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.2022 Honoraria
1:44 Inter-dimensional Space Time Portal
The 1:44 Inter-dimensional Space Time Portal provides an access point to the higher dimensional timelines and the ever expanding Now moment within which all of consciousness exists. A 32′ circular ring has two 16′ high arches crossing at 90º. In the center is a 12 stepped pyramid 20′ square 12′ high with space inside for people to hear the Codes of Creation and for connecting to Self within the Divine Blueprint of Creation. The East/West arch is Completion and Beginnings, the 1st and 2nd dimensions on which all other follow. The North/South arch is future and past. The Horizontal ring is the inter-dimensional presence. Following the Law of ‘As Above, so Below’, the arches imply circles and create our earth symbol, the cross in the circle.
A Temple of Masks
A Temple of Masks is a multi-dimensional portal that houses a unique collection of masks from this world and the next. This is a place for exploration and experimentation, a place where we can be what we truly are: shrouded in mystery.
A thousand eyes and a thousand dreams
“Dreaming awake, walking in a desert, where giant luminous trilobites
hover across the desert sands.”
A small group of giant multi-coloured trilobites surround a conical light beacon. As we journey, we see the world through a thousand eyes.”
Trilobites were some of the earliest life forms with complex ‘eyes’, because of their sight, they symbolise our most ancient visions, the first dreamers.
Evolution is a collective dream, from the consciousness of a cell to the realisation of a human, to the manifestation of our realities.
We are part of the evolutionary dream.
The hope is to shine a light on the perilous existence of all species on earth, by looking back at species lost to a past extinction event as we walk on a desert that was once an Ocean.
Alien Drive-Thru
Aliens have been observing humans for the past few decades, trying to find a way to make peaceful first contact. They’ve noticed humans around the world love to talk into big glowing monoliths and derive their fuel from them… so they’ve built their own, a drive-thru menu board, as a way to interface with humans and learn more about them. But are they here to tell us something?
ATABEY
ATABEY is the supreme goddess of the Taínos, the native tribes who inhabited the Caribbean islands, mostly in Puerto Rico. She is worshiped as the deity of fresh water, representing the Earth Spirit, Divine Mother. Their God was female.
We chose to honor ATABEY’s symbolism with a fish coming up for air on the Playa in order to bring attention to the state of the Earth and the dire consequences of today’s dominant world views, those that are legacies of colonization’s victors. ATABEY’s legacy is to respect our waters and land.
Autumn Spire
The piece is inspired by the natural balance of organic and geometric properties in nature. The title refers to a red maple tree, a symbol of endurance and the passing of time. The tower, a blend of gothic and modern technology, is meant to combine these notions. The passage of time is important to me, and whether it is my perspective or an objective truth, society as a whole feels to be entering into a new season. It feels like something is ending, but as we pass from autumn into winter, so follows spring.
Black Rock Station
A mysterious rural train station appearing in the Black Rock Desert has become unstuck in time, haunted by ghost trains heard but not seen. Built in the mid-1930s to serve Black Rock City and the communities scattered throughout the vast Black Rock Desert, the station is unstable and oscillating through various moments over the last 150 years and beyond, with an ever-shifting interior life, and a subtle narrative that cuts against conventional historical themes.
Black! Asé
Black! Asé consists of large-scale photographic structures that offer multisensory experiences created by the artist and founder of Black Burner Project, Erin Douglas & Co Designed by Fran Xavier. The large-scale portraits of Black Burners stand 30ft tall on playa and mark their place in histories (past present and future). They are meant to not only be seen but touched, heard, documented, and remembered.
Bright Eyes
Heave: The act or effort of raising or lifting something, Often as and upward movement except in nautical terms where you just sort of stall or rest. The sculpture will stand 16ft tall and be fully climbable.
Build A Seat
For many Black people, Burning Man is foreign concept. At best, it represents an exclusive experience for the privileged, an Instagram worthy photoshoot. But for black people that have attended, the experience is pure MAGIC ✨
Build a Seat is an art piece for/by Black Creatives to welcome more of us to this experience. A dramatic and radical space for inclusivity, where our Black Stories, energy, voice and not just present but celebrated.
Carillon
Carillon is a 48′ tall wood bell tower covered in slat wood panels. There they encounter levers, ropes, and a spinning pole. All of these devices control one or a series of bells each ringing a special note.
Catharsis
Catharsis is a fractal gallery for our infinite dreams.
It welcomes all arts in the spirit of radical inclusion and self-expression, acting both as amphitheater on playa and a travelling museum for burners around the world. After the event, it will be re-assembled in other cities.
Catharsis is a physical representation of the hyperbolic space. It is a three-dimensional representation of a geometry that could only exist in an another reality – or does it?
This infinite space has seven gateways elevating to the sky and getting increasingly intricate and intimate, forming a dream-like set of galleries for everyone to use and place art of all kind.
