Mar 2008
The Green Man Trilogy and reflections
at the Burnal Equinox
DJ Playaduster just posted the third and final installment in The Green Man Trilogy podcast series -- you can stream it over at the podcast page right this very moment!
The story starts with the mix entitled DISORIENTATION, a sonic sound collage made up of DJ sets, conversations and weird late night soundings that were wild-harvested from Black Rock City and the open playa using a digital soundstick during Burning Man 2007. The piece represents the blissful confusion and spun-out enlightenment that can occur when one travels the city, on foot or bike, through the night until daybreak. It attempts to recreate the mad mash-up of noise that engulfs you everywhere you travel.
REORIENTATION follows, naturally, and it charts a musical course meant to symbolize the soul-navigation that must occur when one leaves the playa, with dust in one's pockets and new fire in one's heart, and begins to reassimilate back in to your daily life at home, work and in relationships. Featuring sporadic commentary from Hekter McElliott, as he attempts to explain his Yvonda version 2.0/Marsupial Thumbdrive theories, this mix also reflects the musical evolution that Playaduster underwent at Burning Man (to sample the range of influences, see DISORIENTATION!)
And so, finally, we arrive at the third chapter, REINTEGRATION. While careful listening will reveal the musical landscape to be in kinship with the groove of REORIENTATION, the tone and tenor of the conversations and philosophizing takes a distinct turn as Playaduster and Edubious look back and reflect upon the crucible experiences of the Burn.
So far as we can tell, the release of REINTEGRATION contains the last dusty tidbits of field recordings left from Burning Man 2007, and also pretty much taps the last drops of insight and inspiration for creating Green Man-themed art projects: musical podcasts, essays of reflection, movies, photo slideshows, etc. etc. DJ Playaduster is feeling, well, done. Moving on to what's next. Grateful, satisfied and grounded.
Just so happens that the release of this last bit of Green Man juju comes near the Burnal Equinox, or the pivot point on the opposite end of the year from the Burn. It was on the Burnal Equinox, 2007, that DJs Playaduster and Edubious dropped the first musical podcast mixes (which you can still access here and here). A nice bit of unintentional cosmic harmony, and entirely not surprising.
Upon sharing these notions with Edubious, the Doobsauce responded by saying, "You know, it took us six months to build it all up, and then it took 6 more months to tear it all down again." Well put. The Burn is a 10-day event in the desert, but Burning Man is a feeling, a groove, a beacon that shines in to lives all around the planet regardless of time or place. Buy the ticket, take the ride.
DJ Edubious, upon listening to the last chapter in the Green Man Trilogy, also had this to share:
Wow. I just finished my first full listen to REORIENTATION. My body is here at work, and I am trying to look like I am doing some kind of work that is related to the paycheck that I receive bi-weekly. Internally, my mind is cruising through past landscapes between here and the Black Rock Desert.
I am circling over the towering cliffs and ox bow bending river at Smith Rocks State Park.
I am standing amidst the circle of the Australian goddess tribe, reeling from a kiss that was shared through the electric buzz of a medicinal cocktail.
I am striding across the Playa toward the man, in full regalia, amidst the Love and friendship of the Boogie Universal Crew.
I am in the kitchen at Sunnyland, uttering the prophecy of the Pure Power of Possibility and Potential.
I am gone. Lost in the jumble of electro-nurf Ikea beats; thankful for the reprieve of Bob Marley and Sufjan Stevens. I can feel the cold winter air and welcome isolation of Snow Flamingo Studios through the haze of ganja smoke, belly-warming whisky and Juble Ale sippin'.
I see the tears glistening in your eyes and revisit in me the gift of clarity and commitment that you shared with me on my birthday.
I feel the closure of the Green Man/Burning Man 2007 Archival Project. It's all in the bottle. Waiting for us pick it up, dust it off and release the genie that will take us back to those many fading moments of bliss, creativity, collaboration, challenge, beauty, community, music and Love.
I am moved from this place toward the flame that continues to Burn inside of me.
It's been quite the journey. Thanks for sharing it with us during the past year. Who knows what will go down over the next...
Lots of love,
The Four Broke Dudes
ps. DJ Playduster wants me to recommend to you another podcast channel produced by his compatriot DJ Fundi; check out all of the goodness over at the Podcast Cafe, featuring Podcast Cafe episodes, a channel devoted to live music bootlegs, a direct transglobal link to Radio Free Fundi and the Fundiblog.
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Big Rig Jiggin' in Seattle
Mar/13/08 | art &
music | permalink
"Big Rig Jig" artist
lands Sound Transit gig
By Mike Lindblom at the Seattle Times
Sound Transit is known to push the limits of engineering, by boldly drilling tunnels through wet glacial soil.
Now, the agency wants to install groundbreaking public art.
For its future Capitol Hill light-rail station, transit officials have hired Mike Ross, a young Brooklyn, N.Y., artist whose sculpture of tanker trucks — "Big Rig Jig" — was a highlight of last year's Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert.
By Mike Lindblom at the Seattle Times
Sound Transit is known to push the limits of engineering, by boldly drilling tunnels through wet glacial soil.
Now, the agency wants to install groundbreaking public art.
