tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-260355362024-03-08T03:43:18.059+01:00Edgecentralpostcards from the event horizonGraham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.comBlogger60125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-48935335431736808672021-09-19T14:35:00.001+02:002021-09-19T14:35:50.567+02:00Raving Poet of the Apocalypse: Terence McKenna as Medium<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicRljB2CouvJPYPrIwT3kswvb07-QUNolFB40mbsOwQkicxf-r9j7r8j_dw914MlJ0oB-nj5iZu0UPzUmtOYmyhnW4WAlB3xavXJhMZFwj-JsU-SoifzEmGHD9lWv4OyyLEqRx/s2048/Raving+Poet+front+large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1126" data-original-width="2048" height="352" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicRljB2CouvJPYPrIwT3kswvb07-QUNolFB40mbsOwQkicxf-r9j7r8j_dw914MlJ0oB-nj5iZu0UPzUmtOYmyhnW4WAlB3xavXJhMZFwj-JsU-SoifzEmGHD9lWv4OyyLEqRx/w640-h352/Raving+Poet+front+large.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><p><span style="font-family: verdana;"><a href=" https://youtu.be/YrpPyd5jY2c " target="_blank">This presentation on my YouTube channel</a> draws on material from my
intellectual biography of Terence McKenna (forthcoming with MIT Press).
Decades downstream from McKenna’s involvement in the early nineties acid
house rave scene, the voice of McKenna grew legion in psychedelic
electronica. From “elf chatter” to indistinct chatter, McKenna’s voice
has been amplified, filtered and remixed in a world in which his mind
became iconic for going out of one’s mind. Not only a medium for
distinct messages, McKenna has become a medium for the unspeakable, an
aesthetic we might call McKennaesque. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: verdana;">This is an extended and improved version of a presentation delivered at the inaugural
Dancecult conference - held virtually on Sep 16-17 2021.</span></p>Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-77061221091671290522020-05-30T13:28:00.000+02:002020-05-30T13:31:05.648+02:00I Was COVID 19? (Inspired by "I Was Only 19")<div>
A remix and music video produced with some mates in Melbourne during the lock down. I Was COVID 19? was inspired by Redgum's “I Was Only 19”.</div>
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Remix & Direction: Dada Bass</div>
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Panda Monium</div>
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Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-56627632161531656362020-04-14T16:02:00.000+02:002020-04-19T11:52:10.531+02:00Jumping the Shark? The Enigma of Burning Man<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;">
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Implying that it</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">has strayed from its original purpose, or even collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions, a</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> popular meme reckons that Burning Man has “jumped the shark.” </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Such declarations rely on impressions that the </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">annual arts gathering in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">has drifted from its roots, typically imagined as utopian. As ventured here, narratives of a </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">failed utopia </i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">or fallen paradise are vested in perceptions of an event mobilised by a singular ideology, aesthetic or figurehead. Not operating in accord with a unitary logic, purpose, motive, or agenda, and more than simply an <i>event</i>, Burning Man</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> is hardly unidimensional. The original “utopia" proposition is flawed.</span><br />
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Addressing discourses of utopia and anti-utopia suffusing Burning Man, this essay navigates what is otherwise known as Black Rock City in the light of three core traits. That is, as <i>heterotopian</i>, it is an incongruous contested space resistant to fixed definition. As an <i>ephemeral</i> city, it is temporary, provisional and impermanent. And as a seasonally <i>recurrent</i> assemblage, it is perennially optimised, ever becoming, and never perfect.<br />
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The heterodoxy of Black Rock City will be explored through discussion of its status as a <i>utopian</i> <i>carnival</i> with tensions anarchic yet civic, ludic albeit pragmatic; a space of promise and abundance while also a site of privileged excesses. As a weird frontier in the conquest of the West, such tensions are embodied by Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs for whom the Black Rock Desert <i>playa</i> is embraced as an open platform. While a travesty of disappointments feed the trope of the failed utopia that circulates in media and academic discourse, such story-telling typically overstates the excesses of the festive, as magnified in the "shark jump," while neglecting the proactive dimensions of a cultural movement.<br />
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Finally, the “shark jump” is imagined as an episode replaying throughout the history of a meta-liminal<i> </i>enigma that demonstrates resilience in its cyclical design, re-assemblage and widening cultural influence. Despite its perceived ignominy, and in the light of a global pandemic, Burning Man evinces that it is purposed towards enhancing not only the conditions of its own reproduction, but conditions in the post-burn world.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<b>A Utopia in the Dust?<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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As a confrontation with all of one's senses, Burning Man has been a rich vein for miners of meaning who've cavalcaded annually into the Black Rock Playa. For three decades over Labor Day week, a city has been rebuilt on the canvas of that desert’s 400 square mile playa. For a total populace of 80,000 in recent years, the desire to make Black Rock City meaningful elicits efforts from the ridiculous to the sublime. And while the effort to convert the experience into something meaningful does not abate, an enigmatic quality to this city renders it opaque to the outsider. Despite a torrent of media, a cumulus of theory and a mountain of hyperbole, Burning Man has defied explanation.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPEAbKTGmj63N3rSAScwcftiStMug3nNuYpCWVclP78gf0uOleLqlwhizBdaEfqnmVdX8fjbA8ZNjA9GsDNydJ79k0X5S7YJo4afBGKnvLrha14Qih6H2r4NibJci686-xMnrk/s1600/DSC00431.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPEAbKTGmj63N3rSAScwcftiStMug3nNuYpCWVclP78gf0uOleLqlwhizBdaEfqnmVdX8fjbA8ZNjA9GsDNydJ79k0X5S7YJo4afBGKnvLrha14Qih6H2r4NibJci686-xMnrk/s400/DSC00431.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">It may have been a magnetic field for hubris from the moment Larry Harvey and Jerry James razed an eight-foot wooden effigy on Baker Beach, San Francisco, on summer solstice 1986. While accidental pilgrims,</span><b style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> </b><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">playanaughts and brand strategists have gravitated to the event in flame-loving concentrations, their number blooming after its transition to Nevada in 1990, the commitment to capture, codify and classify Burning Man is burlesqued by long-time participants, among them Burning Man Project Education Director Stuart Mangrum, inventor of the “Phrase Generator.”</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="color: purple; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;" title=""><sup><sup><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[1]</span></sup></sup></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> “Post techno millennial love-in.” "Homo erotic dada riot.” “Meta bohemian apocalyptic phantasmagoria.” Rampant combinations satirise commentators entertaining the conceit that they are in possession of the true meaning behind Burning Man.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Among the most popular conceits is that Burning Man is </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">utopian</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, that it</span><i style="font-size: 12pt;"> </i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">strives to obtain ideal social conditions. The proposition is, for example, commonly adopted in documentary films. Jake, for instance, stridently opines in </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Journey to the Flames: 10 Years of Burning Man</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> (Jacobson 2001) that the event is “a socialistic expression of a true democratic and free thinking society, a utopian realist society.” Many adherents had warmed to the fantasy that Burning Man is a Temporary Autonomous Zone despite the reality that the burn could hardly exist independent from market capitalism. </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7upF27Qiew37CIYg9hGSxcQzs8bTBw8_5y1tFgoBTtK4ZFs1-yR6mXRiGhQexxWw4RLd1_8IfO5dgzrY7fVSAhWR5LMVx-z4mmeSL43-1IhW8ucZwIXdrlr-Fk5JoF8OUY-qb/s1600/blank+canvas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center; text-indent: 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="484" data-original-width="720" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7upF27Qiew37CIYg9hGSxcQzs8bTBw8_5y1tFgoBTtK4ZFs1-yR6mXRiGhQexxWw4RLd1_8IfO5dgzrY7fVSAhWR5LMVx-z4mmeSL43-1IhW8ucZwIXdrlr-Fk5JoF8OUY-qb/s400/blank+canvas.jpg" width="400" /></a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Idealism is typically utopian in all but name, as expressed by primary founder, Harvey, in his championing of </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Radical Inclusion</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, among the Ten Principles</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="color: purple; font-size: 12pt;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[2]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> of Burning Man. “Imagine a completely abstract space,” Harvey rallied participants. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">A world without context, a place that is no place at all apart from what you bring to it. Anyone may enter this arena. Distinctions of race, class, age and wealth are irrelevant here. Participants are free to reinvent their own identities. Reality is what you make it on this ultimate frontier. It is a world wherein the boundary that divides the inner from the outer disappears (Harvey 2011: 11). </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">Coined in <span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">Thomas More's</span> 1516</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;"> novel </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">Utopia</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">, “utopia” combines the Greek words </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">topos</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;"> (or “place”) and </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">u</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;"> (“no” or “not”). Meaning “no place” or “nowhere,” the word appears ripe for an event located on an ancient lakebed absent wildlife, vegetation and virtually insect-free; a place explorer John Charles Fremont knew as “a perfect barren” (Fox 2002: 9). Practicing the principle of </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">Leaving No Trace</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">, by which they are expected to restore the playa to its pre-event conditions, Burners have devised what appear to be complex rites of purification. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">In </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">On the Edge of Utopia</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">, Rachel Bowditch (2010a) described how what began on Baker Beach as Harvey’s cathartic ritual (the effigy was torched in the torrid wake of a lost love), “erupted into one of the most significant and creatively radical utopian movements” in the contemporary world. Citing its “gift economy,” the relative absence of commodity transactions, the prohibition of corporate sponsorship, and prolific volunteerism, Burning Man is acclaimed as “an oasis apart from the vortex of capitalism and the commodity,” and “a political performance that proposes a new alternative way of living full of impossibility, contradictions and ambiguities." </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">While an "oasis apart" from capitalism seems quite a stretch, paradox is no mirage. Accounts</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> of Black Rock City typically fall on a spectrum in which it is perceived as more or less utopian. It is celebrated for cultivating authentic conditions—i.e. inclusivity, communality, expressivity, immediacy, novelty—and is admonished by its failure to live up to them. Tech entrepreneurs and urban planners, for example, champion the playa as an open platform for innovative solutions, a remote incubator for ideas. At the same time, Burning Man is damned for fostering narcissistic hyper-individualism today exemplified by Instagram “influencers”; rebuked as an exclusive club for a privileged and largely non-coloured population; dissed as a luxurious stage for extravagant consumption; and condemned as a temporary escape from “real world” concerns. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">As the notion that Burning Man devolved into a mediated spectacle gains traction, such anxieties have floated since the mid-1990s. Back then, the corporate media was felt corrosive to the event’s participatory ethos, causing it to become “yet another commodified, fetishised spectacle of late capitalist culture, to be consumed like a professional sporting event or some kind of desert Lollapalooza” (Wray 1995).</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB2i4H_Zin5eZ8SMNcD3tSKMNeRAbgUFqFHQqB7BhTOsB5dEMVT2ECAw5HNEi2yMwgirLxmHwbM2q2PA_VLSkSTM3Y6kMBP4BLXoI4MJZpU3d3eHxxePNBWJ0HoDQzVbXBma7r/s1600/fonz+shark+jump.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="718" data-original-width="570" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB2i4H_Zin5eZ8SMNcD3tSKMNeRAbgUFqFHQqB7BhTOsB5dEMVT2ECAw5HNEi2yMwgirLxmHwbM2q2PA_VLSkSTM3Y6kMBP4BLXoI4MJZpU3d3eHxxePNBWJ0HoDQzVbXBma7r/s320/fonz+shark+jump.jpg" width="254" /></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">In popular parlance, Burning Man is fêted to have “jumped the shark.” Now a common pejorative, the phrase derives from a scene in “Hollywood: Part 3,” an episode from Season 5 of </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Happy Days</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">. Airing on September 20, 1977, the scene shows a leather-jacketed Fonz on water skis mounting a ski jump before leaping over a caged shark. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Whether referencing a TV program, brand, or event, “jump the shark” has come to denote the moment in a production’s lifespan when it has strayed irretrievably from its original formula or vision, and has resultantly declined in quality.</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="color: purple; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[3]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> Invoking the demise of a once celebrated phenomenon, the phrase connotes a tragic trajectory. But more than simply inauthentic, “past its peak,” or “gone downhill,” in the wake of its “shark jump” episode, the now infamous production plows on, its creators unwilling to acknowledge the failings, ignominy, and even dystopian fate of their creation. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">In the argument presented here, that Burning Man is a failed utopia, or a variation on a dystopian present, is contentious. Such views tend to overlook the complex reality of recombined and contested imaginaries. They also neglect the career of a phenomenon that is more than simply a festival, and that has evolved beyond its event origins. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Burning Man is multiplex. Its heterogeneity is inscribed in a disparate and yet organically derived ethos consisting of codified values that are as complementary as they are contradictory. The Ten Principles represent the living ethos of a phenomenon </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">founded</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> in paradox. This is not to say that Burning Man </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">founders</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> on paradox, as internal tensions serve to inspire debate and incite creativity. Variously couched, propositions that Black Rock City is a fallen paradise are rooted in misperceptions that it is (or was) driven by a singular ideology, aesthetic or figure. “The sheer hybrid strangeness and polyglot weirdness of the participants and performances contradict and challenge one another, and, for a weekend,” claimed Matt Wray in his early commentary (1995), “the desert becomes a contest of meanings. No one interpretation of the event can ever carry the day. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">If there is a definitive meaning of the Man, it is that there is no definitive meaning.” </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTL5FS9poL9aq41gq5hinl5VvuHXFQBtJTKsp9RMFVMpE4E_SXNDGwZpyNSTvsbiGj-b0RNl_J2FZ82l2iPzR-We8rg-tge3e5DqUMHRw_5YMbXYDlyXl02T1Ka9E8CchFhVHc/s1600/2018-09-02+06.56.20+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTL5FS9poL9aq41gq5hinl5VvuHXFQBtJTKsp9RMFVMpE4E_SXNDGwZpyNSTvsbiGj-b0RNl_J2FZ82l2iPzR-We8rg-tge3e5DqUMHRw_5YMbXYDlyXl02T1Ka9E8CchFhVHc/s640/2018-09-02+06.56.20+copy.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Burn Night 2017</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">As Caveat Magister clarified twenty-five years later, Burning Man is “an engine of possibility because it has no point” (2019: 57). From this perspective, Burning Man is potentially transformative since it is sans any pre-defined transformational agenda. Such (il)logic is inscribed in “the Man” itself. Encouraged by Harvey, the eponymous effigy embodies an interpretative free-for-all. Standing at the epicenter of the “burnerverse” and destroyed annually amid a spectacular fire-dance and pyro performance on Burn Night, the Man stands for everything and nothing. As Lee Gilmore observed (2010: 98), the eponymous statue “invites participants to project a host of potential meanings and interpretations—either personal or communal—onto its naked framework.” In an event whose public is compelled to gloss its signature rites with their own myth, </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">you are the spectacle</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Black Rock City 1998, design by Rod Garrett</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The attitude abroad is that predatory capitalists and privileged consumers, ravenous tourists and their service providers, have laid waste to paradise, a Dusty Eden, the planet’s most hospitable desolation. Though such views assume a variety of postures, they tend to hinge on the belief that a frontier bohemia—a new social order—was intentionally hewed from the desert. Architects, geographers and scholars of intentional utopian communities have championed such views, which are not difficult to entertain given the shape and dimensions of the city plan designed by Rod Garrett (<a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2010/04/black-rock-city/building-brc/designing-black-rock-city/" target="_blank">Garrett 2010</a>). By 1998, Garrett’s concentric segmented radial arc grid enabled instant neighbourhoods, restricted motor-vehicle activity, and encouraged the use of bicycles. The scalable plan allowed for the integration of private camping with essential services, city departments and primary installations including, for example, Rampart hospital, a radio station, Black Rock City Airport, Media Mecca, the Commissary, the Temple, and by 2019 approximately 1,200 theme camps. Designed to facilitate a uniquely interactive experience, Garrett’s design is purportedly informed by utopic islands, cities, and spaces formulated throughout history—both imaginary and actual experiments.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">If you place a map of More’s utopian island Abraxa next to the blueprint of Black Rock City 2001, Bowditch suggests, “one can see that the two are practically interchangeable” (<a href="http://people.lib.ucdavis.edu/~davidm/xcpUrbanFeel/bowditch.html" target="_blank">2010b</a>). The city that rises from the dust is imagined to possess architectural patterns reminiscent of Hygeia, Atlantis, Campanella’s City of the Sun, and Leonard Cooke’s Llano (Rohrmeier and Starrs 2014: 160). It is thought to hold design linkages with Ebenezer Howard’s early 20th century suburban “garden cities” concept as inscribed in his </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">Garden Cities of To-Morrow</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">, inspired by Edward Bellamy’s utopian novel </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">Looking Backward</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;"> and a model for the English towns of Letchworth and Welwyn (Rohrmeier and Bassett 2015). Archaeologist Alexei Vranich places an image of Black Rock City side by side with that of Poverty Point, the similarly radially patterned 3,000-year-old site in northwest Louisiana, both sites with routes converging upon and accentuating a sacred centre. “Through a strange convergent evolution,” <span style="text-indent: 37.7953px;">Vranich</span> argues, “ancient Native Americans and modern event builders arrived at the same solution as to how to manage people and convey meaning” (Vranich 2019: 142). The speculation on the connection between sites vastly removed in time is archetypal: “Both sites are located on Earth but, conceptually, they live in another dimension” (ibid. 141).</span><br />
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Zone Trip # 4. 1990. Bad Day At Black Rock.</div>
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Design by Kevin Evans and Sebastian Hyde</div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">While Black Rock City is observed to hold design associations with utopian novels, garden cities and pre-Columbian sites, its designers never intended to create a new social order or sculpt the human spirit in the image of God. “We were engineering society,” says Harvey, “but we weren't basing it on some elaborate intellectual construct” (in <a href="https://www.dezeen.com/2015/08/25/burning-man-needed-urban-design-because-its-a-city-says-founder-larry-harvey/" target="_blank">Fairs 2015</a>). As the post-Baker Beach desert phase of Burning Man was inaugurated by the San Francisco Cacophony Society, who had invited Harvey to burn an effigy on their “Zone Trip # 4” to the Black Rock Playa in 1990, Burning Man has had an ambivalent relationship with structure. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">A testament to the Dadaist proclivities of the Cacophonists, Burning Man is ungoverned by ideological or theological objectives. While the recurrent occupation of this unforgiving expanse necessitated order and planning, practices were provisional and strategies improvised. As founder-bricoleurs often recall, “we were making it up as we went along” (Crimson Rose 2019: 204). According to Department of Public Works co-founder and Black Rock City Superintendent Tony “Coyote” Perez-Banuet, “for most every system we have in place, an ample mistake put it there.”</span></div>
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It would be a city planner’s dream to get a clean slate to re-build on every year, and this one comes with a full log of clumsy attempts at what did and didn’t work in previous seasons, as we fumbled around with this new disappearing city. Black Rock City is like a giant Etch-A-Sketch that’s forever erased and improved upon—a disposable prototype that can be made better every season (Perez-Banuet 2019: 111).<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>The Possible Impossible </b><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Propositions that Black Rock City is a failed utopia, or dystopia, are as misleading as the fantasy that it was, or remains, utopian. T</span><span style="font-size: 16px;">hough there are likely more, </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I want to suggest three interrelated reasons for this, each shaping this foray. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">To begin with, Burning Man was never utopian, at least not in accord with ideology, secular or religious. It rather features ambiguities that are endogenous to </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">heterotopia</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, which Foucault </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt;">claimed possess the “</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">curious property of being in relation with all the other sites, but in such a way as to suspend, neutralise, or invert the set of relations designated, mirrored, or reflected by them” (Foucault 2008: 16).</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="color: purple;" title=""><sup><sup><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[4]</span></sup></sup></a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> These musings on heterotopia assist comprehension of Black Rock City, a vast conurbation of incongruous discourse and practice, multiple chronicities, and possible impossibilities, a space of freedom and governance the meaning of which modifies as the event is reproduced annually (St John 2020a). Yet, while transforming over its history, Burning Man has remained a cultural enigma.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Next, as an event,</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="color: purple; text-indent: 36pt;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[5]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> Black Rock City is </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">ephemeral</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, a process, a performance, not an end state. As a performance, it may express the utopic—provisional, paradoxical, indeterminate—but is not a utopia (i.e. perfect, idealistic). Evental impermanence distinguishes Burning Man from the experiments that it is often thought to embody or reprise; experiments that have typically failed due to their economic, socio-cultural and political unsustainability. It is worth noting that utopian experiments invariably fail not just because they’re unsustainable, but as Michael Shermer has intoned, because they are inherently flawed from the start, not least since designs on a perfect society are attempted by an “imperfect species” (Shermer 2018: 194).</span></div>
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Utopias tend to fail as a result of a flawed theory of human nature in which collective ownership, communal work, authoritarian rule, and a command-and-control economy collide with individualism, the desire for autonomy, and natural differences in ability, leading to inequalities of outcomes and imperfect living and working conditions (ibid: 194).<o:p></o:p></div>
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While its impermanence is rebuked by those condemning temporary escapades,<o:p></o:p></div>
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Burning Man “celebrates its ephemerality and disappearance as a radical, political act” (<a href="http://people.lib.ucdavis.edu/~davidm/xcpUrbanFeel/bowditch.html" target="_blank">Bowditch 2010b</a>). It is the liminal status of Black Rock City that makes this impossible city possible. And more than that, not a singular liminal performance, Black Rock City is composed of multiple performances, what Jill Dolan (2005) has called “utopian moments,” thought to “promote a sense of communitas, civic participation, and emotional well being, which together create an opportunity for imagining new models of how the world could be” (<a href="http://people.lib.ucdavis.edu/~davidm/xcpUrbanFeel/bowditch.html" target="_blank">Bowditch 2010b</a>). Chuck Palahniuk, author of <i>Fight Club</i>, a work inspired by the Cacophony Society, captured this potency.<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;">"Events like Burning Man are the laboratories where people go and experiment with social structure and with identity. It’s out of these little laboratories that our new culture will grow. And that’s why so many of my books are about these little “liminoid”</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_edn6" name="_ednref6" style="color: purple; text-align: justify;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[6]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify;"> human experiments that are short-lived and are kind of fun and exciting, like party crashing in Rant, or Fight Club. It’s these “liminoid” laboratories that will give us that vision, that new thing to quest for that isn’t just capitalism or Marxism. You’re outside of it, and in a way, you’re outside of yourself. Everyone is equal and everyone is forced to participate; you can’t just be a spectator" (<a href="https://stoneroses777.tumblr.com/post/119416193167/chuck-palahniuk-the-writing-itself-should-be-so/amp" target="_blank">Palahniuk 2014</a>). </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1cm;">Finally, these multiple experimental processes and utopic moments are </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1cm;">recurrent</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1cm;">.</span><b style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1cm;"> </b><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1cm;">As a seasonal event whose co-creators are inspired to upgrade previous iterations, Black Rock City can be likened to a series of versions, each an attempt to address “errors” in previous instalments. This essentially modernising process is recognisable in what founding executive editor of </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1cm;">Wired</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1cm;">, </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1cm;">Kevin Kelly, coined “protopia”: “a state that is better today than yesterday, although it might be only a little better.” </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1cm;">Protopia, claims Kelly, is harder to visualise than utopia. “Because a protopia contains as many new problems as new benefits, this complex interaction of working and broken is very hard to predict</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1cm;">” (<a href="https://kk.org/thetechnium/protopia/" target="_blank">Kelly 2011</a>). The concept evokes incremental progress, where technical, social and ethical solutions derive from small improvements, where adversities catalyse design innovation, and challenges drive optimisation. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1cm;">The process of improvement cannot be complete. Ever becoming, never achieving perfection.</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_edn7" name="_ednref7" style="color: purple; font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1cm;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[7]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 1cm;"> </span></div>
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<b style="font-size: 12pt;">A Utopian Carnival</b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Black Rock City has much in common with frontier settlements in the history of conquest in America. The "burn" is envisioned as a zone potent with opportunity. Its origins are steeped in risk taking and legendary feats. It has a fragile hold on the wilderness. It is fraught with tension. It is home to makers and minions, disparate characters echoing those populating prior frontier settlements (see Diehl 2010). Like a bohemian colony of the San Francisco Bay Area, it is situated in the deep West, both a compass direction and a mythical place in the story of conquest. It harbours a utopian imaginary that has spurred settlement, industry and leisure in America, imagined from the first colony as a “terrestrial paradise.” Not unlike conquest’s legacy elsewhere, Burning Man is layered with dreams, hopes and failures. And as with other frontier settlements, it has been imagined as the “new,” “last,” or even “final” frontier. It generates pride among those who stake their identity in a “home” carved out of the wilderness. At the same time, it provokes the anxieties of an authenticity lost, a devolution in values, a wayward direction reminiscent of lamentations triggered by westward expansion, the violence of colonisation, the desolation of wilderness, with tragic consequences for the native population. The burn carries an ambivalence that accompanies conquest, “reflected on the one side,” according to Bowditch and Vissicaro (2017: 4), “as the ‘utopian discovery’ of the New World—a land of abundance, promise and fecundity—and, on the other, as a dystopian narrative of death, destruction, disease and colonial invasion of indigenous societies.”</span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="color: purple; vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_edn8" name="_ednref8" style="color: purple;" title="">[8]</a></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">While Black Rock City may be among the last, perhaps even final, frontiers, unlike any city in the history of the West, this frontier “city” has been </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">resettled</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> every year for three decades. Burning Man is a recurrent frontier of vast extremes. Temporary yet recurring, it's a space of promise and abundance, while also an anti-utopia of privilege, exclusivity and excess. This tension characterises an event the meaning of which has been disputed by protagonists, on the one side advocating order and perpetuity (<a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2013/11/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/how-the-west-was-won-anarchy-vs-civic-responsibility/" target="_blank">Harvey 2013a</a>), and on the other impermanence and dissolution—notably embodied by Burning Man co-founder and Cacophony Society stalwart John Law. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh85jfTE7XdR9L5A9pQR0Vsno2izMCtJ-J_kPveZIj9LEyV5Bxcq4-Qb5GzxB5hR74uJrt0VXydXyS9YvnvSAthFHWxGwo9ngGJnlmjRy_D9Iw8oB97FhnjrB4esmbLrIUPhR3H/s1600/burning-man-2019-highlights-hero.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh85jfTE7XdR9L5A9pQR0Vsno2izMCtJ-J_kPveZIj9LEyV5Bxcq4-Qb5GzxB5hR74uJrt0VXydXyS9YvnvSAthFHWxGwo9ngGJnlmjRy_D9Iw8oB97FhnjrB4esmbLrIUPhR3H/s400/burning-man-2019-highlights-hero.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Emerging at the intersection of civic and anarchic drives, at that remote site where utopia and carnival collide, Black Rock City is born from this accident. The desire to escape the old order, and the compulsion to create the new, are competing (reactionary and progressive) movements in the story of America, annually re-inscribed on the surface of the playa. On the one hand, renegades, pirates and tricksters defying rules and embracing chaos, on the other visionaries, world builders, makers. Setting strong personalities representing growth, management and control against those signifying anarchy and chaos, Marc Silver’s </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Burning Man: Community or Chaos?</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> (2000) captured this culture war, skirmishes portrayed in Brian Doherty’s </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">This is Burning Man</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> (2006), in documentary film </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Dust and Illusions </i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">(Bonin 2009), and in the stage play </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">How to Survive the Apocalypse: A Burning Opera.</i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_edn9" name="_ednref9" style="color: purple;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[9]</span></span></span></a><i style="font-size: 12pt;"> </i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Ultimately hackers and makers have co-inhabited a frontier carnival, a unique space midwife to those identifying as “Burners,” an apparent conflagration of </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">homo ludens</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> (the player) and </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">homo faber </i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">(the maker).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">In </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Rabelais and His World</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, Bakhtin (1968) regarded carnival as the people’s “second world,” a festive-scape of inversion and reversal, an “occasion for the enactment of alternative, utopian social arrangements” (Shields 1991: 91). While Bakhtin identified the </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">carnival utopia</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, here I explore the </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">utopian carnival</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">,</span><i style="font-size: 12pt;"> </i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">of which Burning Man appears exemplary. Rather than becoming abandoned to the transcendence of structure implicit to carnival, the concept denotes a distinctly principled carnivalesque, a paradox heir to organisational systems associated with modern festivals subject to design modifications over their seasonal iterations. </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt;">In this unique spatial context, </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Black Rock City </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt;">was born (and cyclically reborn) in efforts to overcome a cornucopia of challenges. </span><br />
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt;">A</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">s Katherine Chen observed in <i>Enabling Creative Chaos</i></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt;">, </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">a fragile ecology, extreme weather conditions, rising attendance levels, law enforcement priorities, health and safety concerns, liability, unscrupulous media, and volunteer coordination (.... and now, a pandemic), are among a litany of problems, challenges, and crises propelling experimentation. In a community valuing risk taking and the freedom to fail without prejudice, those assuming organisational roles “recognized that members would undergo various setbacks and that complex endeavors involved an incremental learning process that could span several years” (Chen 2009: 95).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt;">Seasonally made to be unmade, where collaborators are free to make mistakes, Black Rock City</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt;">is incrementally modified, </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">revealing an aestethics “primarily born out of objective process” (<a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2010/04/black-rock-city/building-brc/designing-black-rock-city/" target="_blank">Garrett 2010</a>), like avoiding motor vehicle fatalities, and generating interaction through density. While modular and augmentative </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">this recurrent prototype may be, it </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">is subject to relentless parody, pranking and burlesque. In the burnerverse, satire applies the breaks to, calls into question, and problematises, elitism, bureaucracy and micro-management. As a result, the burn's architectonic is shaped by hybrid trans/pro- gressive elements: controlled burn, organised chaos, participatory spectacle, carnivalesque ritual, augmented disorientation, creative destruction.</span></div>
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The Black Rock Desert playa represents a space of freedom magnetising for innovators and entrepreneurs in the tech industry for whom it is championed as a new frontier. A<span lang="EN-AU">t the dawn of the popularisation of cyberspace, according to Kelly, Burning Man “was a perfect fit. . . .</span> The pierced and tattooed young Netizens of Silicon Valley and the Bay Area spend their workdays and worknights making little decentralised theaters of do-it-yourself creativity on the World Wide Web. Burning Man and its temporary city are material manifestations of the same creative urge” (<a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,986891,00.html" target="_blank">Kelly 1997</a>).<br />
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">The ostensibly limitless possibilities of the playa in the dot.com boom era appears to have held consistency with the </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">pre-millennial faith in the emancipatory potential of new information technologies to facilitate a “digital utopia” in which everyone was to be “hip and rich.” Under this view, Burning Man could have registered as a summer camp for the </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">“Californian Ideology” </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">whose exponents “combine the free-wheeling spirit of the hippies and the entrepreneurial zeal of the yuppies” (<a href="https://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/no-10-the-internet-revolution-from-dot-com-capitalism-to-cybernetic-communism-by-richard-barbrook-with-andy-cameron/" target="_blank">Barbrook and Cameron 2015</a>: 12). </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;">Wired</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-align: start; text-indent: 36pt;"> 1996: “The New American Holiday”</span></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">While that may have been an oversimplified caricature, Burning Man surfs the long wake of what was </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">depicted in </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Wired</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">as</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> “The New American Holiday” (<a href="https://www.wired.com/1996/11/burningman-2/" target="_blank">Sterling 1996</a>). Black Rock City emerged as a beacon for tech engineers at the inception of the world online not least because, as a "real space" the playa appeared to be a <i>virtual</i> virtual realty (</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 48px;">a circumstance returning to focus in 2020, the year of <a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2020/04/news/official-announcements/brc-2020-update/" target="_blank">Virtual Black Rock City</a>).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Imagined by its primary founder to be, “like </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">cyberspace, a frontier in which individuals can exercise remarkable freedoms” (<a href="https://burningman.org/culture/philosophical-center/founders-voices/larry-harvey/cyber/" target="_blank">Harvey 1997</a>), </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Black Rock City would become celebrated as “cyber-culture’s de rigueur power-networking retreat of the year” (<a href="https://www.forbes.com/global/1999/1018/0221090a.html" target="_blank">McHugh 1999</a>). Among the industry tycoons known to have gravitated to this innovatopos, Mark Zuckerberg has been noted for “helicoptering in” to serve grilled cheese sandwiches to Facebook employees (<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2013/8/21/4643668/startups-are-invading-burning-man" target="_blank">Brandom 2013</a>). </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">So attracted, tech entrepreneurs seek to harness the secrets of the playa so as to solve emergent problems, improve performance, build brands. In the wake of his passing in April 2018, Harvey was celebrated in </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Tech Crunch</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> as a midwife to an “open platform” of risky experimentation. “It’s a landscape free of distraction,” we're apprised.</span></div>
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[A]nd that sensory deprivation seems to coax novel ideas from those it envelopes. When you stare past the edge of the world into the sunrise, your thoughts laid bare, dreams seem to crystallize more easily. The emptiness shouts back “why haven’t you built this yet?” (<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/29/larry-harvey/" target="_blank">Constine 2018</a>)<o:p></o:p></div>
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In their <i>Stealing Fire: </i><i>How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work,</i><i style="font-size: 12pt;"> </i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Kotler and Wheal (2017) argue that Black Rock City holds appeal for entrepreneurs, scientists, business leaders and other Prometheans “stealing its fire” to gain an edge in problem solving. For these commentators, Burning Man is “the world’s largest ecstatic trade show” and “the single greatest concentration of state-altering technology on the planet” (2017: 158). From this strident vista, the “Altered States Economy” enabled by the extreme conditions of the playa incites a “boost in information and inspiration” among cohorts whose critical problem solving outperforms competitors (ibid: 6). The idea that Burning Man is an innovation utopia is spurred by its celebrated impact on Google executives, for whom the event has been a near mythical site of a communal “vocational ecstasy” (Turner 2009: 86).</span></div>