Charismatic Metafauna
Metafauna resolves from a distant oasis of light into 7 endangered animal species (Houston Toad, Linsang, Spotted Owl, etc.), ranging in scale from humans to horses. Arranged by proximity to extinction, these creatures form a Danse Macabre procession, spiraling inward toward an elegant portal. One already extinct species lies dark beyond the gateway. The sculptures are united by common materials and a shape language drawn from art nouveau and art deco.
LEDs illuminate each sculpture from within while a hanging flame above each animal represents the creature’s vitality and bathes the site in glowing firelight. A composed soundscape compliments the beauty of the physical installation.
Chilopod
Chilopod (kai-lo-pod) enjoys communicating with humans. Visitors are confronted with a giant talking insect, whose spine is also a slide! But Chilopod comes with a serious message too.
Chilopod asks, “Are humans the pests or the stewards of Earth?” When her home planet’s ecosystem was collapsing, bio-engineers created intergalactic seed pods to grow in foreign soil, with a mission to encourage emerging civilizations to safeguard the health of their home planets. Chilopod landed in the Black Rock Desert and grew into what we see today, a maturing being just learning to communicate with humans. When visitors slide down her spine we pick up her thought-spores so that we might disseminate her ecological message across the world.
Circle of Doors Tarot
A tarot deck has come to life, unfolding from the depths of our shared unconscious and appearing on the playa in the form of a sacred pavilion. The cards have manifested as portals into feminine wisdom. A host of witches, maidens, mothers, and crones reach out through transcendent images of photographic magic to deliver messages of poetic healing. Four outposts at the four compass directions embody the minor arcana, the characters and scenarios of life’s endless stories. At their center are twenty-two doors, each leading inward to the primal light of consciousness by way of the major arcana, the ultimate symbols of life’s infinite transformative power. Each sunset calls a mysterious cast of time travelers to light the central fire.
Citipati
The Citipati, fearsome protector deities, enact the eternal dance of death within an arching fire of perfect awareness.
Colors of Nostalgia
A vintage photo kiosk that contains interactive displays with vintage cameras and film processors. The purpose is to create a unique environment with sentimental longing for the past by surrounding a person with vintage objects, decorations, sounds and smells from a specific time period. The displays are designed to create an emotional drift that has broadened to the notion of longing for or missing aspects of a unique experience from the past.
Each entrance will have stylized spaces according to the time period 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s.
For instance, 60s timeframe display will have vintage radios, tape cassettes, record players, cameras, hippie clothing items, dry flowers, smell of cannabis; posters promoting love, peace, and psychedelic drugs.
Consumption
Consumption is a 45′ tall sculpture in the shape of a dollar sign ($) assembled from discarded household appliances (washers, dryers, fridges, stoves, etc). Ninety appliances are layered and stacked to create the “S” of the dollar sign.
Consumption brings our focus to the end of the era of consumerism and overconsumption. Our current trajectory is no longer sustainable and we must change. Reflect upon the mountain of waste to guide our beliefs, ideas and spirits to a more rational use of earth’s limited resources.
We all play a part in the chain of excess that starts with raw materials and ends in landfills and oceans. Many factors tie us to our throw-away society. We are driven to
overconsumption.
Council of Animals
The Council of Animals (What to do about the monkeys) is a piece exploring our relationship with our Animal family, and how the animals feel about us. Elephant, Polar Bear, and Rhino are the judges, and Coyote the intermediary, their iconic geometry rendered in faceted steel.
DIPTOWN
DIPTOWN is a sprawling landscape installation of a town buried in sand with only building roofs sticking out of the ground. Diptown was once a simply a local tourist trap situated in a dip. Something covered the town up to the roofline, and the dip was transformed into flat desert. What’s happend? Here we leave space for interpretation. Everyone can invent their own legend. We only present an image, and we invite people to give it meaning and stories.
Most of Diptown is hidden beneath the surface, in both the physical and metaphorical senses. Like an iceberg, it projects only a few feet above the surface. It will be up to imagine what else exists below the surface. It will up to viewers to fill in the rest of the details.
Dreams: a pop-up book
Dreams: A giant pop-up book, will be larger than life, leather-bound book. When a reader opens the wooden book, it springs to life. Each turn of the page reveals a new pop-up showing a different dream.
Drishti
Inspired by a Sanskrit philosophical phrase, “Drishti, Srishti”, meaning: “As is your vision, so is your universe” or, “How you behold, is what you unfold”. Drishti is a sculptural expression, and reflective symbol, of finding ourselves at a critical point in history, in which we are called upon to focus and engage our collective gaze into a more elevated vision, as co-creators and collaborators of our individual and shared realities.
