Destination Burning Man : Blog

Painting on the Playa

Painting on Location with Roger Bansemer - Burning Man from Roger Bansemer on Vimeo.

The Wobble Chronicles / A Bass Chakra Therapy Practice

The first complete song-cycle of the Wobble Chronicles is complete and available now for free download!

DJ Playaduster has openheartedly laid down a series of mixes designed to introduce the listener to the philosophy and practice of Bass Chakra Therapy, leading you down a path built of bass, track by track, mix by mix. An open heart, mind at ease and soul cleansed of guilt residue are just a few of desired end results. Disciplined enough to wake you up, varied enough to keep you guessing, structured enough to guide you, open enough to allow for personal interpretation, the Wobble Chronicles are the soundtrack for a new way of living: a Life of Whomp.

Photo on 2009-10-31 at 19.53

An Introduction to Bass Chakra Therapy : The Wobble Chronicles Vol. 1 by moontrolling

Featuring Bassnectar / Heyoka / ill.Gates / Beats Antique / Welder / Mimosa (Live from Black Rock City 2009) / An-ten-ae / edIT/ Timonkey / Nosaj Thing / Vibesquad//.

This mix is an overview of the electronik sounds I am currently filling my head with, including several DJs I learned about for the first time at Burning Man 2009. Heavy San Francisco emphasis here, naturally, as that is where my favorite grooves are coming from these days. Special guests include Maketa, Scotty G. and Suga Cubed, recorded both in Black Rock City and on the road to home post-Burn, decompressing and reorienting from the Best Burn Ever. This is one of my favorite mixes I've ever spun out -- I really dig the flow between tracks and between sections. The sacred whomppppppppp of the bass is cleansing to my soul. Hope you dig it too. Hope you find an opening...

Whompadelic (Bass Chakra Therapy : Intermediate) * The Wobble Chronicles Vol. 2 by moontrolling

Soundtrack by Lux, Nosaj Thing, An-ten-ae, Tipper, Lotus Drops, Vibesquad, ill.gates, Mihkal and Eskmo//.

Another Bass Chakra Thearpy session from DJ Playaduster -- this time an intermediate level mix for those who have already absorbed the teachings found within the first introductory BCT session. This session tests the fortitude of the practitioner by bringing in a wobblier, multi-dimensional strangeness to the whomp. Hold on for the ride, if you're ready.

Vocals woven in to this session include soundstick recordings from the Halloween/Spiderball experience in San Francisco, the Get Found reunion at the Samish Island Zendo and the night Team Love danced all night in puddles to DJs on the top of the old Rainier Brewery in Seattle. This episode, in other words, tracks the post-playa adventures of our furry, fuzzy family up and down the Pacific Coast in the waning months of 2009.

Stay tuned for the Bass Chakra Therapy Advanced Level mix coming soon as the Wobble Chronicles mutate, morph and evolve in harmonious complexity right in front of your very earholes.

Orbit

Glitchatronik Dubstraps * (Bass Chakra Therapy : Advanced) * The Wobble Chronicles Vol. 3 by moontrolling

Featuring Ana Sia, Bassbin Twins, Ooah, Mochipet, Mimosa, Rusko, The Bug + Warrior Queen, Beats Antique, ill.gates, Eskmo, ill-esha, Glitch Mob, Heyoka and Boxcutter//.

The third installment in DJ Playaduster's Wobble Chronicles project, providing a soundtrack for personal Bass Chakra Therapy explorations. This episode is specially-designed for advanced practicioners as it explores the heavier, glitchier, dubsteppier side of the Whomp music. Not for casual listening, nor for the casual listener.

Vocals harvested from various ridiculous encounters and adventures in Seattle, Samish Island and San Francisco, including field reports from New Year's Eve at the Sea of Dreams in SF. Ocean waves are from beaches at Point Reyes & Salmon Creek, CA.

More Burning Man video shorts from Moontroll

Oct/21/09 | permalink

Moontroll has spun out two more video shorts from photos and videos gathered on the playa at Burning Man 2009 by himself and co-conspirator Edubious. Both of them capture moments in time at the beautiful and evocative temple (does it have a name?) -- they are like short stories, little windows to look through to be transported, year-round, back to that special time and place. Comments on Vimeo are much appreciated.

Drumming at the Temple at Burning Man 2009 from moontroll on Vimeo.

Temple Burn at Burning Man 2009 from moontroll on Vimeo.

View or download the previous 5 video shorts by subscribing to dBMcasts or by visiting http://vimeo.com/album/53765.

Burning Man video shorts from Moontroll

Sep/14/09 | permalink

dBMcasts Compendium: load up yer iPod for the road!

Aug/27/09 | permalink

Well friends, it is time to let go of those plans and packing ideas you haven't gotten to yet, embrace what you have prepared, load up your jalopy and start heading north/south/east/west towards Black Rock City. One last task before you hit the pavement: download a bunch of dBM podcasts to stoke out yer iPod for the road trip (and arrive with fresh toonz for your camp/art car)!

Destination Burning Man has been posting tracks here since early 2007 -- original musical mixes inspired by the playa from DJs Playaduster, Edubious and, as of this week, Grapenuts; guest DJ sets; field recordings from BRC, interviews and inspired babble and other bits of digital ephemera, always set to a head-bobbin' groove. Sometimes, the message behind the music has taken more than one mix to tell and so multi-part epics have been necessary. Here's a guide to some of our favorites epics, trilogies and otherwise.

Don't ask questions. Just download and git em on to yer iPod or burn to CD and begin full immersion. Let the creative mixologists of dBM provide you with your swervy soundtrack to Burning Man 2009: EVOLUTION!