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Attendees treat the playa as an oversized sandbox—a place where ideas can be dreamed up, tested out, and, as often as not, shared freely with everyone. “I like going to Burning Man,” Google founder Larry Page said at the 2013 Google I/O conference. “[It’s] an environment where people can try new things. I think as technologists we should have some safe places where we can try out things and figure out the effect on society, the effect on people, without having to deploy it to the whole world” (in Kotler and Wheal 2017: 161).<o:p></o:p></div>
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These commentators appear transfixed by the neurochemical secret sauce of this “flow” state or “zone” condition. In what might be the first entry on the neurochemistry of utopia, where combinations of serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, endorphins, anandamide, and oxytocin are said to surge through groups of playagoers, “you get tighter bonds and heightened cooperation” (Kotler and Wheal 2017: 20).</div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Neurochemical reductionism aside, “the zone” championed here is a tech industry communitas, what </span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">Mia Quagliarello </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">opined in <i>Flipboard</i> (<a href="https://about.flipboard.com/tech/a-time-in-the-desert/" target="_blank">2017</a>) as "</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">the ultimate life hack for people in Techland .., a hard reboot" readymade and righteous for the tech entrepreneur. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">For critics, like Cacophony Society members who initiated Zone Trips in which they trekked “beyond the pale of mainstream society” (Evans et al 2013: xi), with The Zone now the apparent site of an entrepreneurial jamboree, we appear to be back in “Kansas.” John Law is notably unimpressed with the exploits of the New Prometheans, and their investors. Rather than the perfect society, for Law, Burning Man became the perfect vacation for the “code slaves” of Silicon Valley</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">. Invoking another Greek god, Law lays it down: Burning Man is</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">“a Dionysian expression of controlled licentiousness,” where “your rebellion is controlled in a completely and brilliantly designed and controlled box where you can do whatever you want” (in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA45PAf7pWc" target="_blank">Scaruffi 2015</a>). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Echoing the now well worn plaint that the carnivalesque operates as a “safety valve” that permits fleeting subversions and the artifice of rebellion before social order is restored (Stallybrass and White 1986)</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, Law has observed how the minions of code </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">are permitted to annually “blow off a lot of steam” before returning to work (in<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA45PAf7pWc" target="_blank"> Scaruffi 2015</a>). What's more, far from being “a world apart from the real world,” he deplored the “inevitable” mirroring of the real in the development of a “two tier” event, as “the wealthy people come out in their RVs and are serviced by the poor punks and hippies who organize the work to make the event happen” (in Silver 2000). From this vantage, which gives little quarter to innovation, Black Rock City grew to become a spectacular form of entertainment for the privileged more than a disappearance from The Spectacle, its inherent contradictions thoroughly predictable.</span></div>
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Law might well be the Grandaddy of Snark. Seasoned with ironic criticism, <span style="font-size: 12pt;">Burners are notorious for </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">their reflexive bite. Conversations on-playa, and threads in articles published in the </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Burning Man Journal</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, or on webfora like </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">ePlaya</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, are replete with this “potent brand of ethos-aligned sarcasm” (<a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2018/07/opinion/serious-stuff/in-defense-of-snark/" target="_blank">Berry 2018</a>). That Burning Man was “better last year” is a long-standing article of faith that may reinforce the cultural capital of cynics in the face of a stampede of “sparkle ponies,” “broners” and other virginal posers with dustless orifi. Prolific playascribe Caveat Magister (2016) offers a clever riposte to this narrative in “</span><a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/a-brief-history-of-who-ruined-burning-man/" style="font-size: 12pt;" target="_blank">A Brief History of Who Ruined Burning Man</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;">.” The article provides a chronology of culprits imagined to extinguish the flame; from the strangers who appeared at the inaugural burn on Baker Beach in 1986, to “ravers,” “frat boys” and “plug n play” camps. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Commentary on these invaders is mixed; from outright condemnation of the current organisation by detractors jumping ship, to valuable operational criticisms, not uncommonly authored by those owning their mistakes. As engaged story-telling purposed to engineer improvements, even if incremental, advanced snark has a role in a culture geared to its own survival. The common refrain that Burning Man was “better last year” evokes a desire to improve it next year. T</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">he commitment to optimise is an ongoing collaborative process, while a</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">bsolute perfection is not a feasible end state.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Amid a wider narrative on cultural devolution, popular reports convey how predatory capitalism undermines the event, and co-opts its organisation. While the BMP—referred to in former years as “the Borg”—has suffered a long history of unscrupulous typecasting, a new wave of media attention emerged in 2014 after </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">The</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">New York Times</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> ran an exposé of gated RV compounds and luxury concierge services that appeared to be sanctioned by the organisation. One “plug n play” camp was reported to possess a $25K per head fee, featuring private return flights to Black Rock City Airport, luxury restroom trailers, female models flown in from New York, sushi chefs and “sherpas” (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/fashion/at-burning-man-the-tech-elite-one-up-one-anotherhtml?ref=fashion&_r=2" target="_blank">Bilton 2014</a>).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Nick </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Bilton's article in <i>The</i> </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">New York Times</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">, August 20, 2014.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">It was later revealed that a chief culprit inspiring the </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">exposé</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> was Camp Olympus, a 2013 theme camp underwritten by billionaire founder and CEO of leading healthcare investment fund Foresite Capital, James Tananbaum, who was at that time on the BMP Board of Directors. Tananbaum became an unwitting subject of reproach when his 2014 camp, Caravancicle, was lambasted as an elitist hotel for wrist-banded VIPs flown in on private jets (and paying 15K per head) and issued popsicles to be distributed as “gifts” (<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-02-05/occupy-burning-man-class-warfare-comes-to-desert-festival" target="_blank">Gillette 2015</a>). The controversy erupting in the wake of the “sherpagate” scandal triggered public grievances, resentment and recriminations over the growing presence of “tourists,” the transgression of </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Decommodification</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> and the apparent outsourcing of other principles, like </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Gifting</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Participation</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> and </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Radical Self-reliance.</i><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOQ-NV_VAAOeS1mjkOjmh1N93X5WeD7cH-uoFej4SJyn66H31P3qHkQmep_OPufa6FgBYVK7duhn06d_WNjt9cNl_dwTj9r8AYuxW65WRX5xlZMFn6mLnyRLyrFKYZNFlm6nVu/s1600/From+the+cover+of+Bloomberg+Businessweek%252C+%2522The+Billionaires+at+Burning+Man%252C%2522+5+Feb+2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="251" data-original-width="401" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOQ-NV_VAAOeS1mjkOjmh1N93X5WeD7cH-uoFej4SJyn66H31P3qHkQmep_OPufa6FgBYVK7duhn06d_WNjt9cNl_dwTj9r8AYuxW65WRX5xlZMFn6mLnyRLyrFKYZNFlm6nVu/s320/From+the+cover+of+Bloomberg+Businessweek%252C+%2522The+Billionaires+at+Burning+Man%252C%2522+5+Feb+2015.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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From the cover of <i>Bloomberg Businessweek,</i></div>
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"The Billionaires at Burning Man," 5 Feb 2015</div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Prior to the “plug n play” debacle, that Burning Man was crumbling under the weight of its own contradictions was a foregone conclusion at </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">The</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">New York Times</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, where, following the 2013 appearance on-playa of General Wesley K. Clark, Burning Man was imagined to have become “the new golf” (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/fashion/running-on-fumes.html?_r=0" target="_blank">Williams 2013</a>). As Marge Simpson attended “Blazing Guy” in an episode aired on </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">The Simpson’s</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> in November 2014, and with Burning Man and its regionals featured, for example, within the pages of inflight magazines (including Delta, EasyJet and Eurowings), Burners grew dismayed. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUQp1Qx2Opg3EmY1Jsui8J5lDQKTLIwbvkae4CZumYg9FgrvGDx1GdGaLN-kjKTbFbVGLVQayhPmXxkzDUi3emXSwd8rdRTX3zkFA7aeOWQJgsAVn1S5GfpQxKYoUxaXO4Gt9U/s1600/blazing-guy-circle.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="1288" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUQp1Qx2Opg3EmY1Jsui8J5lDQKTLIwbvkae4CZumYg9FgrvGDx1GdGaLN-kjKTbFbVGLVQayhPmXxkzDUi3emXSwd8rdRTX3zkFA7aeOWQJgsAVn1S5GfpQxKYoUxaXO4Gt9U/s320/blazing-guy-circle.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From <i>The Simpson's</i> episode "Blazed and Confused," November 2014.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">When president of Americans for Tax Reform and board member of the NRA, Grover Norquist, had accepted Harvey’s invitation, tweeting </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">“Scratch one from the bucket list” </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">on July 28 2014, </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">and then </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">made agreeable noises in </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">The Guardian</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> and elsewhere about how the event’s ethos of </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Radical Self-reliance</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> squares with his neoliberal sensibilities (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/my-first-burning-man-grover-norquist" target="_blank">Norquist 2014</a>), </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">critics were appalled. </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Burning Man had “truly jumped the shark,” explained journalist Steven Jones who saw the event “launching from the ramp of a high-minded experiment . . . splashing down into the tepid waters of mass-consumed hedonism” (<a href="http://sfbgarchive.48hills.org/sfbgarchive/2014/08/19/burning-man-jumps-shark/?page=0,0" target="_blank">Jones 2014</a>).</span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="color: purple; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_edn10" name="_ednref10" style="color: purple;" title="">[10]</a></span></span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMimoYjoqrnEE-jYO_FMS6xz_X7hScdECk4CAll25HBjZ8cabal313oVmtYFyVqk2oKWx77v91oyL_WdXhu5mclBQ6-N2SQD7VbzJICmu2N0BDCLxk3N8LBfN3myR08oawDmmQ/s1600/2018-08-29+09.38.02+copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1067" data-original-width="1600" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMimoYjoqrnEE-jYO_FMS6xz_X7hScdECk4CAll25HBjZ8cabal313oVmtYFyVqk2oKWx77v91oyL_WdXhu5mclBQ6-N2SQD7VbzJICmu2N0BDCLxk3N8LBfN3myR08oawDmmQ/s400/2018-08-29+09.38.02+copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">With brand strategists circling like vultures there was cause for alarm. Burning Man was being openly lauded for immersive experiences that facilitate personalised attachments to the brand. “Burning Man embraces this best practice to the delight of enthusiastic repeat attendees,” claims one brand expert marvelling at the utility of the Ten Principles to endear custom. “Whether it’s a festival in the desert or your industry’s annual conference, if the experience speaks to the intellect, imagination, and heart of your target audience, they’ll return year after year” (<a href="https://www.freeman.com/insights/building-community-8-hot-event-best-practices-inspired-by-burning-man" target="_blank">Allen</a>). </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">In another online Freeman article subsequently taken down, a “global event marketer” entertained the idea of “bringing the ‘playa’ to the convention hall” (Gilcrease 2014). O</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 48px;">ver the duration of Black Rock City 2014, t</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">his corporate ethnographer diligently rode her bike “from one end of the circle to the other trying to capture everything I could to share with my fellow event marketers.” The fantasy is laid bare: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">What if expo halls were redesigned in concentric circles instead of rows of booth after booth located by hard to find numbers and confusing diagrams? A concentric design would serve up a completely new experience, opening the center for brands to create custom installations and engagement activities for attendees as well as a view of all the top sponsors along the front “esplanade” (ibid).</span><a href="http:/#_edn11" name="_ednref1" style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: x-small;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;">[11]</span></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtmpTK51syHbiBL7JDmMY_VmDT-LG9UXoHjJM3tGFNklYMBYgTBgOcLdNT1k1GYX2EXCrW3yd8a57zcxoz0vn_GkMjAtEBnNZQvkV_qztj3wV3ls9LXfDPxYCTOq4p86-3N8pD/s1600/hunter-s-thompson.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="485" data-original-width="600" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtmpTK51syHbiBL7JDmMY_VmDT-LG9UXoHjJM3tGFNklYMBYgTBgOcLdNT1k1GYX2EXCrW3yd8a57zcxoz0vn_GkMjAtEBnNZQvkV_qztj3wV3ls9LXfDPxYCTOq4p86-3N8pD/s320/hunter-s-thompson.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">A breakthrough experience for brand strategists is a source of exasperation for others. Hunter S. Thompson was conjured to inveigh how Burning Man had, not unlike the idealism of the Sixties, finally crested like a wave and rolled back (<a href="https://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/10/burning-man-is-dead/" target="_blank">Wyatt 2016</a>). And yet, the precise moment of demise, the "watermark" of the movement's peak</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 37.7953px;">—</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;"><i>peak burn</i></span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 37.7953px;">—</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">is open to debate. While for contemporary detractors, “sherpagate” was the moment in which Burning Man jumped the shark, one could chart a history of breaches, a litany of elasmobranchic episodes traced back to the event’s beginnings; a possible accompaniment to the study of "who ruined” Burning Man."</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">At each of these ruinous moments, the orators of tragedy will exhort that the essence, the original spirit, the purity, has been lost, the flame doused, authenticity diminished. Such tragic narratives involve story arcs with an eventual point of no return—i.e. </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">death</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">—the narration of which serves to inter the now deceased phenomenon that today haunts its former self. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">And yet, despite the repeat internments, Burning Man is no lifeless corpse or reanimated zombie. Over the past decades, the Black Rock Playa, and the worldwide proliferation of burns modelling and mutating the prototype, have beat </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">a healthy cultural pulse, even when confronted with the unprecedented risk of event cancellation in 2020.</span></div>
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<b>The Trope of the Failed Utopia<o:p></o:p></b><br />
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As Burning Man grew in popularity, it drew more and more attention from commentators with no or little first-hand knowledge of Black Rock City. While one-dimensional media typecasting is ever-present, here I'll turn to examples circulating among public intellectuals. The<b> </b>trope of the failed utopia is as common among the positions adopted as the distance commentators are from their subject matter—many having never stepped onto the playa. </div>
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Burning Man is, for example, assessed within work addressing prefigurative forms of social action—such as radical gardeners, outlaw bicycling subcultures, DIY technicians, and biofuel cooperatives—understood within a working class self‐organisation framework. From an autonomist Marxist perspective, Burning Man is reckoned to have de-evolved from “a free festival on a local beach to an exclusive event with skyrocketing ticket prices, heavy reliance on petroleum and cars, and corporate management.” Unsupported by the kind of empirical detail that might derive from first-hand experience of a living cultural phenomenon that has nurtured a complex ecology of principles that serve to enable its own survival in face of considerable odds, this ostensibly corrupt trajectory is believed the “outcome of a deeper and decades-long process of remolding consciousness in conformity with capitalist values” (Carlsson 2008: 222). I want to suggest that while such slick story arcs are alluring, they tend to seize up and choke when confronted with a reality that is much messier ... and dustier. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmUuGsXO4F_no9SmJRAvcD76bDy-1gEp8cIZvgjokFGMgFy6gMPgdwTG1O5VpNZ8-DGBC-Tb2SGfuvAYAxXP0pDsQBjOpLsF5N72XlDcBajm6l1aj13gzTfRM6yXNWXf8P69el/s1600/self-reliance.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmUuGsXO4F_no9SmJRAvcD76bDy-1gEp8cIZvgjokFGMgFy6gMPgdwTG1O5VpNZ8-DGBC-Tb2SGfuvAYAxXP0pDsQBjOpLsF5N72XlDcBajm6l1aj13gzTfRM6yXNWXf8P69el/s320/self-reliance.png" width="320" /></a><span style="font-size: 12pt;">A common refrain is that Burning Man has deviated from its countercultural roots, with the principle of </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Radical Self-reliance</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> targeted as a chief culprit (see <a href="http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/909" target="_blank">Rodriguez 2014</a>). If this were a stand-alone principle, there might be little argument. Let's explore this further. As it is stated to “encourage the individual to discover, exercise and rely on his or her inner resources,” </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Radical Self-reliance </i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">seems to </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">evoke a rugged sort of individualism, a maverick self-sufficiency requisite for settling a remote desert frontier—an experimental zone where the resourceful, the independent and the enterprising have achieved notoriety, status and power. A paean to the authority of the individual unfettered by state intervention, moral guardianship and soul destroying bureaucracy, in </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Radical Self-reliance</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> we find an expression of the Romantic realisation that the “truth” lies within, a sensibility integral to the American Transcendentalists, namely nonconformists like Ralph Waldo Emerson whose influential 1841 essay “Self-Reliance” exhorted readers to have faith in their selves, to trust their inner genius, that medium of divine inspiration to which all are purported to have access. Fuelling an inner gold rush charged to mine human potential and influencing the self-help movement and “mindfulness” industry in which the corporate world has vested since the 1980s to inspire innovation, drive competition and maximise profit, self-reliance is a virtue recognisably radical in the myth of neoliberalism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">But </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Radical Self-reliance</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> is <i>not</i> a stand-alone principle. It has emerged within an ecosystem of principles that includes, for example, </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Communal Effort</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Civic Responsibility</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> and </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Decommodification</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">. While easy targets for critics, fixation with singular principles risks reductionist posturing. </span><span style="text-indent: 48px;">Introducing the Burning Man Philosophical Center in 2013,</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> Harvey meditated on the Ten P</span><span style="text-indent: 48px;">rinciples as “an ecosystem,” countering tendencies to exalt single principles by extending their logic absolutely. “If, for example, Radical Self-reliance is held to imply unaided survivalism, how can it possibly correspond to Communal Effort?” For Harvey, paradox serves a purpose. “Philosophy occurs when principles collide, and we should allow these Principles to interpret and interrogate one another. Our philosophy, in other words, is muscular—it depends on the capacity of its assumptions to do work” (<a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2013/11/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/introduction-the-philosophical-center/">Harvey 2013b</a>). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 48px;">For some commentators this ethos is flabby more than muscular. A contributor to the socialist left magazine </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 48px;">Jacobin</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 48px;"> avers that </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 48px;">Radical Self-expression </i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 48px;">is a right-wing Randian ideal reminiscent of “the core motto of any of the large social media companies in Silicon Valley.” Accordingly, “technocratic scions” now mould Black Rock City to their radical libertarian ends. No longer participants (in any democratic or meritocratic sense), Burners are now reliant on the charitable whims of wealthy elites (<a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/burning-man-one-percent-silicon-valley-tech/?__cf_chl_jschl_tk__=2509f5baa7df14ece5796385ef058627d6cdd7da-1586767008-0-Ab1zGZj89T82In9Wegayz-iz7JV9kgsI_1tEXYxT_IdwDMCp2ihJmJ6gZtRAXnmFFTyZtcbE1saZa6Cu_CBG51HS_xCgTgGKJJMlbLuKTZdRmGs5j9tN8-K2YNsqwNbZVW7TLVMsbUX29DmK0Mb7PZMuU46WsGKafZ7eILnejYMlQBPCjQSF1Ab6-w3VvT_Y9vWpG4W0uZihys_JK8WSpUS-v3rPUj4yGnIA_XTFksEDWs2YlEne5JRaMZqXiZHWzs5q5Q0O1B-okExGZ1B2NxjBUBIGK_ZzVP-wzpCLMyYqXA7o9g5yNQokCqfkt2plXEjtw_qJPnEnNpOc2FHvYlVXY8t7I_92B6VmKZ-2_CbgrJauNRMzZQJ6xw76Evq6BzYTepFT-bk4WBXV1suNyWI" target="_blank">Spencer 2015</a>). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Others recline into a stronger polemic, while continuing to remote view the phenomenon from the comfort of their deep lumbar support four-mode office chairs.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Jeremy Gilbert, for example, weighed in on the fate of Burning Man in </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Common Ground: Democracy and Collectivity in an Age of Individualism </i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">(2013). In light of the growing popularity of “Transformational Festivals,” of which Burning Man is celebrated as a prototype (<a href="http://keyframe-entertainment.com/the-bloom/" target="_blank">Leung and Chan 2014</a>), Burning Man is thought to be “symptomatic of the long-term success of neoliberalism in neutralising and disaggregating any opposition to itself.” In this view, “hegemonic neoliberalism is perfectly happy for individuals to undergo personal transformations, so long as they do not aggregate or catalyse any significant social transformations” (Gilbert 2013: 195). While Gilbert recognises the value of “joyous affect” in social movements, which he contends is instrumental to the “democratic sublime,” his caution echoes the Marxist critique of carnival—i.e. that which </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">reverses</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> but does not </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">displace</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> “the whole system of relations” (ibid: 197).</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">With Burning Man, Portugal’s Boom Festival and other Transformational Festivals in mind, “the danger of self-defined ‘carnivalesque’ spaces, of cultural ‘temporary autonomous zones,’” according to Gilbert, is that they “become spaces of enclosure within which any challenge to hegemonic social norms is safely contained, posing no threat to wider power relations” (ibid: 195). Admitting it would be problematic to simply dismiss Burning Man for falling short of a “radically democratic aesthetic,” or for failing to be genuinely oppositional, Gilbert argues that the absence of “political ambition” makes possible conditions for “affective and symbolic experimentation.” Rather, the fault lies in a socialist Left that hasn’t effectively appropriated Burning Man to its own ends (Gilbert 2013: 200). This assertion is troubling with regard to the BMP — i.e. an organisation whose survival has relied upon avoiding ideological platforms.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">The fallen paradise trope hinges on oversimplified characterisations that tend to reduce a complex phenomenon to its stature as a festival. Such mischaracterisations highlight actions and transactions that tend to be, though are not exclusively self-serving: the abandonment to the moment of </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Immediacy</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, the celebration of unfettered self-sovereignty in <i>Radical Self-relianc</i>e, and the performance of self-authenticity invoked by </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Radical Self-expression.</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Focusing almost exclusively on the festive dimensions of Burning Man, then, these complaints are blinkered to its broader cultural panorama. This includes, though is not exhausted by: the complex ecosystem of an event-culture with Ten Principles; Black Rock City’s status as the “largest leave no trace event in the world”;</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_edn12" name="_ednref11" style="color: purple; text-indent: 36pt;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[12]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> the emergence of over 100 <a href="https://regionals.burningman.org/" target="_blank">Regional Events</a> in a worldwide network; the prolific disaster relief and civic initiatives of NGO </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/Burners%20Without%20Borders" style="color: purple; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Burners Without Borders</a> (BWB)<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">;</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_edn13" name="_ednref12" style="color: purple; text-indent: 36pt;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[13]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> the BMP’s stewardship of </span><a href="https://flyranch.burningman.org/" style="color: purple; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Fly Ranch</a><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, a 3,800 acre Nevada property promoted as “an opportunity to create a year-round rural incubator for Burning Man culture and a catalyst for innovation and creativity in the world”; the release in June 2019 of an Environmental Sustainability Roadmap (<a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2019/07/black-rock-city/leaving-no-trace/burning-man-seeks-a-sustainable-future/" target="_blank">Burning Man Project 2019</a>); and emergent community actions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As long as cultural critics ignore the widening movement contours of Burning Man, the phenomenon will remain poorly understood.</span><br />
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<b><span lang="FR">Resilient Inferno<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
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As media and academic commentaries demonstrate, Burning Man has been typecast according to narrow-band models informed by popular mythologies of a failed utopia. While utopic yearnings and dystopian visions have motivated Burners, Burning Man was never a utopia. As discussed above, if Black Rock City is incomparable with utopia, the "failed utopia" trope is equally troubling. Such is informed by an understanding that Burning Man is multitudinous, ephemeral, and recurrent—the phenomenon's distinct meta-liminal traits.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Helco, 1996. by Flynn Mauther,<br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Unfolding in the wake of the “plug n pay” controversy, “sherpagate” was a crisis of legitimacy, an episode in which Burning Man was imagined to have "shark jumped" from its origins to become a culture of convenience. And yet </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Burning Man has experienced prequels and re-runs of this episode over its history. It is worth noting that founders were anxious that the burn could devolve into an “alter-Disneyland,” an apprehension surfacing in 1996, the year of the Dante-inspired art theme “The Inferno.” As Harvey (</span><a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2013/11/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/how-the-west-was-won-anarchy-vs-civic-responsibility/" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;" target="_blank">2013a</a><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">) explained, The Inferno, which dramatised the corporate takeover of Burning Man, “substituted corporate-induced consumerism for metaphysical evil.” Integral to this device was Helco, a mock corporation that failed to acquire Burning Man in a Center Camp performance. On Burn Night 96, Helco Tower and other installations satirising infamous corporate franchises were razed to the ground. With lines dividing irony from sincerity and satire from solemnity difficult to determine, The Inferno is reported to have “touched on anxieties that were real for those who made Burning Man happen, both in the organisation and in the crowd; the corruption and the selling out of their experience, their community, their reality, to large, sinister, forces” (Doherty 2006: 105). </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">For John Law and other Cacophonists, this desert dramaturgy was intended to draw the final curtain on Burning Man. But the Phoenix-like event emerged from the ashes to survive not only as a “city” in the desert, but proliferated as a worldwide movement. The BMP is today a nonprofit registered organisation, there is no corporate sponsorship, and cultural resistance to commodification remains implicit, albeit fraught with tension.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Notably, such resistance does not correspond with outright opposition to capitalism. </span><span lang="FR" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">In the wake of </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">“sherpagate,” while identifying the dangers implicit to a “concierge” culture, Harvey (<a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2013/11/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/commerce-community-distilling-philosophy-from-a-cup-of-coffee/" target="_blank">2014</a>) imparted that “radical equality” is not among the Ten Principles. That Burning Man is not anti-capitalist was averred by Harvey using the example of the Center Camp Café—which operates as a coffee shop and is among the few official sites of monetary transactions on-playa—to dispel the myth that Burning Man is a “moneyless utopia.” The Café was promoted as an alternative to the alienating impact of marketplace mediated social interactions—i.e. the effect of commodification (<a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2013/11/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/commerce-community-distilling-philosophy-from-a-cup-of-coffee/" target="_blank">Harvey 2013c</a>). That </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Burning Man </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">never espoused a non-commercial ideology </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">sparked commentary (see <a href="https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/09/05/burning-man-is-the-new-capitalism/" target="_blank">Patella-Rey 2013</a>) on the disingenuous proposition that it is a failed utopia. According to one commentator, given that </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Burning Man “is fairly clear in placing itself against commodification, not capitalism,” it is more akin to “alt. capitalism” than “contra-capitalism” (<a href="https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/09/05/burning-man-is-the-new-capitalism/" target="_blank">Adam 2013</a>).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Rather than collapse under the weight of its own contradictions, Burning Man appears to have thrived on them. This is the legacy of a phenomenon more assiduously theatrical than ideological. In the mid-1990s, when the event grew self-conscious enough to evolve a theme, there were suspicions that Burning Man was devouring its own tail, and thereby devolving into the sort of regulated spectacle its founders abhorred. For artists and those eschewing the idea of “art,” the ideal response was to stage-manage the breach, convert art from life, script the crisis into a pageant, unleash the redressive power of satire, animate the dark side of human nature . . . and burn it to the ground. The Inferno and many subsequent themes have been devised with a redressive design intelligible according to the “social drama” (Turner 1974: 38-42) model, where the tragedy is a breach that either begets a new beginning through renewed attention to threatened cultural values, or triggers schism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">It has been argued that Burning Man is among those organisations absent “either formal or informal processes of collective self-interrogation and self-problematisation” (Gilbert 2013: 199). The </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 48px;">position is questionable given that </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">the BMP commits to self-interrogation, for example, through the “Project Cultural Citizenship,” an initiative charting a “</span><a href="https://journal.burningman.org/author/brc-cultural-direction-setting-group/" style="color: purple; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Cultural Direction Setting</a><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">” away from non-participatory “convenience camping.” Affirming her view that Burning Man “strives to stand in technicolor contrast to the typical consumerist, status-driven, brand-saturated, optimized-for-your-convenience world,” and with the aim to “target and reduce factors that have inadvertently fostered a ‘convenience culture,’” CEO Marian Goodell announced key operational modifications in 2019 including reforming theme camp registration criteria, placement policy, ticketing sales structure, while limiting reliance on outside service providers and banning offending and noncompliant theme camps (<a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2019/02/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/cultural-course-correcting/" target="_blank">Goodell 2019</a>). Such initiatives transpire in conjunction with the artful means of dramatising the crisis (see <a href="http://dramatic_heterotopia_the_participatory_spectacle_of_burning_man/">St John 2020b</a>).</span><br />
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<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "cambria";">The worldly impact of Burning Man is a subject of growing attention in recent years (see Shister 2019). Researchers have demonstrated how Burner practice is integrated in a complex web of activities, across regions with diverse cultural and political influences, including permaculture in the case of Salt Lake City, Utah, a city with a conservative Mormon heritage (Nicolosi 2020). Other studies illustrate how an event model migrated from the spatial margins of United States to its symbolic centre, as in the case of Catharsis on the Mall (see <a href="http://liminalities.net/15-1/burning.pdf" target="_blank">St John 2019</a>). Over the next years, published output from the</span></span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><a href="https://www.burningprogeny.org/" style="text-indent: 36pt;" target="_blank">Burning Progeny</a><span style="font-family: "cambria"; text-indent: 36pt;"> project will address the transformative quality of Burner culture in Europe, not only as Black Rock City is mirrored and mutated in a proliferation of burn events, but as Burner principles, identity and culture are performed in extra-burnal modes of action that are ritualesque (intentional and proactive) and carnivalesque (immediate and playful).</span><br />
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<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "cambria";">The </span></span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">call-to-action that warrants most attention at this time, and deserving more detailed discussion in the coming months, is the </span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; text-indent: 36pt;">community response to COVID-19. In response to the pandemic, it was announced on April 10 2020 (<a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2020/04/news/official-announcements/brc-2020-update/" target="_blank">Burning Man Project 2020</a>) that Black Rock City will not be built on-playa </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 48px;">for the first time since Zone Trip # 4, </span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">and ticket refunds would be offered. For its survival, the BMP relies on profits from annual ticket sales. To avoid the disaster of full cancellation, the</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> organisation announced that while Burning Man would not be built on-playa in 2020, it </span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">would nevertheless be constructed in "The Multiverse" (</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><a href="https://burningman.org/event/brc/2020-art-theme-the-multiverse/" target="_blank">the 2020 art theme</a>), </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">thereby becoming "Virtual Black Rock City." With this proposed leap into virtual reality, the nature and shape of which is largely unknown, we appear to be on the brink of another potential shark jump, making the BMP a likely target for further accusations of (virtual) irrelevancy. </span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "cambria";"><span style="font-size: 16px;">And yet, early signs suggest that the response from the Burner community amounts to actions greater than the urge to recycle and virtualise Black Rock City. At the same time, reactions e</span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">cho the practicalities that are inherent to a cyclical and optimisable event culture. “Our extended community has in a very real way been practicing for this moment for years,” reflects Goodell (<a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2020/03/opinion/serious-stuff/ties-that-bind-ties-that-burn/" target="_blank">2020</a>): “how to provide for ourselves in a difficult environment, and then how to take care of each other and those in need.” The entire enterprise, influencing over 100 communities worldwide, has relied upon co-creative self-organising, advanced resource sharing and collaborative initiatives necessary</span><span style="font-size: 16px;"> for making a temporary settlement in a hostile </span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">environment. C-19 is a moment for which Burners Without Borders seems to have been preparing for fifteen years. In the introduction to the BWB </span><a href="https://email.burningman.org/t/ViewEmail/t/52829CF86F46B30A2540EF23F30FEDED/2545CFDD2B7C040F84E5AAD5A6C37FC6" style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;" target="_blank">Spring Newsletter 2020</a><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, it is stated that Burners often characterise the conditions of the playa “as a common enemy that brings us all together,” implying how such collective action holds valuable lessons in the response to the pandemic.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Burners are some of the best prepared for situations like this. The Burning Man Principles are great guideposts to think about the future. Let’s play the long-game and wield positivity and strength along with preparedness and civic responsibility. We’ve got the infrastructure, and we’ve got training. Now what are we going to do with it? </span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">It has been asserted elsewhere that Burning Man is critical among those “temporal experiments in the kind of community we believe exists on the other side of the Long Disaster” (<a href="https://www.facebook.com/notes/flow-genome-project/the-long-disaster/2901833966526271/" target="_blank">Farr 2020</a>). </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">In conversation with Make<i> </i>Magazine<i> </i>founder </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 48px;">Dale Dougherty, who champions a </span><span style="font-size: small;">"bottoms-up" movement of makers he </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 48px;">calls a Civic Response Corps who have</span><span style="font-size: small;"> initiated ingenious local distributed responses to the shortage of medical equipment and supplies,</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "cambria";"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Peter </span>Hirshberg connects the threads with the participatory culture of Burning Man where "a</span></span><span style="font-family: "cambria";"> panoply of tribes [are] able to collaborate with the lightest scaffolding of government." Hirshberg avers that this prototype of "</span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; text-indent: 48px;">sustainable localism" offers "a blueprint for what the economy and our systems might look like on the other side of this crisis." And as for the </span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt;">burn's virtual trajectory, he doesn't shy away from transformational possibilities of this moment, especially given "now this enormous community is unleashed from the enormous effort of building something in a few square miles of harsh desert and can now express itself globally, in a multiverse of its own imagining" (in<a href="https://medium.com/beyond-burning-man/burners-and-makers-splitting-the-civic-atom-3b80a81a90c8"> Dougherty 2020</a>). </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Extraordinary assertions, matching the moment we're in. They allude to the way actions in support of the principle of <i>Civic Responsibility,</i> orchestrated to facilitate a temporary city in the desert, and the survival of its 80K denizens, can be mobilised to mitigate the impact of a pandemic. W</span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 36pt;">hat this means and to what ends the principled ecosystem of Burning Man could serve within and beyond the global liminality of the crisis warrants attention.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">Multitudinous while incongruous, fleeting and recurrent, civic yet ludic, Burning Man is </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 37.7953px;">an </span><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">impossible possibility that continues to defy classification, not least of all </span><i style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">utopia</i><span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: 1cm;">. Far from obtaining an ungracious terminus implied by the “shark jump” meme, this cultural enigma radiates a purposeful resilience not only suited to its own reproduction and to its multiplication in regional burns, but to applications in the post-burn world. Such resilience merits further research.</span></div>