Shimmering in mirrored steel, Drishti’s elegantly arcing angles sweep our gaze upward. Here, our individual reflections in each ‘facet’ of the multitude of lens-like convex mirror are framed with everyone else’ into a mosaic portrait of shared reflection, pointing us to the stars, literally and symbolically
Dust City Diner
The neon sign of the Dust City Diner beckons visitors to have a seat at its horseshoe-shaped counter. A 1930’s coffee urn brews fresh coffee while a short order cook works the griddle, their silhouette framed by a stainless steel backsplash. Bee-hived waitresses serve up grilled cheese sandwiches and top up your coffee with a smile. Every aspect of the diner – the sound of dishes clinking, the 1940’s music, a flickering neon sign all embody the all-night diner experience. An oasis for any weary traveler who discovers us in deep playa who needs a stool to sit on and a hot meal.
Emergence
In most parts of the world, the Dragonfly symbolizes change, transformation, adaptability, and self-realization. The last metamorphosis stage of a dragonfly is when a nymph leaves the water, walks to dry land, and with its last molt, the body and wings of the dragonfly expand, and this process is named “Emergence.”
As a burner approaches, emerging from the dry playa will be grass, lily pads, and flowers made from recycled materials.
A desert dragonfly made with a structural steel frame will be drinking from a pond. The dragonfly will produce ambient lighting at night.
The wings will provide curious burners with a shady place to retreat to while pondering their own transformation.
Empyrean
EMPYREAN 2022: A Reimagined Temple Experience
A note on Experiencing this Architecture: (see video)
The architecture of EMPYREAN is replete with narratives and metaphors, which, with raw artistic inspiration, manifests a physical structure and intern allows the visitor to be sculpted by, and to sculpt, experience. This sculpting manifests by utilization of physical, prescribed architectural procession.
Evolution Field
Evolution Field is a 15ft tall x 50 ft long triple layer moiré wall that blends color and light in visual waves reminiscent of galaxy forms. The slightest change in perspective creates an evolution in form, which will be seen from great distances, especially at night. The three layers create valleys that participants can walk through, shifting focus from layers to an internal landscape. Motion sensors set at the ends, and in other locations, will act as gateways, activating waves of complimentary colors through the more stable slow evolution of color in fiber optic systems lining every vertical element. The work is meant to reflect on the complexity of layering energy and relationships, which shifts with only the slightest change
Facing the Fearbeast
‘Facing the Fearbeast’ is a project about facing the fears that hound us, both externally and internally. A snarling monster of claws and teeth and nightmares looms over a lone child, who faces the monster with dignified courage.
The Beast itself represents both the actual dangers that threaten us from outside as well as the complex of traumas, self-deceits, & phobias that exists within and perpetuates the many miseries that humans deliver upon each other and themselves.
The Child figures represent both the Wounded/traumatized child that is often at the core of many of humanity’s most destructive and violent behavior, as well as the Healing child that is both vulnerable and powerful in their creativity and capacity for love.
FIRE
The FIRE Installation appears as a grove of fire ravaged Manzanita trees in stark contrast to the white canvas of the Black Rock Desert. Each tree stands as a unique sculpture, an individual entity, made more beautiful by its initial struggle for sun, the resistance to gravity, and ultimately the sculpting by blazing wildfire heat.
The installation poses questions regarding humanities ongoing relationship to the element of fire. Is FIRE friend or foe; teacher, healer, provider or malevolent force? Accompanying the grove an interactive altar provides a space for 2D art and written word responses to the questions.
Fractal Droid
The Fractal Droid sculpture will be a 12′ X 15′ tall biomechanical head extruding from the earth, cracked open like an egg with a curved ultra-wide face screen displaying HD content by our Visual Artists. The VR aesthetic draws our viewers in to explore the textures and programmed light designs within the sculpture.
The exterior aesthetic is created out of laser cut birch and CNC cut plywood painted with high gloss finishes and covered in programmed LED strips, spot lights, and ambient speakers, the sculpture is a high functioning playscape of social connection experiences integrating technology and human energy.
The fractal droid is interactive sculpture that is a bridge way between the integration of man and digital art technology.
Gilded
Scared of snakes? Maybe not if you get close to this western diamondback rattler. As you are drawn in, you’ll see that it’s scales are actually gilded flowers and leaves. Delightful to admire and touch. A deceitful serpent from the Garden of Eden or nature’s beauty? Your choice.
Harmonia
Chaos and Resonance. Cycles and Epicycles. Movement evokes sound. Forms are implied. Unexpected order arises. Harmonia is a highly interactive light sculpture with spokes animated by light in harmonically related motion.
I Heart Mom
With this 20 foot tall wooden sculpture of the traditional style I Heart Mom tattoo, we hope to bring all the beauty, struggles, highs, and lows associated with Moms (or other loved ones) who have shown us true, selfless love. This is more of a dedication piece but not specific to one person, it can be anyone in your life that you love wholeheartedly and made you the person you are today. Unfortunately not everyone is able to bring those people out to BRC to experience Burning Man so this is a way to honor them on the Playa.