For best results, click here to subscribe to dBMcasts via iTunes and download the mixes you want from there, while simultaneously setting yerself up for new episodes to automatically be delivered to you when they're posted.

temple04

"
DJ Playaduster's Hearts of Flame trilogy -- August 2006

"And then there's the music, and the dancing.... Sounds come at you from all sides at all times, different rhythms and grooves colliding with the cadences of storytelling and the hushed tones of sacred ceremonies. It is an aural orgy. You are bombarded with so much music that it soon feels like it might all be seeping inside of you, changing you irrevocably. This podcast tribute series attempts to recreate some sense of this nighttime wandering and sound-safaring. A wide variety of musical tastes coexist On Playa, and a brand-new style of music emerges from the midnight mashups and cryptic cross-pollinizations that occur as the glorious and chaotic sounds of Burning Man float towards the starry sky."

Part one "Ignition", part two "Combustion" and part three "Renewal"

burnalmix1
DJs Playaduster+Edubious Burnal Equinox set-- February 2007

"One of our best hopes then is to dream up, then build, a portable sound system that is capable of moving across the playa pumping out our most adventurous musical offerings as an alternative to the ever-present pulse of rave music. We want to bring the funk. We want to lay down the reggae dub. We want to spin the jazz, the world beat, the cajun and the calypso. Two of our alter egos, DJ Playaduster and DJ Edubious, have much experience in crafting musical podcast mixes, we used to host a jazz/groove radio show out in Wyoming (of all places), and we believe we can put both our experience and our vast archives to good use. So, we're moving forward on the assembly of musical mixes, and here is the very first test run available for your listening pleasure."

Part one "It's All About the Burn Now" and part two "Towards the Burn".

light_it_up_cover
DJ Edubious' Virginal Fire Trilogy -- Pre- and Post-Burn 2007

Part one "Light It Up", part two "Burn It Down" and part three "Afterburn".

hyperramona
DJ Playaduster's Green Man trilogy -- Fall 2007

"How to keep the flame alit? How to burn all year? How to reintegrate the lessons and the love in to the Default World? These are the questions the Four Broke Dudes confronted as they stepped back in to their former lives in the Northwest. This is a set of music deeply influenced by the nighttime environment of Black Rock City. It is a mix made up exclusively from DJ Playaduster's nocturnal field recordings -- bits and pieces of the sound environment that pulses each night on the playa, blended together, overlapped, cut-up and reassembled."

Part one "Disorientation", part two "Reorientation: Hyper-Primbly's Marsupial Thumbdrive" and part three "Reintegration".

darwinsfurrowedbrow-1
DJs Playaduster + Edubious' Darwinian Experimentations -- June/July 2009

"Starting to think ahead to Burning Man 2009 a bit -- can't help it. Time to start slowly crafting well-seasoned playlists of tracks that we want to bring down to the playa to share with the people. Here's a sneak peek in to some of our favorite musical goodies acquired over the past few months that are helping us to begin visualizing the next incarnation of Black Rock City. The vibe kind of swerves all over the place as lots of styles and theories are ingested in to the whole. Sources vary widely. Hope you dig it and it tickles the insides of your ears."

"Darwin's Weird Beard" and "Darwin's Furrowed Brow"

DJs Playaduster's Tangled Path Trilogy -- 2008-2009

"The stories that this podcast shares take place over a year-and-a-half, on and off the playa, between friends meeting and separating again along the road. The routes that spring forth from the Burning Man Experience truly form a Tangled Path. Part one surveys the many loose ends of that path, tangling and untangling again; in part two, we'll together move towards Convergence and Burning Man 2009 : Evolution."

"Loose Ends" and "Convergence"

Other non-multi-part dBMcasts of worthy note:

DJ Grapenuts' Playa Prefunk -- August 2009
DJ GrapeNuts Live DJ set recorded August 20th at GLOW in Bellingham, Washington. 60 minutes of head-bobbing goodness.

DJ Playaduster's Soul Body Mind Playa -- August 2007

DJ Edubious' Playa Dawning -- July 2009

DJs Playaduster + Edubious' Burnal Equinox Evolution -- February 2009

Finally, here are a bunch of downloadable videos from Black Rock City.

Go ahead and blow up our dBM bandwidth -- start yer downloading now, and come meet us in the flesh at Camp dBM at 2:15 & Lineage, where we'll be spinning music live in the dBM dome on the boonie fringe of Black Rock City.

Over & out!

Moze’s Top Ten ART PROJECTS And Then Some

Aug/08/09 | permalink

dBM editor's note: this is a rebroadcasting of an excellent post on the Art of Burning Man 2009 from the Burning Blog. Worth sharing here to fire up yer stoke!
It has been said that the culmination of evolution is procreation.
I say it is the process of working your ass off for months in your grimy, stinking sweltering warehouse, breathing the pulverized metal of so many grinders or the pine diaper stink of wet sawdust and every day burning, bashing, smashing, or otherwise breaking your body upon the wheel with a precarious group of batshit crazy artist friends to build something you know will be the GREATEST ART PROJECT EVER to hit the playa.
I say it is spending the last of your paltry paychecks or foraging dumpsters or crawling all over junk yards for supplies and that MISSING LINK to bring your ART TO LIFE and it is the toil and exhaustion of back breaking work, as you are covered with grime, stressed out and sweaty, wondering if you’re going to finish the thing in time, then, when it looks like you won’t pull it off, actually “finishing” and then loading up and driving out to the godforsaken desert to work another week in the dust and the heat that would kill any sane HOMINID.
It really is about SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST and the playa will devour you alive if you lose your focus, but if you’re lucky to finish building your masterpiece sometime around when the floodgates open and Black Rock City fills up with the ART CURIOUS who are searching for YOUR ART TO BLOW THEIR MINDS, you will be able to sit back and watch with wonder what you have wrought and realize…
IT WAS ALL WORTH IT.. . and what’ll we do next year…
Those of you who DARE to IGNORE THE OBVIOUS RIDICULOUSNESS of even trying to make ART in BLACK ROCK CITY are truly EVOLVED.
09_theme