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———. 2013a. “<a href="http://journal.burningman.org/2013/11/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/how-the-west-was-won-anarchy-vs-civic-responsibility." style="color: purple;">How the West was Won: Anarchy Vs. Civic Responsibility</a>,” <i>Burning Man Journal, </i>November 12.<o:p></o:p></div>
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———.<span style="font-family: "cambria";"> 2013b. “<a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2013/11/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/introduction-the-philosophical-center/">Introduction: The Philosophical Center</a>”.<i> Burning Man Journal, </i>November 12.</span></div>
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———. 2013c. “<a href="http://journal.burningman.org/2013/11/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/commerce-community-distilling-philosophy-from-a-cup-of-coffee/" style="color: purple;">Commerce and Community: Distilling Philosophy from a Cup of Coffee</a>,” <i>Burning Man Journal, </i>November 12.<br />
<br />
———. 2014. “<a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2014/12/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/equality-inequity-iniquity-concierge-culture/">Equality, Inequity, Iniquity: Concierge Culture</a>,” <i>Burning Man Journal</i>, December 3.<o:p></o:p></div>
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———. 2016. “<a href="http://journal.burningman.org/2016/03/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/following-the-money-the-florentine-renaissance-and-black-rock-city/" style="color: purple;">Following the Money: The Florentine Renaissance and Black Rock City</a>,” <i>Burning Man Journal, </i>March 10.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Jacobson, Doug. Dir. 2001. <i>Journey to the Flames: 10 Years of Burning Man</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">Jones, Steven T. 2014. “</span><a href="http://www.sfbg.com/2014/08/19/burning-man-jumps-shark?page=0,0" style="color: purple;"><span lang="EN-AU">Burning Man Jumps the Shark</span></a><span lang="EN-AU">.” </span><i><span lang="EN-AU">San Francisco Bay Guardian</span></i><span lang="EN-AU">, August 19.<span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: underline;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Kelly, Kevin. 1997. “<a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,986891,00.html" style="color: purple;">Bonfire of the Techies</a>,” <i>Time, </i>August 25.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU">———. 2011. “</span><a href="https://kk.org/thetechnium/protopia/" style="color: purple;"><span lang="EN-AU">Protopia</span></a><span lang="EN-AU">”. <i>The Technium</i> [blog] May 19.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Kotler, Steven and Jamie Wheal. 2017. <i>Stealing Fire:</i> <i>How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work</i>. Dey Street Books.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Leung, Jeet-Kei, and Akira Chan. 2014. <a href="http://keyframe-entertainment.com/the-bloom/" style="color: purple;"><i>The Bloom: A Journey through Transformational Festivals</i></a><span class="MsoHyperlink" style="color: blue; text-decoration-line: underline;"><i>.</i></span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Magister, Caveat. 2016. “<a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2016/10/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/a-brief-history-of-who-ruined-burning-man/" style="color: purple;">A Brief History of Who Ruined Burning Man</a>,” <i>Burning Man Journal</i>, October 6.<o:p></o:p></div>
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———. 2019. <i>The Scene That Became Cities: What Burning Man Philosophy Can Teach Us about Building Better Communities.</i> Berkeley CA: North Atlantic Books.<o:p></o:p></div>
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McHugh, Jason. 1999. “<a href="http://www.forbes.com/global/1999/1018/0221090a.html" style="color: purple;">Burning Passion</a>,” <i>Forbes, </i>October 18.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small; text-indent: 48px;">Nicolosi, Emily. 2020. “Counterspaces Against the Odds? The Production and Emancipatory Potential of Alternative Spaces.” </span><i style="font-size: medium; text-indent: 48px;">Geoforum</i><span style="font-size: small; text-indent: 48px;"> 108: 59–69.</span></div>
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Norquist, Grover. 2014. “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/my-first-burning-man-grover-norquist" style="color: purple;">My First Burning Man: Confessions of a Conservative from Washington</a>,”<i> The Guardian</i>, September 2.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Palahniuk, Chuck. 2014. <a href="https://stoneroses777.tumblr.com/post/119416193167/chuck-palahniuk-the-writing-itself-should-be-so/amp" style="color: purple;">Interviewed by <i>StoneRozes</i></a><i>,</i> November 5.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Patella-Rey, P. J. 2013. “<a href="https://thesocietypages.org/cyborgology/2013/09/05/burning-man-is-the-new-capitalism/" style="color: purple;">Burning Man is the New Capitalism</a>.” <i>Cyborgology</i>, September 5.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Perez-Banuet, Tony. 2019. “Cuckoo Clock.” In <i>Compass of the Ephemeral: Aerial Photography of Black Rock City Through the Lens of Will Roger</i>, edited by Will Roger, 109-115. Las Vegas: Smallworks Press.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria";">Quagliarello, Mia. 2017.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria";"> "</span><span style="font-family: "cambria";"><a href="https://about.flipboard.com/tech/a-time-in-the-desert/" target="_blank">A Time in the Desert: The Five Things Entrepreneurs Learn at Burning Man</a>" <i>Flipboard</i>, August 25. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Rodriguez, Mario George. 2014. “</span><a href="http://journal.media-culture.org.au/index.php/mcjournal/article/view/909" style="color: purple; font-size: 12pt;">Long Gone Hippies in the Desert</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;">”: Counterculture and “Radical Self-Reliance” at Burning Man. </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">M/C Journal</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> 17 (6).</span></div>
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Rohrmeier, Kerry, D. and Paul Starrs. 2014. “The Paradoxical Black Rock City: All Cities are Mad.” <i>Geographical Review</i> 104 (2): 153–173.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Rohrmeier, Kerry, D. and Scott Bassett. 2015. “Planning Burning Man: The Black Rock City Mirage.” <i>The California Geographer</i> 54: 23–46.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Rojek, Chris. 2014. “Leaderless Organization, World Historical Events and Their Contradictions: The 'Burning Man City' Case.” <i>Cultural Sociology </i>8(3): 351–364.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Rose, Crimson. 2019. “The Illusive Art Spirit.” In <i>Compass of the Ephemeral: Aerial Photography of Black Rock City Through the Lens of Will Roger</i>, edited by Will Roger, 204–205. Las Vegas: Smallworks Press.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Scaruffi, Piero. 2015. “<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NA45PAf7pWc" style="color: purple;">John Law Interview: Part3 Burning Man</a>.” Published on YouTube, November 8.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Shermer, Michael. 2018. <i>Heavens on Earth: The Scientific Search for the Afterlife, Immortality, and Utopia</i>. New York: Henry Holt and Company.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Shields, Rob. 1991. <i>Places on the Margin: Alternative Geographies of Modernity</i>. Routledge: London.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria";">Shister, Neil. 2019. <i>Radical Ritual: How Burning Man Changed the World.</i> Counterpoint Press.</span><br />
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Silver, Marc. Dir. 2000 <i>Burning Man: Community or Chaos?</i> Channel 4.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Spencer, Keith A. 2015 “<a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/burning-man-one-percent-silicon-valley-tech/" style="color: purple;">Why the Rich Love Burning Man</a>,” <i>Jacobin</i>, August 25.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Stallybrass, Peter and Allon White. 1986. <i>The Politics and Poetics of Transgression</i>. London: Methuen.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-family: "cambria";">St John, Graham. 2019. “<a href="http://liminalities.net/15-1/burning.pdf" target="_blank">The Cultural Heroes of Do-ocracy: Burning Man, Catharsis on the Mall and Caps of Liberty</a>.” <i>Liminalities: A Journal of Performance Studies</i> 15(1).</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-AU"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">———.</span> </span>2020a. “Ephemeropolis: Burning Man, Transformation and Heterotopia.” <i>Journal of Festive Studies</i>, 1(2). [Forthcoming]<o:p></o:p></div>
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———. 2020b. “<a href="https://www.academia.edu/42720297/Dramatic_Heterotopia_The_Participatory_Spectacle_of_Burning_Man">Dramatic Heterotopia: The Participatory Spectacle of Burning Man</a>.” In Simon Ferdinand, Irina Souch and Daan Wesselman eds, <i>Interrupting Globalisation: Heterotopia in the Twenty-First Century</i>, 178–194. New York: Routledge.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Sterling, Bruce. 1996. “<a href="https://www.wired.com/1996/11/burningman-2/" style="color: purple;">Greeting from Burning Man</a>!” <i>Wired</i>, November 1.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Turner, Fred. <span lang="FR">2009. “Burning Man at Google: A Cultural Infrastructure for New Media Production.” <i>New Media and Society</i> 11(1–2): 73–94.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Turner, Victor. 1974. <i>Dramas, Fields, and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Society. </i>Ithaca: Cornell University Press.<o:p></o:p></div>
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———. 1982. “Liminal to Liminoid, in Play, Flow, Ritual: An Essay in Comparative Symbology.” In Victor Turner, <i>From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play, </i>20–60. New York: Performing Arts Journal Publications.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Williams Alex. 2013. “<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/fashion/running-on-fumes.html?_r=0" style="color: purple;">Running on Fumes</a>.” <i>The</i> <i>New York Times,</i> September 6.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Wray, Matt. 1995. “Burning Man and the Rituals of Capitalism.” <i>Bad Subjects: Political Education for Everyday Life</i>. #21.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Wyatt, Andrew. 2016. “<a href="http://www.elephantjournal.com/2016/10/burning-man-is-dead/" style="color: purple;">Burning Man is Dead</a>.” <i>Elephant Journal</i>, November 1.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="color: purple;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: "cambria";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;">[1]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "cambria";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt;">As published in the first newspaper at Burning Man, <i><a href="https://z9hbb3mwou383x1930ve0ugl-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/brg99_sunday.pdf" style="color: purple;">The<span style="font-style: normal;"> </span>Black Rock Gazette</a></i>, vol 8, Sep 5, 1999, p.2.</span><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="color: purple;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: "cambria";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[2]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt;"> The Ten Principles are <i>Radical Inclusion</i>, <i>Gifting</i>, <i>Decommodification</i>, <i>Radical Self-reliance</i>, <i>Radical Self-expression</i>, <i>Communal Effort</i>, <i>Civic Responsibility</i>, <i>Leaving No Trace</i>, <i>Participation</i> and <i>Immediacy </i>(for an explanation of each, <a href="https://burningman.org/culture/philosophical-center/10-principles" style="color: purple;">see</a>). In this essay, all principles are capitalised and italicised.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="color: purple;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: "cambria";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[3]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt;"> Since <i>Happy Days</i> remained popular for six seasons following the “shark jump” episode, this interpretation is arguably unfairly associated with the TV show.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_ednref4" name="_edn4" style="color: purple;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: "cambria";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[4]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt;"> The text was originally published as: Michel Foucault (October 1984). “Des Espace Autres,” <i>Architecture, Mouvement, Continuité</i> 5: 46–49, with the first English translation in 1986.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_ednref5" name="_edn5" style="color: purple;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: "cambria";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[5]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt;"> While the BMP has since 2016 owned Nevada’s Fly Ranch property, which has substantial potential for building a permanent community, my focus here is Burning Man as an evental phenomenon.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_ednref6" name="_edn6" style="color: purple;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: "cambria";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[6]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt;"> The term was coined by Turner (1982) who distinguished the “liminal” realm of obligatory ritual from optional “liminoid,” or ritual-like, behaviour.</span><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_ednref7" name="_edn7" style="color: purple;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[7]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> A fourth characteristic not covered here is mutability. Burning Man has a viral trait as its culture is mirrored and mutated in a worldwide network of “burns.” For research on burn event culture see output associated with the </span><a href="http://www.burningprogeny.org/" style="color: purple; font-size: 12pt;">Burning Progeny project.</a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_ednref8" name="_edn8" style="color: purple;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[8]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> It is noteworthy that respect and support for regional Native American tribal communities has been demonstrated, for example, through the activities of Black Rock Solar (now <a href="https://blackrocklabs.org/">Black Rock Labs</a>), a non-profit organisation conceived at Black Rock City 2007 (themed “Green Man”). Black Rock Solar has been responsible for installing solar arrays in Paiute and Shoshone communities and for converting Nixon, home to the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, into a “Solar City.” Environmental stewardship is further exercised in the performance of the mandated principle of </span><i style="font-size: 12pt;">Leaving No Trace</i><span style="font-size: 12pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_ednref9" name="_edn9" style="color: purple;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;">[9]</span></span></a> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">First performed at Stage Werks, San Francisco in 2008<i>, <a href="https://christopherfuelling.com/?page_id=43" target="_blank">How to Survive the Apocalypse </a></i>featured the music of Mark Nichols, lyrics by Erik Davis, and was produced by Dana Harrison and directed by Christopher Fülling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_ednref10" name="_edn10" style="color: purple;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: "cambria";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[10]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt;"> Whether Burning Man had “jumped the shark” was also addressed on <i>TechCrunch</i> (<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2014/08/28/burning-man-founders-admit-the-festival-has-jumped-the-shark-but-thats-okay/" target="_blank">Buhr 2014</a>), while another commentator concluded that this had already occurred when Wall Street bankers were observed to be “laying down black Amex cards for $1,500 Burner outfits at the Manhattan vintage-clothing boutique Screaming Mimis” (<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/fashion/running-on-fumes.html?_r=0" target="_blank">Williams 2013</a>). <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_ednref11" name="_edn1" style="font-family: "Times New Roman";" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[11]</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: 12pt;"> It is worth noting that this article was taken down, likely at the behest of the BMP which has evolved a robust Communications Department and an outfit (Media Mecca) with a dedication to "acculturating" journalists. </span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_ednref12" name="_edn11" style="color: purple;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: "cambria";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[12]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "cambria"; font-size: 12pt;"> Leave No Trace,” <i><a href="https://survival.burningman.org/leave-no-trace." style="color: purple;">Burning Man 2019 Survival Guide.</a></i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536#_ednref13" name="_edn12" style="color: purple;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-family: "cambria";"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="vertical-align: super;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">[13]</span></span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "cambria";"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Also ignoring Burners Without Borders is Chris Rojek (2014), an armchair critic whose research reveals less about Burning Man than it exposes the folly of remote viewing.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-12004352378854433492019-01-14T21:41:00.000+01:002019-01-14T21:49:37.923+01:00Moon Juice Stomper - A novel: Goa 1987-96 by Ray Castle<div style="background-color: white; color: #1d2129; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, system-ui, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">Moon Juice Stomper </span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">A novel: Goa 1987-96</span><span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;"> by Ray Castle</span></h2>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">I've long awaited this book, and I wasn't disappointed. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666; font-family: inherit;">Asia traveller, Jules Nightingale, falls under the spell of a bewitching siren beckoning him to a party paradise where he dances out of his body. In Disco Valley, in a trance, an Omen is revealed to fashionista, Zsu Rivieria. Bollywood actor, Naresh Kumar, undertakes an undercover assignment in a subculture which turns his life upside down. Up-for-it enabler of edgecore dance floors, Doc Silver, on his Enfield chopper works the jungle telegraph between Spaghetti Beach and Joe Banana to keep the scene grooving against all odds. As a lost tribe of the future seeks redemption through rave, their party paradise becomes imperilled by its popularity.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #666666;">If dance music scenes have windows of fortune, Anjuna, Goa, in the late 1980s was peak oil, and we are grateful that Ray Castle was there to drill it. It’s only taken three decades, but Castle has finally knocked out, psychedelic disco balls and all, what is certain to become the definitive warp and scintillating weft on this scenius during its electronic heyday. As perhaps the most influential yet least documented dance music culture in history, this moment has long been an enigma. A Golden Triangle for cultural exiles and outcastes. A haven for human flotsam and jetsam surging up the electric shores of the Arabian Sea, before ebbing into the deep recesses of memory. </span><span style="color: #666666;">The absence of reporting on this lost horizon and its discommunitarians would normally be enough to draw one’s gaze here. But this story rarely releases the reader from its spell. This is the work of a man who was there. Among other aliases, as DJ Masaray, who performed in Goa in the late 1980s, Castle has levitated bodies above the sands of distant languid beaches. And now, in a story sculpted in peerless patois with an astrodidact’s attention to detail, and in efforts reminiscent of Castenada and HS Thompson, so are we. Commanding a white-knuckled ride through the “mystical anarchy” of “Gonzo Goa,” capturing the explosive atmosphere at this freak nadir, Castle’s intervention in creative nonfiction transports us inside the minds of the habitués of this remote crossroads … even as they’re going out of their minds. And in doing so, he does what any freakologist worth his salt should do: he delivers us into the heart and soul of the matter. Under the guidance of a master dada-jockey, we are transported through cosmo-psychic dimensions, the tension achieving climax at a full moon party under the Banyan Tree in 1988. Remixing the music, intrigue, love, violence and drama of real places, events and figures, not least of all the author himself, the book amplifies a movement in its un/making. Every epic era needs its chronicler, and in Moon Juice Stomper, Goa has found its Homer. --- Graham St John, Oct 2018.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Kindle & Paperback versions </span><a data-ft="{"tn":"-U"}" data-lynx-mode="asynclazy" data-lynx-uri="https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fdp%2F1791998275%2Fref%3Dcm_sw_r_cp_api_i_7yjoCb8S8WMXK%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1_HdXG1xP6mXkiNLfOuC-Yq6YYC-G2PX6ghHHa5dNEXMhNE1R__Mw6Vzw&h=AT2UKNMdjIDdfkQF6zHFb2pv0eYcSBzWnI4Gd0RWawx5w_hrtleUqYxPD73Otb9N_sGhpnHllpEGdxln5ZaffdnprhpFLBYQx8LC25KhU7QWMexOGy1fuJwa1yQ4AyxEhrJoBri1uphAuadG-aNqFdgWLV4xNcrYXOw" href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1791998275/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_7yjoCb8S8WMXK?fbclid=IwAR1_HdXG1xP6mXkiNLfOuC-Yq6YYC-G2PX6ghHHa5dNEXMhNE1R__Mw6Vzw" rel="noopener nofollow" style="color: #365899; cursor: pointer; font-family: inherit;" target="_blank">https://www.amazon.com/dp/1791998275</a></div>
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Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-72831902356743944502018-10-02T08:36:00.000+02:002018-10-02T08:36:07.486+02:00Weekend Societies: Electronic Dance Music Festivals and Event-Cultures <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Weekend Societies</i>. Ed by Graham St John. </td></tr>
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From massive raves sprouting around the London orbital at the turn of the 1990s to events operated under the control of corporate empires, EDM (Electronic Dance Music) festivals have developed into cross-genre, multi-city, transnational mega-events. From free party teknivals proliferating across Europe since the mid-1990s to colossal corporate attractions like Tomorrowland Electric Daisy Carnival and Stereosonic, and from transformational and participatory events like Burning Man and events in the UK outdoor psytrance circuit, to such digital arts and new media showcases as Barcelona's Sónar Festival and Montreal's MUTEK, dance festivals are platforms for a variety of arts, lifestyles, industries and policies.<br /><br />Growing ubiquitous in contemporary social life, and providing participants with independent sources of belonging, these festivals and their event-cultures are diverse in organization, intent and outcome. From ethically-charged and “boutique” events with commitments to local regions to subsidiaries of entertainment conglomerates touring multiple nations, EDM festivals are expressions of “freedoms” revolutionary and recreational. Centres of “EDM pop”, critical vectors in tourism industries, fields of racial distinction, or experiments in harm reduction, gifting culture, and co-created art, as this volume demonstrates, diversity is evident across management styles, performance legacies and modes of participation.<br /><br /><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Weekend Societies </i>is a timely interdisciplinary volume from the emergent field of EDM festival and event-culture studies. Echoing an industry trend in world dance music culture from raves and clubs towards festivals, <i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Weekend Societies</i> features contributions from scholars of EDM festivals showcasing a diversity of methodological approaches, theoretical perspectives and representational styles.<br /><br />Organised in four sections: Dance Empires; Underground Networks; Urban Experiments; Global Flows, <i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Weekend Societies</i> illustrates how a complex array of regional, economic, social, cultural and political factors combine to determine the fate of EDM festivals that transpire at the intersections of the local and global.</div>
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Table of contents</h2>
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Introduction: Dance Music Festivals and Event-Cultures, <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Graham St John, University of Fribourg</b><br /><b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></i></b><br /><b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Part One. Dance Empires and EDM Culture Industry</i></b><br /><br />1. EDM Pop: A Soft Shell Formation in a New Festival Economy. <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Fabian Holt, University of Roskilde</b><br />2. Stereosonic and Australian Commercial EDM Festival Culture. <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Ed Montano, RMIT University</b><br />3. Searching for a Cultural Home: Asian American Youth in the EDM Festival Scene.<b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> Judy Park, Harvard College</b><br /><br /><b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Part Two. Underground Networks and </i></b><b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Transformational Events</i></b><br /><br />4. Boutiquing at the Raindance Campout: Relational Aesthetics as Festival Technology. <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Bryan Schmidt, University of Minnesota</b><br />5. Harm Reduction or Psychedelic Support? Caring for Drug-Related Crises at Transformational Festivals. <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Deirdre Ruane, Goldsmiths, University of London</b><br />6. Dancing Outdoors: DiY Ethics and Democratized Practices of Well-being on the UK Alternative Festival Circuit. <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Alice O'Grady, University of Leeds</b><br />7. Free Parties and Teknivals: Gift-Exchange and Participation on the Margins of the Market and the State. <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Anne Petiau (trns Luis-Manuel Garcia)</b><br /><b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></i></b><br /><b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Part Three. </i></b><b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Cosmopolitan Experiments and Electroniculture</i></b><br /><br />8. Towards a Cosmopolitan Weekend Dance Culture in Spain: From the Ruta Destroy to the Sónar Festival. <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Paolo Magaudda, University of Padova</b><br />9. Being-Scene at MUTEK: Remixing Spaces of Gender and Ethnicity in Electronic Music Performance. <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">tobias c. van Veen, Université de Montréal</b><br />10. Charms War: Dance Camps and Sound Cars at Burning Man. <b style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Graham St John, University of Fribourg</b></div>
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Reviews</h2>
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“Often hidden from view, music festivals continue to transform the economic logics of the music industries and to challenge the ways popular music scholars think about community. Weekend Societies is an up to date and genuinely international treatment of contemporary musical festivals, rooted in rich field work and sharp observation. At the same time, it invites us to think in new ways about utopian spaces, collective experience and the nature of the musical commodity. Highly recommended.” – <span class="textAuthor" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span class="textSourceTitle" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Will Straw, Professor of Communications, McGill University, Canada</span></div>
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“<i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Weekend Societies</i> is an energising collection of essays that explores the varied cultures associated with contemporary electronic music festivals. Offering up a cross-section of festivals, from Sydney to Spain to Montreal and many other places in-between, this volume critically engages with the multifarious dimensions, and the consequent problems and promises, of the festivalisation of electronic dance music culture. The result is a welcome addition to popular music studies.” – <span class="textAuthor" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span class="textSourceTitle" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Geoff Stahl, Senior Lecturer and Programme Director of Media Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand</span></div>
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“From festival as utopian gift to festival as corporate event, this lively and engaged collection offers us a unique view, often first hand, and for the first time, of the trajectory of EDM gatherings. Starting with secret underground raves and free parties and tracing their development to the mega-event of a massive commercial gathering, we begin to see more of a neglected strand of music festival practice. A significant contribution to our understanding of festival studies.” – <span class="textAuthor" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><span class="textSourceTitle" style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: italic; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: bold; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">George McKay, Professor of Media Studies, University of East Anglia, UK</span></div>
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https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/weekend-societies-9781501309335Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-50499882738602955222018-09-12T22:00:00.000+02:002018-09-12T22:00:11.513+02:00The Big Empty (article on Burning Man in Aeon Magazine 10 Sep 2018)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4c5T8hRSqyVVjOBt33zbp1fFaWzEhZzlddjKR_Nx_i_ruiTNja_becdof8DG2tyJZ8bTIlCINVQH3daihRbcR3O47D1WOlvP0xchyNbfbwZPqzrgCpJpuazKirvtd3R6VE_-m/s1600/Curley+-+Resto+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="513" data-original-width="800" height="409" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4c5T8hRSqyVVjOBt33zbp1fFaWzEhZzlddjKR_Nx_i_ruiTNja_becdof8DG2tyJZ8bTIlCINVQH3daihRbcR3O47D1WOlvP0xchyNbfbwZPqzrgCpJpuazKirvtd3R6VE_-m/s640/Curley+-+Resto+.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo courtesy John Curley.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Academica Book Pro", Times, Georgia, serif; font-size: 22px;">Pushing beyond exhaustion, I’m enveloped by a fog of white dust unsettled from the flat expanse beneath my pedals. My head is wrapped in goggles and bandana – the mask </span><em style="background-color: white; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "Academica Book Pro", Times, Georgia, serif; font-size: 22px;">de rigueur</em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Academica Book Pro", Times, Georgia, serif; font-size: 22px;"> in this carnival at the edge of the known. Hitched on opposite sides of my utility belt are items of equal weight, albeit disparate utility: an aluminium corkwood water bottle and a pink toy vacuum cleaner. Suddenly, through the thick curtain of this reverie appears another rider, likewise begoggled, and blanketed in fine alkaline particulates. Encountering another self, we share an unspoken revelation: ‘…and to dust we shall return.’ ......</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "Academica Book Pro", Times, Georgia, serif; font-size: 22px;">See more at: </span><span style="font-family: Academica Book Pro, Times, Georgia, serif;"><span style="font-size: 22px;">https://aeon.co/essays/what-happens-when-you-set-foot-on-absofreakinglutely-nothing</span></span>Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-59435957263922365482017-07-19T16:45:00.003+02:002017-09-15T02:04:46.053+02:00Burning Man, Catharsis on the Mall and Caps of Liberty<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Graham St John</span></b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVlqHVbGDCVmZcqvmDiK36pItdmhGxMUqECb5XAcbNTz4W2O9mwb9R7b71EBf4RG2k51dmlatrlLqEH8TWPGtIqTKLGfDnVQsJPMw4wZH-edzLvxyywIzquIBDrMePpVFT6X-s/s1600/CatharsisLOGO.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="512" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVlqHVbGDCVmZcqvmDiK36pItdmhGxMUqECb5XAcbNTz4W2O9mwb9R7b71EBf4RG2k51dmlatrlLqEH8TWPGtIqTKLGfDnVQsJPMw4wZH-edzLvxyywIzquIBDrMePpVFT6X-s/s200/CatharsisLOGO.png" width="200" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“Are they Smurf hats?” </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I queried my neighbor, as we spy
three cats in weird red hats taking the stage. These unassuming pied pipers are
about to incite the burnerverse. I’m inside the Marriott’s sprawling Davis Hall
at the 2017 Burning Man Global Leadership Conference, Oakland, California. Over
six-hundred participants — “community leaders” from regions near and far in
Burning Man’s transnational movement — have assembled. Crowned by red felt caps
with their conical tops pulled forward, the trio are Roman Haferd, Adam
Eidinger, and Josh Carroll, co-founders of <a href="https://www.catharsisonthemall.com/" target="_blank">Catharsis on the Mall</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Many in the audience had caught wind of Catharsis, a demonstration-vigil-dance party that, from its inception in November 2015, and as a vehicle for healing traumas associated with the disastrous five-decade War on Drugs, had transposed the culture of Burning Man to the lawns of the National Mall, Washington D.C. I was myself getting a download on how Catharsis was championing the Zeitgeist. What’s more, I was being schooled on those red hats, dubbed “liberty caps.”</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In the follow-up event held on November 11–13, 2016 — i.e.
three days after the Presidential Election — Catharsis rapidly evolved into a platform for a cornucopia of grievances. The evening of November 9 saw the
country plunge into a prolonged period of political grotesquery — a prolapsed
carnival, no less. While in </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Rabelais and
His World </i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Mikhail Bakthin had recognized how medieval carnival gave its
occupants </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">temporary</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> liberation from
“all that is humdrum and universally accepted,” with the Trump victory,
observes Robert Zaretsky:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">the carnival that has been catapulted into power promises a
lasting, and not passing, liberation from established truths that, until now,
guided our world. Alternative fact, once the nonsense spouted by fools who were
crowned for a day as kings, now informs the worldview of a man, long dismissed
as a fool, crowned for four years as president (<a href="https://aeon.co/essays/the-grotesque-is-back-but-this-time-no-one-is-laughing" target="_blank">Zaretsky 2017</a>).</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The stunning electoral results saw a wave of protests in the
capital, around the country, and worldwide. The afflicted took to the streets
numb and in shock in the wake of November 9, many later assembling for mass
organized protestivals, such as the Women’s March on January 21, 2017, widely
held to be the largest single day of protest in US history. As a First
Amendment protected demonstration-cum-carnival in view of the White House in
the immediate aftermath of the election, Catharsis on the Mall became an
intentional vehicle of liberation —<span style="mso-ansi-language: FR;"> </span>and
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">catharsis </i>— for the electorally traumatized.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg129lOnKYRidOKRsjyzXWPXG26fURlr4uLPe7vuq9rPn4_-WKrwRxqABzO9YwXrrSEV6cYos2MoI9YgoY36-QYgGcsMBEmMqrAewgHIdxFg-34eckqbx_wOdvkaW8wtxtla8CE/s1600/Phrygian+cap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="574" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg129lOnKYRidOKRsjyzXWPXG26fURlr4uLPe7vuq9rPn4_-WKrwRxqABzO9YwXrrSEV6cYos2MoI9YgoY36-QYgGcsMBEmMqrAewgHIdxFg-34eckqbx_wOdvkaW8wtxtla8CE/s320/Phrygian+cap.jpg" width="228" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As the event’s co-founders reported to base, and gave voice
to their dedication to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">healing</i> with a
mix of compassion, humor, and insurgency, their hats radiated with meaning.
Insinuating freedom and the pursuit of independence, the headgear has a storied
legacy. It’s current usage among drug prohibition reformists, harm minimization
proponents and cognitive liberty crusaders is an iteration on the modern
evolution of the Phrygian cap — red conical felt hats with the tops pulled
forward dating back to ancient Eurasia. During the revolutions in America and
France (perhaps as far back as the 1675 Revolt of the <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Bonnets Rouges</span> in Britanny), Phrygian-style headwear had
received a makeover. Conflated with the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pileus</i>,
the brimless felt cap that in ancient Rome was emblematic of emancipation from
slavery, a style not unlike that to which I was exposed at the GLC came to be
identified with antimonarchical sentiment, the republican form of government,
and libertarianism in general (Korshak 1987). <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu5ZnshqpmWMZUUXCiXe99teyhNTmZPxQ0XR8kzmVf0VItrb-fBhJX8qJ4AIdR-h5DLnTot59o8yOQmvW9wA_3jRU7XPaQydMLuo0Atee3exK6DKoFgH5eokd26z9zoCqmzKgy/s1600/Liberty+cap+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="500" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu5ZnshqpmWMZUUXCiXe99teyhNTmZPxQ0XR8kzmVf0VItrb-fBhJX8qJ4AIdR-h5DLnTot59o8yOQmvW9wA_3jRU7XPaQydMLuo0Atee3exK6DKoFgH5eokd26z9zoCqmzKgy/s320/Liberty+cap+.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI_zeWrUQtm5G5rSG6HcDJTqU4IXisw-XgvBA_-UsCL7-BroedkOwDC4OdZCDC1mbvdqnndU54vkRvCmowRLwQY5r6-6uf4HApDCbR8ZKF6zbxu6ImX5hgojzlIXaV_u6Tr0UB/s1600/John+Wilkes+with+Cap+%2526+Pole.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp7sk7-AeYAa62OnzqmiUrK9ma8SalZ6wcFYTvSvfyRssal6d9jgrtnDSNmMY4bAOyn6iZhL1JCbfaD3RZNFxepQQPsf_LKzP4sv8V_U0wfMDSUguFK0_kPl1JKJwQnVZSdFU4/s1600/psilocybe-semilanceata7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="485" data-original-width="600" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp7sk7-AeYAa62OnzqmiUrK9ma8SalZ6wcFYTvSvfyRssal6d9jgrtnDSNmMY4bAOyn6iZhL1JCbfaD3RZNFxepQQPsf_LKzP4sv8V_U0wfMDSUguFK0_kPl1JKJwQnVZSdFU4/s200/psilocybe-semilanceata7.jpg" width="200" /></span></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It makes sense that a cap of such style would spore like
mushrooms from the heads of D.C.-based activists. It’s a choice analogy, given
that “Liberty Cap” is common parlance for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Psilocybe
semilanceata</i>, a potent species of “magic” mushroom growing in temperate
areas of the Northern Hemisphere, especially Europe. With a conical shaped
cap, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">P semilanceata</i> does bear some
resemblance to a cap set high on a pole. In the 18<sup>th</sup> century, a cap
hung upon a tall pole, often carried by Liberty herself, became the
quintessential symbol of rebellion, liberty and the Republic. The symbolism was
common to festivals and parades of the nascent American Republic (Newman 1997),
and was depicted on coins, table-wear, coat of arms and in cartoons printed in
the period, with the latter a possible trigger for Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s
popularization of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">P semilanceata</i> as
the “Cap of Liberty” in 1812 (Omissi 2016: 277). From the second half of the 20<sup>th</sup>
century, mushrooms became an overt symbol for the liberation of consciousness
in the wake of Albert Hofmann’s 1959 discovery that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">psilocybin</i>, the main active compound of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">P semilanceata,</i> among 200 other species, is psychoactive. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But this story does not travel far enough down the rabbit
hole – or at least account for the color of the caps (red — <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">P semilanceata </i>is typically yellow to
brown). The perception among Coleridge and his contemporaries of a semblance
between a revolutionary symbol and the shape of what would now be called an
“entheogenic” (and thus ostensibly liberating) species of psilocybin mushroom
cannot be divorced from the ancient pedigree of the symbol: the Phrygians and,
more to the point, their religion (Mithraism). While the Phrygians were
enslaved by the Greeks and their religion subject to repression and persecution
by early Christians, Mithraic-inspired Roman mystery cults and initiatory rites
are reckoned to have had a profound influence on Western civilization, where
its undercurrents thrive even today. In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mushrooms,
Myth and Mithras:</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Drug Cult that Civilized Europe, </i>Carl Ruck
and Mark Hoffman (2011) uncover a secret society with sacramental “meal” and
levels of initiation practiced throughout ancient Rome. Nero is noted to be the
first, and not the last, Emperor to have undergone the “entheogenic Eucharist”
(Ruck et al 2011:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>27). These scholars
identify an “uncanny correspondence” between Roman Mithraic and revolutionary
esoteric symbolism, notably a red Phrygian cap set atop a spear (<a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6c/Declaration_of_the_Rights_of_Man_and_of_the_Citizen_in_1789.jpg" target="_blank">as in illuminated versions of France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man</a>), thought
homologous to the “fly-agaric” mushroom, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Amanita
muscaria</i>, itself integral to the Mysteries of Mithra appropriated by the
Romans. With roots in Mithraism, these initiatory symbols are further known to have
been transposed into movements for independence by way of Freemasons, not least
of all The Society of the Cincinnati of which George Washington was the first
President General (<a href="http://entheomedia.org/freemasonry.htm" target="_blank">Hoffman and Ruck 2002</a>; Ruck et al. 2011).</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lending symbolic depth to his own endeavors, this complex
weave inspires Adam Eidenger, among other Catharsis co-founders. It’s easy to
share their enthusiasm. Co-created interventions and inspired revisionism
appeals as a “radical syncretism” perhaps not unlike that associated with
Mithraism (Hoffman and Ruck 2002). I kept bumping into Eidenger at the GLC — on
one occasion he was en route to a “4.20” street level appointment— and later we
chatted on Skype.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Eidenger is a D.C. native and activist who, in September
2005, staged Operation Ceasefire, an antiwar concert attracting over 100,000
people to the National Mall. He recalls how the event impressed
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) founder Rick
Doblin, who came backstage and invited him to Black Rock City. “He wanted me to
come to Burning Man, because he wanted to bring Burning Man to the National
Mall.” As an activist, Eidenger quite unenthusiastically accepted the
invitation in 2006. He was prepared to be soundly unimpressed. But his first
sortie “shocked” him into returning seven times, forming his own camp Stop,
Drop and Roll now part of the infamous foam village, that in 2017 will be
dubbed TransFoamation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Over this time, he connected with a network of D.C. Burners.