Illumina Radiata
Six decorative fins acting as both shade structures as well as anchor points will arc upward to buttress a 44 foot tall vertical steel center pole. Radiating out from 3 equidistant sides will hang 3 identical columns of intricately patterned panels and wings, fabricated with bent steel bar and plasma-cut sheet steel. Various patinas and other metal types add texture and color to help define the patterns, designs and motifs that make up the panels. Fine details to appreciate by day will be lit at night by colored LED spotlights to create infinitely variable patterns. Wind-driven outstretched wings will rotate around the center pole, giving the sculpture a kinetic aspect. Flame effects will be at the top, on the wings and on the ground.
INCENTER
Home is now a place of refuge and a space isolated from community. Yet from home, we’ve shared this time apart together. INCENTER unearths this global connection: inside the shape of a house, our earth is found and viewed from within.
If it could be occupied, the center of our earth would be the only point in the universe where all humans would be in focus and equidistant from one another simultaneously.
INCENTER immerses its explorers within a manifestation of this fantastical innerview, and interactively displays global data to communicate a vantage of global interconnectivity and individual impact with respect to panoptic crises. This unique perspective hopes to remind us each that we are not alone, and that Earth is the home we share.
Indicator Species
Plecoptera is a Stonefly Nymph crucial to stream ecosystems, and a building block of ecological diversity. A 40-foot, stainless steel and aluminum Plecoptera is dancing upright on the horizon. Her life-like motions and glittering metallic colors are attracting passersby like a Siren. This smiling six-limbed goddess with compound eyes, delicate antennae, and silky metal leg fringe, anal gills, and cercus is a warrior insect from another dimension. Her inquisitive antennae and six limbs swimmingly stir the air, simultaneously producing music: deep gongs and chimes as people, small below the huge stonefly, pull ropes at the base of the structure. The small action below causing large action above reminds us of the importance of small things.
Infinite Stare
“Infinite Stare” is a monumental sculpture of a head full of ideas by day and cosmos at night. From the distance, the head will look familiar; as if a forgotten culture had left it a millenia ago.
This installation represents ourselves while in ego (represented by day) and in Oneness (night); that we are all a part of universal consciousness.
Where the face and should be is a blank area representing the melding of all faces. Inside the hallowed-out head is a place where people can sit. Drawn inside the shell of the head are all kinds of ideas with pictograms depicting ideas that can filter through a person’s head. At night, the pictographs are superseded by light images of cosmos representing our infinite minds beyond the mind chatter.
Invisible Light of Distant Stars
An observatory making visible part of the Universe that cannot directly be seen or experienced. It shows the paths of cosmic rays whose journey began millions, even billions of years ago,.
The 6-sided pavilion is of doubly-curved, cloth panels designed to block wind & light. The lower half is a tent-like motif with 3 entrances. The upper half is 19 outwardly radiating, tension-membrane funnels lit from within representing the gravitational sources of cosmic rays.
Inside is a 7-foot tall, cylindrical spark chamber with 3 spiral legs modeling inter-galactic magnetic fields that twist the paths of cosmic rays. Over this is a funnel of cloth, representing the gravitational potential well of Earth. The inside walls represent stars in the heavens.
Jackalope Adventure Guide
The Jackalope Adventure Guide has descended from the realms of the Cosmic into the fuzzy reality that lies between Dust and Dream. Here, this mystical creature awaits those who would seek its oracular powers on their journey into Adventure!
Kukulkan's Portal
Standing at 45ft tall, Kukulkan’s Portal will be more impressive than previously displayed. The merkaba will be entirely constructed of translucent lexan multi‑wall sheets encased in industrial strength resins. The idea is to make the merkaba look like a giant marble crystal shining on top of a pyramid. After we construct the individual triangles, we’ll coat the surfaces with a resin‑paint mixture to get the marble affect.
The cube is made of aluminum truss skinned with laser cut aluminum and backlit with LEDs.
They pyramid will also be constructed of truss and skinned with aluminum panels and will be climbable. The cube and merkabah will not be climbable.
At full height, the project will be 42ft tall and 27ft wide on it’s point.
Lost Frequencies
Large scale anatomical human heart with a beat that glows and pulsates a high energy healing frequency.
Lux Lepus
Three sculptures of jackrabbits, each a cluster three hares. Each triad consists of transparent cut-outs, with block print style images of rabbits, casting shadows of themselves during the day and luminous by night.
The detailed facial features, human scale, and gaze of the rabbits is meant to engage the viewer on an emotional level, inviting a sense of connection with the animal. An illustrated display accompanies the piece providing information about and depictions of the local flora and fauna for those interested in learning about the year-round residents of the Black Rock dessert and surrounding area, as well as the mythology and symbolism of the hare
M- Theory Mechanica
M-theory Mechanica is a interactive kinetic sculpture that represents unification of all things chaotic. M-theory in physics unifies all consistent versions of superstring theory and this sculpture represents unification of participants that interact with it. The more energy that is put into it the more chaotic and stimulating the sculpture becomes. There are three stations equally placed around the base for participants that power the mechanics of the sculpture. As the recycled golf balls reach the top they will travel randomly through a captured track system triggering effects of light sound and fire.