This year we jump aboard the merry ship HMS LARRY HARVEY to sail to Lake Lahontan where OUR FEARLESS LEADER has decreed that in 2009 our dry lake bed will become the GALAPAGOS of ART, and this year’s EVOLUTION THEME just tickles my PHENOTYPE so much I’m hoping to catch some HOT ALLELE on ALLELE action as we all swim to the bone dry end of the GENE POOL.
Now, I am just a lowly blogger, and not a member of the mighty ORG, so getting your LINKAGE all DISEQUILLIBRIUMED over perceived COMPETITIVE EXCLUSION is futile. I don’t know much about ART, but I know what catches my eye, and let me tell you, we have 160+ projects this year, many of them DANGEROUS, but if CONTROL OF FIRE is a turning point in HUMAN EVOLUTION, I’d say we’re pretty evolved in Black Rock City, if you catch my GENETIC DRIFT.
So, if you can put down your faux fur leg warmers, fairy wings, EL wire, body glitter and ThemeCamp planning maps for a few minutes, I give to you …
MOZE’S TOP TEN ART PROJECTS AND THEN SOME

1. Raygun Gothic Rocketship by Sean Orlando, Nathaniel Taylor, David Shulman and John Manyjohns. They’ve been flying around outer space since 1944 and just returned to earth to make repairs and they’re planning on departing again September 4th from Black Rock City where a 500 foot perimeter will be set up to ensure the safety of Black Rock City citizens. Their plasma drive engine, high tensile titanium alloys and lighter weight and gadgetry will be on display all week, “But be careful … it’s all fun and games until someone stumbles into the electric fence surrounding the gantry…”
Seriously, this group of mad scientists don’t just make ART, they live it. They were behind the Steampunk Treehouse from 07 and Goes Around Comes Around, the steam power carousel from 2006 and they’re not only artists and geniuses, but they’re really nice people. If Gee-Gnome is whimsical, this installation is downright in your face retro insanity and well worth the tour.
I highly recommend listening to their Audio Art tour in the Installations section of the Burning Man site.

2. Gee-Gnome by Rosa Anna DeFilippis, Peter Youngmeister, Caroline Miller and John DeVenezia. If you like Gnomes and if you like Fire, this is your piece. It is whimsical, a 5’ tall “realistic depiction of General Gnomius the Great” that will shoot a 70’ multicolored Methanol flame into the sky at night. Sometimes from little Gnomes come Great Flames.
09_soma

3. Soma by the Flaming Lotus Girls is a stainless steel, million times larger than life neuron sculpture driven by the big brains who like to create participatory fire sculptures to blow your mind. Here are dendrites, neurons, spinning fiery nuclei and an axon with flames and electricity that end in a sparkle poof that represents the passage of electricity form cell to cell.
The sheer endurance and ability to remain original and to, dare I say, evolve, makes the Flaming Lotus Girls one of our greatest treasures on the playa.
4. The KeyHole – The Heron Project by Christina Sporrong and Christian Ristow and Luminous Passage by Gary Long and LA Art Group. Last year when the Fleeble wasn’t Flobbering it could get as cold and desolate as a freeway underpass near the Crucible at 3 am (no offense, Charlie). This year we will be treated to a kind of Center Camp Keyhole Champs-Élysées with the Heron Project, “part prehistoric bird, part oil derrick” flapping wings of fire and surrounded by the 20 ethereal trees of Luminous Passage casting glowing shadows to warm your way.
09pavilion

5. This year offers us a tangled bank of possibilities, and THE MAN himself promises to be an interesting departure from years past. THE MAN base is not an art gallery this year, but instead consists “of irregular wooden triangles” creating “a chaotic truss. At night the tangled bank will come alive with luminous life forms scratching, crawling and slithering their way through it.”
There will be a Gene Pool, Strange Ur-creatures peeping and THE MAN will sit atop a central tree that is “beribboned with a double helix.. that .. will exist in flux: switching on and switching off, changing colors unexpectedly.”
09_temple_fire

6. Fire of Fires by David Umlas, Marrilee Ratcliffe and Community Art Makers. The New Temple Crew brings us a 3-tiered Temple, the product of 20 designers. The bottom floor is adorned with human iconography and that symbology evolves from floor one to the top floor where it culminates in fundamental molecular designs. With a 35’ high Fire Tornado at its core, it doesn’t sound like the Temple will have any problem catching fire this year. This could be another very interesting evolution from the past for one of our dear yearly Art Installations.
7. Braindrop by Kate Raudenbush whose past projects include Altered State from 08, Guardian of Eden in 07, Duel Nature from 06 and 2005’s Stadium of the Self, brings Black Rock City a 17’ tall “meditation space created to bring awareness to the element of water on our planet and its importance to our evolutionary balance.” Her intricate laser-cut steel lattice works imprint themselves on my occipital lobe and the sublime beauty of her work is really moving.
8. Vishnu’s Dream by Joe Arnold and Deedee Hampton is a “a twenty seven foot high kinetic, participatory sculpture”. It will be a big “lotus flower blossoming” with lage cobras whose “eyes will glow red and the framework of the lotus will be illuminated by chasing lights that lead the eye upward to a whirling windmill of petals and a glowing orb at the top.”
This sounds pretty cool, but add to that the fact that the installation is a Camera Obscura that rather than just allowing participants inside to see a static image, “will allow viewing dynamic images from inside the camera obscura itself” by a lens apparatus spun by windmills inside the Lotus Flower.
09_HoldingFlame

9. Holding Flame by Patrick Shearn and Cynthia Washburn. The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire… this is the group that brought you the Hope Flower and Fear Trap, that really cool and unexpected flower that traveled the playa. The “ceiling is plumbed with propane which, when burning, creates a roiling ceiling of fire. Contours created on the surface of the ceiling control the pattern and flow of the fire as it moves outward, trying to rise and searching for oxygen. The result, when seen from below, is mesmerizing and engaging.” Nuff said.
10. Carbon Garden by False Profit Labs. This collective has been bringing out more and more interesting installations each year, Hydrogen Economy, PyroCardium, Toxic Bloom. This year they are building “A garden of 30 flowers ranging from 5′ to 10′ tall” each of which shoot flames that “react to sensors and generate music for a serene zen experience.” There is a tradition of these gardens that I’ve always enjoyed, including 06’s A Field of Sunflower Robots by Stefano Corazza, 02’s Lily Pond by Jeremy Lutes, the Flaming Lotus Girls Flower Garden also in 02 and Mr. $teven Ra$pa’$ Sacred Grove and Wheel of Faith from 1998, so I’m looking forward to this one.

