonderful symmetry and connected nature of our universe. These unique kinetic sculptures respond dynamically to the electromagnetic frequencies of the human bodies in the area. Participants can come to Flux to meditate, sing, and dance, all the while observing how their movements and actions effect the local electromagnetic frequencies!
Flying Kinetic Sculpture
Crafted by aerospace engineer, Jeff Gollober, whose lifelong fascination with the sky and the mechanisms imaginations can place there, compelled him to explore the imaginary line between art and engineering. His belief that “engineering is the artful application of an exacting science,” is what this piece is all about. This is art of a new kind, flying illuminated kinetic sculptures!
Fractal Rock
For centuries, people have claimed that math is the language of the universe. It has been used to describe phenomena both comprehensible and absolutely unfathomable. Math can also be descriptive of patterns that people find mesmerizing and beautiful.
Fractal Rock is a sculpture built using fractal math. The artist team of Pooja Shah and Stijn van der Linden created the shape using custom software and equations, methods seemingly so rigid, to create its fluid, organic shape. It appears as a twisting ebony helix that looks like it has risen from the earth.
The team is passionate about math, mathy art, and using technology to build complex shapes, among other things.
Geometrical Constructions
The Rhombohedron Society is about exploring the world of cubic symmetry. The lesson being taught by the Society is about the unifying properties of the rhombic dodecahedrton. This includes finding and learning about the how the lost triangle of Pythagoras defines the slopes of the faces of cubic polyhedra.
Within the space are four areas. The primary workshop/classroom includes seating and work tables where visitors will learn about the Lost Triangle and make a Lost Triangle template to take with them. Visitors also will have the opportunity to learn more about geometry by assembling models.
There will be a cube based dome with built in seats and a transparent skin being used for on demand and 24/7 multi-media presentations, and the Gypsy Wagon and Car “Rose” made of plywood with integral slotted and notched connections, whimsical creations as if from the mind of Leonardo.
Global Rolling
“Global Rolling ” (GR) is a wooden globe eight feet in diameter, whose intent is to be a visceral reminder of the world we live in for those who travel to Black Rock City.
Global Rolling is intended to be rolled around the playa by people power. It is large enough and slotted so that it will not simply be blown by the wind, but moveable by two or three people working in tandem. The intent is also allow the globe to freely move around the city.
On Friday evening, a simple burning will occur – no pyrotechnics or affects – just an open flame burn of the World on the open playa.
Goddesscraft Temple
Ascension is a 30ft tall three sided pyramidal structure that looks like an ancient relic recreated from some collaborative cellular memory. With three 20ft long dragons angling up its sides to a central wind powered spinning spire, this stationary temple will appear to be alive or in motion. The temples’ three walls are sculpted with art Nouveau curves, psychedelic patterns and archetypal symbols that act as a type of optical illusion making those experiencing it question everything.
Got Framed
Got Framed is a fun & interactive art piece for the making of memories. From afar, it’s a life-sized, fabulous frame that captures a notable image in the distance. Up close, it’s the ultimate stage to strike a pose on! With ladders on either side & monkey bars across the top, you can let your imagination go wild. Inspired by the artist’s Abuela, Rosamelia, in Puerto Rico who turned 91 last year, the design is a Baroque style, gold, beveled frame with 91 roses for Rosamelia, identical on either side. The solid structure and ladders inspire awesome 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.
Grand Elaborated Rule Masters And No-holds-barrers (G.E.R.M.A.N.)
Medieval Germany is known for the stories collected by Brothers Grimm, the Hanse trading company, people obeying to the rules of their kings, and
Gutenbergs art of printing. All of these attributes are reflected in the G.E.R.M.A.N. guild workshop. This workshop is about rule making and printing. Following a playful structure, a personal rules of life and/or behavior is told and traded for a new rule, which is chosen or created by chance. To make this new rule a temporary or permanent part of the participants life, he or she can print this rule on pieces of old German files, badges, wristbands or even body parts.
Great Big Zapper
In our daily lives, we’ve become desensitized to the curiosity and serenity that is all around us. Technology and social media have taken the place of conversation and natural interaction. The Great Big Zapper will be a visual representation of how we trap ourselves amid the wonder of life. You can sit back and watch the experience unfold, and participate by interacting with bright, buzzing distractions inside the GBZ. The Great Big Zapper is my way of letting the world see the fray of our daily lives and the inherent joy of escaping it.- Also it’s a hippy trap 😉
Grove
Visualized as a grove of beautiful low hanging trees, Grove is an interactive art installation that uses breath sensors to create a meditative and immersive experience. A reflection on the interdependence of breath, Grove uses biofeedback sensors, connecting our inner workings with tangible art installations.
Grove brings together artists from India with neurotechnologists and architects from America, making it a truly global collaboration. Grove is a meditation on the interdependence of breath. Every time we breathe in, we inhale the ‘out breath’ of a tree around us, placing ourselves in a constant state of union between the macro-forest outside, and the micro-forest of alveoli within our lungs.
Grove uses technology related to the quantified self, to break down the idea of self entirely and to remind us that we are all interconnected, through breath, to every living creature on this planet; from the leaves on trees to the sand of the desert.
Guardiano Leone
Lions are representative of protection and therefore our Guardiano Leone is the guardian of the Man.
Guild of Mile Higher Knowledge
The Guild of Mile Higher Knowledge is an on-playa twist on a Maker Space. The space is broken up into 3 areas. In the front you have a present day work area where modern workshops will be taught, like LED helicopters, making a solar stove, Tesla cell phone chargers, etc. If you want to tap into ancient technology, you can pass through the time portal into a workshop from the Renaissance era. The time portal will have an interactive clue aspect that you have to figure out in order to get the past to open up to you.
The front of the booth is heavy canvas walls painted to look like an ancient building with LED lit columns standing in front. The side project, the Da Vinci Code Capade, will involve picking up a cypher card in front of the booth and figuring out clues to take you around the playa. This will allow many of the Colorado theme camps to host our adventurers along the way. People can bring their completed card back at any time during the burn week.
Helios
In resonance with the Leonardo’s Renaissance – the era of rebirth – Helios calls upon every citizen of the playa to activate their inner fire that is essential to illuminate our present era of darkness. Inside an interactive chamber of six Vitruvian activation platforms, participants offer a private statement of their highest selves to a central mirrored witness, and then ritualistically and physically project light beams to illuminate others and collectively light up the night sky. Helios is burned in ritual celebration of the light we collectively must shine to illuminate the darkness.
Heyoka
Heyoka is a sixty foot across circle with a ten foot center Four part colored circle representing the four elements .
Four katchinas stand at the perimeter cardinal points. There is a tall feather flag in the center representing the 5th element ” spirit”.
According to Native American lore , Heyoka is the pesky pot stirrer who will rattle your cage of denial.
Honey Bear
The honey bear is a universal symbol of happiness.
Horizon Lines
At first look Horizon Lines appears to be a cluster or ‘forest’ of twenty five wooden posts rising out of the Playa. The top portion of the posts are painted black, with a golden line between the black and raw wood sections and the sides of each post painted to a different level. When Participants come to the properly marked location looking directly North, South, East or West at the sculpture, the painted portions visually align with the horizon or mountain range behind it. The golden stripe creates a gilded horizon line. The moment the paint on each post and the natural backdrop line up, you will see the optical illusion of the merging of the foreground and background to make one whole image.
Hot Glass Arts Guild
This will be an interactive glassblowing studio giving live demonstrations, and offering opportunities to learn the craft of glassblowing.
Hubris
Hubris is a kinetic sculpture representing Icarus, reimagined as the historical figure of Otto Lilienthal. He was an aeronautical pioneer, inventing some of the first real gliders and convincing many for the first time that heavier-than-air flight was possible. The data he collected was a direct inspiration to the Wright Brothers. He was eventually killed in one of his experiments.
On the sides of the plinth is a series of bas relief scenes depicting other figures from modern science and technology as seen through the lens of classical mythology.
HYBYCOZO - Heart of Gold
Sculpture 1- The Improbability Drive will consist of an all-pipe skeletal frame connecting into a mirrored hypercube shape made of mirror. The inside shape, a rhombic dodecahedron, has an optical illusion that looks like 3 different shapes in 3 different perspectives. The mirror shape on the inside will reflect the outside edges, creating a 4D dimensional hypercube effect.
Sculpture 2- The Heart of Gold – will consist of a skeletal frame of a rhombic triactohedron and from its top-most point will hang a super intricate laser cut HYBYCOZO sculpture that will cast shadows far into the playa. This outer skeletal shape is the most complex shape that DaVinci drew and will form a super fun dome-like jungle gym.
Sculpture 3- Hyperspace Bypass- A stacked set of 11 HYBYCOZO rhombic dodecahedrons shapes set on top of each other tessellating perfectly in 3D space. Its form is reminiscent of an iceberg or a 4D pyramid. In the day it will looking like a gleaming gold multifactored pyramid.
