re: Photos from Burning Man

quote:

---

Comments on here are hilarious. The Burning Man community is actually in an uproar now because it's NOT a bunch of unemployed anarchists anymore. The silicon valley set now loves them some burning man, and they're basically hiring people to go and set up a camp for them and then hang out and be waited on the whole time. It's become "gentrified." There are some great articles out there about it.

---

quote:

---

Thought I was going to see a man burning

---

quote:

---

Why do they have it in the desert?

---

quote:

---

In 1990, a separate event was planned by Kevin Evans and John Law on the remote and largely unknown dry lake known as Black Rock Desert, about 110 miles north of Reno, Nevada.[10] Evans conceived it as a dadaist temporary autonomous zone with sculpture to be burned and situationist performance art. He asked John Law, who also had experience on the dry lake and was a defining founder of Cacophony Society, to take on central organizing functions. In the Cacophony Society's newsletter, it was announced as Zone Trip #4, A Bad Day at Black Rock (inspired by the 1955 film of the same name).

Meanwhile, the beach burn was interrupted by the park police for not having a permit. After striking a deal to raise the Man but not to burn it, event organizers disassembled the effigy and returned it to the vacant lot where it had been built. Shortly thereafter, the legs and torso of the Man were chain-sawed and the pieces removed when the lot was unexpectedly leased as a parking lot. The effigy was reconstructed, led by Dan Miller, Harvey's then-housemate of many years, just in time to take it to Zone Trip #4.[11]

Michael Mikel, another active Cacophonist, realized that a group unfamiliar with the environment of the dry lake would be helped by knowledgeable persons to ensure they did not get lost in the deep dry lake and risk dehydration and death. He took the name Danger Ranger and created the Black Rock Rangers. Thus the seed of Black Rock City was germinated, as a fellowship, organized by Law and Mikel, based on Evans' idea, along with Harvey and James' symbolic man. Drawing on experience in the sign business and with light sculpture, John Law prepared custom neon tubes for the Man in 1991 so it could be seen as a beacon at night.

In its first years, the community grew by word of mouth alone, all were considered participants by virtue of surviving in the desolate surreal trackless plain of the Black Rock Desert. There were no paid or scheduled performers or artists, no separation between art-space and living-space, no rules other than "Don't interfere with anyone else's immediate experience" and "no guns in central camp."

---

quote:

---

You look at some of the stuff and you can tell it cost tens of thousands just to bring it to the desert and leave it there.

---

quote:

---

living like a bum for a weekend.

---

quote:

---

the stench has to be oppressive.

---

quote:

---

I don't want to go to Burning Man because its expensive and being hot at festivals for a week in a tent, especially in the desert, isn't really my thing.

---

quote:

---

Those modern art pieces cost tens of thousands of dollars and are everywhere. Sure, they have the non-rich people that spend their whole paycheck on a ticket there, but there are several billionaires out there every year and celebrities.

---

quote:

---

Just do some research before you spout dumb shite.

---

quote:

---

Get an RV or tent AC.

---

quote:

---

I know people who've created breathtaking pieces that didn't cost as much as you think, and since they spent the whole year crafting them, it wasn't like they wrote a huge check and apid all at once.

---

quote:

---

You first. I've actually been there.

---