AND HERE ARE some Installations that are going to also be no doubt exciting so here they are, categorized for your safety:

09_flamethrower

PLACES MOST LIKELY TO BE SCENES OF NATURAL SELECTION IN ACTION:  The FlameThrower Shooting Gallery by Matisse Enzer returns this year and is “Modeled after “County Fair” style shooting galleries”, but with FlameThrowers. The Burninator Grid by Bill Codding says it all in their descripton of the new layout of the Grid that Burners walk into as “Taking the same large number of towers … and collapsing them into a small field of fire .. that… will allow it to become truly overwhelming.” And I also like the sound of 2Πr by Interpretive Arson which is “two concentric rings” with the inner ring detecting movement and translating it into fire on the second ring.
BIG PENIS ART: There are many large sculptures on the playa, but the Tower of Emergence by Jordan Tenney is a “wood architectural sculpture that reaches nearly 60′ into the sky and is much like a stylized flower which has broken through a huge crack in the barren desert floor.”
OOH THE COLORS AT NIGHT: Two pieces: The Pool by Jen Lewin which will be a place “where play and collaborative movement can create a cascading effect of swirling light and color” and Cubatron L5 by Mark Lotter made up of “made up of 1000 lights.”
09_Chimera_Sententia

MOST LIKELY DISTURBING ART: Chimera Sententia (aka Fishbug) by Rebecca Anders & Jessica Hobbs is an offshoot of the Flaming Lotus Girls and promises to freak you out with a length of 30 feet of straining, laboring BREATHING undefined evolving creature.
HARD TO TOP DICKY IN THE BOX: This year’s large scale art project by a newcomer is something called Evo-Wall by Carl Sanden. It looks big, there are doors, there is a wall, he’s going to ignite it all and he seems crazy enough to pull it off. This could be a real Sleeper, or not.
So there you have it. If I’ve missed something mind blowing it won’t be the first time. I wrote an art review that missed the 2006 Waffle, aka Message Out of the Future by the Uchronians. You can read all about it in Burning Man Live, 13 Years of Piss Clear if you are so inclined. But we ADAPT.
There are a TON of other projects and like I said, these just caught my eye. I don’t really know anything about ART, but I can’t wait to see what these folks make happen out there because ART really gets my motor running and I appreciate every artist who works their ass off to get their project out there to GIFT to all of us.
And HONESTLY, SO SHOULD YOU. Have a great Burn this year.

BM09 art installations announced

May/01/09 | permalink

From the Burning Man newsletter "Jack Rabbit Speaks," a preview of the playa-to-be:

Every year Burning Man allocates a percentage of its revenue from
ticket sales to funding select art projects that are collaborative,
community-oriented and interactive. We do this in order to support
the Burning Man art community, and to facilitate the creation of
outstanding art for Black Rock City... In 2009, a
percentage of your hard-earned ticket money helped to fund the
following art installations, for all Burning Man participants to enjoy.

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Bio*tanical Garden
by Rossella Scapini - Berkeley, CA

Bio*Tanical garden is the avant-garde in biological harvesting. This
innovative greenhouse cultivates human organs and body parts in pots
until they are ready to be trans-planted!

--------------------

Carbon Garden
by False Profit Labs - San Francisco, CA
http://labs.false-profit.com/blog/carbon-garden/

Carbon Garden is a garden of flowers made out of carbon fiber (the
same stuff as the stealth bomber, Boeing's most advanced airplane
wings, and possibly your bicycle fork if you're extra cool). Each
flower will have a small flame that can change its size up to 30 times
per second from a candle size to about 3 feet. Flowers react to people
around them with ultrasonic range finders, and "talk" to each other in
a language of fire.

--------------------

Chaotic Harmony
by Hedy Sirico - Philadelphia, PA
http://www.hedysirico.com/burningman09art.html

Maybe the true beauty of art is that it provides no definitive
answers. Maybe its power rests empirically in its questions. What do
you see when you think of a tangled bank? What of plants and singing
birds on bushes? Beautiful people swarming like insects about the
installation, some stopping for nectar, some flying to other flowers.
Are they really all that different from each other? Is this concept
of dependency truly a complex manner? Are all of these things truly
produced by definitive laws? Have a seat, friend. Ask a question.
If it be from your heart, you may not leave with an answer, but you
will leave ... changed. Just by asking the question. Chaotic Harmony
is a 4-sided assemblage sculpture, a tribute to evolution, starting
with oceanic life at the bottom, moving upwards to land-based life,
and finally to creatures of the sky at the top.

--------------------

Chimera Sententia
by Rebecca Anders & Jessica Hobbs - San Francisco, CA
http://fishbug.net/?page_id=10

As if pulling itself from primordial ooze, the Chimera Sententia rises
from the playa floor. A creature of indeterminate origin out of sync
with time and place greets participants; a hybrid expressing a point
where evolutionary paths cross. Its body represents a timeline of
evolution, from the beginning spark of life to a vision of future
possibilities seen within its illuminated head. With a length of
thirty feet and reaching a height of fifteen feet, the Chimera's form
strains to lift and pull itself forward by its forearms, its head is
bowed low powerfully pushing forward with its expanding mind as its
sides labor with breath. Its reptilian body slopes away from its
illuminated head, morphing into crustacean as it curls back into a
segmented tail. From a distance the Chimera's presence is enlivened
with pulsing breath-like fire running down the crest of its spine and
light seeping out from within its body. The Chimera is a steel-based
structure; the extremities of its spine fin, forearms, fishy tail and
mastodon-like tusks are exposed sculpted steel, while its thorax,
tail, neck and lower head are covered in a flexible skin evocative of
a leathery organic surface. Its conical eyes protrude from its face,
its glowing cranium is sculpted in translucent resin and fiberglass,
allowing internally projected light and shadow to play across it.