Mebuyan's Vessel
Mebuyan Vessel is a spherical architectural installation that encourages community and interactivity. A creative imagination of “walking dreams”, it stitches together bubbles that allow people to move throughout the structure’s different dreamlike universes.
The title comes from Mebuyan, a goddess from the Bagobo mythology, an indigenous people of southern Mindanao, Philippines. A goddess of the afterlife with breasts covering her entire body, she nourishes the dead spirits of children, so that they can continue their journey of growth. Similarly, Mebuyan Vessel strives to become a nourishing, transformative, and cosmic place for citizens of BRC for their personal and collective growth.
Oculus
Oculus allows for our mind’s eye to wonder what could be occurring inside of us and why. Eyes have been paramount for human survival, communication, and creative existential exploration. Thus, eyes have carried collective cultural meanings over millennia. Appearing as a large luminous eyeball, Oculus reflects viewers’ own visual perceptive sensory nature that they share with other organisms.
Orbit
Light and sound, in perfect correspondence, travel around a sphere. Various orbits are represented via sound and light. Participants are able to manipulate these sound and light patterns and find symmetries – or chaos – within these systems.
Paradisium
Paradisium is an interactive grove of geometric trees built primarily out of reclaimed lumber and trees burnt in the CZU Lighting Complex fire in Santa Cruz. An interconnected canopy creates shadow art on the playa floor, and meandering pathways lead to an opening in the center. Climbable trees and various walkways among the canopy will afford elevated perspective. Just like a real forest, the grove will have its seasons and 24-hour cycles. Paradisium provides a space for respite and reflection while fostering a sense of community and an investment in our shared future.
People-Powered Music aka The Tinkle Drum
Music is art that brings people together. It’s a myth that only few can successfully create it.
Introducing the giant tinkle drum: a highly interactive work of art/music instrument/architecture that requires a team of people to walk inside it to turn the drum and create music.
Nothing is needed to experience the work other than participation: gather others, step into the drum and take steps together. It’s also re-programmable, so people can make their own composition. It encourages scribing, so people can share prose, lyrics and dreams from and for the inside the drum. And its designs reflect the dreams of the many people and cultures contributing from around the world.
Petaled Portal
Petaled Portal is Portal now petaled. Possible of transformation to that which is here, brought to life through… C.R.E.A.T.I.V.I.T.Y.
Capturing
Reality
Endlessly
And
Timelessly-
Idealized
Vitally
Into
Techniques
Yieldable
Play With Your Food
This installation imagines a Waking Dream with a land of oversized food items that are not quite as they seem.
This immersive, multi-sensory playground is at first ordinary looking… until the participant inspects it more closely. Close up, viewers will be surprised with a birthday cake slide, a coffee cup merry-go-round, & watermelon seesaw.
Participants are invited to break the rules: to play with their food. To smell and touch the art. And to imagine a world where things are not quite as we usually know them.
Participants are invited to experience “discovery” again. To discover a cup of coffee, a piece of cake, & a slice of watermelon again… but to really experience them in a deeper, joyful, and more meaningful way this time.
Quadrupod 2.0
The Quadrupod is a giant metal walking vehicle that is driven from within a metal pod cabin. This giant machine walks on 4 electrically powered legs and looks like something out of a Jules Vern novel. The purpose of this work is to show how just a little low tech engineering and a pile of scrap metal can be used to create something that appears to be advanced technology. This art piece is meant to inspire do it yourself Sci-Fi
Ratchetfish
RatchetFish is a Mechanical fish based on the deep sea hatchetfish which swims around in the air. Turning the cranks on the fence will control RatchetFish’s movements.
REM Cafe and Croquet
At 60′ in diameter, the REM Cafe will have 3 – 6 metal and wood tables, each designed with playful and interactive elements. The centerpiece will be an approximately 8′ tall metal candelabra piped with propane flame effects and embellished with graceful blacksmithed details. Fire zen gardens will be placed throughout the space and a ring of lanterns will define the perimeter. Weaving in and around the space will be a croquet course with custom crafted mallets, balls and wickets made by the Iron Monkeys.
Sea of Dreams
Sea of Dreams is an immersive fire sculpture with a story that unfolds even from a distance. Larger-than-life origami boats sail on a pilgrimage: sailing towards the central ring of fiery origami crane Elders guarding a sacred blossom with the power to dispel illusions. Entrapped in a landscape of their own making, these bold dreamers sail the Black Rock Sea to pay homage to the Elders and to release their illusions as blossoms of flame blooming into the void.
Their release is shared with an assemblage of FLG’s signature fire art, including actuatable flame effects and a liquid fuel shooter sending colorful 50-foot flaming blooms into the sky.