Through his organization, DCMJ, Eidenger proposed Initiative 71, a November
2014 ballot campaign that succeeded in partially legalizing marijuana in Washington D.C.
In a direct action on the National Mall on April 20 that year, activists locked
themselves on to a huge pole they erected on the lawns. With consultation from
a “libertarian friend,” what they’d “planted” was a 45-foot liberty pole, with
a cap on top and a stage at the base. When members of Congress consulted their
history books they discovered that the red caps assembling near the White House
had been common symbols of independence 300 years ago. After switching out the
wooden pole with aluminium, Eidenger was eventually issued a permit to stay on
the lawns for a week. What’s more, marijuana is now "legal" for D.C. users 21+
years of age. While it cannot be sold or smoked in public, the herb is permitted to be grown in small quantities and,
he laughed, “gifted” to others in the city — an outcome deemed appropriate to
many Burner activists. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It’s unsurprising that politicians and law enforcement had
to do their homework. Despite its visibility and significance in the
revolutionary era, due to sensitivities over enslavement and abolition
threatening the nascent union in the 19<sup>th</sup> century, the liberty cap
had “almost totally passed out of the national consciousness” (Korshak 1987:
60). Almost.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“We were the one’s who built the liberty pole and brought the hat
back,” says an enthused Eidenger, referring to the symbolism subsequently planted and worn
at Catharsis and other locations in D.C. since 2015. While initially reluctant
to adopt these symbols, he was incited by the challenge of installing a
140-pound tree on the National Mall, without damaging its surface. It was a
challenge that he and his Burner comrades couldn’t back away from. But soon
enough, the symbols began resonating, and
with the help of a researcher friend, Eidenger started drawing connections
with the Phyrgians. Mithraism was a “very freedom loving religion,” he says.
The Phrygians “ate mushrooms and had orgies.” And for nearly 1,000 years they
were living in exile. “Like Jews, they were exiled and enslaved people.”
Romanticizing the original cap wearers lends well to its imagined adoption by
ecstatic diasporics at the time of American Revolution. He speaks
enthusiastically about “the ceremony of staying up all night, drinking beer,
firing canons, burning barrels of tar and hay … up on big poles” where “burn
barrels” could be seen for miles around. And at the center there would be “a
huge liberty pole with an exaggerated liberty cap on top. And they would party
all night, stay up until sunrise. Why did they do this? It brought the
community together. It was part of the free American spirit that was not found
anywhere else on the planet at the time.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Joining with Roman Haferd and others to plan Catharsis,
Eidenger and friends have been making these caps vested with multiple layers of
significance since 2015. Eidenger has overseen the production of over 1,000
caps in his D.C. home. “We show up at a party with three or more people wearing
a liberty cap.” Interest is piqued among the ranks of the disenchanted, with
some among them earning a cap. Intonating those who desire
enlistment in this raggedy vanguard disarmy forming in the midst of Trump
America: “Its symbolism is relevant again.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Back in Davis Hall, there were no caps riding aloft spears —
although I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone appeared in Libertas drag.
But as I glanced around, I noticed others in the audience beaming under their
very own red caps with flipped tips — headwear typically pimped out with crew
buttons, merit badges and other insignia. Over the coming days, as I navigated
the receptions, plenaries and parties of the 11<sup>th</sup> Burning Man GLC,
it was with growing frequency that I observed the infectious rouge headgear
sporing in the halls and foyers of the Marriott. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Burning Beyond the
Trash Fence<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Burning Man started out as an eight-foot effigy burn staged
on San Francisco’s Baker Beach on the summer solstice of 1986. “The Man” has
been raised and destroyed every year since, with the annual event not only
surviving its migration to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert in 1990, but has incited
a proliferation of <a href="http://regionals.burningman.org/" target="_blank">Regional Events</a> in over 35 countries. This global movement
is driven by an ethos, the <a href="https://burningman.org/culture/philosophical-center/10-principles/" target="_blank">Ten Principles</a>, actively fostered by the Burning Man
Project.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Burning Man has come under heavy fire from critics in recent
times. The position popular among detractors is that the event has “jumped the
shark.” Depending on who you’re listening to, Burning Man has been overrun by
predatory tourists and their service providers, colonized by
elite tech-moguls and venture capitalists, trashed by marauding bands of ravers
jonesing to fulfill their “bucket” list dreams, or run by a theocratic class of
zealots, exploiters and brain washers. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">And yet, while Burning Man attracts such dissent, there is
another story that does not get the attention it warrants. This story is rooted
in a phenomenon whose movement status has been apparent for at least two
decades. It is a story that has seen over 100,000 self-identifying Burners
mobilizing beyond the “playa” (as the desert’s surface is popularly regarded)
to actively leave a trace<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>in the
world. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">This cultural mobilization reflects an intentional directive
of the Burning Man Project, whose directors are at paints to convey that the
event is no longer simply a “festival.” This has been the case for a long time.
<span lang="EN-GB" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-GB;">After fifteen years of
event-making, co-founder Larry Harvey announced in 2000 that “we are no longer
staging an event; we’re coordinating a global community” (<a href="https://burningman.org/culture/philosophical-center/founders-voices/larry-harveys-writings/la-vie-boheme/" target="_blank">Harvey 2000</a>). As the
first CEO (Chief Engagement Officer) of the non-profit BMP newly formed in
2014, </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Marian Goodell
looks to “expanding the values born of the playa,” in the world beyond,
regarded as “The Grand Playa” (<a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2014/03/news/global-news/burning-man-transitions-to-non-profit-organization/" target="_blank">Burning Man 2014</a>). </span>With the BMP committed
to propagating a cultural movement, community leaders are proactively
championing Burner culture in the world. Since 2007, the Global Leadership
Conference has been the networking hub of this movement, with other gatherings
like the <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Southeastern Leadership
Burning Man Roundtable, the Mid-Atlantic Leadership Conference</span>, and the
European Leadership Summit, gathering apace. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Maker spaces, community activation, civic engagement, trash
mobs. Just a few of the catchphrases buzzing throughout the Oakland Marriott in
2017 when the GLC attracted some 630 invitees from around the world. The theme
for the event was “Sparking a New Citizenship.” The attention to citizenship
can be seen as an outward extension of the commitment to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Civic Responsibility</i>, among the 10 principles of Burning Man. This
principle is integral to the development of a civic identity that had its
inception in Burning Man’s mid-1990s transit from festal to metropolis. While <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Radical Self-Expression</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Immediacy</i> are among the more popularly
evoked principles in the ethical lexicon of Black Rock City, if the plenary session
and workshops of the 2017 GLC are any measure, it is the civic imperatives of
this experimental ephemeropolis and its cultural progeny that are gaining
momentum. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">While the old-time lexicon speaks of the “default” world
beyond the "trash fence," a world in which Burners toil before making their
return pilgrimage to the scene of the sublime, for active propagators of Burner
culture, the post-event state seems more like an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">preemptive</i> condition for life as a Burner — a life led, more and
more, beyond the event.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In her plenary GLC talk, Goodell introduced the community to
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><a href="http://flyranch.burningman.org/" target="_blank">Fly Ranch,</a> the BMP’s new 3,800-acre
property in Washoe County, Nevada, acquired in 2016. While there is uncertainty
regarding the purpose of this land, Fly Ranch is showcased as the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">pièce de résistance </i>in Burning
Man’s newfound status as “a platform for social change.” </span>Characterized
in the 2016 annual report as “the next leap forward in the grand experiment
that is Burning Man,” the property<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> represents a significant development for a community that for thirty years has
been mounting temporary events on someone else’s (i.e. the Government’s) land.
Other notable sessions at the GLC included updates on Burners Without Borders
and the Permaculture Action Network, networks that are practical
evocations of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Civic Responsibility</i>.
While these developments are lauded within the community as evidence of an </span>intentional
commitment towards cultural transformation, the loudest cheers seemed reserved
for D.C.’s Catharsis on the Mall. <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT8xo_0xRBbwXK0DlSLY3S2_MT23yqKRCDrdFdeH_m-uXkrXA8Vyyw5WwFP8KTV16kisZ_9-e6DPCHsmd5AjjF3LWlHGmmhgf_biTmQIMeRQcOEKjCXUlyQ43k3KaLdpyeeAF1/s1600/Catharsis+on+the+Mall+logo+2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="718" data-original-width="612" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT8xo_0xRBbwXK0DlSLY3S2_MT23yqKRCDrdFdeH_m-uXkrXA8Vyyw5WwFP8KTV16kisZ_9-e6DPCHsmd5AjjF3LWlHGmmhgf_biTmQIMeRQcOEKjCXUlyQ43k3KaLdpyeeAF1/s200/Catharsis+on+the+Mall+logo+2015.jpg" width="170" /></span></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Bonfires and Bonnets<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The inaugural Catharsis was a 48-hour vigil held in Nov 2015
on the National Mall which took as its theme, “Healing from the Drug War.”
Attracting several hundred people, that event featured large-scale artworks, a
“leave no trace”<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>ethos, and
culminated in the torching of the Temple of Essence — which the media called a
“bonfire” — followed by a dance party until dawn. The twelve-foot structure
designed by Michael Verdon had been scrawled with personal inscriptions of loss
and pain. Igniting the outer wooden structure revealed a bar-encased prison
cell, complete with wooden cot and toilet. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKoKmNnJpxHv3i_7UCTf3k9z2tnJvvTO5t3PdVbigMS3P1Gho1UujerqziVTAyRWabO6cv7r4ApSnCZ4PBS5p4Eh6C3ip-Ncn-klGxOjgK2kmbGs1dq_v9MHFkUVoTuK9C8Qx_/s1600/Temple+of+Essence+by+Cherry+Savoy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="960" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKoKmNnJpxHv3i_7UCTf3k9z2tnJvvTO5t3PdVbigMS3P1Gho1UujerqziVTAyRWabO6cv7r4ApSnCZ4PBS5p4Eh6C3ip-Ncn-klGxOjgK2kmbGs1dq_v9MHFkUVoTuK9C8Qx_/s320/Temple+of+Essence+by+Cherry+Savoy.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Temple of Essence <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(Photo by Cherry Savoy)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The “cell” was packed with booking
documents, probation papers, and other flammable items participants had been
encouraged to stow inside — all eventually succumbing to the flames. The
installation had dozens of color LEDs that blinked off every 19 seconds — the
apparent arrest rate for a drug offense in the United States. Speaking on the
concept, Verdon was reported to state: "We lock away millions of people
for essentially nonviolent pseudo-victimless crimes. We shame them, we isolate
them, we make the problem worse, and it disproportionately affects people that
have pigment in their skin" (in </span><a href="http://dcist.com/2015/11/catharsis_1.php" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Sadon 2015</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/YLV8lhgRbg8/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YLV8lhgRbg8?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Catharsis on the Mall 2015 recap video by Luca Silveira.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">With the support of MAPS, the follow-up event beginning on
Veteran’s Day, Nov 11, 2016 (“Our Journey Home”) continued the struggle to end
the prohibition of cannabis and other substances found useful as therapeutic
solutions to PTSD among veterans, sexual assault survivors and others living
with trauma. Staged just days after Trump’s victory, the event became a
cathartic release of tensions and assuagement of grievances for those awakening
to the nightmare of Trump: a toxic mix of xenophobia, greed and despoliation. With its dedication to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Radical
Inclusion</i>, Catharsis demonstrated that there is an alternative to that of
fear, an alternative dreamed into existence over three decades in the Black
Rock Desert. Interactive art installations, random acts of kindness, mutant
vehicles, workshops, geodesic domes, a meditation tent. The Burner way. Evoking
the cross-country Prankster cavalcade fifty years earlier, driven from
California, the school bus turned golden dragon Abraxis provided the sound system
and stage. Then there was the planned torching of the Temple of Rebirth, again
designed by Verdon. “Our stories are woven into the work,” stated Verdon, “and
then released in the structure’s transformation. We rise from those ashes.” And all around
this Phoenix, red capped crusaders were amassing under the Washington Monument.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii4vx4FtsRvNGGKcOqK_7Dg15uE20xMAd6N8S4Z1AB1WSZ-ovkEdfV5F7zGug2iy4v7bkIEjRS71xdHaBM7vC22FbZGYUHJClbckdSMMSfUeG3znNR5x46FutcQtTJsQLSgB8Y/s1600/Temple+of+Rebrth+by+kris.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1242" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii4vx4FtsRvNGGKcOqK_7Dg15uE20xMAd6N8S4Z1AB1WSZ-ovkEdfV5F7zGug2iy4v7bkIEjRS71xdHaBM7vC22FbZGYUHJClbckdSMMSfUeG3znNR5x46FutcQtTJsQLSgB8Y/s400/Temple+of+Rebrth+by+kris.jpg" width="310" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Temple of Rebirth. <span style="font-size: xx-small;">(Photo by Kris)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Temple burns have been integral to Burning Man since its
most celebrated artist David Best, began building and burning these structures
as sites of remembrance, healing and transformation in Black Rock City in 2000,
with the building of its 2016 incarnation portrayed in <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Laurent Le Gall’s superb <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Vn0I5fxj4" target="_blank">The Temple of Burning Man — A Long Journey</a> </i>(2017)</span>. In 2013, Best took this
acclaimed tradition to Londonderry, Northern Ireland, where it won-over 300,000
people before embracing its fiery destiny. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As Temple burns have become a signature imprint of the
Burner ethos, it stands to reason that the faithful were upset when, in the
month before the Nov 2016 Catharsis, the National Park Service forbade the
igniting of the Temple of Rebirth, citing a new regional regulation limiting
fires to five square-foot burns (the Temple was 15 feet with a tall spire
extending the installation to over 30 feet). This ruling was stayed by a
District Judge the day before the event, after co-organizer, civil rights
lawyer Roman Haferd, filed a federal lawsuit claiming the NPS was violating
their First Amendment rights. As reported in a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Washington Post</i> story entitled “<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">No, you cannot have a giant bonfire on the Mall to mourn Trump’s
victory,” Haferd was granted</span> last minute permission for organizers to
burn three 5x5 foot structures symbolizing the sun, the moon and a phoenix egg.
As Eidenger informed, “we raved all night and marched in the morning.” He was
referring to a “mutant stage” parade around the Mall in which 300–400 people
participated. (The Temple of Rebirth was eventually burned at an event in
Delaware in late May 2017).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Though the Temple was hosed by bureaucracy pre-ignition,
Trump’s election effectively illuminated the profile of the fledgling event.
Under the 2017 GLC plenary title “Activism on Fire in our Nation's Capital,”
and under their liberty caps, Catharsis co-founders roused the faithful. Under
the art theme “Nurturing the Heart,”<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">
Catharsis would, they announced, return to the National Mall over November
10–12, </span>2017. The revelation that they intended to bring R-Evolution — <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Marco Cochrane's</span> 45-foot
sculpture that debuted at Burning Man in 2015 — to the Mall in 2017, brought
the house down. A projected mock-up image of the sculpture under lights facing
the National Monument was spellbinding for many in the
audience. R-Evolution had been the final piece in C<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">ochrane's</span> monumental on-playa series celebrating the power of
the feminine form. At a time when the pink Pussy Hat — a variation, perhaps, of
the liberty cap — circulates in the popular imagination, the visage of
R-Evolution calmly facing the Capital’s 554-foot obelisk is provocative</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM1voyCEl92j6iHQHnSMMEk5_WEG-i0vvSSRvsZ7AXJ3iNgVD18RksqeAnm8OR-tBKAf_UvHnGQkeFjIWRGVfyyidBCv6NTJMj-Kbr4mwK28dgwafyU_M9LkTKnwxB5ffuaT5y/s1600/Catharsis+promo+2017.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="827" data-original-width="1339" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhM1voyCEl92j6iHQHnSMMEk5_WEG-i0vvSSRvsZ7AXJ3iNgVD18RksqeAnm8OR-tBKAf_UvHnGQkeFjIWRGVfyyidBCv6NTJMj-Kbr4mwK28dgwafyU_M9LkTKnwxB5ffuaT5y/s400/Catharsis+promo+2017.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In our interview, Eidenger elaborated that, with "nurturance" as the theme, the "new political demand will be passing the Equal Rights Amendment." He specifically noted that women don’t have equal rights in the US Constitution. (The full list of ideals are stated on the </span><a href="https://www.catharsisonthemall.com/art-theme-2017/" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;" target="_blank">2017 Catharsis art theme</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> document). </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">In a vision of the potentials for Burner-oriented culture, if Catharsis have their way, R-Evolution will stand vigil on the National Mall for six-months following the event.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Capital “C” Catharsis<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Among the curious features of Catharsis is the way it
combines performance modes. It has been described as “equal parts vigil,
symposium, occupation, fire conclave, effigy burn, and
party-until-dawn-under-the-stars” (Buttar 2015). At one extreme, then, it is a
vigil (perhaps best signified by the Temple), while at another it is as a dance
party, with these extremes combining in a parade around the Mall after dawn. <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">This is no frivolous mobilization. Taking the
intentional dance party to the streets has a serious legacy in decentralized
movements like the Reclaim the Streets network of the 1990s, flash-mobbing and,
more recently, </span>the <a href="http://www.decentralizeddanceparty.com/" target="_blank">Decentralized Dance Party </a>(DDP). An “open source”
dance movement conceived in Vancouver in 2000, the DDP adopts mobile FM
transmitters, boomboxes and pop hits to incite eruptions of pleasure in public
spaces. For founder Gary Lachance, who proclaims Burning Man to be “the world’s
preeminent Open-Source community” and a “radically Open and Decentralized
social experiment at the vanguard of modern cultural evolution” (<a href="http://www.decentralizeddanceparty.com/camp-dogecoin-at-burning-man-2014/" target="_blank">Lachance</a>), the
significance of “open source partying” is that “hundreds of total strangers
[are] sharing an authentic, immediate and intimate moment of fearless
connection.” The comments are announced by Lachance <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSTrEPH0_F8" target="_blank">in a video</a> where he identifies the DDP philosophy of “Capital P Partying” in which it
appears that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the cause</i> is to mobilize
an unsuspecting consumer orientated populace in dance — nothing more or less.
Inspiring events in dozens of cities worldwide, the DDP have even taken their
“Capital P Partying” to the Capital (on May 25 2012).<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The DDP and its predecessors are rooted in the urban <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">dérives</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>of the<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>Situationists and others subverting the capitalist uses of public
space. While there is much resonance, the difference with<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> Capital C Catharsis is that the sounds, and
the dancing, are mobilized in the capital city under the steam of an ethical
counter-carnivalesque logic. As </span>Catharsis have stated in a media
release: “We seek political, cultural AND spiritual transmutation for our city
and our nation.” But while Catharsis has been motivated by social
justice causes since its inception, it is crucial to recognize the principled
culture enabling this phenomenon to take flame in the capital. The position is
announced on the <a href="https://www.catharsisonthemall.com/who-are-we" target="_blank">Catharsis website</a>: “We sought a local experience that integrated the
best of our Burner values with the immediate desire for political and cultural
change that brings people to DC.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Whether the principles of Burning Man — like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Gifting</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Civic Responsibility</i> — could be deployed to effect social change in
this context remains to be seen, but taking an ethos that has evolved over
decades in one of harshest and remote environments in the country to the
nation’s center is an inflection of a symbolic strategy (from the margins to
the center) that has been deployed by activists across a range of social
justice and environmental movements. In 1970, raising opposition to the Vietnam
War, carnival was launched on the lawns of the White House (Kershaw 1997:
261-264), an event notable in the history of the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">protestival</i>, i.e. popular multi-vocal and polyphonic projects that
deploy carnivalesque strategies to expose power and corruption (see St John
2008). The history of these mutant events whose occupants are committed to
demonstrating that “another world is possible,” includes the CND marches on
Trafalgar Square (from 1961) (McKay 2000: 88–89), Levitate the Pentagon (1967),
Carnivals Against Capitalism and Occupy. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">While commonalities exist, there are of course differences. Catharsis is an official demonstration, not a direct action. As such, the event must comply with various codes and regulations of the NPS. Another difference separating Catharsis from these other events, and rendering it unique, is that which is integral to this cultural conflagration: fire-art. The inaugural event was said to have been “the first time since World War II that a major bonfire has been permitted on the National Mall” (<a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2015/12/global-network/rhymes-with-burning-man/catharsis-burning-for-change-on-the-national-mall" target="_blank">Buttar</a> 2015). In transporting its marginal spectacle to the symbolic center of power, this insurgent mutant of Burning Man is reminiscent of the </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">dreampolitik</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">conjured by </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Stephen Duncombe in <i>Dream: Re-imagining Progressive Politics in an Age of Fantasy</i> (2007). The commitment of Catharsis to dramatize the truth (e.g. in the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Temple of Essence</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">) echoes what Duncombe calls the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">“ethical spectacles” of progressive politics — spectacles that, by contrast with those challenged by Guy Debord, are participatory</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">.</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Our spectacles will
be participatory: dreams the public can mold and shape themselves. They will be
active: spectacles that work only if people help create them. They will be
open-ended: setting stages to ask questions and leaving silences to formulate
answers. And they will be transparent: dreams that one knows are dreams but
which still have power to attract and inspire. And, finally, the spectacles we
create will not cover over or replace reality and truth but perform and amplify
it (Duncombe 2007: 17).</span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><o:p> </o:p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">As demonstrated in
the political successes of George W. Bush Jnr, Republicans grew adept at
speaking directly to the fantasies and desires of the populace — a politics
that understands desire, embraces spectacle and, moreover, tells good stories.
Under that regime, Duncombe observed that, having “become the lingua franca of
our time,” fantasy and spectacle were integral to gaining power and shaping
reality (ibid. 9). But if “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">transforming</i>
the techniques of spectacular capitalism into tools for social change”
(Duncombe 2007: 16) was considered pivotal to opposing the fantastic
accomplishments of Bush Jnr, what might dissent look like in Trump’s
“post-truth” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Fox and Friend’s </i>universe?
Given that Black Rock City — a collaborative dreamlike cornucopia of pop-cult
situations, rites of dé</span>tournement and storytelling — is among the world’s
largest participatory spectacles, we might have an answer.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaD2MR6j-5FstXsZVavzPnnKSONMY5k25v5IH7C-m-sVVv3NE2hGG29RJeiYEOfS1WwY-99xl2m9YqjgND_wwz-HBaiDAiEZJrWvRnl9TKQXvyAZ3jYqKOo9Ekt2q1VpHvo138/s1600/trump+dunce.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaD2MR6j-5FstXsZVavzPnnKSONMY5k25v5IH7C-m-sVVv3NE2hGG29RJeiYEOfS1WwY-99xl2m9YqjgND_wwz-HBaiDAiEZJrWvRnl9TKQXvyAZ3jYqKOo9Ekt2q1VpHvo138/s1600/trump+dunce.jpeg" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Neo-Phrygian movement or no, a new carnival is in town where do-ocratic leaders and capped crusaders respond to an ecstatic call to liberty. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">"</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">To have a burn for a cause seems more important culturally and politically significant than a burn for a ticketed audience,” </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Adam Eidenger said in 2015. “</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Our proximity to the White House and Capitol Building allowed powerful art to speak truth to policy makers” (<a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2015/12/global-network/rhymes-with-burning-man/catharsis-burning-for-change-on-the-national-mall" target="_blank">Buttar</a> 2015). And so, the participatory spectacle gathers momentum at the symbolic center of power where big art projects and tiny caps are deployed to get down, be compassionate and expose tyranny. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">**********</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Back at the 2017 GLC, an overt symbol of transformation
multiplies throughout the days and nights of the conference, as I see more and
more heads under Liberty’s cap. It’s a good place to end this story — at a
party. But let there be no mistake, among this crowd, a party is not simply a
gathering where one “ends up.” On the contrary, it’s a place where sparks
catch and culture ignites. After all, in the Burning Man tradition setting
works of art aflame is an act of destruction </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">and</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> a rite of renewal. A fiery standard at once ludicrous and
asseverate, the liberty cap holds loaded appeal in this community. It is died
in the hue of an art form that has evolved with unparalleled distinction
on-playa and among satellite communities actively igniting a transformational
cultural spirit around the globe. In the red glow of this proliferation at the
Saturday night GLC party at Oakland’s DiY space NIMBY, Papa Smurf appears
resplendent in a fine red-sequined cap. Of Catharsis, Eidenger envisions “a
free burn that the whole nation feels they can come to.”</span><br />
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<o:p><a href="https://www.catharsisonthemall.com/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Catharsis on the Mall</span></a></o:p></div>
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<o:p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/283772412030636/?acontext=%7B%22action_history%22%3A%22[%7B%5C%22surface%5C%22%3A%5C%22page%5C%22%2C%5C%22mechanism%5C%22%3A%5C%22page_upcoming_events_card%5C%22%2C%5C%22extra_data%5C%22%3A[]%7D]%22%2C%22has_source%22%3Atrue%7D" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">2017 Catharsis Facebook Page </span></a></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">References<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Burning
Man. 2014 (March 3) “Burning Man Transitions to Non-Profit Organization”. <i>Burning
Man Journal</i>: </span><a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2014/03/news/global-news/burning-man-transitions-to-non-profit-organization/"><span lang="EN-AU" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">https://journal.burningman.org/2014/03/news/global-news/burning-man-transitions-to-non-profit-organization/</span></a><span lang="EN-AU" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Buttar,
Shahid. 2015 (Dec 15). “</span>Catharsis: Burning for Change on the National
Mall.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Burning Man Journal:</i> <a href="https://journal.burningman.org/2015/12/global-network/rhymes-with-burning-man/catharsis-burning-for-change-on-the-national-mall"><span lang="EN-AU" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">https://journal.burningman.org/2015/12/global-network/rhymes-with-burning-man/catharsis-burning-for-change-on-the-national-mall</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Duncombe, Stephen.
2007. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Dream: Re-imagining Progressive
Politics in an Age of Fantasy</i>. New York. The New Press<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.<o:p></o:p></i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"></i></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Harvey, </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Larry. </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">2000. <i>La Vie Boheme: A History of Burning Man</i>. Lecture at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota. February 24, 2000. </span><a href="https://burningman.org/culture/philosophical-center/founders-voices/larry-harveys-writings/la-vie-boheme/" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">https://burningman.org/culture/philosophical-center/founders-voices/larry-harveys-writings/la-vie-boheme/</span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Hoffman Mark, and Carl A. P. Ruck. 2002. “Freemasonry and
the Survival of the Eucharistic Brotherhoods,” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Entheos: The Journal of Psychedelic Spirituality</i>, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">2(1): <a href="http://entheomedia.org/freemasonry.htm">http://entheomedia.org/freemasonry.htm</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Kershaw, Baz. 1997. “Fighting in the Streets: Dramaturgies
of Popular Protest, 1968-1989,” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New
Theatre Quarterly,</i> 51(3): 255–276.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Korshak, Yvonne. 1987. “The Liberty Cap as a Revolutionary
Symbol in America and France,” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Smithsonian
Studies in American Art</i>, 1(2): 52–69.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Lachance. “Camp Dogecoin (at Burning Man 2014).” <a href="http://www.decentralizeddanceparty.com/camp-dogecoin-at-burning-man-2014/">http://www.decentralizeddanceparty.com/camp-dogecoin-at-burning-man-2014/</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">McKay, George. 2000. </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">Glastonbury:
A Very English Fair</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">. Gollancz.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Newman, Simon P. 1997. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Parades
and the Politics of the Street: Festive Culture in the Early American Republic</i>.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Omissi, Adrastos. 2016. “The Cap of Liberty: Roman Slavery,
Cultural Memory,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">and Magic Mushrooms,” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Folklore</i>,
127(3): 270–285.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Ruck, Carl A.P., Mark A. Hoffman and Jose Alfredo González
Celdran. 2011. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mushrooms, Myth and
Mithras: The Drug Cult that Civilized Europe. </i>San Francisco: City Lights
Publishers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sadon, Rachel. 2015. “For 48-Hours, D.C.'s ‘Activist
Creative Community’ Will Do Yoga, Cathartic Dance, And Burn A Temple On The
Mall,” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">DCist</i>, Nov 20. <a href="http://dcist.com/2015/11/catharsis_1.php">http://dcist.com/2015/11/catharsis_1.php</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">St John, Graham. 2008. “<span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK91;"><span style="mso-bookmark: OLE_LINK90;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Protestival: Global Days of Action
and Carnivalized Politics in the Present,” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Social
Movement Studies: Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest</i>, 7(2):
167–190.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Zaretsky, Robert, D. 2017. “Return of the Grotesque.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Aeon Magazine</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://aeon.co/essays/the-grotesque-is-back-but-this-time-no-one-is-laughing">https://aeon.co/essays/the-grotesque-is-back-but-this-time-no-one-is-laughing</a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-67081211979960889332016-09-29T08:52:00.002+02:002016-09-29T08:57:19.754+02:00Aussiewaska: A Cultural History of Changa and Ayahuasca Analogues in Australia<div class="p1">
<a href="https://images.tandf.co.uk/common/jackets/agentjpg/978147246/9781472466631.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://images.tandf.co.uk/common/jackets/agentjpg/978147246/9781472466631.jpg" width="218" /></a><span class="s1">New chapter from me </span>"<a href="https://www.academia.edu/28778807/Aussiewaska_A_Cultural_History_of_Changa_and_Ayahuasca_Analogues_in_Australia._In_Beatriz_Labate_Clancy_Cavnar_and_Alex_Gearin_eds_The_World_Ayahuasca_Diaspora_Reinventions_and_Controversies_Routledge_2017_" target="_blank">Aussiewaska: A Cultural History of Changa and Ayahuasca Analogues in Australia</a>", by Graham St John.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Abstract</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Since the synergistic mechanism integral to ayahuasca became known, ayahuasca analogues—botanical fusions said to simulate an “ayahuasca effect”, also called anahuasca, pharmahuasca, and acaciahuasca—have been explored in various world regional contexts beyond the Amazon. This chapter contributes to the study of ayahuasca analogues through its attention to Australian developments. Specifically, it will address the phenomenon of changa, a “smokable ayahuasca” sometimes referred to as “aussiewaska” and also promoted as an “intelligent DMT” blend. Changa is an Australian smoking blend typically involving B. caapi or other sources of β-carboline alkaloids infused with DMT alkaloids extracted from local species of Acacia along with a variety of other herbs. Pioneers and users have typically championed the authentically Australian botanical characteristics of these blends, especially given that Golden Wattle, a common name for Acacia, is Australia's national floral emblem. Others have speculated about the role of Acacia in the religious and cultural life of Australia's precolonial indigenous population. Since the 1990s, the consumption of changa has evolved from private events and workshops at local ethnobotanical symposia (notably Entheogenesis Australis), to seasonal dance music and global visionary arts festivals. In a variety of ritual and festive contexts, changa has been ab/used for entheogenic (spiritual) or recreational (pleasure) purposes. The chapter will address how these usages position changa vis-a-vis ayahuasca, covering the spiritual/recreational, individual/subcultural and local/global dimensions of changa.</span></div>
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It's in a great new book <i>The World Ayahuasca Diaspora: Reinventions and Controversies</i>, edited by Beatriz Labate, Clancy Cavnar and Alex Gearin, available<a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-World-Ayahuasca-Diaspora-Reinventions-and-Controversies/Labate-Cavnar-Gearin/p/book/9781472466631" target="_blank"> from Routledge </a></div>
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Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-50788190053367924062016-06-14T23:30:00.004+02:002016-06-22T00:32:58.741+02:00Turning Man<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJSxIYBNVwcX8435iHtRc9uduSUsf2eUIoVvsistxEvM3Vck3ZsA6iacpQXQ7rFvozIG8TFwlqZJdt5xZlb5xspM6xyVw6G6-YaNK4KLNZzk7aftLDpwjZTdhmVEWRE_XFdqxc/s1600/davinci-man-shifty-fox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJSxIYBNVwcX8435iHtRc9uduSUsf2eUIoVvsistxEvM3Vck3ZsA6iacpQXQ7rFvozIG8TFwlqZJdt5xZlb5xspM6xyVw6G6-YaNK4KLNZzk7aftLDpwjZTdhmVEWRE_XFdqxc/s400/davinci-man-shifty-fox.jpg" width="362" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Davinci Man by Shifty Fox</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">In my<a href="http://edgecentral.blogspot.ch/2016/05/meet-your-maker-maker-culture-culture.html" target="_blank"> first entry (Meet Your Maker)</a> in
this blog essay series, I pointed out that San Francisco's Global Leadership
Conference is a kind of clearinghouse for Burning Man <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">culture</i> exported from Black Rock City, Nevada, to the world. For the
hundreds of participants in the worldwide Burner network who converge on the GLC, a multi-principled culture refined over
three decades of event-making is celebrated, cerebrated, and interrogated. I’d related that the Florentine Renaissance art theme for Burning Man
2016—Da Vinci’s Workshop—holds a reflexive angle on the confluence of commerce
and creativity in Black Rock City. When this theme was introduced in late Oct
2015, it was communicated that</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> Black Rock City has a population of wealthy participants who contribute to
its build. “Over many years,” it was conveyed, “private donors, with a
remarkable lack of fanfare, have quietly funded some of the most beloved artworks
that have honored our city” (Burning Man, Oct 27, 2015). </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Larry Harvey has
called this population “the 1%,” which may or may not be an underestimation. In
any case, a</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">mong the curious exchanges at the GLC held at the </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Marines Memorial Club</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">in March-April this year was the roundtable in which members
of the Burning Man Philosophical Center—Harvey, Stuart Mangrum, and Caveat Magister—took
the stage to discuss “Art, Money and the Renaissance” (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtC9q-O5MgI&list=PLvI7u3Blon00vFqUVO7tKvmWq-YBae_Bq&index=3" target="_blank">Magister, Harvey and Mangrum 2016</a>). While the theme appears to have been crafted according to their varied
interests in the Renaissance, it was clear from Caveat’s preamble that the “great
taboo” in the Burning Man community—that concerning money—was on the main menu.
