Burning Man 2003 - Index
The Event
The Burning Man Project is a
huge art festival and gathering in the high desert of northwest Nevada
(about 2 hours drive north of Reno), over the last week of August
(25-31). It's about living art, arting life, and stuff like that on a
big scale. It's hard to describe in brief, see this web site for
a sort of taste, to learn more about it.
The Camp
The event of Burning Man creates / is created by a temporary megacamp
of over 30,000 people, called Black Rock City. It has pretty much
everything any other city would have: neighborhoods, airport, child
care, security, recycling, traffic control, sanitation, radio
stations, parks, and plazas.
I will be staying in the village called the
Irrational Geographic Society (IGS)
at the corner of 9:30 and Esplanade. (9:30 is also known as "Profane",
and the next annular street is Authority, so our address can be
expressed as "Profane Authority.") Within the IGS, there are several
camps, including
Krotus
(a bunch of my friends) and
FoodLab which
is our communal kitchen. I am in a camp called SublimiNation.
If you look on the map, you will see a 50 foot tall
radio tower in the middle of the SublimiNation camp. What's
that for, you ask? . . .
The Main Project
SublimiNation's team project (sort of) is
the Obelisk,
a 25 foot tall array of LEDs under computer control. We will mount it
on the radio tower and operate it via the local Ethernet. One of the
things it can do is generate Persistence-Of-Vision images, which seem
to appear in the night sky like subliminal messages, hence the name
SublimiNation. I am writing some control software for the Obelisk,
and assisting the artists with its setup and operation.
Here is www.sublimination.org,
the control interface for the Obelisk. During the week of Burning
Man, this interface will control the Obelisk on the playa ... so you
folks at home might not want to input instructions into it, unless you
want to blow some minds on the playa.
The Little Projects
One of the side projects is a geodesic dome for the SublimiNation
folks to use as a camp hangout space and shade zone. I'm planning to
buy a dome from Bruce, a blacksmith friend of mine, for the purpose.
I tried out this dome at
Starwood,
and pictures of that experiment are
here.
I also have a new set of Hokey
Spokes which I'm planning to put on poi swings, and a selection of
EL wire from Cool Neon which
I'm going to use to fabricate some kind of an outfit, not sure yet.
Tutorial on
How to Solder EL Wire.
Because chemical lightsticks are just so 20th century.
The Weblog
Black Rock City should have wireless Internet connectivity during the
week of Burning Man (25 to 31 August), and I should be able to update
this site with journals and pictures during the week. I should also
be able to read my email, but I probably will spend my writing time on
the journal, just so you know. Watch this page.
This page maintained by
Wil Howitt
Last updated 3 September 2003