Sea of Flames Fire for the Hearts
We are bringing a large, flaming center piece heart surrounded by multiple small hearts. The hearts will each have propane burners, creating spectacular blue and orange flames as the metal glows red. Each heart will be unique; the stands’ and hearts’ design being influenced by different art genres. Our purpose is to create a place for people to come together around the fire. To us this is a place of remembrance of our lost brother and son Skyler. To others this can also be a place to embrace, love, let go, or take a little time to relax and appreciate life in the moment.
Secretly Abandoned Spaces
Every abandoned space retains a feeling of what it once was. Abandoned buildings retain a beauty of that which has been forsaken; it’s the loveliness of disintegration. This piece is about the beauty of loss and decay of a building, a community or of a loved one. Elegance emerges from loss as the world takes back its own. The house becomes a church of ideas that have died and long passed. The cast figures upon the staircase is a theatre, or a play. The interplay of figures tell their own stories. The figures will also be ornate as structures of antiquity. Secretly Abandoned Spaces in a museum of stories that have been lost in antiquity.
Seed of Dreams
Seed of Dreams is a 15′ tall sculpture of a human head, eyes closed, in dream state. Geometric perforations resonate outward from the forehead, emitting light from an internal source by night and reflecting the golden interior by day. An opening allows participants to enter inside of the sculpture to discover a wondrous grotto with shimmering golden walls and ledges to sit upon. A magnificent geometric light in the shape of the pineal gland hangs from the center of the head illuminating the sculpture at night. A large open book of empty lined paper with pens invites participants to record their dreams and reflect on their thoughts. Seed of Dreams provides a place for participants to seek refuge, meditate, or connect with their intuition.
Shrine of the Macabre
Shrine of the Macabre is a gorgeous and gothic sculpture of steel that houses the cycle of birth, life, death, thus embodying… survivorship.
Standing at 25 ft Tall 25 Wide in Circumference, it is meant to encourage participants to venture within, to relish in the fortitude of what embodies the will to survive from birth through death. Shrine of the Macabre consist of a silhouette of a steeples, with cut out flame designs along its edges on the outside. With these facades are, art openings, and art nouveau patterns. Each corner of the structure is buttressed by additional filigree-like steel. sitting on platform of 4 legs with 3D square and Lyra Rig beneath. It will be lit by a wide pallet of colorful LEDs and calliope fire effects.
Sirsasana - Headstand
Rising 30 feet from the playa, Sirsasana is a whimsical inverted tree with its roots reaching for the sky. Its trunk is interwoven wooden arcs based on the golden ratio that form a hyperboloid. The tree’s canopy spreads out on the playa floor with openings that invite participants to explore its intricate inner geometry.
Sirsasana represents the ability to re-learn one’s own nature, the ability to change, to create new perspectives. It was born from a thought experiment that if a human can do Vrksasana, the tree pose in yoga, then can a tree do Sirsasana, a human-centric headstand pose?
Sirsasana’s beautiful radiating geometry will be covered leaf to roots with sentimental details to explore from Srikanth’s childhood home of Hyderabad.
Small Hadron Collider (SHC)
Small Hadron Collider is an interactive LED light art installation that lets users launch “particles” of light along a long LED strip that comes up off the ground into a loop in the air. Two people on either side can launch particles at each other by jumping up and down, and watch them collide.
Spacecats Final Landing
Spacecats is a whimsical tableau dedicated to cats that have passed away. Coming back for the third and final landing, the catstronauts will be joined by other furry friends. Inside the categon shaped mothership you’ll find a retro futuristic interactive interior. You can play with human sized cat toys, lounge on human sized plushy cat beds, and slide down the giant cat tongue. Spacecats are out of this world!
Strong Magic
Strong Magic is a large scale steel sculpture of a lioness creature that evokes a sense of power and strength. Consisting of a female lion’s head paired with a human torso, she brings a fierce female presence to the playa. From her outstretched paws she emanates fire and light, and is made up of intricate hand formed and welded metal linework. She represents letting go of self doubt and leaning into deep confidence. Strong Magic embodies love, fear, anxiety–all emotion– and the ability to transform that energy into personal power.
Sunrise Deep Island
A New World knocks at the door of humanity. The subtle worlds begin to gain matter as Planet Earth bids farewell to eras of duality and density. An intraterrestrial ISLAND emerges in the deep desert limits. Is it real? What is real? The will to create islands of light that believe in the restoration of the planet through the communion between the knowledge of the peoples of humanity. UTOPIA? It is in the splendor of the sunrise that, every day, the hope of a part of humanity that is committed to building a planet where cultures meet to CELEBRATE AND design new paths for a FREE Earth in PEACE is renewed.
The Afterlife
The Afterlife is a visually stunning LED and blacklight installation. It is an immersive and interactive art piece arranged in a Tibetan-inspired mandala.
Forming the outer circle, The Four Gates of the Universe are cornerstones, aligned with the cardinal directions and connected by prayer flags.
Journey inwards, interact with fire-breathing dragons, Family of Flags, Flaming Lotus heaters, Windows of past life pagodas, incense urns and glowing Dazebeds. Anchored in the center is The Stairway to Heaven Temple.