“The question of whether making a living is compatible with being a Burner,” he
announced, “is the most crucial challenge our culture is now facing.” </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">Given
that revenues from ticket sales are upwards of $30 million, that Burning
Man has a Board of Directors stacked with billionaires and millionaires, and
employs hundreds of people, both on-playa and year round staff, many argue that tackling this subject head-on is long overdue. Clearly, making a
living </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">has</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;"> become compatible with
being a Burner. But so far as Burning Man art is concerned, are there community-appropriate mechanisms that could generate value for Black Rock City art,
to the benefit of its artists, year round? Such appears to be what’s at stake
in Da Vinci’s Workshop, which, in its own way, seeks to workshop a problem that
won’t get any smaller as Burning Man grows larger in the world.</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Sherpagate<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Da Vinci’s Workshop
is in no small part responsive to a predicament achieving critical status at
Burning Man in recent years. In August 2014, a known situation simmering on slow
boil for years bubbled over when <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times</i> ran a Burning Man exposé
featuring an image of giant yacht-like art car Christina and describing an </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">“annual
getaway for a new crop of millionaire and billionaire technology moguls.” More
pointedly, the article exposed a landscape of <span style="color: black;">gated
RV compounds</span></span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> and
high-end concierge services, that appeared to be sanctioned by the
Burning Man organisation</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">. One unnamed camp was reported to possess a $25K
per head fee, featuring private return flights to Black Rock City Airport,
luxury restroom trailers, female models flown in from New York, sushi chefs and
“sherpas” (Bilton 2014). <span style="color: black;">The story sparked outrage
across social media, fuelled debate in the blogoverse, triggering fresh
lamentation on the demise of Burning Man, the fate of which now appeared sealed
by the regattas of “rich tourists” now populating the crowded waters off The
Man, and specifically at anchorage in “Billionaires Row” (Waddell 2014). Controversy
brewing in the burnerverse for years had now erupted in the wake of
“sherpagate,” triggering public grievances, resentment and recriminations over
the apparent outsourcing of event principles like Participation, Gifting and Radical
Self-Reliance.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">The heat was felt down at Burning Man HQ. Still smarting from a
ticket scarcity crisis that threatened to bounce thousands of dedicated and
loyal participants, there was an elephant in the room, and its name was
Plug-N-Play. The phrase demanded attention when it was revealed that </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">one of
the chief culprits inspiring the </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">exposé</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"> was Camp Olympus, a theme camp
underwritten by James Tananbaum—billionaire founder and CEO of leading
healthcare investment fund Foresite Capital—who was at that time on the board
of directors at Burning Man. Tananbaum became an unwitting attention magnet when
his 2014 Black Rock City camp Caravancicle was lambasted as an elitist hotel
for wrist-banded VIPs flown in on private jets (and paying 15K per head) and
issued popsicles to be distributed as “gifts.” Subsequently, according to a
story in <i>Bloomberg Businessweek</i>
featuring an image of a Learjet soaring to altitude above Black Rock City, Tananbaum
had become “the Google Bus of Burning Man” (Gillette 2015).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">Had the rogue elephant now sighted in the national media become a
sanctioned creature, and domesticated feature, of the playascape? As a result,
was Burning Man crumbling under the weight of its own contradictions? Such was
already a foregone conclusion at <i>The</i> <i>New York Times</i>, where, following</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"> the
2013 appearance on-Playa of General Wesley K. Clark, Burning Man was reported
to have become “the new golf” (Williams</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"> 2013). When </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">Marge Simpson was tripping at Blazing Guy, as aired on <i>The Simpson’s</i> in Nov 2014, or when
Burning Man or its regionals were featured in the in-flight magazine’s of Delta
and EasyJet, for the Burner faithful such incidents were received as an affront
to the principle of Decommodification. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">When president of
Americans for Tax Reform and board member of the NRA, Grover Norquist, accepted
Harvey’s invitation in 2014, tweeting </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">“Scratch one off the bucket list,” on his way to Black Rock City, and then
</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">made agreeable noises about how the event’s ethos of Radical
Self-Reliance squares with his neo-liberal sensibilities (Norquist 2014), </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">critics were appalled. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">For
journalist and long-standing Burning Man organisation critic, City Editor for <i>San Francisco Bay Guardian</i> Steven Jones,
it was the last straw. The event had truly “jumped the shark, </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">launching from the ramp of a high-minded experiment
and splashing down into the tepid waters of mass-consumed hedonism” (Jones 2014).
If we take shark jumping to mean ludicrous and irredeemable, the incident
appears to have been the latest in </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">a litany of such moments in the
event’s history, depending upon who one listens to. </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">Jones’ <i>The
Tribes of Burning Man</i> (2011) documented a backlash against the “BOrg”—i.e.
Black Rock City LLC—and its control of Burning Man through what he called the
“Renaissance” period of the event (2004–2010). The main focus of dispute among
critics in recent years has been the Ten Principles, the “acculturation” of
which has been among the principal agendas of the newly formed Burning Man
Project. These principles have come under attack in some quarters as the "Tin
Principles." Using techniques with widespread currency on the Playa—i.e. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">détournment</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"> and parody—</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">among satirist Dave Clooney’s
“10 Principles of Earning Man,” as published in the 2014 <i>BRC Weekly,</i> are “Radical Seclusion,” “Radical Self Indulgence,” and
“Corporate Support” (Clooney 2014). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">Buckling under the weight of its contradictions? Jumping the
shark? Principles forged from soft metals? The questions were mounting up,
especially over at blog <i>B</i></span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">urners.me,</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"> the most popular news source on Burning Man. Disgorging a stream of consciousness on the unfolding Plug-N-Play controversy, adjacent stories
on Michelle Obama’s Burner hairstylist, and wallpapered
with the hottest women of the Playa, </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">Burners.me</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">
was widely received as the “Fox News of Burning Man” (a mantle embraced as an
accolade). </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">Burners.me </i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">is edited by self-identifying "dot
com pioneer" Steve Outtrim, an enthusiast of Ayn Rand, Jan Irvin, and celebrity
motorhomes. He is also a strident critic of BMOrg, whose Ten Principles are
imagined to be “a </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="color: windowtext;">cult-like</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"> doctrine used to
brainwash people around the world.” For Outtrim, the embarrassment of riches revealed
by sherpagate is not embarrassing in itself. It’s just that the billionaires haven’t
turned up the volume. So in August 2014, during the week of Burning Man, and
just after the story broke in </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">The New
York Times</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">, Outtrim sought to seize the day </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">with a vision for an alternative to Burning Man,
complete with its own “Nine Principles.” Implementing a bogus survey, and claiming
to adopt the meritorious aspects of Burning Man—apparently, wealthy patron
funded art cars playing dance music at loud volume to cool people—the vision was a sleazy TAZ, exclusive and ravenous, what Hakim Bey might have conjured on
a strong diet of MDMA, cocaine, and too much alone time in front of a screen. Introduced
as a kind of Disneyland sans the “dicks,” “Burnland” was to be a place where
loud is lauded and the DJ venerated as a pinnacle achievement in human evolution.
Sounding out a new plateau for serious players in the short-span attention
economy, an anarcho-kinder libertarianism that made the primitive conditions in </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">Lord of the Flies </i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">comparably</span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"> </i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">appealing,
the statement on “Burnland” was among the more vapid diatribes in the history
of the internet (</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">Burnersxxx Aug 29,
2014). While t</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">he fifth column of raveolutionaries failed to materialise,
</span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">Burners.me</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"> nevertheless became a controversy-fuelling source over 2014–2015.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUMAVcuo17oeTuk9A4l4fdkQnq41snLLuRgOLWzsIPuoFQQk0xlil4BcmoyGCV51wJ8xsrdr_Q204PffxVHHutI0muuF8Jsi8m27NWyDCUX8qZBigGgMpI3a1oCLgB1do34ntZ/s1600/DJ-Da-Vinci.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUMAVcuo17oeTuk9A4l4fdkQnq41snLLuRgOLWzsIPuoFQQk0xlil4BcmoyGCV51wJ8xsrdr_Q204PffxVHHutI0muuF8Jsi8m27NWyDCUX8qZBigGgMpI3a1oCLgB1do34ntZ/s1600/DJ-Da-Vinci.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">As the controversy acquired the attributes of a scandal, it grew
clear that the animal now caught in the crosshairs had been foraging for years,
establishing its home on the opulent savannas of Black Rock City. Only now, the
outraged on safari, under the stiff bream of their LED pith helmets, brandishing
burlesque blunderbusses and twirling their tit tassels critically, were
tracking the beast, and tracing the money, to the source. It was a crisis that
demanded a response, an interrogation of intentions, a reform of theme camp registration
criteria and placement policy, and a focused attention on the role of
entrepreneurs at Burning Man. With the corralling of a beast now identified,
the Burning Man Project undertook the uneasy task of sorting </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">“burnerprenuers”—who
provide little more than services for privileged clients, and lip service to
event principles—from those actively catalyzing the co-creation of art on the Playa.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">This was
not new news in 2014. Two years prior, the BMOrg had begun a dialogue around
the issue of </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">“Plug-n-Play” camps. With the ambiguity
in the phrase “Plug-n-Play” flagged, a distinction was made between “turnkey”
camps—many of which were perhaps more accurately assessed to be “Pay-to-Play”
camps, given their vendor status—and those operations assessed to be legitimate
sources of art patronage (Chase 2012). At that time, there was a recognition
that PnP camps </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">ranged from the “potentially exemplary” (i.e. staff camps
and funded artist camps in which occupants access a range of services and
infrastructure, as well as theme camps that operate on a dues system) to the
“completely unacceptable” (“Adventure” outfits selling a “Burning Man
Experience” to clients). This led to “turnkey guidelines” that were effectively
updated in 2014 (Burning Man Dec 3, 2014). The controversy ignited in the media,
and flamed on </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">Burners.me</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">, thus flagged
an issue not unknown within the organisation. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">Nevertheless,
it did trigger</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"> unprecedented attention towards the role of patronage in
Black Rock City, prompting discussion on </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">the
relationship between commerce and community, a relationship formerly suppressed
in Playa consciousness, even though Burner scholars have been offering
observations around this theme for years (e.g. Kozinets and Sherry 2005;
Gauthier 2013).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">While
unprincipled “rich camps” were to be chastised, there appeared to be little
gained by chasing the money away. After all, explaining the appointment of
corporate executives to the Board of the new nonprofit, Harvey has been
reported to state that “it’s not a thoughtless amassing of rich folks. . . . If
you want to change the world, you’d better get some people who have real
muscular power” (in Gillette 2015). In his first public response to the new
crisis, Harvey took the opportunity to defend the role of wealth in a </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">project</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"> that was even then gazing out
across the world from the Black Rock Desert. Radical Inclusivity has long been
upheld as a civilizing virtue from which Burners should not flinch—all the more
so if backers are pivotal to enable the inclusion of widening circles of
participants. While i</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">dentifying the dangers to the
community implicit in a service, or “concierge,” culture, Harvey recognised the
threat to liberty in calls for drastic punitive measures and in the
scapegoating of Burners with wealth. In a subdued defence of capitalism, as he stated,
“radical equality” is not among the Ten Principles. “This is because our city
has always been a place where old and young, and rich and poor, can live on
common ground. The word for this is fellowship, as in the fellowship of a club
or lodge whose members, however diverse, are united by common values and a
sense of shared experience. But common ground is not a level playing field, and
should not be interpreted as mandating equal living conditions” (Harvey Dec 3, 2014).
Among the more astute comments in response came from Paul Carey, who voiced
concern about the diminishment of values in the conscious dissemination of the Burning
Man brand. For one thing, there is “the righteous challenge of those who would
want to be compensated for the exploitation of their gifts.” Ultimately, the
future is believed to be in the regionals. “The playa today has a
disproportionate population of predators, narcissists and spectators. I
attribute this to a conscious desire to spread the culture rather than let the
like minded find their own way home” (Carey 2014).</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_9Gqyn-42Avs79yFb6Fkh66-7IQaQ6xASEmqoIsFHovgZRPynLEGuWcRuCQovhvLfjK0wAb9CCQ-xRifJMueJrvnBK6rMnISlawOuZ1J6Pi9gAg0k4taENQv6vFVI52Pfo83x/s1600/cafe_interior_2005+Brad+Templeton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_9Gqyn-42Avs79yFb6Fkh66-7IQaQ6xASEmqoIsFHovgZRPynLEGuWcRuCQovhvLfjK0wAb9CCQ-xRifJMueJrvnBK6rMnISlawOuZ1J6Pi9gAg0k4taENQv6vFVI52Pfo83x/s400/cafe_interior_2005+Brad+Templeton.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cafe interior, 2005. Photo by Brad Templeton.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">While
some cast a narrow eye on an intentional <i>project</i>
that exerts ever more pressure on Black Rock City annually, as it becomes the
object of more and more attention internationally, understanding the logic to this
brand’s centripetal development may derive from inquiring within, from training
one’s gaze upon the center. Center Camp, that is. For years, critics have
argued that, through its operation as a </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">coffee shop, Burning Man’s Center Camp Café contravenes event
principles. By 2013, Harvey used the example of the CCC to dispel the</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;"> myth
that Burning Man is a “moneyless utopia.” </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">“We’ve never espoused a non-commercial ideology,” he stated. “To
be against commerce is to oppose the very existence of civilized life. Even
hunter-gatherers engage in trade in order to survive.” Harvey defended the CCC
on the grounds that selling drinks, including coffee, percolates
affective community while at the same time enabling the café to operate as an
effective enterprise. The essay saw Harvey promoting the CCC as an alternative
to the alienating impact of marketplace mediated social interactions, which is
commonly understood to be the effect of commodification, which he has long
railed against. So while the café moves units, it’s “not exactly Starbucks. We
actually <i>want</i> people to linger, loiter and interact, not just
consume a product and depart.” Radical exponents of Gifting were unconvinced by
this turn of logic—for them, the heart of Black Rock City is symbolically
corrupt. In the face of such criticism, at a time when Burning Man was leaving
the Playa to come of age in the world, for Harvey, the Burnerbucks controversy
prompted questions about “whether our community can learn to apply its unique
culture to the world while using worldly tools” (Harvey Nov 12, 2013).</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Renaissance Man<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">But if we are to train our gaze
on the centre, to peer through the stain glass window of the soul of Black Rock City, it is
to the Man that we must look. While standing naked at the axis mundi of the
city, the Man has for at least two decades been clothed in thematic raiments,
gussied up in the axioms of the moment, pimped in the zeitgeist, changing colour
year in year out like a desert chameleon. Catching up with the times, by 2014,
the towering effigy presided over Caravansary, a theme giving explicit
attention to commerce and trade, but where “the only thing of value in this
‘marketplace’ will be one’s interaction with a fellow human being.” That year,
the base of the man was designed to appear like a Moroccan souk.</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho2LOeo9i5ZQ4awL1eZcKucZtuRBJfNF3lkjPg6X9jrI38uDd69T5edSERAztnC_-b9UmtmECQRItymGgyQgMewrJoGQg3tJc3DPM_IKMMoDLJeeGcJUid2SHcexO_hMX0-rrN/s1600/Turning+Man+illustration+by+Andrew+Johnstone.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho2LOeo9i5ZQ4awL1eZcKucZtuRBJfNF3lkjPg6X9jrI38uDd69T5edSERAztnC_-b9UmtmECQRItymGgyQgMewrJoGQg3tJc3DPM_IKMMoDLJeeGcJUid2SHcexO_hMX0-rrN/s320/Turning+Man+illustration+by+Andrew+Johnstone.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Turning Man by Andrew Johnstone</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">And this
brings me to 2016, to Da Vinci’s Workshop, in which the Man will stand, and
turn, at the center of a city drunk on the memory of Renaissance Florence,
known to be a watershed in the history of civilization, principally through the
way it enabled an unprecedented flourishing of artistic excellence. That is, in
a grand gesture literally geared to ends both pragmatic and symbolic, the Man
is commanded to peddle the wheel of the Burning Man Project. In “Following the
Money: The Florentine Renaissance and Black Rock City,” Harvey elaborates on
the theme. Taken on a selective tour through the Florence of late 15<sup>th</sup>
century Italy, the reader is transported into the world of Lorenzo de Medicini,
its de facto ruler. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">Described
as “a poet, a banker and a politician,” Lorenzo is said to be “famous for
befriending artists and advancing their careers.”</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;"> He created a salon, “a
scene which formed the epicenter of a new Italian culture, and there is little
doubt that this was fueled by money; the Medici were masters of an
international banking network, and Florence’s emergent middle class, organized
around a system of art and craft guilds, sponsored competitions that rewarded
artists for their work” (Harvey Mar 10, 2016). In adopting the young
Michelangelo, whom he sponsored among other geniuses, Lorenzo’s heroic acts of
patronage are hailed as being integral to the Renaissance and the dissemination
of humanist ideals. The perceived parallels with Black Rock City were
emphasised in the text that introduced the art theme, where it was acknowledged
that private philanthropy has played a significant role at Burning Man. And
given Burning Man’s distribution in 2016 of $1.2 million to artists in the form
of honoraria, Burning Man’s chief conceptual architect imagines the Black Rock
City Arts Department to be “like the Wool Guild, the <i>Arte della lana</i>,
the premier trade guild of Florence.” But the point of the essay is that money
does not flow through “quasi-governmental” and private patronage alone.
Projects in the burnerverse are subsidized through community fundraising events
(and crowdfunding campaigns) held throughout the year. And much of the art in
the gifting economy of Black Rock City—from theme camps to art cars and
costumes—is self-funded. “In a society devoted to the giving of gifts, anyone
at any time can be both artist and philanthropist.” With Renaissance Florence
offered as an illustration, money “can be made to serve non-monetary values in
a way that’s self-sustaining.” According to Harvey, in an explanation that
serves to defend the direction of the BMP in the light of growing criticism,
Florence demonstrated that “civilization isn’t possible without widespread
commercial activity.”</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">In the approach
to the 2016 event, the art theme has been discussed in a series of articles
cranked out from The Philosophical Center, addressing the role and pathways of
money at Burning Man, and published through the organisation’s main public
communications channels, the <i>Burning Man
Journal</i> and <i>Jack Rabbit Speaks </i>newsletter.
In the opening article, also published as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WMpIbVniRs" target="_blank">a YouTube video</a>,
Caveat Magister begins addressing a fundamental tension at Burning Man: that it
has become “increasingly associated with the kind of scale and spectacle
that requires either a massive crowd-funding campaign or a very wealthy patron.”
It may be an uncomfortable tension, but the reality is that Burning Man now
straddles these disparate trajectories, with the Man now surfing a giant swell
that breaks both ways. And if you’re watching this action from high up on the
beach, you might see how Burning Man is now “perhaps the largest hub for
crowd-and-participant funded art in the world,” while at the same time being “the
new favorite playground of the ultra-rich, who spend ungodly sums of money to
do what the rest of us used to do on the cheap.” Celebrating the efforts of Samuel
Jackson<b>,</b> creator of the first
English dictionary who “broke the traditional patronage system through scorn, mockery, and popular success,”
Caveat himself wishes to break the “great taboo.” “Art and money have
never been separable,” he writes, but somehow we have learned to accept and
“admire ‘starving artists’ in a way that we would never endorse for ‘starving teachers’
or ‘starving firemen.’ We have a notion deeply embedded in our culture that
anybody who talks about doing art for the money must not be a ‘real’ artist”
(C. Magister Jan 12, 2016). While this concept is modern, it is unconscionable
in an era wracked by profound economic uncertainty. And so, “for all its
faults,” denizens of Black Rock City are asked to look to the Renaissance for
guidance on how to act and not to act—the theme providing a lens on the tension
in question, and prompting enquiry well before the Man is even raised. “If the
21<sup>st</sup> century is to have patrons, what are best practices for
them? How can they be part of the solution, rather than a bottleneck for art
and a source of anxiety for artists?” (C. Magister Jan 12 2016).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">So
how does an art scene flourish? While the emergence of thriving art
scenes—bohemian or otherwise—often relies on a burgeoning middle class, the
same “bourgeois” culture has typically overseen its demise, for example,
through gentrification, and precisely the process critics have objected to at
Burning Man. But as Caveat delves further into the Renaissance, he polishes a
lens through which Black Rock City can be observed. In discussing the key
factors Eric Weiner in </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">The Geography of
Genius</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;"> has argued were integral to the success of the Renaissance (along
with other periods of flourishing “cultural genius”), it is said that there is “an
undeniable correlation between the flow of money and the vitality of an art and
cultural scene.” But, it is a correlation that Renaissance and contemporary artists
interpret differently. For instance, while Renaissance Florence frequently resorted
to competitions that enabled excellence, there was no high stakes,
winner-takes-all, scenario of the kind we have become familiar with. Second
chances, indeed multiple chances, are integral to innovation and change. “To
the extent that money is used to take chances in pursuit of excellence, it can
be a boon to artists and the cultural landscape. To the extent that money
conflates ‘bigger’ with ‘better,’ ‘repetition’ with ‘excellence,’ and
circulates only among a select few rather than as a bridge to new talent, a
scene is better off without it” (C. Magister Jan 25 2016).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">In a
further post excavating the “ethos of money” in the Renaissance, it is
contended that Burning Man has conditions remarkably similar to the Renaissance
mindset. “It is a world with clear boundaries in both time and space—literally
fenced in and lasting only a week. It is a place where even small actions and
decisions can have an enormous impact on the individuals and communities around
you: a place where what you do personally clearly matters. You are relevant. It
is a place that is utterly suffused with meaning, even if no one necessarily
agrees on what it is.” At this point, Caveat might be accused of having inhaled
too much playa dust, but his views do resonate with the trait most commonly
identified in advanced liminal realms of which Burning Man is exemplary: </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">potential</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">. “It may be that when we
experience a circumscribed world, a world where our actions give us more of a
sense of direct and meaningful relevance, that an ethos of money more conducive
to a vibrant arts scene emerges” (C. Magister, Feb 4, 2016).</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNQs-LwvGHGegEVqnMxXfmWwCdy691srz0wLLFrbHYMx5K95NYgj5-stE9019Mg0B_CshiscPMwSUm_9kXyEjUvloCYpbVowjo1XkVbFq07zfkeKL3id09Xn6ODeqToOGSVVob/s1600/vitruvian+man+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNQs-LwvGHGegEVqnMxXfmWwCdy691srz0wLLFrbHYMx5K95NYgj5-stE9019Mg0B_CshiscPMwSUm_9kXyEjUvloCYpbVowjo1XkVbFq07zfkeKL3id09Xn6ODeqToOGSVVob/s400/vitruvian+man+.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">As a pivotal
component in the effort to </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">combine Burning Man art, maker culture and creative philanthropy, this
year, the Man is to be raised, and destroyed, as something of a new Renaissance
Man. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">For Burn Night 2016, i</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">nspired by the artwork of Leonardo, as Uomo Vitruviano, the
Man will be animated by way of an elaborate system of human-powered gears and
pulleys. Burners will assist in rotating the Renaissance Man, turning a huge horizontal
wheel, geared to rotate the figure a full 360 degrees on the vertical plane. As
it has been proposed, Burners will be called on the hour by the chiming of Leonardo-inspired
bells designed by Berkeley “feral physicist” Roger Carr, and to be positioned
in bell towers. These towers, or campaniles, will be raised at the corners of a
Piazza, a public square surrounding the Man, built from repurposed, reused, and recycled materials, and “designed
to evoke the terra-cotta and plastered-brick ambiance of a Renaissance <i>piazza”
</i>(Burning Man, Jan 25 2016).</span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Guild this City<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">The 2016 theme has also
prompted the creative re-imagination of role and purpose of the “guild”—in sync
with the operations of Black Rock City as a Maker City. </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">T</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">he Piazza is to
feature </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">enclosures accommodating
</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">a variety of </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Guild Workshops selected by the Art Department in a
competitive grant program funded as part of the 2016 Honorarium Art Grant. The
call for grant proposals stated: “As part of the interactive experience around
the base of this year’s Man, we will invite self-styled ‘guilds’ of artists,
makers, tinkerers, and craftspeople to operate workshops for the delight and
edification of the citizens of Black Rock City.” While the call was open to a
variety of trades like leather-work, blacksmithing, brick-making, and weaving, potential
applicants where also free to propose “more modern trades updated for a Black
Rock City sensibility,” though with a preference for the use of “re-purposed
and up-cycled materials.” While the Art Department expressed their openness to “ethereal,
surreal, and absurdist guild activities and products,” the call for submissions
emphasized that the workshops are intended to enable participants exposure to
the physical act of production: to “make something.” Accordingly, they will be
able to “select a new skill to learn, tool to operate, material to play with,
contraption to design or some other hands-on learning experience—and perhaps
even to depart with the fruits of their labor to keep as a memento, or offer as
a gift to others” (Burning Man. 2016 Guild Workshops). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU2_dIoGnjTjzPPsKZSFpaTyoJ8VA7aOzN_x5-KONaL3K-BkxVhyphenhyphenIda6UHXtKw6gpV2ZxuhFmsqrz1bQlYWLfNLaVTyJdd-kd2J2SVnaBIwWGv4HD-fwkALHJqsk8mOfsbzb6D/s1600/Man+Base+and+Guild+Workshops+Layout%252C+2016.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhU2_dIoGnjTjzPPsKZSFpaTyoJ8VA7aOzN_x5-KONaL3K-BkxVhyphenhyphenIda6UHXtKw6gpV2ZxuhFmsqrz1bQlYWLfNLaVTyJdd-kd2J2SVnaBIwWGv4HD-fwkALHJqsk8mOfsbzb6D/s400/Man+Base+and+Guild+Workshops+Layout%252C+2016.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Man Base and Guild Workshops Layout, 2016</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Education Director and co-developer
of the annual art theme, Stuart Mangrum offers some background to the guild
concept. Around the time of the Renaissance, when art was indistinct from
craft, “the craft of art was acquired in a process common to all trades, by
apprenticeship to a master and years of toil in his workshop,” often funded by a
relatively small group of wealthy individuals. Before becoming masters themselves,
“Leonardo worked under Verrocchio, Michelangelo under Ghirlandaio, and Raphael
under Perugino.” In addition to carefully imitated technical skills, it is presumed
that these artists “picked up the business skills required to operate a
workshop and the social connections needed to secure commissions.” But as Mangrum
adds, the workshop system was stripped away by history, its disappearance beginning
at the time of the Renaissance, which saw the advent of the “star artist,”
exemplified by Raphael (</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Mangrum,
Feb 29, 2016).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">We’re a long way from a time when craft-making
and other professions were governed by guilds (or </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">Arti</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">), but the identification with guilds makes sense at Burning
Man, whose event-ecology has spawned social units like theme camps, art crews,
build teams and performance conclaves whose alliances are characterized, at
least in part, by a shared commitment to quality standards and rules of
operation associated with artistic professions and craft trades (e.g. fire art,
welding, art cars). Over thirty years, a host of event-tribes have virtually
risen from the dust, developing functions that have sometimes become
instrumental to the operation of Black Rock City. And some of these groups, like
Death Guild, or Bike Guild, are steeped in
this mode of association. Fashioning distinct rituals, discourse, insignia, working
with the Ten Principles, sometimes growing significantly in scale and
membership, these event-organisations facilitate the sharing of, and training
in, unique sets of skills across a variety of arts, as well as in organisational
and technical fields infused with creative sensibilities. </span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6ZHK3yvl6QHsQtC_zHmb1FytUyxiXBfMLEmU70-t9uVK7SsDZhOgRDXJ9H0Fsnf2Z89lNr5p8yNdjWh2Hdecib6Tq2764U4RLLGpJdWXFZI-Ejx2GT1w2I0ORMKpQ-siyqg13/s1600/Death+Guild.Thunderdome+by+Mulling+it+Over.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6ZHK3yvl6QHsQtC_zHmb1FytUyxiXBfMLEmU70-t9uVK7SsDZhOgRDXJ9H0Fsnf2Z89lNr5p8yNdjWh2Hdecib6Tq2764U4RLLGpJdWXFZI-Ejx2GT1w2I0ORMKpQ-siyqg13/s400/Death+Guild.Thunderdome+by+Mulling+it+Over.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Death Guild Thunderdome by Mulling it Over</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">Often behaving like
apprentices if not initiates, these burn-ed (think learn-ed) city makers may
apply their onplaya-skills in efforts to earn a livelihood in the “default world”
(including “working for the Man” officially as an employee of the Burning Man
Project, which has year-round staff and a HQ in San Francisco). It might not be
too much of a stretch to compare Black Rock City arts confraternities with the
social and religious functions historically associated with guilds, such as “organizing
celebrations on feast days, sponsoring lay brotherhoods, and providing charitable
support to the widows and families of their members” (<a href="http://italianrenaissanceresources.com/units/unit-3/essays/guilds-arti/" target="_blank">Italian Renaissance Learning Resources</a>). </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">Burning Man inspires in its citizens a commitment towards do-ing, whether
assisting in preparing a meal at camp, volunteering with the Playa Restoration
Team, or joining an art project, this collaborative sensibility tends to unite
participants in a greater purpose: making a city, and (as I will get to in a future blogged essay) unmaking a city too. Given this background, is it any wonder
that Burners took to the 2016 Guild Workshop idea (at least in its submission
phase)?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">Manipulating mediums, “from molten
glass to liquid steel, smelted aluminum to copper metal, sunlight to sound,” </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">a total of 32 submissions were <a href="http://burningman.org/event/brc/2016-art-installations/?yyyy=&artType=P" target="_blank">awarded Guild Workshop status</a>, a
third associated with regional groups. Among these planned outfits are the Vapor Cannon Guild, the Commedia dell’Arte Morality Puppet Play, Rocky Mountain High Flyer's Guild, Renoardo’s Artisan Menagerie, Dragon Smelter Coin Press, and Polimerica sulla Playa. There will
also be several international regional projects, including Koulu on Fire (Finland), LOOP—Dream Machine Guild (Japan), The Renaissance of Musical Instruments (Lithuania),
and the Grand Elaborated Rule Masters
And No-holds-barrers from Berlin </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">(</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">Burning Man April 7,
2016).</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq4pRoBGQ5qongxLOQAxX8mqWCfhG-kwpcrp0nfSjQuXcmBZeV9uByFL0azruUpg-nFNgfzGQ3CzDA92SunoI6HTeeAt6bLcjDest5WpC1zOd4pgVRAKze4AH4RNk_i510mVQz/s1600/Rocky+Mountain+High+Flyers+Guild.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq4pRoBGQ5qongxLOQAxX8mqWCfhG-kwpcrp0nfSjQuXcmBZeV9uByFL0azruUpg-nFNgfzGQ3CzDA92SunoI6HTeeAt6bLcjDest5WpC1zOd4pgVRAKze4AH4RNk_i510mVQz/s320/Rocky+Mountain+High+Flyers+Guild.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><a href="https://artworkbyedvandyne.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Rocky Mountain High Flyers Guild</a> </span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">Burners strolling the piazza will be
encouraged to engage with artists associated with these embodiments of the
artist collective that is endogenous to Burning Man. The Piazza </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 36pt;">will, then, showcase a defining virtue of Burning Man art, which,
as Mangrum observed, is its “collaborative and inclusive nature, offering
would-be artists the chance to learn by doing in a group environment” (Mangrum Feb
29, 2016). The Piazza and its Workshops are then conceived to parade the
culture of co-creativity that has quite literally sprung to life, at the
festival, in the city, and through the movement flourishing in the shadow of
the Man. Like an AI model that has grown self-aware, the theme appears to mark
a new level of self-consciousness in the history of the event. “From our
earliest days in the desert, we have fostered a culture that values doing over
being, creation over acquisition, and the innovative application of new tools
and technologies to the unique challenges arising from the building and
rebuilding of cities” (Burning Man, Jan 25, 2016). In design at least, it is
configured to demonstrate that artistic excellence can be facilitated through a
unique mechanism involving competitive grants and curatorial programs, studio/workshop
collectivism, and civic engagement—a mechanism that counters the institution of
Art embodied in commercial art galleries, art schools and taste makers who, as
Mangrum reminds us, have served the demand for art products since the<b> </b>industrial revolution.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">While this effort is stated to effectively “pull
together artist, organizer, and maker resources to fashion an updated version
of the guild network that was a signature feature of Florentine economic and
creative life” (Burning Man Jan 25 2016), the piazza will be the scene of
something more. Placed at the centre of the 2016 event, in the shadow of the
Man, the Guild Workshops are set to celebrate the collaborative makers at the
heart of the Burning Man movement. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh31F4juS4-foD50R2h-lUjGlh4C_x8zWbjEPYe7zLAJbJEHtpTySi3yepzOMZ4rn4_M8wzPLkpgkXrcS-SnMy2nqMy2cQxJTLnmhCbgdtx1fAaRyoNmsgbyMcVtzAoTTLpiUk4/s1600/Mechan+9.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh31F4juS4-foD50R2h-lUjGlh4C_x8zWbjEPYe7zLAJbJEHtpTySi3yepzOMZ4rn4_M8wzPLkpgkXrcS-SnMy2nqMy2cQxJTLnmhCbgdtx1fAaRyoNmsgbyMcVtzAoTTLpiUk4/s320/Mechan+9.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mechan 9. A 2016 Art Installation (Tyler Fuqua)</td></tr>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Matronage<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">Among the commentaries endorsed
by The Philosophical Center are a series of articles on art, gender and the
Renaissance written by Felicity Graham, the implications of which add further
spice to the theme. For while the patronage system at the time of the
Renaissance may have afforded new opportunities for artists, women were
systematically excluded from the arts, an oppressive circumstance associated
with a “resurgence of Classical philosophy and renewed admiration for Greek and
Roman culture” which afforded “new opportunities to confirm and enforce the
perceived inherent intellectual, physical and moral inferiority of the female
sex”</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;"> (Graham March 24,
2016). </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">Unworthy and impure, women could not naturally achieve <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">virtuoso</i> status, which was strictly
reserved for males, who alone were exponents of the “fine arts,” with weaving,
embroidery and other female-centric textile “crafts” devalued as lesser arts. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As Graham writes, “the same social and