I Tamburisti di FIREnze (The Drummers of Florence)
Our project will recreate a 16th century drum-crafter’s workshop while exploring a strange and ancient fiction fabricated by our team. The space itself is split into two major parts: the workshop and the play space. First you’ll take a tour of our workshop which is embellished with drapery and a parody of Leonardo-inspired paintings (including a 20-foot mural of The Last Supper as if they were all building drums). As RECRUITS, you’ll learn our history and bring an offering to our founder. As an APPRENTICE, you’ll discover your Rhythmic Identity Code and we’ll send you on a Rhythm Quest! Once a JOURNEYMAN, we’ll teach you a few of our drum-building secrets while you help us assemble drums to gift off-playa. If you make it that far, you’ll complete your apprenticeship by building a drum of your OWN to prove yourself worthy of the title “MASTER” within our ranks! Throughout the week, you’ll find facilitated drum circles & various workshops in our play space, and there will be plenty of time for all burners to explore their own sense of play! CALLOUT We’re looking for volunteers to help facilitate drumming in our play space. We have a volunteer form on our website. Our project is huge and ever-evolving, and and we can always use more bodies 🙂
Iceberg
An iceberg on the playa in the heat of a late August afternoon? How cool is that? See with your own eyes the sun and wind twirl around this kinetic sculpture every moment of the day and night. Never the same twice.
Identity Awareness Union
A 13′ tall steel question mark at a 10 degree slant and is held up by a 7′ human form. A female form embraces the human form. The idea is to evoke the question of how relationships and others affect our identity. I would like to expand on the lighting from last year and use kinetics to be more interactive with people.
Identity Reorganization Portal
Identity Reorganization Portal is a steel gazebo-like structure. The portal’s footprint is narrow and circular with a diameter of 48″. Its total height is 11′. The entire structure, covered with thousands of small irregularly-cut mirrors, shines from a distance. Unable to avoid shiny objects, myriads of Black Rock citizens will be drawn closer only to find their own reflections scattered, reorganized and blended with the reflection of others nearby. This installation endeavors to raise important questions in the group mind about the nature of Identity. Passing through the center of the portal reveals one’s reflection now compressed by the inner concave nature of these mirrored walls. Two lighted buttons inside the portal activate a random set of verbal instructions for successful identity reorganization.
Identity Reorganization Portal is designed to be a gauntlet thrown down before the apparent solidity of the assumed “I”.
IF...
IF… not just what IF, or would of, or could of, or should have, It’s about the idea that once you have thought of something or the idea has been born you shouldn’t ignore it . You can’t ignore it . You don’t have to do anything about the IF but maybe you should think about the IF some more. WE would like to read about some of the IFs that you have experienced so feel free to write all over it IF you want to
Il Vecchio Stivale
“Being willing is not enough; we must do.” And this piece encourages just that.
Dust and more dust. Follows us around all week.
Until now. For a fleeting moment you can shine.
Here, just for you dear dusty burners, Il Vecchio Stivale, a wonder, a miracle, a vision to behold. 2 shaded seats, foot rests and a big box of shoe polish. The rest is up to you: you can get down and polish, talk, improvise, take a nap, gift a shoeshine or ten, watch the sun rise or go down from up on high atop this colorful shoeshine stand made for two.
Illumicone
Illumicone is light art driven by participation and interaction. A softly glowing presence draws participants inside, where they encounter strange mechanical widgets. As they play with the widgets, patterns of light appear on the cone, surrounding the participants with a dazzling color spectacle of their own creation and rewarding their curiosity.
Illumicone is 19 feet tall at its center and 38 feet across at its base. Cables descending from the top of the cone carry 3600 individually controlled LEDs. Inside the cone are interactive widgets constructed mostly out of repurposed objects. Manipulating the widgets causes patterns of light to appear and move across the LEDs. Spinning wooden wheels causes stripes to move around the cone and collide to create seemingly random combinations of color. Other widgets create sparkles, stain the cone with blotches that expand and disappear, or twist and turn the whole display.
Imago
Blue mirror-steel butterflies hover 17 ft over the desert, wings lifted as if just alighted, yet ready for takeoff. Stepping beneath the delicately-perforated, arching wingspan, vivid blue light scatters, encircling us in a vaulted, luminous space of geometric patterns/reflections. “Imago” holds a space, in structure and feeling, that is light and uplifting, like an intimate temple or futuristic shrine.
The elevated butterflies are easily-resonant metaphors for the transformative experiences that compel so many migrations to Burning Man: immersion into a place of imagination, to be renewed, transformed.
Butterfly metamorphosis mirrors our Playa experiences: intense preparations, followed by the suspension of mundane life, to immerse into a dreamlike space that is safe-yet-undefined, full of potential. When the time of cocooning is over, we emerge, high on imagination. Just as the mature butterfly, known as an imago, returns to the wider world, ripe for creation and pollination.
Improba Putti
Improba Putti is in the style of an Italian Renaissance sculpture with modern elements. She and they will have a look of Patinated Bronze and Copper. It has mythological beings inter-reacting in a playful (or not so playful) way, depicting an innocence during the Renaissance period.
Improba Putti is a female Centaur being pulled by Winged Putti. The bas-reliefs encircling the plinth will be of underground scenes depicting caves, roots, stalactites, as well as a salamander, crayfish, bats and an armadillo.
Incendio e Illuminato
Incendio e Illuminato is a Renaissance-inspired interactive fire garden with a reflecting pool that mirrors the sky by day and dancing flames by night. The garden is adorned with sculptures and ornate flowers that represent the principles by which humans may ascend the spiritual path to enlightenment. The geometry and symbology of the garden is based on the Kabbalah Tree of Life.
Rising from within the pool are larger than life flowers that represent beauty/sun, foundation/moon, and death. The flowers are brightly colored during the day and at night are transformed by fire effects. Buttons are located along the pedestals and benches to allow participants to change the strength and patterns of the flames within the pool and surrounding sculptures.
Inside the Mind of DaVinci
A larger than life sculpted head is partly submerged in the earth from our Renaissance past. In a dust storm you stumble upon it and are awed by its presence as the sands blow off of it. Walking around the large sculpture you can enter: Inside The Mind of DaVinci.
The back of the head is cut out into two archways allowing entrance into the hollowed out interior of the piece. The interior has etched into the surface, Leonardo’s sketches and writings. Geometric shapes that illuminate colors of blue, red and yellow create a unique and pleasant atmosphere with beautiful colored shadows cast by the sun inside the head.
The inside of the head is a resting area where there are cement balls to sit on that can be pushed and rolled leaving written words in the sand. It is a community spot for gathering and sharing artistic and inventive ideas. The piece consists of concrete, bronze, recycled glass and metal.
Intention
Intention is an immersive and interactive tensegrity structure that treads the intersections of art, engineering, and science. The sculpture disrupts the horizon as a form of jumbled symmetry, six struts held together purely in tension and compression, seemingly weaving through thin air.
From the human body down through the cellular level, we are tensegrities ourselves. The form of the structure is inspired by Donald Ingber’s research on eukaryotic cell construction and biomechanics. A complex network of tensioned filaments connect the struts, with a nucleus suspended inside that is the mathematical DNA of the tensegrity. At night it comes alive as a structural data visualization and beacon.
Intention explores the fundamental building blocks of our bodies by allowing the participant to immerse themselves within the responsive architecture of a nucleated tensegrity structure.
jack champions murder
Five large fiberglass crows, 12ft long and 5/12 to 7/12 ft tall, 3 variations. Crows play with altered perspective as you come to them. From a distance they appear much larger than life.
JacketZ
JACKETZ ! Project #7 out on the deep playa fence. This year you will ride along the fence and find very strange and funny old album covers mounted above each green stake that Just George and his fabulous crew put up every year. These album jackets will be bizarre and certainly invite you over to check each pair out and discover the theme for each one. They will spin in the wind and a few wind chimes will beckon you to have a laugh and discover something new. PhenceArt from BlinkingMan Camp always believes that discovery is a great way to find the hidden gems the playa provides. Deep Playa – it’s not just for your grandparents any more……Dragnet
Jar of Sand
Jar of Sand is a large-scale (8′ tall x 4′ diameter) canning-style “glass” jar filled with plastic collected from beaches of the Pacific Northwest. By engaging people to clean up our oceans, Jar of Sand intends to create awareness and encourage action. Domestic garbage and pieces of garbage from the Pacific Trash Vortex—the massive island of floating trash—are carried across oceans and wind up on our shores, telling a story of resource extraction, production, and consumption. In this time of climate change and excessive use of fossil fuels, this art installation is a reflection and commentary on our plastic consumption and ultimately unsustainable waste. Participants are welcome to bring plastic that they have collected from the ocean and beaches to the playa and put them in the Jar. The collected plastic will be creatively layered in an over-height custom fabricated jar that will be displayed at Burning Man .
Jedi Dog Temple
An art project for children designed by a child. Sagan Bocskor (4.5 years old) designed the structure using the tools he has – his building blocks. “Jedi Dog Temple, But Everyone Is Welcome” was selected and submitted to Burning Man by him and his parents. Sagan has been creating and his parents have been photographing his progress since he could stack blocks… about 2.5 years ago. We have scaled up his toy/block design to make it a child’s play space, perfect for a few 5 year olds.
Sagan asked for other kids to decorate the inside, so the kids & community of Las Vegas got together to create the art for the little space for little people.
Kimonoasis
Kimonoasis
Three wooden ‘shade trees’ & supporting structures form a constellation on the Deep Playa galaxy’s outer edge. Fabric canopies adorn each tree offering a sheltered daytime embrace & an irresistible beacon to Deep Playa Moth Peoples by night. Along the central axis, aligned with Wednesday morning’s rising sun, The Haiku Booth marks the eastern counter point. The shade trees are gathered to evoke casual interaction between visitors, while the Haiku Booth & integral mailbox is set apart to instill a creative breadth in which to write haiku on postcards. Serving perhaps as a memento of one’s adventures or a gift to a loved one, the postcards are themselves a component of a greater ‘mailed art’ installation now in its 4th year, associated with Kamp Kimono. The post cards are read aloud at camp (see event board) and later mailed to their designated recipients mid year. The best of which are bound into books for Kamp Kimono visitors to enjoy throughout the week.