The Afterlife is an ethereal and whimsical dreamland beyond our lifetime. A portal of transition between living and dead, it’s a meeting point between the two worlds attracting soul travelers from far away distances.
The Apocalypse is Breathtaking
A ghost tree on fire,
Set your candles alight
The apocalypse is here
It’s breathtaking tonight.
The Dreaming Goddess
Welcome to a world in which the worship of a Goddess by animals and humans is still vibrant. It is a religion of the mountains, the deserts, and the wild places. It bridges us between our human and our animal natures, between life and the afterlife.
The FACE Project
The Face is an open invitation to face oneself. Collaged from Haeckel’s biological illustrations and synced with Rumi’s poetic calling, is the airy sculpture of 1D elements. Standing as a symbol of unity, the Face bridges: East & West, spiritual & biological, aquatic & terrestrial, fauna & flora.
Aquatic creatures constitute the elements forging the parallax illusion of a genderless portrait collage. Ambient music, sounds of nature, & multilingual echoes of Rumi’s call, seduce wandering souls in BRC with a multisensorial composition that awakens the mind.
The Face beckons to all and guides without advice. The target is meditative dialogue. The process is intentional & incremental: one step at a time, one visitor after the other.
The Last Ocean
THE LAST OCEAN explores the crisis of plastic pollution in our oceans. Composed of over 300 interactive platforms and created from reclaimed and recycled ocean plastic, The Last Ocean is an immersive experience created using Lewin’s unique in-house mesh network LED technology. During the day, the platforms of The Last Ocean will highlight the transformation of reclaimed ocean plastic with a swirled surface of blue and white particulate. At night, The Last Ocean will glow with vibrant animated light, cycling through a diverse palette of carefully curated colors as visitors interact with the work. Participants will splash and dance in waves of light, illuminating the organic and powerful nature of our oceans.
The Little People
From uckiood (Missy Douglas & Kim Rask) – the creators of ‘Odd Jelly Out’ – comes ‘The Little People’. Inspired by characters from classic children’s literature, this sculpture installation sees Dot (Dorothy, Wizard of Oz), and Chip (Christopher Robin, Winnie the Pooh) reimagined with playful charm. They are accompanied by both Peg the sausage dog (Toto) and an Odd Jelly Out toy (Pooh bear), as well as three small sprite-like entities – a grumpy Pants (Peter Pan), a toadstooly Mads (Alice in Wonderland) and Lolly the Lion (Lucy from Narnia). Created from hand-cast fiberglass, resin pieces and stained glass, these dazzling figures fuse symbolism from the books with dream-like details and maximalist textures, colors and pattern work.
The Midnight Museum of That One Time at Burning Man
The Midnight Museum will be 25 faux stained-glass lanterns depicting artworks, events, and people of significant interest within Burning Man culture. Each lantern will be a box 3′ tall and 2′ wide on a 3′ high stand. Each will consist of a wood box housing a faux stained-glass panel on each vertical face. Each lantern will be lit from within and will be topped with a light pole. On the top of each pole will be an LED beacon that will display a variety of enticing colors designed to draw viewers in from across the playa. At the base of each pole will be a button that, if pressed and held down, will cause the beacon to dim. The lanterns will be arranged in a regular square grid with the lanterns 6′ apart on center.
The Mind's Eye
Through The Mind’s Eye might make you wonder if Salvador Dali and Jeff Koons had a dream baby. Colorful, animalistic, surrealist and absurd. It’s a big bright toy that wants to be played with. And while your inner child goes ‘squeee’ over its fun-ness, you also notice that deep in its soul (and also glaringly on the surface) this sculpture is about struggle, and the beauty and wilderness that could very well emerge from the darkness within… if you dig your heels in and keep your head up. Ex Umbris, Ad Lucem = Out of Darkness, Into Light.
The Prism of Possibilities
✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* A multi-dimensional portal (a zome spinning the stars and flostam of humanity) invites citizens into a universe of potential climate futures. Spinning outward, the portal directs participants to explore three different domiciles, from best to worst case scenario climate-impacted earths. *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧
The Resurrection of the Clothes Peg
The artwork is a large modular sculpture of half a wooden peg made from a series of steel galvanised pipes. It is called the Resurrection of the Clothes Peg and is an ode the resurgence of the female voice. The monumental form of an ordinary household item like a wooden peg is meant to evoke a sense of criticality questioning why such a rudimentary form is given such importance. There is a clear dichotomy of male and female energies as the form is heavy and solid and erect – almost phallic, yet the message is about feminine strength. The item represented is a reference to female domestic chores and its function of holding and supporting.
The Self Help Yourself Bookshelf
Not just another library on playa, the Self Help Yourself BookShelf has a few surprises in store for for those seeking some dusty enlightenment. Come laugh at the punny titles, but stay to get some wisdom dropped.