economic systems that promoted the system of patronage simultaneously deceased
access to both economic systems and the arts for women” (</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 150%;">Graham March 23, 2016).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">While today we generally regard
a patron as </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">someone who commissions art,
the meaning is traditionally far more restrictive. Deriving from <i>pater</i> (Latin
for father), <i>patron</i> was variously used
to designate “protector, father, defender, a lord or master or leader and ‘one
who advances a cause.’” A patron assumed a role of leadership and protection. While
women of the Renaissance were excluded from exercising such roles, they had a
greater role as artists in the period than is widely recognised. And they became
involved, furthermore, in nurturing the arts, and thus, in <i>matronage</i>, which “reflects the type of care and leadership that
a <i>woman</i>, in her social role and experience, can provide” (Graham
March 25, 2016). Expanding on this view, Caveat indicated that matronage does
not simply involve the commissioning of art, but adopts the process of art
commissioning to "establish and deepen relationships, build systems that
encourage the future development of art, and establish the legitimacy of the
artists as a class.” Further to that, he believes this process was evident “at
the heart of the greatest patronage,” with the perfect example being Medici’s adoption
of the young Michelangelo. “It led to commissions, but was not a relationship
based on money.” In this light, “perhaps
it is in fact matronage, rather than patronage,” he posits, that we're looking to foster, "that far from simply adjusting the flow of
money, we want to establish and strengthen relationships between artists, their
communities, and funding sources” (C. Magister March 31, 2016). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">In
opposition to an arts culture where museums and elite art schools and galleries
oversee the separation of art from life, Da Vinci’s Workshop is imagined as a vehicle
through which Burning Man is seeking to connect artists to their own
communities, and the wider culture. The commitment to what Harvey has called a
“</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">virtuous circle,” as
opposed to a “vicious cycle,” can “generate more art for our community, more
revenue for artists, and more ways for people to establish relationships with
art and artists” </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">(C. Magister, May 4, 2016). As a result of
community feedback, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">The
Philosophical Center is now championing </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">Fundiversify as a possible
benchmark in this development. </span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdACAWND2fT-awu5-Y-zuOEM-KvAyPw45znDiSO_Il3cgakdV8z154nZh99SXwUooWlhUhPDDBUPmxu7OQ_n8rvSacSOKUmmmKAFDWuhc3kQta_6DPqKwa1_c66kJ71SMPkbwM/s1600/Timeless.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdACAWND2fT-awu5-Y-zuOEM-KvAyPw45znDiSO_Il3cgakdV8z154nZh99SXwUooWlhUhPDDBUPmxu7OQ_n8rvSacSOKUmmmKAFDWuhc3kQta_6DPqKwa1_c66kJ71SMPkbwM/s320/Timeless.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; line-height: 20px; text-indent: 37.7953px;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Timeless (Mathew Welter)</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">Fundiversify is the brainchild of Timeless (Mathew
Welter),<b> </b>an experienced chainsaw
sculptor in receipt of a 2016 honorarium. The logic of Fundiversify is that,
according to Caveat, “the more a piece of art is seen and engaged with by our
community—at Burning Man, at Regionals, and at community and public events—the
greater its likely sale value.” As a patron sponsors the creation of an art
piece under the proviso that it will remain in the artist’s care for an agreed
duration—perhaps even years—to be used at community and public events, after
which time the piece can be turned over to the patron or sold, the sponsored
work becomes a community asset invested in by patrons to their own benefit and
that of the artist. Here is the</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;"> “virtuous cycle” at work: “The value that initially attracts the
investor/patron is produced by our culture and its community, and the act of
supporting our culture and community creates other kinds of value—relationships
that can be formed, connections that an be made, and perhaps even (eventually)
the commissioning of art for the community’s sake rather than just as an
investment” (</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">C. Magister, May 4, 2016).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">The appraisal
of Burning Man arts, and artists, beyond the Playa is now illuminated in monumental
works at home and abroad. Perhaps this doesn’t get more literal than the $8
million LED display The Bay Lights, designed by Disorient founder and Burning
Man Board member Leo Villareal, in which 25,000 algorithmically-controlled LEDs
have illuminated San Francisco’s Bay Bridge since 2013 (see Slenske 2014). This
feat could not have been achieved without earlier successes established in places
like the walkway between the east and west buildings of the National Gallery of
Art in Washington DC (where Villareal’s 200 foot LED masterpiece “Multiverse”
resides) and without Burning Man being a vital platform for his experimental LED
projects since the 1990s. As for the extra-playa and inter-civic career of Black
Rock City sculpture, there are numerous examples, like Marco Cochrane’s Truth
is Beauty that is to grace San Leandro, or Laura Kimpton and Jeff Schomberg’s exclamational
“BELIEVE” stamped on the Reno Plaza. Although, most outstanding is The Temple,
founded by David Best, which has had a storied career within (Pike 2012; Edwards
2014) and beyond (Ferrari 2015) Burning Man. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">Some of this art has been commissioned
through Burning Man honoraria, most of it privately funded. In April 2006, I met
Carey Thompson at Soulclipse, a total solar eclipse festival near Antalya, Turkey,
where he was showcasing a segment of the </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">DiMethyl
Temple, a </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">structure first installed at Burning Man in 2005 (where it was
co-designed by Rob Newell, with assistance from Victor Olenev and Xavi). </span></span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvApGXc2ApB4Jx0uT4JwNhh0Mk-HuZpCDo4OVbRl4FPnbmyYIXT49ZULqXEHg3U3aVY2-dianbORNOh9GvQCwTS2GjD4o7O2EgxPM9AILReJQSbYODAJqyb_ANUY4miCkJp6bW/s1600/dm+temple+bm+2005.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvApGXc2ApB4Jx0uT4JwNhh0Mk-HuZpCDo4OVbRl4FPnbmyYIXT49ZULqXEHg3U3aVY2-dianbORNOh9GvQCwTS2GjD4o7O2EgxPM9AILReJQSbYODAJqyb_ANUY4miCkJp6bW/s400/dm+temple+bm+2005.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">DiMethyl Temple, Carey Thompson, Burning Man 2005</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">This </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%; text-indent: 1cm;">white façade with doorway often
opening to a gallery displaying the work of visionary artists was hauled to
other European festivals in 2006. I saw it in the UK at Sunrise Celebration and
The Glade, and then Portugal’s Boom Festival, where it became the gateway to
the Inner Visions Gallery, a spectacular gallery-emporium for visionary art
that was a component of that event’s Liminal Village. Thompson was subsequently appointed Art Director at Boom, a position enabling the influx
of other artists (e.g. Michael Christian and Shrine) and collectives of artists
like Do-Lab, who’ve made their mark and cut their teeth at Burning Man, now
contracted by Boom. Similar stories might be told about the circulation of
Black Rock City works at other festivals, and indeed how arts of the Playa travel—and
presumably accrue value—through a network of “transformational festivals” in
North America and worldwide. Something of a precursor exists in the strategy of
the [freespace] movement who are effectively value adding to properties and
incentivizing landlords.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">A
formal structure, like Fundiversify, could leverage the valuation that some
artists have been able to take advantage of due to the providence—or </span><i style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">playadence</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; line-height: 150%;">—of their work. So even while there
is a call for expanding the annual migration to Black Rock City into “a national
parade of sculptures and art installations stopping in communities everywhere,”
a circumstance that would create “new connections between artists and venues,
and provide significantly increased opportunities for artists to display their
work, build followings, and in some cases receive payment” (C. Magister, May
23, 2016), such may concretise what has been transpiring informally for years,
across artistic media. For critics, this process incites inquiry—how big can a large oceangoing fish grow before being vertically unclearable? For some, the market estimation of Burner
art off-playa is a cause for concern, since this contravenes values loosely forged
into event principles, like Immediacy, Gifting and Decommodification. While
these are principles native to an event evolving in the desert, how well do
they translate in the world beyond the trash fence? Such is the terrain of the “great
taboo” of which Caveat spoke—the inseparability of money and creativity, which
has long been a conceptual no-mans land. Today, trespassing across this uneven terrain
tests the limits of principles said to have derived organically from three
decades of event making. But it seems that one can only know these limits by dwelling
in the lee of their confluence, by playing in the shadows of the Man, and perhaps
by forging new works from inherited casts and principal moulds. The outcomes of
these proposed efforts, the collision of values, the shattering of taboos, are
naturally not yet known. Will this drama precipitate the demise or mutation of
Burning Man? Will new principles be minted to reflect new valuations? Will
Turning Man be the pivot upon which Burning Man comes of age?</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiy6HXLNQ96LOHChbXP3wHm6LZ1fT7AZIOMT8DQ5Fecs4vieMS84hRGbvO9qbBv9JikH5BTEMeI1tyOVG3-NaaiUVPVliOVvLk74UTm-Yp8JgRFZAuIWVf3oPIwSgTPRNVFJnH/s1600/Space+Whale+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiy6HXLNQ96LOHChbXP3wHm6LZ1fT7AZIOMT8DQ5Fecs4vieMS84hRGbvO9qbBv9JikH5BTEMeI1tyOVG3-NaaiUVPVliOVvLk74UTm-Yp8JgRFZAuIWVf3oPIwSgTPRNVFJnH/s400/Space+Whale+1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.thespacewhale.com/" target="_blank">Space Whale</a>, a 2016 Art Installation <span style="font-size: 12.8px;">(The Pier Group with Matthew Schultz, Android Jones and Andy Tibbetts)</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> </span></td><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"><br /></span></td></tr>
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<b style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">References</b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Gill Sans";">Bilton, Nick. </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">“A Line Is Drawn in the Desert: </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">At Burning Man, the Tech Elite One-Up One Another.”
Aug 20, 2014, </span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/fashion/at-burning-man-the-tech-elite-one-up-one-another.html?ref=fashion&_r=2"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/21/fashion/at-burning-man-the-tech-elite-one-up-one-another.html?ref=fashion&_r=2</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">burnersxxx.
“What Dreams May Come—Part II: The Introduction.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Burners.me,</i> Aug 29, 2014.: </span><a href="https://burners.me/2014/08/29/what-dreams-may-come-part-ii-the-introduction/"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">https://burners.me/2014/08/29/what-dreams-may-come-part-ii-the-introduction/</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><span style="font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Burning Man. “Turnkey / Plug and Play Camping in
BRC.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Burning Man Journal</i>, Dec 3,
2014. <a href="http://journal.burningman.org/2014/12/news/brc-news/turnkey-plug-and-play-camping-in-brc/">http://journal.burningman.org/2014/12/news/brc-news/turnkey-plug-and-play-camping-in-brc/</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Burning
Man. “Burning Man 2016: Da Vinci's Workshop.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Burning Man Journal</i>, Oct 27, 2015.
<a href="http://journal.burningman.org/2015/10/burning-man-arts/brc-art/burning-man-2016-da-vincis-workshop/">http://journal.burningman.org/2015/10/burning-man-arts/brc-art/burning-man-2016-da-vincis-workshop/</a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Burning Man. “2016 Guild
Workshops. Information for Grant Proposals” <a href="http://burningman.org/event/brc/2016-guild-workshops-request-for-proposals/">http://burningman.org/event/brc/2016-guild-workshops-request-for-proposals/</a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Burning Man. “Da Vinci’s
Workshop: The Piazza,” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Burning Man
Journal</i>, January 25, 2016.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><a href="http://journal.burningman.org/2016/01/burning-man-arts/brc-art/da-vincis-workshop-the-piazza/">http://journal.burningman.org/2016/01/burning-man-arts/brc-art/da-vincis-workshop-the-piazza/<o:p></o:p></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">Burning Man. “Introducing the Guild Workshops and the Piazza
Around the Man.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Burning Man Journal</i>,
April 7, 2016. </span><a href="http://journal.burningman.org/2016/04/burning-man-arts/brc-art/introducing-the-guild-workshops-and-the-piazza-around-the-man/"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">http://journal.burningman.org/2016/04/burning-man-arts/brc-art/introducing-the-guild-workshops-and-the-piazza-around-the-man/</span></a><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Carey, Paul. Comment in “Equality, Inequity, Iniquity: Concierge
Culture.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Burning Man Journal</i>, Dec 4,
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">Caveat
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">Caveat Magister. </span>“What Have We Learned So Far About Art, Money, and the Renaissance?”
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Caveat Magister. “Art Gets
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">Caveat Magister, Larry Harvey and Stuart Mangrum. 2016. “Burning
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<span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Chase,
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Edwards, Ted. “Torching
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Ferrari, Lucia. “A Burning
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<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Gauthier, François.<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> “</span>The Enchantments of Consumer Capitalism:
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Gillette, Felix. “The
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Graham, Felicity. “Art,
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Graham, Felicity. “Art,
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Graham, Felicity. “Art,
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Harvey, Larry. “Commerce
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">Harvey, Larry. “Equality, Inequity, Iniquity: Concierge Culture.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Burning Man Journal</i>, Dec 3, 2014. </span><a href="http://journal.burningman.org/2014/12/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/equality-inequity-iniquity-concierge-culture/"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;">http://journal.burningman.org/2014/12/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/equality-inequity-iniquity-concierge-culture/</span></a><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-61951592763745293432016-05-24T21:57:00.000+02:002016-06-25T17:48:45.617+02:00Meet Your Maker: Burning Man, Maker Culture & Culture Making<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuLQzL0gWfbuZl38edqylQIwXEmh3zz4TKNdJTZNR2Ft2xplviuPgTwUrvijbDiNKTheAveJN7Y0KdHxokQqqRlByshW859WJKOA6FdmwC-6nzxN2L9e99DQouEtwOHvXE1E41/s1600/center+camp+2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuLQzL0gWfbuZl38edqylQIwXEmh3zz4TKNdJTZNR2Ft2xplviuPgTwUrvijbDiNKTheAveJN7Y0KdHxokQqqRlByshW859WJKOA6FdmwC-6nzxN2L9e99DQouEtwOHvXE1E41/s400/center+camp+2013.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<h4>
<span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Burning Man is a rich source of meaning for gnostic cowboys, code hackers
and gossip columnists cavalcading annually into Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. E</span><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">xtracting truth, bearing witness, feeling the burn, intention is multitudinous.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> For culture warriors, dissertation defenders and </span></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; font-weight: normal; text-indent: 48px;">global event marketers </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">among the event’s 70,000+ participants, the desire to make Burning
Man transparent generates outcomes that exist on a spectrum between the
brazenly absurd and the genuinely astute. But there is something about this
hermeneutical Eldorado that renders it opaque to the outsider, and perhaps in a
way not unlike the </span></span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;">aporrheta</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;">—the unrepeatables—to
the uninitiated in the Rites of Eleusis in ancient Greece (a circumstance
compounded when commentators have not themselves drunk the </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;">kykeon</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: normal;">). Despite a torrent of media and an accumulation
of hyperbole, Burning Man continues to defy explanation.</span></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10pt;">It may have been a magnetic field for
hubris from the moment an eight-foot effigy was raised and incinerated on Baker
Beach, San Francisco, on summer solstice 1986. While opinion makers, hypothesis
builders and a surfeit of unicorns have been drawn to the event like s</span><span style="font-size: 13.3333px;">aturnids</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> to
a flame over thirty years, their numbers growing dramatically following its
transition to Nevada in 1990, the commitment to capture, codify and classify
Burning Man is lampooned by long-time participants, including those who once
developed the Burning Man “Phrase Generator” (a</span></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">s published in an edition of the first newspaper at Burning Man,</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><a href="http://z9hbb3mwou383x1930ve0ugl.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/brg99_sunday.pdf" style="text-indent: 36pt;" target="_blank"><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 0px;">The</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 0px;"> </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 0px;">Black Rock Gazette</i></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><a href="http://z9hbb3mwou383x1930ve0ugl.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/brg99_sunday.pdf" target="_blank">, vol 8, Sep 5, 1999</a>). </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">“Pyro cultural lifestyle revolution.” “Retro tribal dada orgy.” “Trans bohemian
renegade rampage.” The manifold combination-signifiers</span><span style="font-size: 13.3333px; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">—ostensibly 160k—</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">randomly cranked out from
this device satirise commentators entertaining the conceit that they
might be in possession of the real meaning behind Burning Man.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">At the same time, the Phrase
Generator makes implicit reference to a trade secret: that the organisation
behind Burning Man does not supply the event, nor any of its signature
rituals—notably the fiery destruction of its centrally positioned effigy called
“the Man”—with official explanation. Ironically, the city that never sleeps has
long objected to making a spectacle of itself, even though it has magnified
into one of the greatest shows on earth. In an event whose public is compelled
to gloss its signature rites with their own myth, </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">you are the spectacle</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">. Burning Man is like a neon cathedral to the
self called </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">MEET YOUR MAKER</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> where,
upon entry, one encounters a giant mirror framed in stage lights. But this
phenomenon annually installed in the deep desert 110 miles north of Reno is
more than the annual destruction of an effigy, a rite over which one holds
heuristic right-of-way. These days, it has sired an organisation—the Burning
Man Project—that quite intentionally propagates </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">culture</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">: a principled product that animates dozens of regional events
worldwide. Squinting in the glare of this global efflorescence, I submit my own
desire for clarity, as absurd or perhaps even futile as that may be. In that
quest, I’ll generate a few not-so-random phrases of my own.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">It’s a distinct challenge, compounded
by the fact that, almost thirty years from its inception, Burning Man can be
identified as a seasonal festival, a temporary city, and a global movement. As
disparate as these characteristics are, a common thread emerges: Burning Man is
a culture of collaborative design: an event, a city and a movement </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">made</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">—in Burner parlance, </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">co-created</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">—by its participants. This is
indeed a theme cultivated in recent years by the Burning Man Project, actively
aligning with the </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">maker movement</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, a
crafted alliance that might be as close to authorised definition as you’ll get.
In the blog posts to come, I will discuss that alliance, drawing attention to
two interrelated themes. The first is the intimate though complex relationship
between commerce and creativity at Burning Man. By 2016, this dusty skeleton
had emerged from its deep desert closet to take centre stage—and, moreover, the
“public square.” The second is the way Burning Man is both </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">made </i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">and</span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> unmade</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> by its
denizens, a worthy elaboration that draws attention to this event-culture’s
distinct make.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<h4>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Make it Here</span></span></b></h4>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">Stroking a jumper-clad lap-terrier, </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">go-to-market strategist Cheryl Edison </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">speculates on
Burning Man’s growing stature as the epicentre of “maker capitalism.” </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">Edison is founder of <a href="http://thegate510.com/" target="_blank">The Gate,</a></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">a 24-acre property in </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">San Leandro</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;"> that merges Walmart and other ground floor retail outlets
with a second floor art, tech, and maker community.</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;"> A global
brand expert </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">who helped build the identities of
Continental Airlines, Calvin Klein and Revlon, who, according to her website, “thrives
to create materials that can stand alone and silently sell,” and who at
the height of the Tech boom, was instrumental in raising over US$53 million in
venture capital, Edison now endorses the branding of Black Rock City as a
Maker City.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Edison is exemplary among those
entrepreneurs in the Burner community who’ve achieved success, and are helping
others to make it too—via “maker spaces.” After all, “Make It Here” is The
Gate’s well-crafted slogan. Espousing “backdoor philanthropy,” and ill-at-ease
with the limiting notion of Decommodification (among Burning Man’s Ten
Principles), Edison addresses those drawn to a workshop called “</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Making Maker Spaces and the Future” held in the Ballroom
on the 11th Floor of the Marines Memorial Club, </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">San Francisco. Coming over
like a <s>persian</s> terrier-stroking head of SPECTRE meets makerspace matron,
the confident discourse on risk, sacrifice and enterprise might have struck a
chord with those (</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">i.e. the US Marines) </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">whose</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> actions are memorialised in the setting for this
breakout session, among dozens over the four days of the </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">10<sup>th</sup>
annual Burning Man Global Leadership Conference (GLC) </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">in March/April 2016.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHgH_Fp7maUf3qJE0alKnDsYh6Vu8IISuhQnnnALCIm9i6tL6zVvt_HUWAZTA4m4I4VdqX4ZqOm2VixxPEyGP8VrW2eqiIbKg8cNe6aPweI_xQsDiG7NwZdNDFOPAvV1c766na/s1600/Global+Leadership+Conference+2016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHgH_Fp7maUf3qJE0alKnDsYh6Vu8IISuhQnnnALCIm9i6tL6zVvt_HUWAZTA4m4I4VdqX4ZqOm2VixxPEyGP8VrW2eqiIbKg8cNe6aPweI_xQsDiG7NwZdNDFOPAvV1c766na/s640/Global+Leadership+Conference+2016.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Global Leadership Conference, San Francisco 2016.<br />
<div style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">For a decade, the GLC has been
pivotal to the global mission of the Burning Man Project, which has quite
recently (i.e. between 2011–201</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">4) transited to a nonprofit public benefit organisation with 501(c)3
status. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">In <a href="http://blog.burningman.com/2014/03/news/burning-man-transitions-to-non-profit-organization/" target="_blank">January 2014</a>, co-founder Larry Harvey
announced that “after 24 years of tending our garden in the desert, we now have
the means to cultivate its culture worldwide.” More
recently, as<span style="color: black;"> reported in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/2016/apr/22/burning-man-ceo-marian-goodell-interview" target="_blank">The Guardian</a></i>, CEO Marian Goodell signalled formal processes the BMP
have implemented to create Burning Man “culture.” Through its international </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">network and via a series
of summits, leadership programs, through its communications department, </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">and in the GLC itself, the BMP is “giving
people the tools to produce the culture—not just at events, but in their wider
communities.” The <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">culture</i>
that is being cultivated here, and which is activated through these media,
boils down to a popular ethos that inheres in the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">“<a href="http://burningman.org/culture/philosophical-center/10-principles/" target="_blank">Ten Principles</a>.” Conveyed
in the form of aphorisms, these principles are the subject of sometimes heated
debate in the burnerverse, not least because they tend to represent disparate
and sometimes competing virtues, values and commitments.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqiGAXlyLTKqc6xmQ8y5GH0JAfSFuFXGFV_E7-SSjWTehpHT6Q4hrqdUoY7RzpyHkS5wfKWsWmdK2BRVbxDPQzFRLilnZfXuPD_qKRMKXDrxhHYnzmKEIQRZ-I0CyGsZn8r56H/s1600/Figure+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqiGAXlyLTKqc6xmQ8y5GH0JAfSFuFXGFV_E7-SSjWTehpHT6Q4hrqdUoY7RzpyHkS5wfKWsWmdK2BRVbxDPQzFRLilnZfXuPD_qKRMKXDrxhHYnzmKEIQRZ-I0CyGsZn8r56H/s320/Figure+1.jpg" width="174" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">The Ten Principles were born in 2004 to Harvey,
today identifying as the BMP’s Chief Philosophical
Officer. With a remit towards enabling the
“acculturation” of the principles, Harvey founded <a href="http://www.burningmanproject.org/programs#philosophical" target="_blank">The </a></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;"><a href="http://www.burningmanproject.org/programs#philosophical" target="_blank">Philosophical Center </a>in
2013, intended to “</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">serve as both the conscience and
collective memory of Burning Man.” </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">Interviewed in San Francisco after
the 2016 GLC, Harvey related that we live in a time when “single acts cast such
long shadows, and can form worlds that we don’t even imagine.” Ranging across
personal intellectual heroes like Aristotle, Locke, Pierce, and William James,
he stated that for most nonprofits philosophy is, at best, “a hood ornament,”
occasionally pulled out to “polish the optics.” By contrast, inquiry on the
principles, and debates on such axioms as freedom and liberty, autonomy and
governance, and lately, commerce and creativity, are reckoned integral to “the
project.” While the Philosophical Center “doesn’t have the power to lay down the law,” it
will have “the power within the Burning Man Project to mandate thought.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<a href="https://blog.burningman.com/2013/11/tenprinciples/introduction-the-philosophical-center" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;" target="_blank">Introducing the Ten Principles Blog Series </a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">in 2013, Harvey stated that the
BMP’s educational mission was to foment discourse interrogating the Ten
Principles, citing a guiding motto from William James: “belief is thought at
rest.” It was emphasised that the principles are not “commands or requests,” that
they “do not precede immediate experience.” The understanding that these principles
exist in “an ecosystem” is reckoned to counter tendencies to exalt single
principles by extending their logic absolutely. “Philosophy occurs when
principles collide, and we should allow these Principles to interpret and
interrogate one another. Our philosophy, in other words, is muscular—it depends
on the capacity of its assumptions to do work.” Playa-scribe Caveat Magister has flexed his grey matter to develop and move
these ideas, as explored in a series of posts at the </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Burning Man Journal</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">. Far from tenets in which believers must be
indoctrinated, as one studies scripture, these principles, </span><a href="http://blog.burningman.com/2012/04/tenprinciples/who-the-hell-are-burners-anyway/" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;" target="_blank">Caveat Magister writes</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, are closer
to aspirations. “They’re things we strive to be, and admire when we see in
others. They’re where we want to go . . . they’re our road map.” But the
map is not the territory—one cannot understand, share in, nor communicate, these
principles by means other than personally testing the waters off the ceaseless
shoreline of that desert of the real out past the Greeter Station. That this
experience directs and colours one’s life and actions back in the “default”
world upon return is elementary. “The idea that we’re united by our actions,
rather than our motives, ideals, or thoughts, means that when we try to
communicate Burning Man to the rest of the world, we do it by doing.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">And, by making.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">You wouldn’t find 500 people anywhere
in the world better prepared to interrogate the Ten Principles, throughout the days, and deep into the
night, over absinthe verde. Teaming with radical empiricists, bare-foot
philosophers, marvellous makeratti, and the occasional self-made venture
capitalist, the GLC is a hive of the Burner faithful. The presence of Silicon
Valley brand strategists and maker-matrons here is not inconsistent with Harvey’s
courting of entrepreneurs, philanthropists and statesman in recent years. Nor
is it incompatible with the principle of Radical Self-Reliance<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">,</i> that valuation of a rugged form of
individualism and maverick self-sufficiency requisite for settling a remote
desert frontier—an experimental zone where the resourceful, the independent and
the enterprising have achieved notoriety, status and power. A paean to the
authority of the individual unfettered by state intervention, moral
guardianship and soul destroying bureaucracy, in Radical Self-Reliance we find </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">an expression of the
Romantic realisation that the “truth” lies within, a sensibility integral to
the American Transcendentalists, namely nonconformists like Ralph Waldo Emerson
whose influential 1841 essay “<a href="http://www.emersoncentral.com/selfreliance.htm" target="_blank">Self-Reliance</a>” exhorted readers to have faith in
their selves, to trust their inner genius, that medium of divine inspiration to
which all are purported to have access. Fuelling an inner gold rush charged to
mine human potential and influencing the self-help movement and “mindfulness”
industry in which the corporate world has vested since the 1980s to inspire
innovation, drive competition and maximise profit, self-reliance is a virtue
recognisably radical in the myth of neoliberalism.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">A principal actor in that story is of course the
sovereign individual whose material possessiveness and self-expressiveness
appear to be enacted from the same script. The conflation of competitive and
expressive individualism may be a point of contention for critics railing
against another aphorism written in the dust—Radical Self-Expression—often
purported to be among the pillars supporting the </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">gentrification of the burnerverse. In “Why the Rich Love Burning Man,”
an article featured in socialist left magazine <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/08/burning-man-one-percent-silicon-valley-tech/" target="_blank">Jacobin</a></i> published on the heals of the recent
“sherpagate” crisis (to be discussed in a future blog), Radical Self-Expression
is considered a means by which radical libertarians have ruined the utopian
party. “The idea of radical self-expression is, at least under the constraints
of capitalism, a right-wing, Randian ideal, and could easily be the core motto
of any of the large social media companies in Silicon Valley.” Accordingly,
under this unruly principle, “technocratic scions” now mold Burning Man to
their libertarian ends. Indeed, the view that Burners are no longer
participants (in any democratic, or even meritocratic, sense), but are now
reliant on the charitable whims of wealthy elites, attempts to gain merit from
the fact that Silicon Valley heavyweights have long called the Playa “home.”</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Such critics may have been informed by reading
the </span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">“Californian Ideology,” the term adopted in an
influential albeit simplistic, caricatured, and now dated essay by Barbrook and
Cameron (first published in 1995, and recently republished by the Institute for Network Cultures </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">in<a href="http://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/no-10-the-internet-revolution-from-dot-com-capitalism-to-cybernetic-communism-by-richard-barbrook-with-andy-cameron/" target="_blank"> </a></span></span></span></span><i style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://networkcultures.org/blog/publication/no-10-the-internet-revolution-from-dot-com-capitalism-to-cybernetic-communism-by-richard-barbrook-with-andy-cameron/" target="_blank">The Internet Revolution: From Dot Com Capitalism to Cybernetic Communism</a></span></i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="color: black;">). It is certainly not difficult to see </span>the
principles in question living large within that <span style="color: black;">pre-millennial
faith in the emancipatory potential of new information technologies to
facilitate a “digital utopia” in which everyone was to be “hip and rich.” A
frontier retreat for Silicon Valley imagineers, design cowboys and code
warriors working and playing in fields that “promiscuously combine the free-wheeling
spirit of the hippies and the entrepreneurial zeal of the yuppies,” is Burning Man a late Summer Camp for the unwitting
exponents of the Californian Ideology? Given leaders from Google, Twitter,
Facebook, Uber, among other outfits, have disassembled on the Playa, at least
since Burning Man was boosted in <a href="http://www.wired.com/1996/11/burningman-2/" target="_blank">Bruce Sterling’s Aug 29, 1996 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Wired</i> cover story </a>as “The New American Holiday,” perhaps there’s
some truth to this. And yet, while commentators might </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">imagine Burning Man a “<a href="http://www.sfgate.com/style/article/Burning-Man-becomes-a-hot-spot-for-tech-titans-4756482.php" target="_blank">business bacchanalia</a>”—i.e. a
networking utopia for tech industry moguls—those within the
industry, like <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2015/09/07/obligatory-burning-man-think-piece/" target="_blank">Jon Evans in <i>TechCrunch</i></a>, respond that it’s not the tech “industry” that attends Burning Man,
but the tech “community.” </span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-indent: 36pt;"><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Silicon Valley has had a close
connection to the event since its inception, explains appraiser <a href="http://mashable.com/2014/08/22/burning-man-2014/#ESpaV9goj5qQ" target="_blank">Chris Taylor in <i>Mashable</i></a>, “because
the tech industry tends to hire the same kind of smart, active, collaborative
freethinkers drawn to the challenges of creating something unique on the blank,
bleak desert canvas.” </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">It
could be illustrated that this temporary community—that relies partly on what
Burners call Communal Effort, the<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>valuation
of “creative cooperation and collaboration”—has had a shaping influence on the
industry. Indeed, indicating how a</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"> “living model of
commons-based peer production” at Burning Man impacted the Bay Area's tech community,
specifically Google, </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">this approximated
the view of sociologist Fred Turner in his 2009 article </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; text-indent: 36pt;">“<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237526399_Burning_Man_at_Google_A_Cultural_Infrastructure_for_New_Media_Production" target="_blank">Burning Man at Google:</a> A Cultural Infrastructure for New Media Production.”</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">An </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif;">eventculture</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> like Burning Man might be
recognised somewhere downstream from developments outlined in Turner’s earlier book </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">From Counterculture to Cyberculture,</span></i></span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"> </span></i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">which
documented the </span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Whole Earth network’s repurposing of information technologies </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">to communitarian ends. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Hacking existing design, the builders of geodesic domes,
the engineers of the multi-media Acid Tests, and the early technicians of the
People’s Computer Company were alike feeding on the advances of the U.S.