Koulu School
Everyone has something to teach. Koulu is a school of amateur teachers and gurus at heart. It is a learning space for hundreds of lessons to help people discover their inner teacher.
The real art of this approach is the curriculum and how it is presented: it is totally governed by the participants and created organically and collaboratively as it develops. The lessons are presented in an elaborate “tree of knowledge”, that by the end of the day will have hundreds of lessons, on topics and in fields we can only imagine. The Finnish Burners have a wealth of positive experiences and perspectives from the previously organized “Koulu” workshops held around the world. The results are always mind blowing. Versatile and diverse is our method or magic is in the discovery of what people might be able to teach one another within a 15 minute interactive session / lesson among friends or strangers.
La Bottega
La Bottega is a hub which will serve as a welcome and information center for the Guilds located at the base of the Man, in the Piazza. La Bottega will also support the Guilds by being the logistics center for all the Guild regional groups and artists, Man Watch, and Rangers assigned to the Man Pavilion.
For three magical years, The Man Pavilion has been a focal point of promotion of our worldwide community. From the Souk, to the Midway, and now the Workshop Guilds, The Man himself is much more than a destination throughout the week, it is now also the center for participants to reach out and learn about our communities growing in every corner of the world.
La Musa de Davinci (The Muses of Davinci)
Da Vinci was a genius who epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. His view of the world was logical rather than mysterious.THE MUSES OF DA VINCI are the muses that inspired the genius of Leonardo. It’s a visual opera that explores the ideals of the Renaissance and the divas who influenced Leonardo.The dreams of such creative individuals who see beyond the material world, and can conjure up a new reality, shape our culture and shape our idea of life. Such dreams inspire millions of people.
These visions first begin with the The Muse. The seven muses are:THE NUN who symbolizes The Virgin Mary from the Catholic Faith. LAKSHIMI-who represents The Indigenous Ancient Pagan Religions. LUCREZIA BORGA-embodies the power of Renaissance ruling elite. INANNA-The Influence of Middle Eastern Religions from the opened trade routes. MARS-God of War, from the Roman Era. OKAM-a monk. CATERIANA-who symbolizes Divinci’s 3 mothers: Caterina-birth mother, Albiera-2nd mother, Lanfredini-3rd mother.
La Victrola
La Victrola is a 35 ft tall Art Nouveau gramophone. Around its base is a fully immersive turn-of-the-century cabaret featuring the live music and performances from another era. During daytime hours, La Victrola will play the old time music of crackly old 78s to all who cross its path. Each evening, the cafe tables and lounges will be filled by the audience and performers will grace its stage. On a playa dominated by digital technology and music, La Victrola offers a counterpoint of jazz, blues, bluegrass, classical, and vaudeville that formed the foundations of what we hear today.
Le Attrata
After the Events of 2175, the perfect storm of industrial pollution, population explosion and the destruction of biodiversity raged. It was only a renewal of the vows between science and nature that saved us. The amount of horrendous wastes we had piled up over a millenia- much of it toxic and flammable- was daunting. The Fuocco Falene are a crux of biomech, artistry and divine intervention. Fire moths- drawn to the most noxious of wastes, able to consume the wastes and leave a benign byproduct. Their consumption of fuels is spectacular, so much so that Falena became sought after for their beauty. It has become fashionable to convert outdated civic fixtures, like fountains, to be attractions to the Fuocco Falena. Le Attrata is a prime example of such an installation, its jagged spires providing perches for the Falena, the curved benches housing seating for people, and the Falena chrysalises lighting the way throughout the night.
Leonardo's Air Service
Leonardo’s Air Service is a replica of Da Vinci’s helicopter design. It will evoke a sense of wonder with its large canvas sail and colorful design. Residents of Black Rock City will be able to enjoy the shade it provides and get to see the city spin around them.
Let Go
Let……Go – The Dance of Life is a 15′ tall steel form made of wire mesh that invites reflection of baggage we carry that is no longer needed.
Let Them Have Light
In the distance the burner sees a form she is familiar with: a gumball machine. But unlike those delight-dispensing fixtures of her past, this one glows with LED lights. Upon closer approach she reads a sign on top – “Get Lit”, it commands.
Rather than take your money, this machine has a different purpose – to give the much needed resource of light to illumination-starved burners, AKA “darkwads”. For the meager price of a kind thought, the machine dispenses a personal illumination device in an iconic plastic egg. A tombstone receptacle sits on the side to collect the empty eggs.
This piece is an oasis of light in the darkness. From it, individuals carry sparks of light out to the rest of the playa. Metaphorically this depicts the ongoing evolution of human society through individual acts of kindness. Be the light you wish to see in the world, and help others shine too!
Lodo my Lodo
As the Traveler crosses the bleak and glaring desert, she are drawn towards what appears to be date palms by a shimmering pool. Can it be real? Or are the shimmering lights just a Mirage?
It soon becomes clear – they have discovered the LoDo. The pool is actually an interactive, life-size, multiplayer game board. Stepping on a square after dark, LoDo comes to life, drawing players to co-operate in games like life-size Pong and Breakout.
The assembly consists of 35 pressure sensitive squares illuminated by thousands of LED lights. Players moving over the board trigger reactions in the microprocessor controlled game and sound effects.
You are the paddle, your movement over the squares controls the LED field.
By day, the platform is a place to rest, meditate or get married.
Lord Snort
Lord Snort is a wild boar roughly 20′ tall and 30′ long which balances on a shaft, allowing it to rotate 360 degrees. Made of steel, it is rough and unbreakable and people can climb all over it. It will serve as a gathering point for unimagined interactions.
Lumenoctis
Lumenoctis is a portal to other dimensions or a gate to other worlds where you can experience day at night and night at day to make them all connected and one, to blend dualism and see both overlapping each other at the same time. The installation creates the feeling of oneness with the universe, oneness with the earth and with everyone all around you. This is how we learn compassion and love.
It is interactive as a meditation or hang out place, people can also stand in the middle of the portal where the symbol of infinity knot exists and experience sunlight, starlights, reflected lights or fluorescent lights, depending on the time of the day. You can also just hang out between the wings of the space, watching the flickering lights, as it creates a magical environment either at day or night.
The size of the installation will be about 28′ in diameter and 12′ tall. It forms a hexagonal shape with dark fabric dividing each sections.
During Burning Man I am planning to create a quiet ceremony each day.
M3 - Minnesota Makers & Masterpieces
Apprentices will enter the M3 Guild space and be treated to a variety of interactive, educational experiences… and a few bits of just plain fun. The novices can learn to strike coins, become DaVinci coders, control lights and sound with logical programming, learn and practice drawing. Applying science and physics they can heat their own tater tot with the sun.
There will be an oversize component Moog synthesizer that can be reconfigured and reprogrammed.
For fun, apprentices will be encouraged to join the low-brow instrument band, and participate in a parade through the Man Pavilion.
As a commemorative, “graduates” will be lined up as participants in a 2.5 dimensional version of DaVinci’s Last Supper with costumes and have their photo taken.
Mad Sorcerer's Workshop
The Mad Sorcerer’s Workshop has the very important job of creating new baby worlds. It floats in space, seeding star systems with new planets, full of strange and wonderful creatures. Is that an octopus in the ocean? A banana tree on an island? Are those birds or airplanes in the air? All that can be known, is that they are all made of Play-Doh by the Workshop’s visitors, one creature at a time.
MAGIC
MAGIC is an original sculpture created by Laura Kimpton and Jeff Schomberg. Crafted in aluminum, MAGIC is a monumental sculpture set to shine in the desert sun. Commissioned by Dragonfly Den, MAGIC will have its inaugural showing in Black Rock City, and will ultimately be installed in Miami as part of art garden designed to feature Burning Man artists.
Magic Dance Mirror
The Magic Dance Mirror creates a graphically stylized mirror image of those using it with dynamic animated visuals based on a users movement, audio, and social interactions. The visual experience rewards movement, dance, and dancing together with elaborate real-time animations. The range of possible visuals created by the user is as endless as your possible movements.
Mechan 9
Half-buried in the dust and covered in hundreds of years worth of rust, Mechan 9 is a giant fallen robot. It looks like it’s centuries old, yet there is something very futuristic about it as well. Sprawled out and damaged, the giant metal creature is covered in mysterious text and secret hatches.
But where did it come from, what was it doing here, and who built it? The answers lie in the text. One must decipher it to reveal the answers to unlock the mystery.
Mechanica Musica
The participant sees an 8-foot wheel with someone walking inside of it, creating beautiful music.
The art responds to user’s desires by means of an input musical seed, but only if they are willing to generate the motive force making it play. Thus it becomes a more powerful & versatile object. The old & the new meld together: mechanical linkages & controls work in concert with computationally intense algorithms creating a delightful musical instrument for everyone.
This goes beyond the limitations of expectation for the original; music boxes usually play one short tune. Here is shown that things do not always behave according to one’s expectations.
The viewer is the catalyst necessary to fulfill its potential, becoming an integral component of the creative process. They become the artist, only one that is making a unique, ephemeral creation, the music, by means of their input & operation, all played out on the canvas of our device for the delight & appreciation of all around them.