--------------------

Cubatron L5
by Mark Lotter - Menlo Park, CA

The Cubatron L5 is a 3D LED light sculpture. It consists of 5 Modular
Cubatron arranged in a rectangle 8x40 feet wide and 13 ft high. Each
Modular Cubatron is made up of 1000 lights within an 8x8x8ft open
aluminum frame. They sit on top of a 5ft high steel pipe platform.
People can view from any direction or crawl underneath.

--------------------

Eighth Wonder
by Amy Shapiro - New York, NY

Eighth Wonder is an archeological site where participants brush away
playa dust to reveal the fossil remains of modern day items such as an
iPod or an Oscar award. These icons are examples of the theory of
survival of the fittest applied to cultural creation instead of
biological development. One is an archaeologist of one's own
culture. Our era has had advancements in communication larger than
any previous time. Like in biological evolution, changes and chance
mutations can occur. The participant uses archeological methods to
reveal our era bringing to mind the question of time being an
artificial creation. One physically experiences how our culture will
be viewed by future generations. Eighth Wonder is about the
timelessness of human existence. What are the memorable and lasting
images of our society that will survive for centuries? These images
are repeatedly covered in dust utilizing the natural environment as a
key material.

--------------------

Evo-Wall
by Carl Sanden - Seattle, WA
http://www.sanden3d.com/evo-wall_1.htm

The Evo-Wall begins as a woodpile that grows, changes and evolves to
become an obstacle that blocks, a barrier that burns and a wall with a
door that unlocks. Beyond the door there is more, a dome structure
with fabric streamers provides some shade for all and houses a short
story about the wall. As Burners visit maybe they will learn the Evo-
Wall is more than just a sperm.

--------------------

Fire Of Fires – The Temple
by David Umlas, Marrilee Ratcliffe, Community Art Makers - Austin, TX

As human nature and perception have evolved, whether we feel with our
heart, question with our mind, or attempt to explain our reality ...
fire has been at our center. At the center of our structure is the
fire. Encased in thirty-two vertical feet of clear polycarbonate
sheeting, nine gas lamps come alive as a tornado of flame as
participants interact with the Temple. From one flame, all lamps can
be kindled: fire imparts infinitely without loss. From a single,
human desire all branches swirl out and find form upon a tangled bank.

--------------------

FlameThrower Shooting Gallery
by Matisse Enzer - San Francisco, CA
http://www.matisse.net/flamethrower/

Modeled after "County Fair" style shooting galleries the Flamethrower
Shooting Gallery provides a ﬂaming twist on a long-standing American
tradition and pokes gentle fun at the American fascination with
ﬁrearms and personal power, along with the Burning Man fascination
with ﬁre and "radical self expression" by allowing and encouraging
participants to literally play with ﬁre. The Flamethrower Shooting
Gallery provides maximum participation for doing dangerous things,
safely.

--------------------

Gee-Gnome!
by Rosa Anna DeFilippis, Peter Youngmeister, Caroline Mills, John
Devenezia - San Francisco, CA

Gee-Gnome! is a sculptural representation of a garden gnome, 5' tall
and 2' wide, cast in aluminum to create a realistic depiction of
General Gnomius the Great. During the day, Gee-Gnome! will primarily
rest, silent and still. Occasionally, when Burning Man participants
get too close, Gee-Gnome! will shake with displeasure. However, heat
lethargy prevents further escalation. Once the sun goes down, Gee-
Gnome! slowly awakens. At first he appears docile, burning with an
inviting ambient flame. But gnomes are quick to anger. Suddenly, Gee-
Gnome! shakes and jumps up and down with fury. No longer oppressed by
the hot daytime sun, his anger quickly escalates, with steam shooting
out of his ears. At the pinnacle of his tantrum, his hat breaks open,
releasing a jet of multi-colored methanol fury 70' into the sky. Once
the cycle of anger is vented, the gnome returns to his deceivingly
docile form. Until next time....

--------------------

Holding Flame
by Patrick Shearn, Cynthia Washburn - Los Angeles, CA
http://www.poetickinetics.com/public/holdingflame.html

Holding Flame is a steel pergola covered in sheet steel latticework.
The ceiling is plumbed with propane which, when burning, creates a
roiling ceiling of fire. Contours created on the surface of the
ceiling control the pattern and flow of the fire as it moves outward,
trying to rise and searching for oxygen. The result, when seen from
below, is mesmerizing and engaging.

--------------------

In'cu-nab"u•lum
by Iron Monkeys - Seattle, WA

In`cu·nab"u·lum is the universe turned inside out, scaled down to a
size we can relate to, and placed on our fingertips. Encountering
In`cu·nab"u·lum, participants will be led to consider one of the
primary dualities of our existence: Our rational minds tell us that we
are an inconsequential part of a vast, uncaring universe; yet, we
know, in another sense, that we are responsible for creating our own
universe and that nothing exists outside our own experience.
In`cu·nab"u·lum will allow participants to explore these two concepts
and encourage them to consider how different they really are.

--------------------

Key Note
by Michael Christian - Oakland, CA
http://xianspace.com/bm2009/

A figurative piece made entirely of locks - padlocks, door locks,
cabinet and chest locks, car locks, bike locks, locks, locks, locks.
Locks we use to secure all we find of value or feel the need to
protect. The world as we create and understand it. The figure will
be dragging a very large key ring holding thousands of keys the while
embodying the feeling of one in continual motion – a body in pursuit
of another key, the right key, the one key. A paradox of life as we
know it.