The Solar Library
The Solar Library is solar panel and charging infrastructure helping small art projects convert to solar without having to worry about engineering and transporting solar panels to the playa. Designed as a piece of functional sculpture the Solar Library is a series of secure charging lockers and will help solar power scale in Black Rock City without panel proliferation becoming an eye sore or a safety hazard. A group of volunteers known as Solarians dedicated to solar powered art build, activate & support artists.
The Solar Shrine
The Solar Shrine is an Afrofuturistic art installation which makes manifest the cosmology of Ancient Egypt and Nubia. The project references the artistic styles from this area of ancient Africa but with the massing, geometry, and materiality rooted in contemporary times. As a movement, Afrofuturism envisions ‘tomorrow’ by exploring cultural and design aesthetics between the arts, history, science-fiction, and politics from African and African diasporic lens. The Ancient Egyptians and Nubians believed that the sun was a deity, Ra, and had metaphysical powers as the giver of life on Earth and creator of the universe. The design is futuristic with clean lines, subtle angles, and large panels which also give it a ‘megalithic’ appearance.
The Traveling Sound Museum Presents: The Anomaly
The Anomaly is a registered National Parks observation station that has always existed in the Black Rock Desert. Thanks to the specific placement of the city this year, participants will be able to bear witness to this incredible trans-dimensional energy disturbance that exists just beyond the trash fence via the binocular podiums. The accompanying signage explains the history of this near-impossible multiverse energy vortex. Must be seen to be believed!
Tremolo
Tremolo is 50 freestanding wind or human powered musical instruments, each one with a spinning wooden enclosure that also serves as the sounding box mounted to a steel pole that is set in the ground. The height of the musical elements vary based on the tone of the notes that it creates. Each one spins in the wind or by human activation and has an electro-mechanical assembly within that resonates three metal bar chimes that are tuned to produce a three-note harmonic chord. The elements are designed to cause a warbling sound as they spin, which is referred to, in musical terms, as a Tremolo. At night, self-contained lights will keep the sculptures lit for safety and the intensity will also increase and decrease based on wind speed.
Unbound: A Library in Transition
Unbound is a Neoclassical Library clad in deconstructed books representing human creativity and changing thought. Saunter around the building to discover the layered pages of disparate words, illustrations and languages. Surprises fill the walls with secret doors, niches, hidden dioramas, bookshelves and a card cabinet containing objects for the taking. Walk up a few stairs and the floral floors direct you through one of three portals representing the body, the mind, and the soul. Reflect in the mirrored shards that flicker on the walls and represent both the loss of physical information while reflecting back you, the ultimate the creator of the information. Rest inside and listen to readings from others from around the world. Contemplate.
Unpopular Music (or UNPOP)
UNPOP, or “Unpopular Music,” is an intimate, 8-channel listening environment. It features exquisite, detailed sound works, including field recordings, abstract electroacoustic music, ambient textures, and other non-beat-oriented sonic experiences. The installation is built around a circle of custom-built Hemisphere speakers, which enclose a listening area complete with soft couches for comfortable seating. Multiple overnight programs of sound works run from dusk until dawn, curated by the UNPOP team and created by a diverse, international roster of composers and sound artists. UNPOP is designed with the deep playa environment at Burning Man in mind, as well as the audience that is likely to encounter this listening sanctuary there.
VIMOKSHA
VIMOKSHA encourages Interactivity in the act of self-observation, wonder, and consideration while contemplating a multiplied, fractal, apparently holographic self reflection. Maybe the observant observer notices the reflections of nearby aquainteneces and objects interplaying with their own reflections.
We will also provide a subtle sound collage exploring doorways into the waking Dream. The sound collage will offer perspectives of “reality” in a format that is itself layered, refracted and reformatted. Because of the layered fractal quality of the sound collage, as well as the mirrored reflection walls Black Rock Citizens will reformat in their own minds and hear what their subconscious mind chooses, similar to a rorschach ink blot image.
What to Expect When Expecting
How does a person hold hope and possibility for the future, while simultaneously grappling with climate change, pollution, overpopulation and the destruction of earth’s ecosystems? How would it feel to be pregnant in these times, to be bringing life forward amidst uncertainty? In What to Expect When Expecting, participants can step into pregnant body casts and take a moment to reflect on these questions. Many realities are possible, and every action is a choice.
Wild Horses of the American West
Wild Horses is a curated group show of approximately 15 horse sculptures of various scales, each made by an individual artist, in their own interpretive aesthetic and artistic method.
Xerarium
Find an otherworldly jungle-scape overtaking its massive terrarium container and a glowing fern swing out front. Inside, giant kaleidoscopic plant forms, a surreal forest floor flanked by furry grass pillows and a drippy ambient soundscape playfully engage a sense of scale and wonder while creating intimate observation or conversation space. A quick climb up to the apex look out point grants a new perspective of the vibrant alien terrarium and surrounding playa. Xerarium is an unexpected sensual oasis fostering connection with nature in the BRC desert.