Medusa Madness
Medusa Madness
Dare to stare and be mesmerized
Medusa Madness
Medusa Madness
Dare to stare and be mesmerized
MirrorrorriM
MirrorrorriM is a kaleidoscope the size of a school bus that requires many people working together to make it spin. Participants can choose to be part of the team spinning the kaleidoscope or can get into the “human roll chamber” by slipping their feet into bindings and going for a spin! Or they can control the lights that light the kaliedoscopic tube. MirrorrorriM is a full body experience whether you’re spinning or being spun, but even just enjoying the effects of the kaleidoscope has been elevated: instead of simply putting your eye up to the kaleidoscope, our project allows you to immerse yourself fully in the Observation Room. This room is walled completely by mirrors, creating an infinity effect. The Observation Room is the best place to view the ever changing images that the other participants create with their bodies. MirrorrorriM is more than a hands-on experience—it’s a Bodies-On-Art experience. The team behind it believe that everyone can make and be a part of art.
NEON ANGEL WINGS
As the night begins, a truly majestic pair of multi-colourful Neon Angel Wings appear to hover way in the distance. Summoning you to come closer and closer; Burners will have a heavenly opportunity for a moment in time to ‘wear’ the magnificent Wings.
For some it will be a spiritual experience as the Neon Angel Wings bring enlightenment, love, a sense of flight, purity of spirit and freedom.
The Neon Angel Wings will have flown over from Australia and are made from LED Neon Flex; a revolutionary replacement for glass neon and have a wing span of 4 meters(13 feet).
Observer at Point X
Observer at Point X is a sacred space & exploration of renaissance era optics used for divnatory/astronomical, photographic, & scientific/alchemical purposes. Participants draw the scenes from the camera obscuras, contemplate with the magic mirror & play with optics in the workspace/observatory.
Octavius
Octavius is a giant octopus covered in a bright mosaic of hand-cut ceramic tiles in shades of orange, blue, and purple. The eyes and suckers are molded glass, and glow with the light of hundreds of LED bulbs, symbolizing enlightenment from within. Representative of the octopus spirit, Octavius inspires the participant to adapt fluidly to new or uncertain circumstances and explore deeper emotions. He also invites participants to open their hearts to the natural wonders of the world, deciphering complex puzzles and thus finding answers that may have seemed difficult or impossible at first.
Parasolvent
“Parasolvent” is an interactive kinetic sculpture. A 23 foot tall rotating ring of parasols that open as they ascend and close as they fall.
Parasols are protective devices created to shield us from the elements. Here they represent the emotionally protective devices we believe are protecting us, but are in fact hindering our progression. This is a meditative piece about letting them go. The parasols exit a human figure, blossom (open) as they rise, and decay (close) as they fall. Parasolvent was inspired by the artist’s first Burning Man in 2013 and chosen as an Honorarium piece for 2014.
Paul's Chair
Paul’s Chair is an oversized Muskoka (Adirondack) chair in honour of a great Black Rock City citizen passed named Paul Morrison. Please come enjoy some vodka & oranges, take in a sunset or a sunrise, and meet some more great Black Rock City citizens.
Peace Pavillion
The Peace Pavilion is an octagonal wood shade structure conceived by Orca Moon a 12 year old artist and built by Disciples of the Dust. There are 8 pillars and a prayer wheel on each post. The prayer wheels have inspiring words of peace, love, kindness and blessings written in different languages.
Powerful artwork by Orca Moon is painted on the structure. The mandalas and designs are of the colors red, orange and gold. Burners can interact by spinning the wheels as they walk around the structure, releasing powerful energy waves of kindness and compassion. Lit inside and on the posts, lights shine up from each pillar at night symbolizing the feelings of good will and love being released to the Universe. Participants can gather under the shade.
In the center of the pavilion is a Buddha created in both the feminine, masculine, animal and insect representing the God in all of us. It is made of wood, metal and has mirrors around its body.
Petunia
The Petunia is a small meditative space, meant for one or two people.
It is created almost entirely out of newspapers, which have been spun into yarn and knitted into lace. The first row of knitting is supported by a cube-shaped metal frame (4x4x4 ft). Consequent rows are knitted outwards from the frame, leaving the space inside hollow.
The outermost row will be knitted out solid wire. When we burn the Petunia, the main rows, made of paper, will burn away, and the outer row will collapse, taking on a new shape around the frame, and giving us a new sculpture.
In the information age we live in, surrounded by data, big and small, there is certain poetry to using newspaper as building material for a cocoon-like structure. He who sits inside the Petunia will be completely enveloped in data, which has been printed to paper and then encrypted beyond recognition by the yarn-making process and the knitting.
Copies of all newspaper issues used, will be available on site for the curious reader.
Piazza di Ferro
This year the Iron Monkeys will pay homage to our craft by building a functional, participatory blacksmith shop on playa. Encircling the shop will be a public gathering space, encouraging the community to observe, discuss, and contribute to what is happening in the shop.
Pinhole Project
The Pinhole Project exposes 30 x 40 inch sheets of light sensitive gelatin silver paper. We work with 12 pinhole cameras, created out of 50-gallon cardboard barrels. This size is uniquely suited for capturing the incredible scale and immense diversity of art and culture at Black Rock City.
Under the red safelights of the darkroom, photosensitive paper is inserted into the camera body. Exposures range from 40 to 300 seconds, where concentrated beams of sunlight are funnelled through the pinhole and into the camera, creating a negative image of the recorded subject.
We maintain a desert darkroom in a shipping container, where we gather to processes, develop and fix about one hundred photographs each Burning Man.
We transport our cameras and crew throughout the city in our trusty BAT. (Big Ass Truck) The BAT provides safe and secure transportation of 12 cameras complete with crew and support material.
Pit Stop
Hands and arms waving in the air!
What do you see? Underarm hair!
A rare and special treat indeed!
Proclaiming and celebrating our animal splendor!
Playa Beach Ball
The Playa Beach Ball is bigger than you are. Decorated by Burners for Burners. Decorated with hands, bottoms, boobs and others, there are paintings of flowers, the Man, rainbows and fun designs and signatures.
The Playa Beach Ball is filled with actual beach balls. It is enclosed in a dome that can be stepped inside to play with the ball. The dome helps keep the ball from flying to the trash fence and allows it to be seen at night.
Playa Forever
Playa Forever is a celebration of DaVinci’s art and engineering. The concept of perpetual motion is an intriguing one. Participants will encounter it and observe the function of the levers and arms.
The slowly spinning wheel will generate a ‘clacking’ sound, as the levers and balls rotate.
Plug 'N Play
A confluence of elements in African-American, Caribbean, & Latino culture in New York in the ‘80s gave rise to one of the most formidable music genres of the century: Hip-hop. Plug ’n Play pays tribute to the essential power of hip-hop & its foundational elements: Emceeing (oral), Deejaying (aural), Breaking (physical), Graffiti (visual), & Knowledge (spiritual).
Plug ‘n Play is a large orange wooden electrical plug protruding upwards. Surrounding the Plug are five Quad Boxes with interior exhibits; each visually represents one of the five elements of hip-hop.
We plug in; we explore & examine the almighty vinyl record, the mic, & the crowd. In our DJ Dojo, feel with your hands what it’s like to drop the needle on the record & physically engage with actual vinyl. Passersby can tune in on turntablism demonstrations, scratching lessons, & roundtable sessions on the Elements. We’ll also have lectures, films, sonic history trips, & other interactive moments. “If music be the food of love, play on. Give me excess of it.”
Polimerica sulla Playa
Sit and create polymer clay pieces! Teachers will show Burners the techniques they need to create their own unique artwork. We expect, and encourage, Burners to interact with their fellow Burners: share techniques or how they’ve built their project and engage with each other as each person creates something they love.
Progress
Progress represents the questioning of technological advancement in today’s post Moore’s Law world. The focal point of progress will be a spinning bicycle (the entire bicycle, not just the wheels), held up by a geodesic dome, and powered by two residental sized solar panels. Extra power from the panels will go to USB and 120V plugs for people to plug their varyous technological advances into.
Progress will engage its viewers by creating a space for meditation on the the “point” of continuous technological advancement through an utterly useless spinning bicycle. Through this self-reflective process, we hope that people will realize that they don’t need to plug in their iphones, and will leave our pointless project in search of internal contentment.
Project Aeon
Project Aeon explores the concept of vector equilibrium (VE) as expressed in all that we perceive as matter, our physical reality. This visual representation of the VE form, a 50′ tall spherical “Torus” alludes to the bodies of energy that compose all of our Universe, reflecting the electromagnetic flow of energy structuring these bodies; from the Universe itself to stars, planets, atoms and subatomic systems, even our own human bodies. Sacred geometry unveiled in the systems of this form infinitely replicates itself throughout the structure. Light is the focus of interactive sculptures within the structure.
Project Flashlight
Project flashlight is the joy of light at grand scale.
Pure, incredibly bright white beams like fingers of god in the dust, contrasts with the night sky, scale across the open playa, interplay of beams, light in motion.
Military and NASA billion-candlepower searchlights, reanimated for art! Interactively controlled by smartphones, tablets and light-saber toys.
Pulse
Taking inspiration from Leonardo Da Vinci’s anatomy sketches, Pulse is a 12′ tall sculptural interpretation of the human heart with blood of fire and veins of steel! The steel structure is formed by the intricate vasculature and predominant veins and arteries of the heart. Emanating from within the heart is a dazzling demonstration of heat, light, and sound that, using biosensors, synchronizes with the participant’s own heartbeat.