--------------------

Luminous Passage
by Gary Long & LA Art Group - Los Angeles, CA

Luminous Passage will line the entrance to Center Camp with large
flower-shaped light sculptures, ten on each side of the Keyhole, for a
total of twenty flower-lamps. Proceeding from Center Camp toward the
Esplanade, the design of each flower-lamp will become progressively
more complex, beginning from an early stage of development, such as a
single bud, to a bolder, more vibrant and visually evolved flower form.

--------------------

Portal of Evolution
by Bryan Tedrick - Glen Ellen, CA
http://www.bryantedrick.com/

Portal of Evolution is a sculpture based on the female reproductive
system. A portal is formed with petal like steel plates from which
spring fallopian tubes and ovaries. Emerging from the top is a
kinetic butterfly with a seat in the center for passengers. Overall
dimensions are 26' tall x 32' wide.

--------------------

Raygun Gothic Rocket
by Sean Orlando, Nathaniel Taylor, David Shulman, John Manyjohns -
Berkeley, CA
http://www.raygungothicrocket.com

The RAYGUN GOTHIC ROCKET is an immersive large-scale installation
consisting of a 40' tall metal rocketship connected via walkway to a
taller gantry launch tower with a well-defined lighted perimeter.
Participants can interactively explore the rocket's three interior
chambers accessible through the bottom of the rocket and the top of
the rocket via the gantry. Aesthetically, the Rocketship explores the
rococo retro-futurist future-rustic vernacular. Existing between
yesterday's tomorrow and the future that never was ... it is a
critical kitsch somewhere between The Moons of Mongo & Manga Nouveau.

--------------------

Soma
by Flaming Lotus Girls - San Francisco, CA
http://lee.org/flg/proposals/soma/FLG_SomaBMprop_completeHR_013109.pdf

Soma translates the anatomy of neurons into metal, fire and light;
magnifying the microscopic world to an epic scale. Soma's two neurons
bond through electrochemical pulses. One neuron appears partially
buried in the playa, the other floats overhead while an elegant axon
arches between them. Fire and lighting effects flow like
electrochemical signals from the buried, transmitting neuron over the
high-reaching axon to the elevated, receiving neuron. Each cell body
contains a spinning fiery nucleus. Long dendrites undulate away from
them. Throughout the sculpture, fire and LED lighting accentuate not
only the curves and geometric forms, but also the transmission of
information. Soma offers participants an interactive installation
that investigates the very basis of thought. It invites them to be an
active force in this communication, to gather together and input via
controls, sharing their knowledge and messages of warmth.

--------------------

Steve: the Robot H.E.Ai.D.
by Uber Geek Project - Seattle, WA
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhqn75wz_9dzng6hn3

In the modern era, human evolution has long left the constraints of
biology. Progress is determined by our capacity to share knowledge
and collaborate, creating emergent entities that exist outside of our
mortal shapes. With Steve: The Robot H.E.Ai.D., we explore the idea
that the next step in our human evolution is when these emergent
entities wake up, become in some way self-aware, and start speaking to
us as individual nodes within its larger brain. Inside the brain of
Steve, groups of people will completely immerse themselves in a
collaborative, generative sound/music experience that culminates in
awakening the sentience of a Human Energized Artificial intelligence
Device.

--------------------

The Burninator Grid
by Bill Codding - San Francisco, CA
http://www.4bc.org/burninator/bg_proposal_orig.html

The Burninator Grid is a large-scale fire installation - a set of
computer-controlled large flame towers compacted into a small area.
It will take the concept of the Burninators, which previously have
been focused on using large expanses of the playa as a canvas, and
concentrate it by scaling down to a small area of very intense heat
and light. The patterns will still be able to be seen from anywhere
on the playa, but the real visceral experience will be had by walking
into the grid of flames.

--------------------

The Drifting Encyclopedia At Burning Man
by Zach Morris - Woodside, NY

The Drifting Encyclopedia is an immersive, interactive museum housing
an assemblage of American oddities, scientific and historical fact,
questionable accounts, and implausible, but nonetheless true,
representations thereof.

--------------------

The Heron Project
by Christina Sporrong, Christian Ristow - Taos, NM
http://www.theheronproject.blogspot.com

The Heron Project is a large-scale modular sculpture that will serve
as a versatile performance space and also as a public, interactive,
kinetic playground. The Heron crane appears and vanishes amidst a
Playa dustorm, part pre-historic bird part oil derrick, its head moves
slowly beckoning. There are people climbing and hanging from it with
deliberate grace. At night its wings move with fire, illuminating the
tall skeletal structure lightly perched on the ground. The Heron is a
Triassic playground, at once natural and constructed, kinetic yet open
to interaction on many levels.

--------------------

Nowhere Omnibus Service
by Pete Johnson, Steve Double, Toby Slater - United Kingdom
http://nowhereomnibus.wordpress.com

The Nowhere Omnibus is simultaneously a piece of interactive art and
Black Rock City's first genuine public transport infrastructure,
providing a regular, reliable, timetabled route around the playa, to
the Man and the Temple every day of Burning Man. It will take the
form of a red, double-decker London Routemaster bus, complete with bus
stops around the Esplanade and visits to Burning Man art exhibits.

--------------------

The Watch
by Chassy Cleland, Brooklyn - NY
http://thewatch.devildream.com/

The Watch starts with a question posed 200 years ago: If you were
walking across a barren landscape and found a pocket watch on the
ground, how did it come to be there, and in this context, is it any
different than an animal or plant?