“military-academic-industrial triangle,” and retooling technologies in the establishment
of a better world. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">If Bucky Fuller was alive today, it does not seem unreasonable to assume he would be invited to lead a workshop at the GLC. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG_RFrtbz8_5Z5nY2xKFraPg9Z94PH4QvbUvLVgCSL1v2WQeYZIwIr8p_7JRoBksj7XqTjSSmQea_CaXKJ5TPQXmNj9WmE2NcOaQl_g60RPFsAvPKfL-7Ia9AUaZ8Xvvo2AMO0/s1600/Burning-Man-festival_maps_1992.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG_RFrtbz8_5Z5nY2xKFraPg9Z94PH4QvbUvLVgCSL1v2WQeYZIwIr8p_7JRoBksj7XqTjSSmQea_CaXKJ5TPQXmNj9WmE2NcOaQl_g60RPFsAvPKfL-7Ia9AUaZ8Xvvo2AMO0/s320/Burning-Man-festival_maps_1992.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">As maker culture heroes, Fuller and Brand are integral to the backstory of a design intensive movement whose chief objective
is the construction (and reconstruction) of a temporary city in the wilderness.
The story of Burning Man, at least as narrated by Harvey in his “</span><a href="http://journal.burningman.org/2013/11/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/how-the-west-was-won-anarchy-vs-civic-responsibility" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;" target="_blank">How the West Was Won</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">,” is a legend of civilisation evolving from a neo-anarchist outland.
While original Burners sought freedoms from deprecations of the state, media
and morality (a veritable TAZ), as Harvey recalls, “slowly, step-by-step,
circumstances drove us to invent a government.” The story recounts the fate of
new pioneers settling the high frontier. Throughout the 1990s, “our settlement
began to leapfrog outward, forming a dispersed archipelago of separate
campsites—a sort of gold rush in pursuit of individual autonomy.” But if it was
to survive, and thrive, this rogue outpost of drive-by gunslingers needed rules,
roles, and roads; it required borders, official communications channels, urban planning and risk management
strategies; order in the place of chaos. Coping with
existential challenge upon challenge, Harvey surmises, “we kind of reinvented
step by empirical step the idea of civilization.” Ironically, as he said to me, while many
anarchists “went out and said ‘we’re gonna be free of all rules and laws,’ it
turned out that from the very beginning, instinctively, they needed order.” Without intention, and by necessity, beginning with the Black Rock Rangers, “we’d
stumbled onto the principle of Civic Responsibility.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Literally rising from the dust, the
story of Black Rock City appears to offer an elaboration on the American
Frontier myth, as elucidated by </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Frederick Jackson <span style="color: black;">Turner,
in which the advancing “fall line” of the great movement West gave shape to the
American character. This is the thesis of Ronnie Diehl, who, in an 2010 MA “<a href="http://www.grin.com/en/e-book/156660/burning-man-the-american-frontier-revisited-in-acoustic-space" target="_blank">The American Frontier in Acoustic Space</a>” has argued
that, as a saga of survival on the “final frontier,” where civic institutions
have been established in the place of unlimited freedoms and Wild West
outlawry, and where a sense of identity is born from the repeated effort to
strike camp and build community in a hostile physical environment, Black Rock
City extends </span>the frontier.<span style="color: black;"> It is even</span>
suggested that conflicts played-out in the history of Black Rock City,
exhibited in the dispute between Cacophony Society co-founder John Law (anarchic)
and Harvey (civilising)—as, for instance, </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">portrayed in the documentary film <i>Spark: A
Burning Man Story—</i></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">echoes donnybrooks that broke out between disparate frontiersmen identified
by Turner. Quite a provocative interpretation, but for me there is
a primary inquiry arising from this analysis. If Black Rock City is a remote
outpost in the long road from Europe, how are we now to make sense of the
circumstance in which Europe is among the strongest growing regions in Burning
Man’s transnational proliferation?</span></div>
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<h4 style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<b style="font-size: 12.8px; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: small;">Civic Hacking</span></span></b></h4>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I’ve so far mentioned three of the operating ten principles, but
the point I want to make is that if Burning Man is a Maker City, the resources
in the philosophical toolbox available to its citizens are quite diverse. And
yet, critics, holding to utopian, situationist, anarchist, autonomist and other
sensibilities rail against the BMP’s business relationships, media practices
and the implementation of more and more rules. Rancour runs deep, traced to at
least 1996, the year of the first formal art theme, Helco, an adaptation of Dante’s
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Inferno</i>, in which the supra-national
conglomerate Helco attempted to acquire Black Rock City. As Harvey explains the
theme “substituted corporate-induced consumerism for metaphysical evil.” </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This is Burning Man: The Rise of a New American Underground, </i>Brian
Doherty recalled how Helco “touched on anxieties that were real for those who
made Burning Man happen, both in the organisation and in the crowd; the
corruption and the selling out of their experience, their community, their
reality, to large, sinister, forces.” </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Now, while
Satan was denied (and reduced to cinders) in that now-legendary pageant, some
argue that “the Borg” would come to </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">embody
what was allegorised in the theme. It is curious that Harvey recognises that throughout
the ages, “Hell has been a place of banishment. Whatever we wish to cast out of
our world or out of ourselves is here destined to reappear and confront us.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Defenders of the Burning Man Project
observe that antagonists tend to under-appreciate, disregard, even deny, the
real world circumstances with which the organisation must transact, negotiate
and comply in order for Black Rock City (and any of its satellite events) to continue
operating at all. Workshops at the GLC precisely revealed this organisational
imperative, with sessions involving, for example, safety and risk management,
liaising with law enforcement, media relations protocols, volunteer management
tools and regional contact training. Breakout sessions had titles like "Wresting
With the Government: How to Come Out on Top with a Permit,” “Bookkeeping, Money
Management and Financial Transparency,” and “How to Deal with Growth and
Scaling without Losing your Sanity.” While there were a range of workshops
specifically on maker projects, taking in the panorama it became more than
apparent that Burning Man and the cultural movement it has spawned is itself a
vast maker project.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">The neo-maker and civic hacker
movements are primary vehicles by which Burning Man is propagating its identity
in the world. In the lead up to the National Week of Making (June 17–23, 2016),
Jenn Sander, who works on “</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Global Initiatives”
for the Burning Man Project, <a href="https://medium.com/a-nation-of-makers/maker-metropolis-bf1462205d95#.50rkpnoy4" target="_blank">wrote an article</a> in which she placed the comments
of Harvey (explaining the 2016 art theme) alongside President Obama (in his
proclamation for the National Week of Making), noting that with great feats of
engineering and creative solutions to challenges, “America and Burning Man
alike encourage experimentation and reward risk.” Lest we draw too much from
this juxtaposition of civilisations, Burner-makers are identified as possessing
a unique form of citizenship shaped by Black Rock City’s thick braid of
principles. It is an association reported to elicit a distinct civic pride
mobilising Burners wherever they have travelled and networked—in recent years
cross-pollinating with makers and hackers in diverse ways, with the ripples caused
in the Black Rock Desert prompting those further and further afield to take
note. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">R</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">ecognising that “makers pursue projects to learn new skills, to
create an item with a story they are part of, and to share their creative
process with others,” corporate performance pundits from Deloitte’s Center for
the Edge, <a href="https://www.blogger.com/Techonomy.%20http://techonomy.com/2013/08/as-the-maker-movement-surges-so-do-stories-of-creation/" target="_blank">John Hagel III and John Seely Br</a></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/Techonomy.%20http://techonomy.com/2013/08/as-the-maker-movement-surges-so-do-stories-of-creation/" target="_blank">own in <i>Techonomy</i></a></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">, touched on the philosophy that
Burning Man shares with the Maker movement. “While advances such as 3-D
printing create an opening for entrepreneurs to invent new physical products
and then prototype and scale them with minimal investment, the driving force of
the Maker movement is creative, not economic.” </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">As a lab for testing “the
balance of extreme liberty and community,” according to </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">Peter Hirschberg, who is a </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">former Apple executive,
</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">Chairman of Re:imagine Group and cofounder of<a href="http://grayarea.org/" target="_blank"> Gray Area Center for Arts and Technology </a>in San Francisco, </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Burning Man is "a
fascinating place to observe the large-scale practice of self-organising
governance in action.” Black Rock City’s prototypical, temporary and engaged
form of citizenship is notable to </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">Hirschberg</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">, since it allows for play, learning and immediacy. Himself working
to </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">foster maker economies</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"> in </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">cities around the world, in his chapter </span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">“<a href="http://bollier.org/blog/burning-man-commons." target="_blank">Burning Man: The Pop-Up City of Self-Governing Individualists</a>” published by ID3 in </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">From Bitcoin to Burning Man and Beyond: The Quest for Identity and Autonomy in a Digital Society, </i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">edited by</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;"> John Clippinger and David Bollier, </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Hirschberg </span>finds
the Ten Principles to be “broadly applicable guidelines for conceptualising a
more sustainable, more conscious and less materialist world.”</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Though the
reception was not as enthusiastic, the waves have even buffeted the White House.
</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">At his final <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">correspondents’ dinner</span>, Obama made a joke referencing his
daughter. “Just recently a young person came up to me and said she was sick of
politicians standing in the way of her dreams. As if we were actually going to
let Malia go to Burning Man this year.”</span></div>
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<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Holding an objective to “make sense
of and profit from emerging opportunities on the edge of business and technology,”
I’m guessing analysts at the Center for the Edge don’t hold their offspring to
such restrictions. And I suspect they’re training their eyes on </span><a href="http://makerfaire.com/" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;" target="_blank">Maker Faire</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> for
similar reasons. An experimental community of tinkerers, engineers and
hobbyists, a cultural synthesis of the futuristic and the atavistic, a marriage
of the technologic and the carnivalesque, Maker Faire is like an urban—though
certainly not urbane—Burning Man. Commencing in San Mateo in 2006, Maker Faire
is the festal outgrowth of </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><a href="http://makezine.com/" target="_blank">Make</a></i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
magazine (produced by Maker Media), which is like a contemporary </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Whole Earth Catalog.</i><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> </i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnWfvLGvqK7hBmJWu-X-ydRlwFH_Avtesbe_gEhfpgk6qS08PxgEh8P_pZjjjrxnQJ-otn2ziaE-WW3gicvDPzPUKmsGrBziamb1GQjwloMQno_eChwffN3yleZ7QTiRLw4dVS/s1600/Maker+Faire+logo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnWfvLGvqK7hBmJWu-X-ydRlwFH_Avtesbe_gEhfpgk6qS08PxgEh8P_pZjjjrxnQJ-otn2ziaE-WW3gicvDPzPUKmsGrBziamb1GQjwloMQno_eChwffN3yleZ7QTiRLw4dVS/s200/Maker+Faire+logo.png" width="192" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">The event is described by its founder, Dale Dougherty—also executive
chairman of Maker Media—as “somewhere on the spectrum </span><a href="http://www.recode.net/2015/5/17/11562692/part-disneyland-part-burning-man-maker-faire-turns-10-years-old-qa" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;" target="_blank">between Burning Man and Disneyland</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">.” A great many Burners are involved as volunteers
and artists at MF. While it has provided something of a staging area for many
Playa-bound artists, Maker Faire is also a realm for showcasing the makers who
furnish Black Rock City with its art, including artists receiving honoraria
from the Burning Man arts department. Promoting the 2016 Bay Area event, this
was the news conveyed by Director of Content and Community at </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">Make</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;">, Will Chase, formerly Operations
Manager for Burning Man’s art department, and Minister of Propaganda. Claiming
it is the closest thing to Burning Man he’s experienced, “only with less dust
and more pants,” </span><a href="http://makezine.com/2016/05/18/dont-miss-burning-man-art-installations-maker-faire-bay-area/" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;" target="_blank">Chase indicated</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-align: center; text-indent: 36pt;"> that while Burning Man “provides a physically
challenging, celebratory platform for Makers of all stripes,” Maker Faire offers
“a more accessible, family-friendly” version. Indeed Faires have become spaces where
children are encouraged to experience a hands-on approach to making stuff.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">MF also provides maker/artists with
the opportunity to more openly perform what is virtually taboo in Black Rock
City—vend the product of their creativity. With that said, with each event in
the worldwide network of Maker Faires organized by volunteers, this grassroots
engine house of the maker movement venerates the role of collaborative
production in the creative process. “The core of what we’re trying to do here,”
states Dougherty, “is celebrate making in our culture,” which his comments
suggest represents a shift away from the otherwise relentless tide of
consumerism. “There’s something particularly resonant about that, something
we’ve missed, something that’s been marginalized” in the U.S. “We used to be
proud of things that we made. Making used to be a middle-class virtue. It was a
point of pride. . . . I think we’re trying to bring that back to the center of
attention.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 1cm;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left; text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 1cm;">Both rooted in the Bay Area, BM and MF
are now worldwide movements with a great deal of crossover. Take, for example,
the emergence of </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 1cm;">steampunk</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 1cm;">.
Researching the background and emergence of steampunk, as James H. Carrott observes
in his book co-authored with Brian David Johnson, </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 1cm;">Vintage Tomorrows: A Historian and a Futurist Journey Through Steampunk
into the Future of Technology, </i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 1cm;">at both events, materials recombobulators
and eccentric inventors design steam powered contraptions with more than a hint
of Jules Verne, in the process making a history that never existed. Experienced
with Black Rock City, and reporting on a visit to the San Mateo MF, Carrott
observed “a kind of mad science in action that pervades both places, a desire
to push the bounds of the possible, and ‘make it work,’ no matter the
circumstance.” Characterising Maker Faire as “a kind of dress-rehearsal” for
the Playa, a space for inventors to test an idea, to see how it rolls, before
they “set it ablaze” (“literally, figuratively, or both”) at Burning Man, he feels
that the connection between these events runs deeper. “It’s about the art of
the possible.”</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvDIPgU1kUWsCjw5pEZPuKmf0QGbeIRMX4ohgJwz1ZMJOnFo62-V7u7s9D4szD-I841Fn83FFJN2N7nlfN25XYCC9IsKuptADs07OoflvlBPlIzyPQ7Avc_2ziDwCGaPsL0tBb/s1600/Neverwas_haul_+%2528courtesy+of+Chrisopher+Michel+and+Wikimedia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvDIPgU1kUWsCjw5pEZPuKmf0QGbeIRMX4ohgJwz1ZMJOnFo62-V7u7s9D4szD-I841Fn83FFJN2N7nlfN25XYCC9IsKuptADs07OoflvlBPlIzyPQ7Avc_2ziDwCGaPsL0tBb/s400/Neverwas_haul_+%2528courtesy+of+Chrisopher+Michel+and+Wikimedia.jpg" width="316" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Neverwas Haul. Photo: Christopher Michael.</td></tr>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Rumour has it, if you believe Shannon
O’Hare, chief creator of the self-propelled 3-story Victorian House <a href="http://www.obtainiumworks.net/neverwas-haul/" target="_blank">Neverwas Haul</a>—which was built at the Shipyard art space in Berkeley and first roamed the
Playa in 2006—the Haul, and possibly steampunk itself, emerged from a
“chromatic vortex anomaly” that appeared on the Playa in 2006, when O’Hare and
his crew failed to burn their Victorian Gothic installation “The Clock Tower”
before midnight. “All of a sudden,” Carrott writes how O’Hare recalled, “everybody went ‘Oh, we
can do Victorian. I didn’t know we could do Victorian.’” The Playa provided the perfect space for re-living the greatest period in
history that never was. And indeed, for going out of time—as this was also the
year of massive installation/dance club Uchronia, popularly dubbed the “Belgian
Waffle” (in 2006, <a href="http://edgecentral.blogspot.ch/2007/11/begoggled-in-mega-vibe-burning-man.html" target="_blank">I</a></span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="http://edgecentral.blogspot.ch/2007/11/begoggled-in-mega-vibe-burning-man.html" target="_blank"> wrote on Uchronia in this post</a>). </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">This was not the first time makers flooded the Playa, but the period saw an
influx of a futurist vintage style—e.g. El Pulpo Mechanico, the mobile
fire-belching octopus—that rolled the Playa in subsequent years.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSwQesR9kZJAyegkFeOW-b_G4r-CEWOmBuxDPw7wtzMegjhy1l_mOkBjPq9q1DWPYfapardoXZSVeXes4jgCkd9BMFIwIKKQfHM-bdA8jeSR09hG3mpbAmr2QQImBF6ZHNFIvR/s1600/el+pulpo+-+scott+london+2013.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSwQesR9kZJAyegkFeOW-b_G4r-CEWOmBuxDPw7wtzMegjhy1l_mOkBjPq9q1DWPYfapardoXZSVeXes4jgCkd9BMFIwIKKQfHM-bdA8jeSR09hG3mpbAmr2QQImBF6ZHNFIvR/s400/el+pulpo+-+scott+london+2013.jpg" width="318" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">El Pulpo Mechanico, Scott London</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> Emerging also in
2006, the San Mateo Maker Faire—where the Neverwas Project and alternative fuel
systems were an early attraction—was integral to an art movement that mobilised
makers, quire literally gathering steam over the next decade, as evident in 200
events worldwide, from Mini Faires to the </span><a href="http://makerfaire.com/new-york-2015/" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;" target="_blank">World Maker Faire in New York</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">. While
makers are elevated here, this event model isn’t primarily showcasing
individual genius, but is a platform where collaboration, education and resource
sharing are integral—a platform that would, as Megs Rutigliano commented to me,
“spark a dialog about maker culture in our realm.”</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Rutigliano is producer of the GLC, an
event that has forged an alliance with maker movers and shakers, as was
apparent by 2014, when </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Alex Goldman and
Rebecca Chesney from the <a href="http://www.iftf.org/home/" target="_blank">Institute For The Future</a> l</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">ed a “</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Maker Cities” session to </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">explore the
convergent forces “empowering makers to create and improve the cities in which
they live.” That presentation showcased platforms like the Kickstarter-backed
project Air Quality Egg, an air quality sensing network using DiY sensors in
which users are able to collect readings of NO2 and CO concentrations outside their
homes. Typically sessions facilitate the exchange of ideas where attendees
introduce their own design prototypes, such as, in that case, Neighbourhood Bike
Racks, which explored engineering hybrid public-private spaces for street level
bike storage, and Figment, charged with the idea of transporting Burning
Man-style art into “youth-appropriate, radically accessible spaces and events
to encourage playfulness and creativity.” </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">That year, the GLC also showcased the
advent of [freespace], which over a few short years became an infectious
international model for the benevolent hacking of urban space. Hacking the National
Day of Civic Hacking, in June 2013, Mike Zuckerman and fellow San Francisco
Burners in now legendary circumstances began renting a three-story 14,000-square-foot
SoMa district warehouse for $1, transforming it into a community space, and in
the process kick starting a new movement in civic innovation. These culture
hackers were not only extending by a month a national civic hacking day
authorised by The White House, they were also hacking the concept of the hackathon, or codefest, events typically purposed around the collaborative
design of software. As Zuckerman explained to<a href="http://www.iftf.org/future-now/article-detail/freespace-an-urban-commons" target="_blank"> </a><a href="http://www.iftf.org/future-now/article-detail/freespace-an-urban-commons" target="_blank">Lindsea Wilbur from the Institute for the Future</a>, [freespace] is “an analog version of
what online platforms are—like Facebook or other social networks but in the
physical realm, where programming, design, content and governance all are
determined by the participants.” </span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP66geVVcA5ZaHxfrWLwoxVwgQGKACOiMJur-XICA3I6hVay06sRK-eAhY83NOdH3WhqxsYlDOwYz-F2iiPvW-IYlMWFl2aXSCCYST-rrcX1usPW0w9aj0_dpiY537y_ybEUof/s1600/%255Bfreespace%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP66geVVcA5ZaHxfrWLwoxVwgQGKACOiMJur-XICA3I6hVay06sRK-eAhY83NOdH3WhqxsYlDOwYz-F2iiPvW-IYlMWFl2aXSCCYST-rrcX1usPW0w9aj0_dpiY537y_ybEUof/s640/%255Bfreespace%255D.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The original [freespace], SoMa, San Francisco.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">The first event at
[freespace] was BurnerHack, a user-generated flesh flash and knowledge exchange
enabling Burners to show fellow participants how to use Arduino, accomplish
tasks like solder EL wire, make hand-held illuminated jellyfish and tinker with
useful web-tools and resources, such as the pre-playa Facebook tool and popular
participant driven project, BurnerMap. In the language of the zeitgeist they
were leveraging the technical wisdom of citizens to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hack</i> cities, in this case, perhaps the most improvised city of all,
already the product of a three-decade long civic hackathon. While this was not
an official Burning Man Project project, the BMP could hardly deny the up-take
of urban do-ocracy . . . nor the valence of a bloom of illuminated jellies
undulating along the streets of SoMa. Attracting radical gardeners and tactical
urbanists, social entrepreneurs and those co-founder Ilana Lipsett called “<a href="http://www.shareable.net/blog/freespace-a-temporary-experiment-in-lasting-change" target="_blank">changemakers</a>,” like Marc Roth from <a href="https://www.facebook.com/thelearningshelter" target="_blank">The Learning Shelter</a> and the free
bike share project Yellow Bike Library, in one month alone, the space hosted
119 free events. </span></span><a href="http://priceonomics.com/the-free-space-movement/" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; text-indent: 36pt;">Zachary </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; text-indent: 0px;">Crockett gave the roundup in </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; text-indent: 36pt;">Priceonomics</i></a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; text-indent: 0px;"><a href="http://priceonomics.com/the-free-space-movement/" target="_blank">,</a> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">“There were silent discos, movie screenings, and Wordpress
workshops. The space even hosted a ‘crafternoon’ session for Kindergarten
students to paint and garden. One Thursday night featured a ‘digital detox’
party, during which tech-clad San Franciscans shed their computer companions
for several hours, and turned off smartphones, tablets, and music players.”</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As author of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">In Real Life: Searching for
Connection in High-Tech Times, </span></i><a href="http://journal.burningman.org/2013/06/philosophical-center/tenprinciples/burnerhack-freespace/" target="_blank">Jon Mitchel</a>—who would assume the role
of Minister of Propaganda at Burning Man—explained, “with its non-hierarchical,
gift-driven, art-centric culture, [freespace] looks like a prototype for the
kinds of spaces that can promote Burning Man culture year-round and in the
default world.” And this appears to be precisely what has happened, with this
open-sourced prototype of civic innovation taking off in locations worldwide.
According to the <a href="http://freespace.io/" target="_blank">[freespace] website </a>there are [freespaces] developing in 26 locations
in 18 countries. Creating
new incentives for landlords, and providing instructions on how to obtain free
or discounted properties, they, says Crockett, “map out what it takes to spark a successful,
community-driven effort: inclusivity, safety, openness, transparency.”<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT048UddOzF5nNHqKBYHnVAJtVdEc_EvRHpI7tl1pAGb1XCdY2ZF7Ijqg9RN3GWDAxUlfZf4l-Qjlv-5PrmKJvj55Ri5PEnFNVnFXihGlFHxF28MQ0m0Rxowy5B2vr5_0yJjve/s1600/ELS+Barcelona.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT048UddOzF5nNHqKBYHnVAJtVdEc_EvRHpI7tl1pAGb1XCdY2ZF7Ijqg9RN3GWDAxUlfZf4l-Qjlv-5PrmKJvj55Ri5PEnFNVnFXihGlFHxF28MQ0m0Rxowy5B2vr5_0yJjve/s400/ELS+Barcelona.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; text-indent: 48px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Can Valldaura, Barcelona</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">In 2014, I caught Zuckerman at the
first Burning Man European Leadership Summit (ELS) in Berlin, introducing the
idea to a room full of inspired Burner emissaries from 25 countries across
Europe. By the time of its third incarnation, Barcelona in February 2016, the
ELS had become a principal convergence in Burning Man’s regional network,
bristling with civic hacking and maker movement activity. The Summit kicked off
with </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">a Surrealist
themed opening at Atenau de Raval, </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">a [freespace] venue </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">in the Gothic Quarter. The </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">main venue </span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">was the gorgeous Can
Valldaura, a location in the heights above the city on a property surrounded by
bush land. The site of a Cistercian monastery in 1150, a royal palace of the
Crown of Aragon in 1297, and a farm since 1888, Valldaura now houses a digital
fabrication lab that uses natural resources and is a partner in the
international network of FabLabs led by MIT in Boston, and part of the Plan
Avanza national network of laboratories in Spain. </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">There was a Saturday night
masquerade party at a local art gallery, and a Sunday convergence at the Third
Annual Mini Maker Faire Barcelona. In her report on the event, <a href="http://journal.burningman.org/2016/02/global-network/regionals/burning-man-european-leadership-summit-2016-takes-barcelona-spain/" target="_blank">according to Rutigliano,</a> who is also </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Regional
Network Associate Director</span><span lang="EN-AU" style="color: black; font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, the 2016 ELS played host to 135 Regional Contacts, Community Leaders,
event organisers and Burning Man staff from 21 countries. As such, the ELS has become a pivotal hub in the Burning Man
movement that has been evolving over two decades and now claims some 65 official
<a href="http://regionals.burningman.org/" target="_blank">Regional Events</a> in dozens of countries.</span></div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgICYuB1_a3H025RK_inmE9OWwmw5OOvwfHBL_Vm3m1-irDNT3Bk7n3jzJUOOFXnUKlkd9uk0zKVOLk7tMPanFpErCjE69Nvfyey9irt2Tih8OKN7uMQtxI_MJyMjDKUS1JTMGE/s1600/regionals+map.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="355" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgICYuB1_a3H025RK_inmE9OWwmw5OOvwfHBL_Vm3m1-irDNT3Bk7n3jzJUOOFXnUKlkd9uk0zKVOLk7tMPanFpErCjE69Nvfyey9irt2Tih8OKN7uMQtxI_MJyMjDKUS1JTMGE/s640/regionals+map.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Burning Man Regional Network</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<h4>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Beyond Maker
City </span></span></b></h4>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">It makes sense that Burning Man would be targeted for the
citizen-led hacking embodied in BurnerHack, and enabled through venues like
[freespace]. This is the legacy of the event, in practices traced back to its
beginnings—e.g. the “latte carpenters” responsible for the early Man builds.
Those who are drawn to Burning Man—and here I do not simply imply customers
who’ve bought a ticket, but those gravitating to roles in its reproduction,
whether volunteering in build teams, contributing to art projects, designing
the city—are makers and hackers. Engineers, civic planners, and groovy
scientists, programmers, social sculptors, and radical welders, architects of
systems and sonicities, innovators sharing know-how, pooling resources and
improvising in a laboratory of the imagination, Black Rock City is reliant on a
build community who collaborate to solve the immediate problems of a liminal
civilisation, and who, over its recurrent iterations have forged organic
precepts that are now raised to the stature of event principles like Gifting, Communal
Effort and Participation, the merits of which are subject to sometimes heated
debate by philosophers and philanthropists. While many in this community are
members of existing hobbyist collectives and grassroots art movements, Black
Rock City has spawned a multitude of unique initiatives and adhocracies in the
Bay Area and beyond, e.g. Do It Together projects like </span><a href="http://freespace.io/" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;" target="_blank">[freespace]</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">, workshop
collectives like </span><a href="http://flaminglotus.com/" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;" target="_blank">Flaming Lotus Girls</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">, cooperative industrial studios like
</span><a href="http://nimbyspace.org/" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;" target="_blank">NIMBY</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">, and nonprofit art schools like </span><a href="http://thecrucible.org/" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;" target="_blank">The Crucible</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJc0PQhXSEYivug8f5RjKk2kKhkx8hVg126y3r3RZ0uW0GlHXWSFA8yPcqDmrxF3stUpLnkteDzIOVEJRaEPNFUvlqgSq5oLoljlWEVpzohklfDKOa54hBU02XNbp9C74AImRV/s1600/burning-man-2015-aerial-photo+Jim+Urquhart%253AReuters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="371" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJc0PQhXSEYivug8f5RjKk2kKhkx8hVg126y3r3RZ0uW0GlHXWSFA8yPcqDmrxF3stUpLnkteDzIOVEJRaEPNFUvlqgSq5oLoljlWEVpzohklfDKOa54hBU02XNbp9C74AImRV/s640/burning-man-2015-aerial-photo+Jim+Urquhart%253AReuters.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Maker City</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Applying solutions hard won in Black
Rock City and further afield in efforts to hack life and change the world, the
exemplary achievement in this centripetal development is </span><a href="http://www.burnerswithoutborders.org/" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;" target="_blank">Burners Without Borders </a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">(BWB), the volunteer organisation that emerged in 2005, when
post-Playa, several participants travelled south to assist communities
devastated in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. As the art theme that year was
Psyche, featuring an explicit focus on “self-expression, self-reflection
and the unconscious power of dream,” there occurred a surfacing to consciousness of
a powerful urge to perform good in the world beyond the trash fence. This
surfacing was whipped up by a powerful storm that caused disastrous flooding in
the Gulf Coast severely impacted the lives of millions of people, including
Burners, during the event. As </span><a href="https://burners.me/2015/07/27/the-ten-year-anniversary-of-burners-without-borders" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;" target="_blank">Jex</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> recalled, it was a moment of
intense self-reflection in which “one of the most important and phenomenal
representations of Civic Responsibility was born. When word made its way
through the dust of the devastation of Katrina, a group of burners discovered a
profound sense of self and reflection of those in need. They headed straight to
ground zero of the disaster area to help rebuild the destroyed communities.” The eight month long effort saw BWB volunteers r</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">ebuild a destroyed Vietnamese temple in Biloxi, Mississippi, and gift
over $1 million worth of reconstruction and debris removal to the residents of the
region. These actions </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">catalysed a movement whose key objective is
community empowerment through projects designed to “unlock the creativity of
local communities to solve problems that bring about meaningful change.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Over
the subsequent ten years, <a href="http://www.burnerswithoutborders.org/mission" target="_blank">BWB promoted activities</a> around the globe that “support
a community’s inherent capacity to thrive by encouraging innovative approaches
to disaster relief and grassroots initiatives that make a positive impact.”</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> Founded by Carmen Muak, BWB have conducted disaster relief projects in the US,
and internationally, including Peru, Japan, Haiti, the Philippines, and
recently in response to the European refugee crisis, developed annual
grants programs, and in April 2015, became the official civic engagement arm of
the BMP. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">Reflecting upon more than ten years
of BWB initiatives, Program Manager Christopher Breedlove alludes to the way
Burners are enabling others to find solutions to crises resulting from natural
and humanitarian disasters—an empowering transference of skills and resources figured
to enable self-reliance. “It shouldn’t be a surprise by now that when you drop
into some of the most difficult and complicated situations on earth [such as “The
Jungle” in Calais] you find Burners, and they’re prototyping solutions.”