Pulse is about passion, persistence, life, and connectivity. Like Black Rock City itself, Pulse is a demonstration of what is possible when hearts are in sync!
Pulse Portal
A portal acts as a gateway to a distant and magical world. Pulse Portal is a freestanding laser cut parabolic archway made from steel and tessellated dichroic acrylic pyramids. Juxtaposing futuristic materials that reflect the viewer and the rugged landscape will provide a sense of awe and inspiration as they step onto the playa. The combination of these materials and geometric design will create an effect that simultaneously feels space age and classic effectively placing the viewer in a time portal.
REACTOR
Reactor displays the contrast between nature and the industrial world. A natural shape from an alien environment, this sculpture symbolizes growth and life in a harsh uncharted world. Its twisting limbs and futuristic paint job fires up the viewers imagination to wonder what is possible with material and shape.
red
Red is a testament to the power of the wind out here. With over 150 yards of fabric, one can feel, hear, and see its presence through this tower.
Renaiximent - (Renaissance)
A combination of geometry and sculpture with techniques used in the Fallas festival from Valencia, Spain.
A reinterpretation of grotesque decorations from Valencia Silk Market, UNESCO Heritage building from XV century.
Grotesque decorations at this building were used by civic society to laugh at and face against established power and rules.
Molds and pieces hang in the inside of the installation and create a space for participants to interact.
A golden cube in the desert to attract people inside, where they become part of an art installation that mixes the contemporary language of the latticed architecture of the pavilion with the cardboard pieces and molds of a traditional Fallas guild.
The cube lays over a wooden mosaic of thousands of pieces assembled by social collectives. The debate between traditional and contemporary is held over the floor that has been built by the collective. Neither the tradition nor the experimentation have a future without communal effort.
Renoardo's Artisan Menagerie
We are a group of artisans who travel incognito while instructing others in the fine art of making masks, anatomy illustration, & other indulgences. We have our own metal stamp label that we use to “mark” our handiwork. Our masks are the finest in the region & our artists have the flare of Leonardo.
Art classes daily.
In the spirit of Carnivale, our menagerie started creating masks & providing instruction on how to create them. As our group increased, so did our artisan base to include painters & sketch artists. We plan to have classes in making & decorating masks along with art classes in anatomy & anything inspiring to those attending.We will have live models to help with inspiration.We will have a plexiglas panel for instruction and colouring.
Rocky Mountain High Flyers Guild
We will be making and flying a full scale model of Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine that he designed oh so many years ago. Leonardo da Vinci designed his wings after dissecting bird wings in order to figure out how they flew. The Rocky Mountain High Flyers Guild will be making a giant kite with a 30 feet of wing span that will follow da Vinci’s drawings as closely as possible. It will be made of wood and rope, with the wings covered in unbleached cotton. We will also have parts for over 100 kites with a 5 foot wing span that will be a replica of the big kite for the citizens to make and fly and take home with them.
RotoFuego
RotoFuego is a retro-future exploration of the art of sculpting in fire. Participants create and manipulate a fire tornado. The tornado is spun up by a fan that is mechanically driven by a stationary bicycle. Interaction transforms an ordinary propane fire into a sculpture made of fire. Participants breathe life into the fire vortex by pedaling the bike-fan. Participants can shape the vortex, alter its rotation, width, height and intensity by varying their pedaling speed and adding bursts of propane via a handlebar mounted “booster” button. RotoFuego will also serve as a gathering spot on cold playa nights — a place for comfort and conversation, an opportunity to rest, warm up and make new friends. The fire will be surrounded by benches for folks to sit upon and interact with one another and enjoy the flaming beauty their fellow participants create.
Rube Awakening Magic Bike Rack
Apparent to the eye is a bike rack constructed from practical materials, however, Rube Awakening will not reach its full function without interaction and use by Black Rock City residents.
Magic Bike Rack shining bright
Glowing beacon rube’s delight!
Lock your bike by night or day,
Liberate to rube’s dismay.
Scent Wall
The Scent Wall consists of handmade vessels containing scents made by the artist. The vessels are carefully engineered glass decanters and with a simple touch they emit the requisite measure of scent. The decanters are modest sculptures, their glass essentially transparent. The scents are in liquid form inside the vessels. They are as clear as the glass, and thus bring into question the concept, the purpose, of hue; released as vapor, they all are almost invisible. And finally, aligned in a particular sequence, the decanters tell the story that the smell artist desires to tell.
Scopri da Vinci
This is an opportunity to discover the genius of da Vinci through interaction with several of his machines reconstructed and brought to life. Discover Da Vinci’s genius and insight as these simple machines reveal their influence on modern day life!
Scultura di Colletivo
Our intent is to bring and operate a full working traditional blacksmith shop in the Man pavilion. The workshop space will have the look, feel and smell of a traditional blacksmith shop. It will be completely outfitted with coal forges, anvils, vices, hammers and tongs. A group of participants will be able to heat and mold steel like clay under the guidance of our international team of smiths. Blacksmiths from Austria, England, Canada, Columbia, Tasmania, Wisconsin, Illinois, Oregon, Colorado, Nevada and also Lake Tahoe California will be on site guiding and instructing participants to spread the knowledge and traditions of the blacksmithing craft. At the front of the space will be the start of what will be become a life size Da Vinci inspired steel wing. Participants will be able to forge steel feathers that will be added to the sculpture as the week progresses. This will result in a truly city wide built sculpture as people of all ages and backgrounds use their collective creativity to produce a metal work of art.
Seeing humanity for what it really is
This artwork consists of two massive gorillas in different lifelike poses wearing wings inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s sketches of flying machines.
The pieces have a wooden armature. The wings will be in wood. The details of the work are made out of cardboard that the artist wraps and glues around the armature to give it it’s realistic look. The cardboard is recuperated from stores and recycling bins. The animals will be disposed in a way that people can walk between them.
Shamanic Portal
Enter the circle and let yourself go… the Shamanic Portal will take you to uncharted territory. Depending on your personal power and experience, be prepared to journey to the myriad levels of no-ordinary reality. Strategically placed on one of the playa’s most powerful, naturally occurring vortexes, the portal will gather and gain power the more it is used.
Dance, sing, drum, chant, meditate, breathe, spin, hoop, use body postures and any other techniques that will focus your consciousness and take you away. Participants are encouraged to open the portal either individually or in groups.
Don’t believe? Give it a try and then decide.
Ambient trance-inducing sounds are available to support your experience.
Disclaimer: this is an art installation. Use at your own risk. Participation in this installation is the sole responsibility of the participant. The artist is in no way responsible for whatever happens during your experience. Individual experiences may vary.
Sharky-Go-Round/Ghost Shark
Art is a not a mirror held up to reality, but a hammer with which to shape it.
Berthold Brecht
This concept drives my creative process.
The goal of this piece is to raise the awareness of the human population to the devastation being wrought by our species on the oceans, which give life to our planet.
The piece will rotate on a central bearing when it is actuated by human interaction. A gentle push will cause the rotation to simulate the movement of a school of sharks, swimming lazily in a rising spiral current. My goal is to underline the contrast of the beauty of schooling sharks in their ocean community, and the wasteful horror of shark finning by the human community.
From a distance, the low profile of the turntable will show the school, to draw the playa community closer until the view is of the small cloud of sharks from below. Here will be placed the Ghost Shark on its back, as if lying finned and dead on the bottom in stark contrast to the live animals swimming above.
Shoot the Moon
This is a memorial for Canis lupus. He has been a burner from the earlier days, he passed away in March 2016. We want to honor him. The piece “Shoot the Moon” has three meanings, one Canis lupus and his family were avid archers. Secondly, Canis lupus, his family and friends would play Pinochle together, “shooting the moon” as it applies to pinochle is a play that can win the whole game in one hand. Thirdly, Canis lupus means wolf – the wolf at the bottom of the bow, will be howling at the moon.
The piece is a 10′ x 6′ x 4′. The bow is on a rotating base with a wolf howling at the moon under the bow. The piece is made from scrap metal from various family ranches. The tip of the arrow, the feathers, and the wolf’s eye are made of copper by a fellow burner.
Shrumen Lumen
Shrumen Lumen is a garden of oversized mushrooms, made of folded geometry that allows their bodies to undulate in various patterns. Building off a similar aesthetic and folding strategy as Blumen Lumen, a garden of flowers on the Playa in 2014, the new garden aims to have a more significant kinetic movement and improved lighting. People will be able to interact with the mushrooms and affect how they move simply by being present in the sculpture garden. At night, the flowers light up internally and will react to the sounds around them.
Sideways room
Sideways Room is a cube from the outside with a sideways doorway as the entrance. Inside, the room is designed to give the Participant a feeling of being in a sideways room. The project is meant for the deep playa where the seat facing the sky doubles as a stargazing lounge.
Signs of Our Time
This “ready made” mixed media art comes from the brilliant and diabolical mind of the nefarious Justin Kerson. The installation provokes awe of Justin’s conceptual madness, leaving one with the simple and profound desire to seek truth and impact the world for the greater good in any and every capacity available.
This installation looks like a common, everyday road sign- but with an image reformatted from the expectation of the banal daily grind. The signs are inconspicuous to the undiscerning eye, but rich in symbolism and context of the issues that face civilization today. This subtle, yet thought-provoking installation invites social commentary on the unfortunate truths hiding just below the surface of society’s awareness.