For its future Capitol Hill light-rail station, transit officials have hired Mike Ross, a young Brooklyn, N.Y., artist whose sculpture of tanker trucks — "Big Rig Jig" — was a highlight of last year's Burning Man festival in the Nevada desert.
The piece was four stories high. People
climbed up through its curved tubes, supported from within by
steel-truss work.
His design for Capitol Hill, to be announced this spring, will probably involve something really, really big that hangs from crossbeams inside the station.
Barbara Luecke, Sound Transit's public-art administrator, said she pursued Ross after she saw "Big Rig Jig" at Burning Man. He was eventually chosen from among 120 hopefuls.
"Capitol Hill seems like they're willing to look for a strong art statement," said Luecke, based on chats with community advocates and a design committee.
Ross, 32, won't discuss details of his design, which he says is not fully formed.
But a speech here last week, an interview and his past works suggest he'll create something fun.
Ross was inspired to make the truck sculpture by the traffic in his neighborhood, where 18-wheelers make him nervous about his jaywalking habit. Also, Ross said, he and his girlfriend have hitchhiked across the country with truck drivers.
He describes "Big Rig Jig" as his perspective on an unsustainable, oil-burning economy. Yet his semis are dancing.
"It's just cool to see trucks in the air," he said. "I saw smiles on people's faces; that was great. That's a big part of what I'm trying to do. Let people walk away feeling they're seeing something pleasurable, in some way."
In five trips to Seattle, he's noticed the constant grayness and also that the city's public art tends to offset that gray with a joyous feeling, a tradition he wants to honor.
Color will likely play a starring role.
Before "Big Rig Jig," he co-designed a pair of temporary sculptures called "Color Field," in Key West, Fla., and New York. Translucent color panels were suspended overhead, and visitors could move them using ropes and pulleys. The ground served as a canvas for drifting hues under the sunlight. Viewers could combine colors — making purple by pulling a red panel over a blue one, for example.
In Seattle, colors could be installed in the glass-walled station entrances, Luecke said.
"I haven't thought about it, but it might be very nice," Ross said.
Transit spokesman Bruce Gray said no decision has been made on whether to install the sculpture at one of the three entrances or on the mezzanine.
If an expected federal grant comes through, the station is scheduled to open in late 2016 as part of a $1.8 billion, three-mile tunnel from Westlake Center to Husky Stadium. The Capitol Hill art budget is $550,000, including $110,000 for Ross.
Compared to the mostly wall-mounted art in Seattle's downtown tunnel, the Capitol Hill tunnel piece would be more three-dimensional, Ross said. One possibility is a piece that hovers above escalator riders as they glide through different elevations.
Ross is enthralled by the transition between underground travel and surface daylight. A subway ride makes a city an archipelago of busy streetscapes, separated by journeys in black.
Capitol Hill, he said, "will be a place where you emerge."
http://bigrigjig.com/
His design for Capitol Hill, to be announced this spring, will probably involve something really, really big that hangs from crossbeams inside the station.
Barbara Luecke, Sound Transit's public-art administrator, said she pursued Ross after she saw "Big Rig Jig" at Burning Man. He was eventually chosen from among 120 hopefuls.
"Capitol Hill seems like they're willing to look for a strong art statement," said Luecke, based on chats with community advocates and a design committee.
Ross, 32, won't discuss details of his design, which he says is not fully formed.
But a speech here last week, an interview and his past works suggest he'll create something fun.
Ross was inspired to make the truck sculpture by the traffic in his neighborhood, where 18-wheelers make him nervous about his jaywalking habit. Also, Ross said, he and his girlfriend have hitchhiked across the country with truck drivers.
He describes "Big Rig Jig" as his perspective on an unsustainable, oil-burning economy. Yet his semis are dancing.
"It's just cool to see trucks in the air," he said. "I saw smiles on people's faces; that was great. That's a big part of what I'm trying to do. Let people walk away feeling they're seeing something pleasurable, in some way."
In five trips to Seattle, he's noticed the constant grayness and also that the city's public art tends to offset that gray with a joyous feeling, a tradition he wants to honor.
Color will likely play a starring role.
Before "Big Rig Jig," he co-designed a pair of temporary sculptures called "Color Field," in Key West, Fla., and New York. Translucent color panels were suspended overhead, and visitors could move them using ropes and pulleys. The ground served as a canvas for drifting hues under the sunlight. Viewers could combine colors — making purple by pulling a red panel over a blue one, for example.
In Seattle, colors could be installed in the glass-walled station entrances, Luecke said.
"I haven't thought about it, but it might be very nice," Ross said.
Transit spokesman Bruce Gray said no decision has been made on whether to install the sculpture at one of the three entrances or on the mezzanine.
If an expected federal grant comes through, the station is scheduled to open in late 2016 as part of a $1.8 billion, three-mile tunnel from Westlake Center to Husky Stadium. The Capitol Hill art budget is $550,000, including $110,000 for Ross.
Compared to the mostly wall-mounted art in Seattle's downtown tunnel, the Capitol Hill tunnel piece would be more three-dimensional, Ross said. One possibility is a piece that hovers above escalator riders as they glide through different elevations.
Ross is enthralled by the transition between underground travel and surface daylight. A subway ride makes a city an archipelago of busy streetscapes, separated by journeys in black.
Capitol Hill, he said, "will be a place where you emerge."
http://bigrigjig.com/