This installation is a 10' diameter version of that watch, embedded in
the desert surface. As biologists look inside animals to trace
evolutionary ancestries, answers lie within The Watch. The interior
clockwork is exposed, with additional gears scattered nearby. Built
as a zoetrope, each spinning cog tells a story about how life came to
be. Some cogs run the ticking clockwork, displaying stories that
interlock to form our best understanding of the evolutionary clock's
mechanisms. Other cogs are scattered nearby, re-telling origin
theories discarded in favor of those that better fit with the
scientific observations and discoveries of the past two centuries.

--------------------

Towers of Shiva
by Dave King & Controlled Burn - Reno, NV
http://shivavista.controlledburnreno.com

The Towers of Shiva is the third and final evolution of the Shive
Vista Project. It is a place where humans and fire breathing hardware
dance together in the heat of the night. An elevated fire performance
platform is lit by fire breathing towers and a row of mechanized flame
effects. Drummers, Fire dancers and synchronized flames blend
together in a powerful expression of the Art of Fire.

--------------------

Who Gave Birth?
by Laura Kimpton - Nicasio, CA
http://www.laurakimpton.com

The theme this year at Burning Man is "Evolution". When thinking about
evolution, I think about Where We Came From. I believe we evolved
from the earth meaning the Earth Gave Birth to all living things. At
Burning Man 2009, I propose to build an art installation entitled "Who
Gave Birth?" with an underlying evolutionary theme of "Earth Gave
Birth".

This art installation is a celebration of all MOMs, and the feminine
energy that comprises the true understanding that the original MOM is
The Earth. We were all born from The Earth. We live in a time where
this understanding of our true MOM as The Earth has been forgotten.
We look to other means to guide us through our lives -- we look to
books, words, masculine energy, religion, TV, the Internet --
exclusively human elements to guide us in our lives. I believe if we
looked to the energy that gave us life, "The Earth", we would be
living more in balance. We would understand that if we looked down to
our Feet, to the Dirt, the Trees, the Earth energy, we would find a
wisdom that would surpass all other wisdom. In designing "Who Gave
Birth?", I see a unique opportunity to also celebrate my MOM, and all
MOMs. It is a way to truly rejoice in the understanding of the power
of what it takes to be a MOM.

Big Rig Jiggin' in Seattle

Mar/13/08 | permalink

"Big Rig Jig" artist lands Sound Transit gig
By Mike Lindblom at the Seattle Times

lushioussmall_500x336

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."

e_aqui-ali

http://bigrigjig.com/

Podcast Cafe open for bidness!

Dec/14/07 | permalink

Join DJ Playaduster's alter egos DJ Fundi & DJ Christafari at the new home of the Podcast Cafe, now featuring three different podcast channels with three different flavors for your listening pleasure: the Podcast Cafe, the Live Archive and Radio Free Fundi. The website just launched, and it'd be in your best interest to go have a look around and subscribe to all three streams of free-flowing intergalactic musical mixes:
www.podcastcafe.org

(If you want a shortcut to subscribing to the Podcast Cafe via iTunes, click right here.)

See you at the cafe!

Burning Man 2007 : Film is Truth

Nov/20/07 | permalink

Scene from "Center Camp Circumbulation" * photo by moontroll

Burning Man 2007 movies now showing at the dBM Films page!

Moontroll has posted four short videos over on the Films page -- "Dust Storms & Rainbows", "Sunrise at the Temple", "Center Camp Circumambulation" and "The Playa Portraits Project." You can watch them here in the comfort of Destination Burning Man, or catch them in a crappier low-rez versions over at Youtube.

Scene from "Sunrise at the Temple" * photo by moontroll
Either way, they are designed with hopes of transporting the viewer back to the glory of the playa by way of moving sights and sounds.

Scene from "Dust Storms & Rainbows" * photo by moontroll
If you see yourself in any of these documentaries, or if you simply enjoy the ride, please drop moontroll an email at moontroll@destinationburningman.com or leave a comment.

Scene from "Playa Portraits Project 2004-2007" * photo by moontroll
Get out the popcorn & goggles and enjoy!

get disoriented

Nov/18/07 | permalink

New podcast from DJ Playaduster, wildcrafted from audio field recordings taken live from Black Rock City 2007, available for download or stream over at the Podcast page!

top photo by moontroll; bottom two by rumble.

Bassnectar in Bellingham, Nov. 17

Nov/11/07 | permalink

(Click here to listen to a Bassnectar DJ set)

Story by Alex McLean, originally published in What's Up! magazine.

The last time Boogie Universal brought Bassnectar to Bellingham was about six months ago. I recall wading through the oddly garnished crowd toward the pulsating Nightlight stage and thinking: “Who the fuck are all these freaks?” and, “What are all these freaks doing packing this place on a Tuesday night?” As a fellow uniquely retarded in many ways – but especially dense when it comes to electronic music – I had no comprehension for the cult-like status embalming some of the stars in the DJ world. Furthermore, since I was just that painfully ignorant, I was very dubious that I might actually enjoy the music. My presumption was a night doomed to nothing more than observing a technical college reject who had a cute passion for tweaking his I-Pod collection.

Several hours later, with a mind pulverized as thoroughly as any jellyfish in a blender, I had different notions about my evening. The hairball on the DJ dais had melted my banana hammock with some severely ass-mangling drums and bass. And, mightily, he did summon forth the sweaty dervish of assembled freaks. So it came to pass that I, a blown turd leftover from the Grunge revolution, had been reborn a convert to these pretentiously named hoods lurking behind their cages of electronic gear. Soon I would be that frenetic fool who epileptically worships a stage presence like Bassnectar for boldly removing his fingers from a nest of smoldering knobs, winking lights, turntables and keyboards to lift one globe of their absurdly big headphones and, just maybe, stare at the crowd long enough to wag an energized fist. Electronic music stirs my midlife mocha, and whip cream on my saggy nipples couldn't get me more frothed up than the guy coming to the Nightlite this month.

bassnectar_propellarhat

Bassnectar is actually Lorin Ashton, a skinny hippie from San Fransisco. While the name “Bassnectar” conjures the image of juice squozen from a game fish (it is fun to irritate his fans with the deliberate mis-pronunciation) the DJ actually has a global following that will claim he is the driving force behind the West-coast breaks scene. Countless DJ reviews in magazines I never knew existed rave shamelessly that his beats are “revolutionary,” “kaleidoscopically brilliant,” “remarkable” and “unclassifiable.” Lacking the vocabulary of the genre myself, and weary of all the tortured sub-divisions within the DJ music culture, the best fall back seems to be Lorin's own description of his beats: “Omni-tempo Maximalism.”