What is this sign pointing to? What does it convey?
Sinners Stage
The Sinner Stage is a heathen theater setting with three large steel and rebar sculptures on it. The Devil’s Throne stands powerfully in the center cushioned with sensual red velvet, and on one side is The Satan Andrew’s Cross, both standing over 8′ tall with 4′ ceramic horns looming overhead. On the other side is The Dark Star, with the appearance of a sand worm crossed with a flower it is poised, blossoming, and ready to strike. It is made with 560′ of 1/2 inch rebar twisted and woven together forming the base/stem, 33 ceramic thorns, and 5 large ceramic petals/horns at the top reaching 12′ tall.
Slap Shack
The Slap Shack is an open deli where visitors are invited to give and receive consensual slaps. You are invited to choose from the menu of styles and intensities, or invent your own. Come to the a Slap Shack, put on an apron, talk to your patrons, and serve them their slaps!
Smoke and Mirrors
Smoke and Mirrors is a wooden vision crystal rising from a seemingly chaotic environment. It is a a simple, 12 sided crystalline structure with a somewhat plain exterior. Through intricately shaped windows, forms or people can be seen. Upon further inspection, a doorway can be found in one of the 12 sides. Once inside, guests to its interior will be treated to fire, infinite reflection, and an intimate space to share with others.
Sonic Runway
Imagine sound speeding across the desert as light.
The Sonic Runway is a 1000 ft corridor of lights that visualizes the speed of sound. Participants, especially sound art cars, are encouraged to play music or make other sounds at one end. This triggers colorful patterns of light that ripple down the corridor. Participants at the far end of the runway will see the sound coming at them before they hear it. No matter where you stand, the lights and the sound will be in sync.
The first Sonic Runway was installed at Burning Man as part of Sol System in ’03/’04. 16 years later, the new Runway takes the same basic concept but with an all new design, greater interactivity, and more intricate visualizations.
Soul of Man
The installation is a miniature structure of the man where from the outside you can see the Man through the smaller man. From the inside you can view the Man.
Meaning the light stands illuminate the structure or the sole of the art piece and for within each of us a light burns, we in turn are the lights that in circle the Man for without one there is no other.
Soup Flavored Blankets
Soup Flavored Blankets (SFB) is a giant soup can and cracker box located in the deep playa. SFB is designed to warm the wandering cold souls of deep playa in the wee hours of night before the scare ball arises from the horizon. Come share a joke or a talent, write in our book, and receive some hot action from Soup Flavored Blankets!
Space Dog
Space Dog is 14′ tall by 16′ long by 5′ wide. It’s a collaborative effort between a working blacksmith shop and a mosaic tile artist group. The steel framework is fabricated using mild steel and hot rivets with a hot dipped galvanizing finish. The interior has a mosaic tile finish. The top orbiting three circle antenna is fabricated using 316L stainless steel. The center connection uses a sealed ball bearing system to allow the three ovals to spin independently.
Spacecats
Cats and dogs are known to be one of humanity’s best companions. For animal guardians, pets play an important role in their lives. Studies have shown owning a pet helps anxiety, depression, stress, lowers blood pressure, and regulates heart rate. As is true with any relationship, some human-pet relationships are likely to be more rewarding than others. Some people are more attached to their pets than others and those feelings could influence the impact of the pet on the person’s health and life.
The rocketship will have engraved writing dedicating this project to all those who has lost a pet and all the cats who have decided to leave us reminding them they are always with us.
My hope is that when people discover this installation out in deep playa, they will be touched with this install reminding them of their lost loved ones and providing humor to all the cat lovers.
Spire of Fire
The Spire of Fire is a work of fire art that stands grand and high on the expanse of the open landscape much like a skyscraper in a metropolis. The tower’s height, geometry, metal textures are designed to reflect the evolution of modern metropolitan architecture. Its sheer size and presence will draw your attention from afar. At night the piece will come alive with brightly colored lights and bursts of rhythmic flame.
Stands of Chime
Stands of Chime has the look of a pagoda. As you approach it you see a simple four sided hut constructed of steel. It stands 9′ at the peak of its roof and is about 12′ wide. What you notice first is that the walls are made of large suspended steel chimes. They are 12″ in diameter and up to 4′ long. With a simple breeze, the pagoda comes to life as an enormous wind chime . As you enter into this amazing pagoda of tones you can take a seat in the epicenter of sound. There is a canopy to shade you from the sun.
Sunrise
Play this instrument with your bike. Find a friend, ride through Sunrise to experience a musical treat that celebrates the beauty we create when we work together.
swing theory
A swing set for people to play on.
Tangential Dreams
Tangential Dreams is a climbable sinuous tower made from off-the-shelf timber and digitally designed via algorithmic rules. One thousand “tangent” thin wooden pieces are held in position via horizontal pieces rotating along a central axis, gently moving in the wind like leaves of a giant tree. The pieces are stencilled with inspiring sentences, and dynamically lit by LED strips during the night time. In line with this year’s theme, the piece is reminiscent of Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man’s movement and helicoid inventions as well as his deep, systematic, understanding of the rules behind form to create art. From a wooden flame all the way to a giant desert cactus, the complex simplicity of the art piece will trigger many interpretations, many dreams. The audience will read and discuss the poetry written on each tangent coming from the Burners’ community itself via our crowd funding campaign like a collage of sentences creating a serendipitous “cadavre exquis” of thoughts.
Temple Project
The temple this year will be built in the tradition of David Best temples, but with a significant departure from his usual style – this temple will be hand-built without CNC cut materials. It will be extremely ornate, with a large interior altar and a large chandelier. This temple will take on an ancient air, patina’ed with organic water-based stains, and look as if it were built hundreds of years in the past.
There will be 8 altars placed around the courtyard, which is walled off to create a protected, quiet, respectful space. The interactivity will be the usual function of the Burning Man temple: it will be a place for the community to come and express their emotions, reflect on the losses of friends and family members, and celebrate the lives of people around them. The temple will be built with the consideration of the community, with adequate space to accommodate the needs of people in the temple and the surrounding courtyard for reflection, safety and privacy.
Temple Project
The temple this year will be built in the tradition of David Best temples, but with a significant departure from his usual style – this temple will be hand-built without CNC cut materials. It will be extremely ornate, with a large interior altar and a large chandelier. This temple will take on an ancient air, patina’ed with organic water-based stains, and look as if it were built hundreds of years in the past.
There will be 8 altars placed around the courtyard, which is walled off to create a protected, quiet, respectful space. The interactivity will be the usual function of the Burning Man temple: it will be a place for the community to come and express their emotions, reflect on the losses of friends and family members, and celebrate the lives of people around them. The temple will be built with the consideration of the community, with adequate space to accommodate the needs of people in the temple and the surrounding courtyard for reflection, safety and privacy.
The 10 Benches of Sitting Man
Each of The 10 Benches of Sitting Man represents one of the 10 Principles of Burning Man.
1. Radical Inclusion: A bench that expands beyond initial perception
2. Gifting: Lavishly painted, padded, and decorated, this bench conceals gifts to curious sitters
3. Decommodification: This bench is created entirely out of reclaimed and re-branded materials
4. Radical Self Reliance: Trash fence. Lincoln log style DIY bench
5. Radical Self Expression: Two benches facing each other with rotating speaking/listening horns mounted on sticks in between them
6. Communal Effort: An ornate and regal carrying litter provides an elegant sitting space
7. Civic Responsibility: A small shelter holds a safe space for the weary traveler with 3 low benches and a table
8. Leave No Trace: A clear plexiglass bench sits in the center of a light up zen garden
9. Participation: What is a Teeter-Totter if not a huge communal bench?
10. Immediacy: This bench is mobile. It seeks weary wanderers….
The _i_ya
To lose a great friendship is to alter your life forever. But if we can remain open to the lessons offered by these losses, a deeper Self can be revealed.
Śiṣya (pronounced shi-shya) refers to the relationship between a Guru (teacher) and a śiṣya (disciple). In sanskrit, Gu means darkness and ru means the one who dispels them. Therefore, a guru is one who dispels the darkness.
The Śiṣya, a walk-through experience, prompts participants to recognize the opportunities created by the loss of a close relationship. Participants are encouraged to write on the walls near the prompts to share their stories with others. At the end of the week, The Śiṣya along with all of the memories left behind will be burned.
The Ascension Pendulum
The Ascension Pendulum is a blend of architecture and technology that serves to identify the unique touch human interaction represents while illustrating the beauty of the participant’s experience. The 34′ tall tetrahedron will support a large pendulum capable of drawing intricate patterns into the playa. By capturing the movement of the pendulum, three projectors draw an identical image in light on every side of the structure. This project’s goal is not only to put the participant on display, but to involve them in creating a continually changing art piece. The amazing thing about the human element is that it is inherently random and by harnessing this, our project ensures that the same pattern can never be created twice unless by a robot in controlled circumstances. What this means is that each participant will be involved in not only creation, but synthesis, creating something completely new that cannot be replicated which represents each persons individuality in a aesthetically pleasing way.
The ATM: Automatic Taco Machine
The ATM (Automatic Taco Machine) is your source for on-playa tacos!
The Bear
Dwell in the possibility of discovering your self.