The diversity of Lorin's sound is reflected not just in his prolific discography, produced mostly through San Fransisco's Om Records, but also in the type of folk who call the guy a pal. He's worked with hip hopper KRS One, Micheal Franti of Spearhead, Micheal Kang of the (mostly) bluegrass String Cheese Incident, and the freakishly talented rock guitar virtuoso, Buckethead. A heavy streak of social activism runs through most, if not all, of these collaborations and Lorin is not shy about dubbing tracks from an activist, poet, or songwriter to infuse his delirious rhythms with a less digital message. Looping Saul Williams' anti war speech into a track, or naming his two most recent CDs “Underground Communication” and “Bomb the Blocks,” might give further hints to the thoughts crawling around in Lorin's hairy hippie noggin.

Since I am a member in good standing with the Boogie Universal arts collective, I had a chance to grill Erik Moore, one of the collective's founding members, about the Bassnectar phenomena. What I wanted to know, specifically, was where the fuck all the freaks had come from and, specifically, what the hell they were doing in sleepy 'lil Bellingham on that Tuesday night.

bassnectar01

“Lorin is huge,” Moore said. “A lot of these people probably saw him last night in Seattle – actually, I know they did – came up here to see him again. The Vancouver scene is probably doing the same thing.”

Moore also said that when Bassnectar plays at the Burningman festival he'll draw “thousands and thousands” to his shows. Perhaps not believing him, or perhaps eager for the spectacle of watching so many scantily clad waifs dancing their asses right off, I went down to see the thing for myself. And there it was. Armed not only with one of the most cleanly and purely loud systems I've ever endured, but also with a button that shot hot geysers of flame over the crowd, the DJ/creature in its booth created insanely beautiful chaos that gleefully pounded the crap out of that sweaty desert until the thin hours of dawn came a 'knockin.

Bassnectar is saturated with sweet sonic goodness. He's a cyber-bunny that has hopped the generational gap between dope-smoking (Grateful) Deadheads and crystal meth munching ravers. He's trying something unique and wild and daring while most of the assholes with musical talent are busy refining their sound to meet the pablum ingested by “American Idol” judges. And, since he's skipping both Seattle and Vancouver for this leg of his tour (yes, the Boogie is THAT powerful) it is quite likely that the freaks will be out in force for a Saturday show. Throw your ass on the Nightlight's floor November 17th and find out for yourself.

new post-playa podcast posted!

Nov/04/07 | permalink

DJ Edubious has posted a new mix over on the podcast page -- it is the first musical response to what went down on the playa this summer, and it complete the groove trilogy Edubious started with Light It Up and furthered with Burn It Down. Listen carefully for the drifting observations of Hekter and Moontroll recorded from deep within their Burning experiences....dig it!

Universal Freek Delight & Pyramid Parties

Aug/01/07 | permalink

Here's the rough outline of entertainment and general freekiness/geekiness scheduled for the Boogie Pyramid -- come check out the Boogie Universal vibe at 9:00 & Espanade!

DAYTIME
Universal Freak Delight: daily sessions in the pyramid from 3-4 through sunset/8-9 pm
(some planned events, lots of open space for random performers & workshops on the fly)

Monday: open
Tuesday: Sensual Day: massage, chocolate & strawberries, henna 7pm; The Party Formerly Known as Prince Party—wear purple 9pm
Wednesday: Body Art 3 pm; Sushi 6-9 pm
Thursday: Push Hands: A Tai Chi Game 1-3; Ms. Black Rock City Paegant 3-6; Twisted Twister 7pm
Friday: Boogie Pranksters noon-2; Circus Arts Meetup 2-4; Funk, Soul & Hula-Hoops with DJs Grape-nuts, Playaduster & Edubious 4-8
Sunday: Closing ceremony& drumming with Edubious

NIGHT
Monday: Welcome Home Party with Hekter's Huckleberry Mojito Surprise / Full Moon Eclipse celebration with Jackass, DJ Novatron, Adam Star (unconfirmed) and Rashaan
Tuesday: Folk Dancing Workshop
Wednesday: Rob the Wandering Accordion Player, DJ Hipp-e, Surgical Delivery System, Joe Lyon & Ruff Hauser
Thursday: Rashaan, Breakbeat Buddha, Vibesquad, LEe Combs & Dave Sweeten
Friday: Boogie Universal Pyramid Party/Ancient Civilizations costume theme/with DJ Grapenuts, Rootabreaka, Dave Levi & Novatron

Everything is, of course, subject to change once we hit the playa...WHOOOO!
(Now do you feel like supporting us with some spare change? As you can see, we'll spend it oh so wisely!)

the Boogie Universal DJ Temple

May/13/07 | permalink

a sneak peek at one component of our camp

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Here are some photos from E of the DJ Temple his Boogie Universal Collective ("empowering good people to
do Silly Things....") :

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first podcast good for the gettin'

Apr/02/07 | permalink

One of the primary missions of the three broke dudes is to share the groove with the masses on playa this year. DJ Edubious and DJ Fundi have begun work on crafting musical mixes, which they hope to spread across Black Rock City on a mobile soundsystem unit. You can listen to a sneak preview of their first DJ set over at the Podcast page.

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Destination Burning Man Blog

notes from the unfolding adventure