The Before... Project
The Before… Project inspires Participants to think through what they want to do in life and share these aspirations in a public space. It is comprised of inspirational signs surrounding a cylindrical temple space with glowing white curved fabric exterior walls. A short hallway opens into a round, welcoming, comfortable, carpeted, lit space with beautiful wooden walls, topped with the text “Before I die, I want to ______”. The walls are covered with writings from Participants finishing that sentence – “… make up with my parents”, “… travel to Africa”, “… help pass an Equal Rights amendment.” People wander through, being inspired by the thoughts of others, and writing their own thought on the walls. In the center of the room is a table to provide a place to sit and talk and plan.
Inspired by the work of Candy Chang, with permission.
The Black Rock Lighthouse Service
A crystal like cluster of Lighthouses ranging from 6 to 60 foot tall and some leaning as much as 20 degrees. Inspired by the juxtaposition of creating a destination of fun and shelter by something that is meant to warn you of danger. This adult jungle gym aims to become a destination where participants come to seek shelter, play, meetup with friends and navigate the inland sea that is the Playa. At night the Lighthouses will truly come alive with fire, light, and a few other surprises.
The Black Rock Notary
We are a Notary Guild and an interactive installation. Participants will be invited to caste customized documents with help from our artists, facilitators, and mediators that will then be notarized and “sealed”. This interactive process will utilize aspects of ritual, ceremony and iconography. Some documents may require participants to create tokens, amulets or henna tattoos with materials we provide. These tangible “takeaways” will stand as official records for agreements made at our notary. Notable services such as Pair Bonding and Water Sharing Bonding may involve ceremony invoked through ritual in our inner shrine. Our Guild is composed of skilled and experienced Artists, Healers, Dancers, Singers, and Carpenters who will apply these talents to the many aspects of this project. Custom Notary and Ritual work for more unique social situations/needs will also be a focus. These services can be applied to the individual, pairs and larger groups.
The Chapel of Dancing Shadows
The Chapel of Dancing Shadows is a space of refuge, contemplation, meditation and wonder. Its artworks represent an invented creation myth for an imagined civilization. The 8-ft wall drawings are the first 7 images of a developing 150-image set that will ultimately comprise Maria Kreyn’s developing book of drawings. The chapel is a semitransparent, luminous art gallery, yet also a shelter from the elements. A visual and auditory feast, its intricately cut wooden ceiling is covered with wind chimes and drawings. The chapel houses a set of encrypted scrolls in an invented language and a globe showing the imagined civilization’s astrological map.
The Dusty Supper
A Burner version of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper, the Dusty Supper is not just for the Burnier-Than-Thou’s, but for all apostle-tively amazing Burners to celebrate the simultaneous divinity, mortality, and variety of the human experience.
The Family Jewels
The Family Jewels are glowing, UV-lit interactive sculptures inspired by 70’s style string art – these faceted, radiant gems made of miles of bright strands of colored, dancing light will shine as beacons. In 2016, Participants can climb in, spin, explore and enjoy the enhanced and updated Jewels.
The Fireside Circles
For those of you who miss a nice and simple fire to congregate around, The Fireside Circles are concrete burn platforms and benches and a cord of firewood for you, the community, to sit and get warm while watching the world go round and telling stories. You, the community are the fire tender. Please keep it clean and beautiful. Leave No Trace.
The G String
Illuminated interwoven evolving centripetal sine wave forms dancing in the night.
The Giant Weta
Giant weta are endemic insects native to and only found in New Zealand. Their genus name, Deinacrida, is Greek for “fierce grasshopper.” Larger weta can be up to 10 cm (4″) long not inclusive of legs and antennae and it is one of the heaviest documented insects in the world. Due to introduced mammals the weta is now an endangered species.
We are making a 50:1 scale model of real life giant weta and making it shoot flames.
It is being built in Auckland, New Zealand, taken to Black Rock City, returning to New Zealand for Kiwiburn and then finally being installed somewhere in New Zealand as a permanent installation.
The Harmoniscope
The Harmoniscope is a 20′ tall mysteriously pulsing 9-sided structure that transports participants to another place in space-time. Inside is an 8-sided column containing a reactor core made up of many colorful spiraling acrylic rods, the light from which gets reflected back to the outside of the building and on to the playa. It requires participants to work together to decipher the mystery of how it works, and why it’s here. Participants must decipher an unknown language, illustrated on a Rosetta Stone, using audio/visual cues, a kaleidoscopes and controls to collectively align the reactor core. Once aligned, they will be rewarded with a dramatic sound and lighting event that energizes it, triggering the journey that will bring them to their next destination.
The Koi Pond
The Koi Pond is a large-scale interactive installation which immerses participants in the serene setting of a Japanese garden with a high-tech twist.
The Last Apothecary
The Last Apothecary is an immersive, narrative haunted house. It is a narrative about an outer colony space apothecary obsessed with Old-Earth, and also about the persistence of ritual, the space immigrant diaspora, and the obsessive nature of archiving and collecting.
The Last Apothecary is meant to be stumbled upon in deep playa, a strange and imposing structure that evokes nervous curiosity. The interior is built to someone’s idea of an Old Earth apothecary, clutter and warm wood reminiscent of 14th century pharmacies and Chinese medicine shops. There is no masking the anachronism, though – there are infomercials for anti-gravity yoga, and promised cures for all sorts of space ailments. The room is filled with odd and wonderful artifacts, an amulet to heal small wounds, vials of a green powder from Europa for nausea. The counter too, is strewn with artifacts that weave between truth and hoax, asking the participant to stay a while, explore, and maybe share a remedy or two…
The Light is Inside You
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world… It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. ~Marianne Williamson
The Magic Garden at the ARTery
The 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. Relax in the Magic Garden at the ARTery, and immerse yourself in both past and present Burning Man art to the backdrop of chill music.
The Mask Factory
The Mask Factory II welcomes you to our Guild Workshop under The Man. Shade, Interesting People, and Unique Hand-made Masks are all waiting for your Creative Spirit. Open from 11:00 to 5:00: seating is limited. Start the day by working with your hands and meeting amazing strangers!
The MechaGator
The MechaGator is New Orleans’ own big beautiful flaming hot Kaiju creature. She is a fully interactive puppet made of steel and upcycled junk and is the protector of the swamp.
The Musical Periscope
The Musical Periscope is a 30′-wide hexagonal pyramid that transforms the Playa as you know it. Inside the pyramid hangs a periscope that you can pan, zoom, and tilt around your physical surroundings. Whatever the periscope is looking is then turned into unique visuals inside the space. Point the periscope at a starry night sky, the entire pyramid will start to look like the sky, whereas if you point it at the neon horizon, the visuals will become more kaleidoscopic.
The Musical Periscope will even be an interactive backdrop for performers such as fire conclaves and poi spinners.
The art provides an abstract lens through which people can appreciate the Playa, and creates a feedback loop which not only shapes, but also interprets each participant’s adventure through Burning Man. Burners interact with Periscope, and Periscope interacts with the Playa.
The Orca Project
The Orca project is a large-scale sculptural installation of a pod of orcas travelling through the ocean. Constructed out of wood, the pod of orcas invites participants to walk amongst them, to climb on them and to listen to their sounds. The intent is for participants to ponder our own relationship to family, community, animals and the natural world while raising awareness about the declining population of orcas in the Pacific North West.
The Pillars of Principles
The Pillars of Principles show each of the 10 principles of Burning Man on a 6 ft white pillar that automatically lights up at night. It’s a fun and interactive way to learn about the guiding principles of Burning Man.
The Pork Chop Nebula 2.0
So the Art project “Pork Chop Nebula” is a concept born from the desire of its creators to build a representation of an Inter-Dimensional Transport Device. Having the ability transport its passengers to a parallel universe where unlike our own certain laws that govern our world are turned upside down. A place where silliness trumps sensibility, absurdity overpowers rationality and evolution favors the foolish.
The Portal
Portal appears as a twelve foot ring growing from the Playa. Its outer casement is translucent fiberglass treated to appear organic. Inside are many lights running a continuous and varying animation. Sensors detect when Participants pass through Portal and then create a light show response. Maybe a Participant will pass into another dimension.
The Renaissance of Musical Instruments
The Renaissance of Musical Instruments project is about re-creating and reinventing various musical instruments, as well as, creating new ones in the process. The project aims to explore the renaissance theme through the modern topics of nowadays – recycling, individual creativity and modern tools.
The Space Whale
The Space Whale is a 50 foot tall full-scale crystalline humpback whale mother and calf diving through the sky built from steel and stained glass. A monumental testament to family, our relationships with nature, time and space and our responsibility to preserve our environment. First appearing at Burning Man and then traveling to 6 countries around the world. The Space Whale is a monument meant to inspire people to create the change needed to herald in a future of environmental balance and space travel.
The Starfield
The Starfield is a 3 dimensional field of light. From afar, viewers see waves and patterns of light move through the space. Inside, viewers experience the waves of light wash over them and see the patterns move and shift all around them. At times, the Starfield beckons participants to play, responding to their location and movement. All the while, it plays relaxing, ambient music, creating a whimsical, calming oasis of light and sound.
The Stoop
The Stoop is a community gathering place where you can meet new people, remember those no longer with us, or reflect on experiences from Black Rock City and beyond. With stairs facing the city and sunset, it is the perfect place to watch the world go by. The bar below serves sporadically, bringing groups together and refreshing those wandering the playa.
The Traveling Sound Museum
The Traveling Sound Museum is a collection of ancient sounds stored in jars for centuries and mounted on a timeless cart, wheeled from continent to continent. The collection has passed through the centuries, taking different forms in different eras, and contains sounds previously thought lost to history.
What did it sound like when the Mongols swept down from the steppe to invade Europe? Or the wildlife of the Galapagos Islands a hundred years before Darwin? An early morning walk through a fish market on the outskirts of Constantinople a thousand years before it became Istanbul?
Fortunately the Traveling Sound Museum will be making a stop in Black Rock City this year, as part of its never-ending journey through time. So burners who discover it on the playa will have an opportunity to find out.
The What If? Diner
Ignite your child-like wonderment at the “What If? Diner.” The diner will include a towering 8ft tall Jukebox that will light up and invite you to come closer, dangle your feet at our oversized booth, enjoy some treats, and dance. Let your imagination run free, and don’t forget to write in our massive “What If…” guest book.
Tomb of the Unknown Unfinished Playa Art Project (aka TUUPAP)
Honoring past projects that have (or almost, or never) graced the playa… we are providing a space for you to bring your albatross project, concept drawings or half-finished never-to-be partial executions of art designed to live on playa. This includes past art that has previously lived on playa, we subscribe to the idea that “nothing is finished, nothing is perfect, everything is temporary.”
On Sunday morning of Temple burn day, we will burn the things that are able to be burned in a ceremony designed for a group catharsis and cleanse. All are welcome. No plastic, predominantly metal or electrical elements will be burned, although those are welcome to join the exhibition.
Come shed that thing you sunk so much love, treasure, and psychic energy into, but know you’ve grown beyond. Check out tuupap.org for more information or call Massive at 323-428-0913. Questions encouraged!
Tower of Ascension
The Tower of Ascension (TOA) is a 40′ steel tower that looks like something out of ancient Babylon. It has a strong symbolic presence that will be a beacon of light on the Playa. The tower itself is comprised of a three-legged base, on which rests an observation platform at 25′. Above this is a floating metal sphere with two dragons climbing up it. The dragons have their necks intertwined at the top and will spit fire at night.
A 12′ wooden tower will rest about 80′ from the TOA. This tower will serve as a platform for Andrea Brook’s Sonic Butterfly, a newer version of the Earth Harp.
A ring of 23′ smaller towers surrounds the TOA, forming a perimeter and defining a space around the Tower.
TRASPARENZA
TRASPARENZA, Temple of Transparency, celebrates emerging from darkness into light. It is an experiential installation that takes a chapel-like form, that Burners can enter and enjoy both inside and out. It is a playful and whimsical tribute to the genius of Leonardo da Vinci and the glories of the Italian Renaissance, a Florentine Folly. The structure is totally transparent, made of clear cast acrylic panels exquisitely laser-cut with intricate imagery. The words ‘Saper Vedere’, meaning ‘knowing how to see’, line the entrance. This was the phrase Leonardo used to describe the dominant skill of his own genius and the transparent installation plays with this notion.TRASPARENZA is a humanist chapel celebrating human endeavour and creativity, and the artist as inventor, where Burners form a colourful congregation visible to everyone outside. At its heart stands a completely see-through sculpture, “Vitruvia”, that explores the concept of ‘Divina Proportione’ using the body of a woman rather than a man.
Ursa Major
Reaching to grab what is within her grasp is Ursa Major, a 14 foot tall, grizzly bear sow. She may simply be reaching for berries but perceivably she is reaching higher: to the northern sky and the constellation that is her name, Ursa Major. In navigation, the constellation is useful in pointing the way to the North Star.
Ursa Major’s pose is inspiring, she brings the gaze and hopes of the participant skyward. She also demonstrates respect for the bears and nature, her pose is not like a taxidermy bear. She is in her natural state and unthreatening.
With a durable, unique material that was used on their previous Burning Man project (Penny the Goose), Ursa Major’s fur will be made of US and Canadian pennies. The pattern and feel will be like fur.
Vapor Cannon Guild
The Vapor Cannon Guild combines Leonardo’s visions of war machines and with the Burner Principle: Participation! Black Rock City Participants will use vapor cannons to blast targets located within the guild space. The guild will offer three ground target areas as well as aerial targets to test the skill of the participants. In the evening the Vapor Cannon Guild will morph into another world with cryptic symbols. By the way, vapor cannons run on air so there is an endless supply of ammo!
Vibraj
Vibraj (Haitian for vibratory) is a climbable wind harp and percussive instrument, designed to give the wind a voice. Vibration as the main expression attempts to point at the interconnected nature of the universe. Sunrise, Sunset, and colored light animate painted climbable surfaces. The top half of an S curve is produced by combining 28 wooden boxes acting as resonating chambers for the harp portion into a curved climbable staircase. The bottom part of the S curve is steel pipe bent into multiple curves and welded together producing a flute like instrument for the wind, and a percussive instrument for human interaction. LED spot lights with slowly phasing color create animated night views with the painted portions of the instrument. Citizens interact with Vibraj by climbing on, viewing changing color patterns, plucking, strumming, singing with, and pounding out rhythms. Designed to give the wind a voice Vibraj expresses via the elements.
Wish Upon A StarWay
Standing over 15 feet tall, StarWay is a star thrown to earth with two of its points sticking into the earth. It is a star made of over two hundred individually lit stars that twinkle internally, yet glow under a bank of UV light in blue, yellow and green. StarWay twinkles happily in the dark and yet it will twinkle more brightly if you make a wish on it. In order to make a wish on it you need to be in possession of a ‘wishing star’ that you place on the ‘wishing console’. StarWay shows that the more we wish the brighter the world will be.
Without Geometry there is no Point 2.0
WITHOUT GEOMETRY THERE IS NO POINT 2.0 2016 Rev.
Wooden geometic constructions rough, natural, odd angular towers, stars, snowflakes & trees. Shadows play thru lit from interior at night. Daytime shadows are a photographers playground!
Wittgenstein, Da Vinci, Rachmaninoff: A Recursive Wooden Design
Wittgenstein, Da Vinci, Rachmaninoff is a hexagonal pavilion whose bamboo faces are carved with intricate knot designs by Leonardo da Vinci. Para-cord woven into one of the knot patterns will span over the hexagonal void. A pedestal holds spools of para-cord underneath. Laser-etched patterns on the pedestal provide a template for the six knots as a guide to anyone who wishes to create them with the para-cord. The panels will have laser etched quotes from Wittgenstein’s philosophical writings, and the podium will have a sound system playing Rachmaninoff piano compositions. The title – Wittgenstein, Da Vinci, Rachmaninoff: A Recursive Wooden Design – is meant to evoke Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, a book by Douglas Hofstadter that explores deep questions of consciousness, and particularly the intertwining layers of thought that occur when we compartmentalize our minds into nested layers of recursion.
Writer's Block
This year I was very inspired by the theme. Leonardo da Vinci wrote backwards with his non-dominate hand in most of his personal journals. It is unclear as to the exact reason for this behavior, however, it is speculated that he did it to unleash his writer’s block and tap into undiscovered portions of his brain. Leo speculated that using his non dominated hand and writing backwards would unleash new creative portions of his brain and therefore push creativity to the ultimate boundaries of the brain. I would like to create a block or canvas for the artist of Black Rock City to exercise and flex this backwards and non dominate creative muscle. The project is a block like structure with a negative space block (see pictures). Paint pens hang from the ceiling for participants to write on the wooden, primed and painted structure with their non-dominate hand, backwards. From the doorway will hang a sign with a riddle alluding to the directions. The structure will burn.
YO! Union Guild BRC Local 420
Yo! Union Guild BRC Local 420 is your local volunteer workers Union chapter here to represent YOU! Yo! Union Guild celebrates Radical Self-Expression by offering an open communication channel for the volunteer workforce of Black Rock City.
By day, Yo! Union Guild is a playful educational space focused on volunteer worker rights. Interactive posters list changes the volunteer workforce of Black Rock City request to see enacted in the future. There’s a playful mix of honest real messages, sarcasm and rumors. The Rumor Mill, a DaVinci inspired kinetic sculpture, cranks out rumors for participants to take with them and spread through our great city. Yo! Union Guild hosts a daily Union Break for 20 minutes at 4:20.
By night, Union Headquarters is overrun by the Philly Mafia converting the space into an underground casino. You’ll find bookies taking bets on Thunderdome fights as well as participatory gaming of Poker, BlackJack, Craps and Roulette just remember, the House always wins!
You Are Home
14-foot high wood GPS locator pin with painted flames on top.
Made of 2×8 wood “stem” that is anchored two-feet in ground. Stem supports 2 four feet diameter plywood sides that attached to stem.
Satire on cell phone two-dimensional GPS locator “You Are Here” pins. Reinforces viewer that they have finally “arrived” home and are in the rightful place that they have been seeking.
Ziggy Sawdust & the Chainsaws from Mars
Ziggy Sawdust and the Chainsaws from Mars is essentially portrait sketch artists with chainsaws.
We carve a sitters likeness and profile into a pine plank in about 15 minutes (or less depending on how many warts they need removed) This is performed in a moop proof enclosure in front of any passing burner. Two carvers are on duty from about 1 pm till just after sunset. One cleans up after the portrait they just carved while the other carves and/or engages the audience.
ALL portraits are held till after sunset. At that point each image is brought forth and subjected to the kiss of the charring roof torch. This turns each portrait into an image of glowing embers reminding everyone of our brief spark.
They are hung inside the moop containment cage and are wire brushed in the morning, ready to be collected by the Burner who was brave enough to sit for us. They can further be adorned at other guilds, taken home as is or contributed to other burns.