</span><a href="http://journal.burningman.org/2016/03/global-network/burners-without-borders/the-jungle-a-refugee-camp-served-by-the-burners-of-calais/" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;" target="_blank">Breedlove indicates </a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">that Black Rock City is the cultural ground zero for this
fomentation. “We seem to have the skills to survive in adverse conditions,
people who can build, manage, roll with the punches, and find gaps in the
social structure while having the leadership to bring about creative and
immediate solutions.” Also reflecting upon the context that has
incubated these skills and whose participants feel the burn, Peter Hirschberg is in agreement. “With so much experience in self-organising their own
municipal infrastructure in a hostile environment, Burners are particularly
skilled at functioning during chaotic crises when normal services—running
water, electricity, communications channels and sanitation systems—are not
available. Burners don’t just survive in such an environment; they create culture,
art, and community there.” And the model is fertile, spawning offshoots like Communitere,
an organisation providing maker spaces to communities in the wake of natural
disasters. As </span><a href="https://medium.com/a-nation-of-makers/maker-metropolis-bf1462205d95#.50rkpnoy4" style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;" target="_blank">Sander observes</a><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;">, Communitere “allows people to create the relief
efforts they need for themselves, tapping into their own skills and resiliency
and applying their knowledge of what they their neighbours actually need right
now.” Now operating in Haiti, Nepal and the Philippines,
Communitere provide space to NGOs like Field Ready, who pioneer the use of 3D
printers in disaster areas. </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt; text-indent: 36pt;"> </span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">As I’ve noted, beyond Black Rock
City, the chief accomplishment in the burnerverse is its Regional Network, with
each satellite, besides orchestrating regional events, a node for numerous
projects, civic engagement initiatives and maker culture clubs. Tapping into
the maker culture and civic hacker zeitgeist, BWB have capitalised on this
global bloom. In 2015, Breedlove workshopped BWB’s Kickstart Local Civic Projects
program at the second European Leadership Summit, in Amsterdam—a nascent yet
thriving Burner scene, with <a href="http://journal.burningman.org/2016/05/global-network/regionals/the-dutch-burners-are-on-fire." target="_blank">Burning Man Netherlands</a> among the latest affiliated
regional organisations. With the goal of<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b>generating a global
“culture of ongoing engagement” of projects that “support a community’s
inherent capacity to thrive by encouraging innovative approaches and grassroots
initiatives that make a positive community impact,” BWB have also initiated
their <a href="http://www.burnerswithoutborders.org/projects/bwb-global-wave-of-service-2016." target="_blank">Global Wave of Service </a>initiative. Challenging regions in the network to conduct a BWB project within 128 days
from the GLC, this initiative commenced in 2015 with<a href="http://www.burnerswithoutborders.org/projects/the-bwb-128-initiative." target="_blank"> 21 projects in total.</a> Among these projects was the North Texas Beach Cleanup, where Burners committed
to removing tons of MOOP (matter out of place) from a seven-mile stretch of
beach in Corpus Christi, Texas. As the group, now identified as <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/662157823810955/" target="_blank">BWB Corpus Christi</a>, stipulated, “Burning Man started on the beach, we intend to stay
there.” The mini-burn and ultra Leave No Trace atmosphere of the event—which, of
course, had its own effigy burn—has inspired subsequent cleanup celebrations
along the stretch dubbed Burner Beach.</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiECQlDx0lPkichh4noNw4fJ6lIkoZ06CPk1hl86uJzMrKs-LgMmF2uvItndTEOgE_8jRJt_zRk_l7F8UpKQzqnxeF6wY_KEA14yxUfHufOmml-zefG1CnHKysdaS5McNlGZeUH/s1600/bwb-Vancouver-march-2015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiECQlDx0lPkichh4noNw4fJ6lIkoZ06CPk1hl86uJzMrKs-LgMmF2uvItndTEOgE_8jRJt_zRk_l7F8UpKQzqnxeF6wY_KEA14yxUfHufOmml-zefG1CnHKysdaS5McNlGZeUH/s400/bwb-Vancouver-march-2015.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Burners Without Borders Vancouver - Christmas Isn't Over.</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;"> I first
learned about BWB Corpus Christi seeing <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Jay Guerrero<b>
</b></span>present the initiative at the GLC 2016. As a veritable hive of developments,
initiatives and seed projects directed towards more than simply growing
regional Burning Man events, the conference gave weight to Hirschberg’s
comment a</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">bout the event
training </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">a “</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">global
volunteer workforce that could bring Burning Man’s can-do problem-solving and
community-oriented work to the world.”</span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">Amid the panoply of Burner initiatives in the GLC program,
the showcasing of BWB activities reflects the mosaic of the “Project” of
Burning Man. The complex pattern of this movement is a weave of the many faces
of Black Rock City, a temporary theater-city fraught with tensions expressed by
way of its active principles. </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">If San
Francisco hobbyist repair collectives can be seen as pop-up “theatres of
alternative industry,” as they are in a recent study "</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">Theaters of Alternative Industry"</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;"> </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">by Daniela Rosner and Fred Turner (in</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">Design Thinking Research, Understanding Innovation, </i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">2015</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px;">),</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> then the Maker City on the Playa is a theatrical pop-uperopolis of
alternative industry. While some critics might characterise it as city </span><i style="font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">propped up</i><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> by the super wealthy,
possessing a distinctly comprehensive ethos forged at the edge of the frontier,
Black Rock City possesses a design model consistent with the “comprehensive
design” ethic of Buckminster Fuller, in which designers, architects, builders, and
programmers, repurpose the products of industry “to remake their own lives and
show others how to change the world.” </span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">As a model Maker City, it acts as a cultural incubator for
culture in the making.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">Thirty years inland from Baker Beach, Burning Man dramatises a tension that characterises
what some call a crisis, and others see as an opportunity. I refer to a grand pageant
in which the cooperative and entrepreneurial personas of Burning Man are to be staged.
These days, for reasons that will be addressed in my next blog, the Burning Man
Project have sought to publicly mediate these personas through a means no
less than the Burning Man art theme. And so it seems, a reflexive effort to
balance entrepreneurialism (e.g. in the form of patrons) and cooperativism
(e.g. in the form of guilds) is implicit to <a href="http://blog.burningman.com/2015/10/da-vincis-workshop/burning-man-2016-da-vincis-workshop/" target="_blank">Da Vinci’s Workshop, the 2016 art theme. </a>While this theme is intended to celebrate the role of art patronage in
the Italian Renaissance of the late 15<sup>th</sup> century, and specifically
in Florence, “a city comparable in size to Black Rock City,” it is not so much
population size that has motivated theme developers Harvey and Stuart Mangrum
to regard Renaissance Florence a sister city in time to Black Rock City, but a
“pattern of philanthropy” they observe characterising both. According to them, as announced in the theme description, </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">“humanist ideals, a rediscovery of science, and
funding from a newly moneyed class of entrepreneurs fuelled a revolutionary
cultural movement that redefined Western civilisation” in </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">the R</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">epublic of Florence. And
this selective historicism provides the backdrop for a </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">grandiose vision:
i.e. nothing less than “</span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">combining Burning
Man art, maker culture and creative philanthropy to make Black Rock City the
epicenter of a new renaissance.” This is </span><span style="color: black; font-size: 10.0pt;">no small beer for these concept
architects, and nor is it for the armies of artists from the Bay Area and beyond
who’ve responded to the call with project ideas, guild builds and performance
art. As we’ll see, this theme didn’t emerge from nowhere, but is the public response
to a crisis besetting the organisation in recent times, the legacy of which
plays out through a means we’re accustomed to expect at Burning Man: art, on a
grand scale. </span><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-45850340183789980872015-12-04T00:45:00.004+01:002015-12-04T00:48:11.846+01:00The Mystery of DMTErik Davis interviews Graham St John on <i>Reality Sandwich </i>about his new book <i>Mystery School in Hyperspace: A Cultural History of DMT </i>(Evolver/ North Atlantic Books, 2015)<br />
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<a href="http://realitysandwich.com/319198/mystery-school-in-hyperspace/">http://realitysandwich.com/319198/mystery-school-in-hyperspace/</a><br />
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<br />Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-6683532117974057562015-10-06T07:32:00.001+02:002015-10-06T07:34:20.175+02:00Download Chapter 1 from Mystery School in Hyperspace: A Cultural History of DMT<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Download Chapter 1, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/16493981/Mystery_School_in_Hyperspace_Chapter_1_DMT_-_An_Enigma_Wrapped_in_a_Mystery_Evolver_2015_">"DMT: An Enigma Wrapped in a Mystery"</a> from Mystery School in Hyperspace: A Cultural History of DMT by Graham St John (NAB/Evolver).<br />
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Foreword by Dennis McKenna<br />
Available<strong> Nov 24, 2015</strong><br />
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Paperback & E-book | 493 pages<br />
Preorder at <a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/252782/mystery-school-in-hyperspace-by-graham-st-john/">PenguinRandomHouse.com.</a></div>
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Since the mid-1950s, the psychoactive compound DMT has attracted the attention of experimentalists and prohibitionists, scientists and artists, alchemists and hyperspace emissaries. While most known as a crucial component of the “jungle alchemy” that is ayahuasca, DMT is a whole story unto itself. Until now, this story has remained untold. <em>Mystery School in Hyperspace</em> is the first book to delve into the history of this substance, the discovery of its properties, and the impact it has had on scientists, poets, artists, and musicians.<br />
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DMT has appeared at crucial junctures in countercultural history. William Burroughs was jacking the spice in Tangier at the turn of the 1960s.<strong> </strong>It was present at the meeting between Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters and Tim Leary’s Millbrook associates. It guided the inception of the Grateful Dead in 1965. It showed up in Berkeley in the same year, falling into the hands of Terence McKenna, who would eventually become its champion in the post-rave neo-psychedelic movement of the 1990s. Its indole vapor drifted through Portugal’s Boom Festival and Nevada’s Burning Man, where DMT has been adopted as a spiritual technology supplying shape, color, and depth to a visionary arts movement. The growing prevalence of use is apparent in a vast networked independent research culture, and in its impact on fiction, film, music and metaphysics. As this book traces the effect of DMT’s release into the cultural bloodstream, the results should be of great interest to contemporary readers.<br />
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Features a Foreword by Dennis McKenna, cover art by Beau Deeley (<em>Divine Moments of Truth,</em><a href="http://www.edgecentral.net/www.beaudeeley.net">www.beaudeeley.net)</a>, and thirty color illustrations by various artists, including Alex Grey, Android Jones, Martina Hoffmann, Luke Brown, Carey Thompson, Adam Scott Miller, Randal Roberts, along with Jay Bryan, Cyb, Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule, Art Van D’lay, Stuart Griggs, Jay Lincoln, Gwyllm Llwydd, Shiptu Shaboo, Marianna Stelmach, and Mister Strange.<br />
Download Chapter 1, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/16493981/Mystery_School_in_Hyperspace_Chapter_1_DMT_-_An_Enigma_Wrapped_in_a_Mystery_Evolver_2015_">"DMT: An Enigma Wrapped in a Mystery"</a><br />
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<strong>PRAISE for <em>Mystery School in Hyperspace</em></strong><em></em><br />
“Graham St John’s book on DMT untangles the threads of this holy molecule, from anthropological antiquity to labs in Hungary, from hipster soothsayers to visionary art at festivals, including some of the best descriptions of the wonderfully weird tryptamine worlds inside all of us. Read <em>Mystery School in Hyperspace</em> and appreciate the miracle in our midst.”<br />
—Alex Grey, artist and author of <em>Net of Being.</em><br />
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“Meticulously researched and highly readable. St John covers every imaginable aspect of DMT’s place in the Western aesthetic and intellectual landscapes. Setting down his book, I came away with a new appreciation of just how embedded the DMT meme has become.”<br />
—Rick Strassman MD, author of <em>DMT: The Spirit Molecule</em>, <em>DMT and the Soul of Prophecy</em>, and clinical associate professor of psychiatry, University of New Mexico School of Medicine.<br />
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“Combining the breadth of a scholar, the savvy of an underground journalist, and the open spirit of a radical empiricist, Graham St John has written the definitive cultural history of the weirdest molecule on the planet (and in your body). <em>Mystery School in Hyperspace</em> tells amazing tales, sheds light on the shadows, and brilliantly referees the ongoing psychoactive rumble between the sacred and profane.”<br />
—Erik Davis, author of <em>Techgnosis: Myth, Magic, and Mysticism in the Age of Information.</em><br />
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“Scholars and psychonauts alike will find much to appreciate in this lucid, thoughtful, provocative and thoroughly enjoyable cultural history of DMT. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, <em>Mystery School in Hyperspace</em> is remarkable in its deft interweaving of neurochemistry, countercultural thought, spirituality, and the arts. In years to come, anyone with a serious interest in the socio-cultural significance of induced altered states will have read this book.”<br />
—Christopher Partridge, Professor of Religious Studies, Lancaster University, UK.<br />
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"Boldly going where no one had gone before, Graham St John takes his readers on a properly hallucinatory yet extremely well documented tour through the history of DMT. Analyzing six decades of radical countercultural experimentation and exploration at the limits of human consciousness and beyond, this is a significant contribution to the emerging study of entheogenic religion."<br />
—Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy, University of Amsterdam.<br />
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<em>"Mystery School in Hyperspace</em> is the textbook history of DMT for serious students of transdimensional evolution... Graham St John's tour de force through the tapestry of alchemists, hippies, DJs, scientists, shamans, mystics and seekers of the mystery that DMT reveals is an exhilarating ride and a thoroughly researched achievement. St John successfully builds up a historical profile of both dimethyltryptamine and the quest to understand it, piercing the mystery to bring back translinguistic trip reports that illuminate the central gnosis of our time. And as the latest generation of psychonauts explores the invisible landscape of Terra Incognita, <em>Mystery School in Hyperspace </em>could very well be the map that we have all been looking for..."<br />
—Rak Razam, director of <em>Aya: Awakenings.</em><br />
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“Wrap your mind around the most ubiquitous and profound psychedelic on the planet, DMT! A multidimensional journey that provides a smorgasbord of information, and will give seasoned psychonauts, dogmatic academics, culture aficionados, and frankly any curious mind, plenty to chew on.”<br />
—Mitch Schultz, founder of MYTHAPHI and director of <em>DMT: The Spirit Molecule</em>,<br />
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"In <em>Mystery School in Hyperspace,</em> St John provides a full curriculum on DMT from its historical origins and geographical haunts, to today's uses, and, of course, to DMT's unique hyper-reality domain. Enriched by quotes, footnotes, URLs, and references, <em>Mystery School in Hyperspace</em> documents its resources and provides its readers with a vast wealth of leads for future explorations."<br />
—Thomas B. Roberts, author of <em>The Psychedelic Future of the Mind.</em>Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-3350368987907693542015-06-02T12:21:00.000+02:002015-06-02T12:21:46.616+02:00Weekend Societies. New issue of Dancecult on EDM Festivals and Event-CulturesNew Issue of Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture<br />
Vol 7, No 1 (2015): <a href="https://dj.dancecult.net/index.php/dancecult/issue/view/74" target="_blank">Weekend Societies: EDM Festivals and Event-Cultures (edited by Graham St John)</a> <br />
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><span style="font-size: small;">Contents</span></b></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><b>Editorial</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><i>Introduction to Weekend Societies: EDM Festivals and Event-Cultures</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">— </span><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">Graham St John</span></span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><span style="font-size: small;">Feature Articles</span></b></div>
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<i>Searching for a Cultural Home: Asian American Youth in the EDM Festival Scene</i></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">— </span><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">Judy Soojin Park</span></span></div>
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<i>Boutiquing at the Raindance Campout: Relational Aesthetics as Festival Technology</i></div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">— </span><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">Bryan Schmidt</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<div>
<i>Harm Reduction or Psychedelic Support? Caring for Drug-Related Crises at Transformational Festivals</i></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">— </span><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">Deirdre Ruane</span></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><i>Dancing Outdoors: DiY Ethics and Democratised Practices of Well-Being on the UK Alternative Festival Circuit</i></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">— </span><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">Alice O'Grady</span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><i>Folk Music and Commercialization in Danubian Trances and Boheme</i></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">— </span><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">Barbara Rose Lange</span></span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><b>Transpositions</b></span></span></div>
<div>
<b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><i>Free Parties and Teknivals: Gift-Exchange and Participation on the Margins of the Market and the State</i></span></span></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">— </span><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">Anne Petiau</span></span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><span style="font-size: small;">From the Floor</span></b></div>
<div>
<b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div>
<div>
<i>Dead by Dawn 1995</i></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">— </span><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">Riccardo Balli</span></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<div>
<i>Strobe light Salvation</i></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">— </span><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">Michael Arty Ghannoum</span></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><span style="font-size: small;">Reviews</span></b></div>
<div>
<b style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><i>Goa: 20 Years of Psychedelic Trance </i>(Tom Rom and Pascal Querner)</span></span></div>
<div>
<div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #444444; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">— </span></span><span style="color: #444444; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">Joshua Schmidt</span></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: small;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<div>
<i>Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album </i>(Charles Fairchild)</div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">— </span><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">Ian Keith Rogers</span></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<div>
<i>The Globalization of Musics in Transit: Music Migration and Tourism</i> (Simone Krüger and Ruxandra Trandafoiu eds.)</div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">— </span><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">Garth Sheridan</span></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<div>
<i>Why Music Matters</i> (David Hesmondhalgh)</div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">— </span><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">Kat Nelligan</span></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<div>
<i>Music, Style, and Aging: Growing Old Disgracefully?</i> (Andy Bennett) and <i>Ageing and Youth Cultures: Music, Style and Identity</i> (Andy Bennett and Paul Hodkinson eds.)</div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">— </span><span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">Liz Giuffre</span></span></div>
</div>
<div>
<span style="color: #444444;"><span style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">
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<span style="color: black; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">+++++++++++++++</span></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">
<b style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;"><span style="font-size: small;">DANCECULT 7(1)</span></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">
<a href="http://dj.dancecult.net/" style="color: #0068cf; cursor: pointer; font-weight: inherit; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;">http://dj.dancecult.net</span></a></div>
</div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">
<span style="color: black; line-height: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;">+++++++++++++++</span></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #444444; line-height: 21.2999992370605px;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br style="line-height: 21.2999992370605px;" /></span></div>
</div>
Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-15559472936729187992015-05-20T09:43:00.000+02:002015-05-21T13:30:38.469+02:00[forthcoming Book] Mystery School in Hyperspace: A Cultural History of DMT<div class="_5pbx userContent" data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">
A sneak look at my new book out later in 2015, <i>Mystery School in Hyperspace: A Cultural History of DMT</i> (by Graham St John). Published by North Atlantic Books (EVOLVER)<br />
Foreword by Dennis McKenna. Cover art by Beau Deeley. 25 colour illustrations.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHyjnAUvMORLJkGizqc9VPFoS0MdjLXTssPTE3wDvKXGbfHpKmWHNCHhJIxlq7wWqTuai2pbFX1c70rFaBg6-WBE6Zcne9IiW_NNa0ZrXWixEgpdQ5xmbxYKQ8Czl9hcAYXAfP/s1600/MSH+final+medium.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHyjnAUvMORLJkGizqc9VPFoS0MdjLXTssPTE3wDvKXGbfHpKmWHNCHhJIxlq7wWqTuai2pbFX1c70rFaBg6-WBE6Zcne9IiW_NNa0ZrXWixEgpdQ5xmbxYKQ8Czl9hcAYXAfP/s400/MSH+final+medium.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>
<br />
Since the mid-1950s, the psychoactive compound DMT has attracted the
attention of experimentalists and prohibitionists, scientists and
artists, alchemists and hyperspace emissaries. Until now, the complete
story of DMT has remained untold. <i>Mystery School in Hyperspace</i> is
the first book to delve into the history of this substance, the
discovery of its properties, and the impact it has had on poets,
artists, and musicians.<br />
<br />
DMT has appeared at crucial junctures in countercultural history. It was
present at the meeting between Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters and Tim
Leary’s associates. It guided the inception of the Grateful Dead in
1965. It showed up in Berkeley in the same year, falling into the hands
of Terence McKenna, who would eventually become its champion in the
post-rave neo-psychedelic movement of the 1990s. Its indole vapor
drifted through Portugal’s Boom Festival and has been evident at
Nevada’s Burning Man, where DMT has been adopted as spiritual technology
supplying shape, color, and depth to a visionary art movement. The
growing prevalence of use is evident in a vast networked independent
research culture, and in aesthetic impact. As this book traces the
effect of DMT’s release into the cultural bloodstream, the results
should be of great interest to contemporary readers. <br />
<br />
The book
permits a broad reading audience to join ongoing debates in studies in
consciousness and theology where the brain is held to be either a
generator or a receiver of consciousness. The implications of the
“spirit molecule” or “the brain’s own psychedelic” among other theories
illustrate that DMT may lift the lid on the Pandora’s Box of
consciousness. <br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/252782/mystery-school-in-hyperspace-by-graham-st-john/" target="_blank">See more and pre-order </a><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Features artwork from: <span data-reactid=".3.1:4:1:$comment10152744346441809_10152744364591809:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".3.1:4:1:$comment10152744346441809_10152744364591809:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".3.1:4:1:$comment10152744346441809_10152744364591809:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body.0"><span data-reactid=".3.1:4:1:$comment10152744346441809_10152744364591809:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body.0.$end:0:$text0:0">Alex Grey, Android Jones, Martina Hoffmann, Robert Venosa, Luke
Brown, Carey Thompson, Adam Scott Miller, Cyb, Jay Bryan, </span></span></span></span><span data-reactid=".3.1:4:1:$comment10152744346441809_10152744364591809:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".3.1:4:1:$comment10152744346441809_10152744364591809:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".3.1:4:1:$comment10152744346441809_10152744364591809:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body.0"><span data-reactid=".3.1:4:1:$comment10152744346441809_10152744364591809:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body.0.$end:0:$text0:0">Beau
Deeley, </span></span></span></span><span data-reactid=".3.1:4:1:$comment10152744346441809_10152744364591809:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1"><span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}" data-reactid=".3.1:4:1:$comment10152744346441809_10152744364591809:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body"><span class="UFICommentBody" data-reactid=".3.1:4:1:$comment10152744346441809_10152744364591809:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body.0"><span data-reactid=".3.1:4:1:$comment10152744346441809_10152744364591809:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1.$comment-body.0.$end:0:$text0:0">Randal
Roberts, Gwyllm Llwydd, Shiptu Shaboo, Art Van D'lay, Mister Strange,
Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule, Stuart Griggs, Marianna Stelmach, Jay
Lincoln, IzWoz. </span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
“Meticulously researched and highly readable. St John covers every
imaginable aspect of DMT’s place in the Western aesthetic and
intellectual landscapes. Setting down his book, I came away with a new
appreciation of just how embedded the DMT meme has become.”<br />
—<b>Rick Strassman </b>MD, author of DMT: The Spirit Molecule<br />
<br />
Graham St John’s book on DMT untangles the
threads of this holy molecule, from anthropological antiquity to labs in
Hungary, from hipster soothsayers to visionary art at festivals,
including some of the best descriptions of the wonderfully weird
tryptamine worlds inside all of us. Read <i>Mystery School in Hyperspace </i>and appreciate the miracle in our midst.”<br />
—<b>Alex Grey</b>, artist and author of <i>Net of Being.</i><br />
<br />
“Scholars and psychonauts alike will find much to appreciate in this
lucid, thoughtful, provocative, and thoroughly enjoyable cultural
history of DMT. Meticulously researched and beautifully written, <i>Mystery School in Hyperspace </i>is
remarkable in its deft interweaving of neurochemistry, countercultural
thought, spirituality, and the arts. In years to come, anyone with a
serious interest in the socio-cultural significance of induced altered
states will have read this book.”<br />
—<b>Christopher Partridge</b>, Professor of Religious Studies, Lancaster University, UK.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/252782/mystery-school-in-hyperspace-by-graham-st-john/" target="_blank">Pre-order</a><br />
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Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-71209781178202564682014-12-02T04:55:00.001+01:002014-12-02T04:57:09.400+01:00Astronauts, Psychonauts and Electronauts<br />
<a href="https://dj.dancecult.net/index.php/dancecult/article/view/527/493">Astronauts, Psychonauts and Electronauts</a> (by Graham St John) is a "from the floor" article just published in <i>Dancecult: Journal of EDMC </i>6.2<br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7-wbOOHh_kW5WrKwiTZTUTgbh4qP1vEg6pdhzpvwWZZ4969P_9_XEImIcE_nSn88vInJqGFdXd2JgUyNtlGfmuxMcznsld_6X8Jb_uzChaV07-UG58r5hUNInaxBrw05ZKcAe/s1600/Fig+1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7-wbOOHh_kW5WrKwiTZTUTgbh4qP1vEg6pdhzpvwWZZ4969P_9_XEImIcE_nSn88vInJqGFdXd2JgUyNtlGfmuxMcznsld_6X8Jb_uzChaV07-UG58r5hUNInaxBrw05ZKcAe/s1600/Fig+1.jpg" height="400" width="308" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Astronaut by Gwyllm Llwydd (<a href="http://gwyllm-art.com/">gwyllm-art.com</a>). </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
I was recently asked to write a commentary on one among many of the extraordinary works produced by <a href="http://gwyllm-art.com/">Gwyllm Llwydd</a> . . . .<br />
<br />
I chose to comment on Llwydd’s “Astronaut”, the contemplation of which
gave me pause to recall Apollo 14 lunar module pilot, Edgar Mitchell,
whose return journey to Earth in 1971 was occasioned by a powerful <i>savikalpa samadhi</i>
experience. Uniquely exposed to Earth from space, Mitchell, who later
founded the Institute of Noetic Sciences, recalls: “You develop an
instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense
dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do
something about it”....<br />
<br />
Continued <a href="https://dj.dancecult.net/index.php/dancecult/article/view/527/493">here</a><br />
<br />
<br />Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-67910741081101474982014-10-02T00:47:00.000+02:002018-08-17T03:40:18.968+02:00Begoggled in the Theatre of Awe: Electronic Dance Music Culture at Burning Man (Graham St John)<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now published in <a href="http://www.playa-dust.net/">Playa Dust: Collected Stories from Burning Man</a> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(Edited by </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">Samantha Krukowski). Black Dog Publishing (2014).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;"><br /></span></span>
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<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh36zzXMxUyLb23HB9Yb98JKYjLy0g_p7F-MlopJJFpvU5jZrTIlPj1dWHdyAziVb5zttXvv3eUQcMpdvpXKE0I5_AAb70fKS-3GAYu08wsJXKiBLT8VUafqznJ50svHYBcsut/s1600/Plays+Dust+cover.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh36zzXMxUyLb23HB9Yb98JKYjLy0g_p7F-MlopJJFpvU5jZrTIlPj1dWHdyAziVb5zttXvv3eUQcMpdvpXKE0I5_AAb70fKS-3GAYu08wsJXKiBLT8VUafqznJ50svHYBcsut/s1600/Plays+Dust+cover.jpeg" width="270" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">I was at a
cocktail party at camp Daguerrodrome</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">aka Low Expectations</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—at </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Faith and Sublime. It was my maiden Burn (2003), and every sound, and word, in any moment, seemed enlarged as through a giant magnifying glass. </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Magnified, like the
on-the-spot admonishment Larry Harvey dealt me about that evil word “rave.” </span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">In
passing, I'd mentioned a book I was then editing with the title <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rave Culture and Religion</i>.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">1</span></span></span></span></a> Dropping the R word in the presence of Burning Man’s founder and chief
visionary</span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">—who was among the many </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">descending on Newt's Bar in the Blue Light District to mark the advent of the first scholarly collection on Burning Man (Lee Gilmore and Mark Van Proyen's then forthcoming <i>AfterBurn: </i></span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -37.7952766418457px;">Reflections on Burning </i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-indent: -37.7952766418457px;"><i>Man</i>)</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">—</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">was like flashing a </span><span class="st" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US">muleta</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> at a fighting bull. The hackles were understandable I knew even
then, although my awareness of the issue expanded as I dove into the history
and culture of electronic dance music (EDM) at Burning Man over subsequent
years. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In 2003, we were dancing in the dust clouds of a decade of discord over
the presence of EDM and its chief agent: the DJ, a figure loved and loathed in
equal measure. “Rave camps” had long been disputed on the playa—a source of
antinomy expressed in art skirmishes, desert jousts and heated conflagrations.
But this wasn’t just an internal controversy. The legal status of “raves”
threatened already tentative arrangements with law enforcement and licensing
bodies whose ongoing approvals the city relies upon to function and flourish.
After the successful passage of the </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Illicit
Drug Anti-Proliferation Act of 2003</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">—formerly
known as the “RAVE Act,” Senator Joe Biden’s sponsored effort to “Reduce Americas
Vulnerability to Ecstasy”—p</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">olice were empowered to impose heavy
penalties on the organizers of events where “controlled substances” were found
to be in use. Having become synonymous with these “substances,” here was a word
that literally killed the vibe.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Burning Man has
never been a rave, but in 2003 Black Rock City was blanketed with the polyphonic
ambiance of electrosonics after dark, and into the day. With my ears still ringing from Larry’s rave,
I wandered only a few feet from Daguerrodrome to encounter a euphoric dance
party lasting well into the night. At House of Lotus, and various other camps
scattered around the clock, burners, in all their blinking absurdity and
cognitive dissidence, were exposing themselves to wholly other.</span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">And the more I investigated, the more I discovered that dance music was embedded in the soundscape of Black Rock City, especially at its outer </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">conurbations at 10:00 and 2:00,
the coordinates for a gathering storm. <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> </span></span></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Yet
there was nothing singular about what I was hearing in this optimal bohemia
where at any moment one may be seduced or assaulted by noise filtered from the
daily circus. A plucked </span>banjo, a naked black metal outfit, Barry White,
Jethro Tull and Peaches competed for attention as I rode through the
neighborhood on a Persian carpet. There were other sounds too. A few days in
and I’d grown accustomed to the accent of jubilation, a cacophonous poetry that
rose from every street corner, and the crack of a whip, repeated as a random
leather-chapped shemale unleashed nine of her best across my virgin butt. It’s
a common feeling among denizens of BRC that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all</i>
of one’s senses are smarting, that one <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">feels
more</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">alive</i> in this city than at
any other time or place in one’s life. Over days, a blizzard of sensory impressions
accumulates to form a synesthetic avalanche under which one falls, and from
which one may not return without being irrevocably changed. Here I focus
specifically on music, and in particular EDM. And while there are multiple
styles</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">i.e.
techno, house, trance, drum ‘n’ bass, and dubstep</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">—</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">in 03 I appeared to have accessed
an advanced realm of sonic hybridization, organic and technical in nature. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt;">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I was perplexed and intrigued. S<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">omething unique was going down on this frontier
unsettlement. Entire camps dedicated to symbiotic sound soldering the demented
mechanics of which saw a variety of styles performed and mixed to assist the
process by which one becomes unrecognizable even to one’s self. These playa-identities
encounter other altered selves in a city </span>where the performers most
capable of mixing diverse styles appear to enjoy considerable cachet<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">. It struck me that this bizarre hipster
universe was remarkably similar to other accomplished nadirs of stylistic
profusion and influence in the history of EDM, like New York’s Paradise Garage
or Ibiza and Goa in the late 1980s. </span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Only here we find a scene, indeed a city,
founded on projects that employ and combine multiple media—from sculpture to
mechanical, fire, circus, and the body, to video and sound art—although an
ocularcentric aesthetic appears to shape policy effecting the distribution of
subsidies for the production of art at Burning Man. Yet fusion and diversity is
endogenous to Burning Man, cultivated through “radical inclusion” and “radical
self expression,” among the Ten Principals in operation in this</span>
“promiscuous carnival of souls, a metaphysical fleamarket, a demolition derby
of reality constructs colliding in a parched void.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn2" name="_ednref2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">2</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Burning
Man’s resident <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">techgnostic</i>, Erik Davis
has offered speculation on what he called the “cults” of Burning Man—“experience,”
“intoxicants,” “flicker,” “juxtapose” and “meaningless chaos”—described as
“cultural patterns” which are refractions of Californian spiritual
counterculture that perform, miscegenate and multiply in Black Rock City.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn3" name="_ednref3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">3</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> While
Davis doesn’t name formations sired from the union of these tendencies, others
have surveyed the contours of the communities of “ritual without dogma” arising
in BRC, such as the Flaming Lotus Girls, The Fire Conclave, Pepi Ozan’s Operas,
and The Temples.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn4" name="_ednref4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">4</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Existing research pays little attention to sound arts, nor the
tempestuous career of EDM at Burning Man. This <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">is unsurprising given predominating commitments to document visual art
forms. While Burner-sonics has rarely been considered to be among the arts of
performance and ritual at Burning Man, </span>in his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Tribes of Burning Man</i>, journalist Steven Jones investigated a
network of art tribes that have thrived within and proliferated beyond the trash
fence during the 2005–2010 “renaissance.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn5" name="_ednref5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US">5</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> While <span style="color: black;">there is a tendency to </span>prostrate himself before DJs
as godlike objects of worship, Jones offers useful details relative to the ways
sonic arts have grown integral to popular projects rippling across the playa,
and moreover the synergy of EDM with fire, sculpture, and mutant vehicles. <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">While its status as
a rave is disputed, evidence for what was once dubbed </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">“the ultimate metarave” was in
ample supply by my second trip to BRC in 2006.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn6" name="_ednref6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;">6</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
It was amplified </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">in the wake of </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">the torching of BRC’s <i><span style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">eponymous</span></i>
figure when the city’s inhabitants and hundreds of mutant vehicles—many with
their own DJs queuing up the sonic apocalypse—encircled <span style="color: black;">the Man in a scene approximating the Drive-in at the End of Time. </span>Packed
with fireworks and mortar-rockets, <span style="color: black;">the figure
eventually cascaded with sparks and succumbed to a spectacular series of
detonations, its demise willed by the bold and the sumptuous whose paroxysms
produced a mushroom cloud of fine white dust observable from space</span>. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">It
had been suggested by two of my <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Daguerrodrome
comrades that</span> “the burning of the Man opens up opportunities to embody a
popular dance orgiasm facilitated by modern technologies.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn7" name="_ednref7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">7</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> In the
aftermath of the 06 blaze I explored these opportunities, hazarding into a
Space Cowboys wagon circle and Hoe Down. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Kitted
out with a quality sound rig, video projectors, screens, radio transmitters,
onboard generators and an orange bomber dome under which a vinyl-playing DJ
took position, </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">the
Space Cowboys </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">UNIMOG All-Terrain Audio Visual
Assault Vehicle (ATAVAV) has been </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">described as </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“the largest off-road sound system
in the world.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn8" name="_ednref8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US">8</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
As an outrageous accomplishment in sensory technology, b</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">ass and breaks propagated across
the alkaline desert night, animating multitudes wired-up and el-wired. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGnGQbBiU2fkcQYcaaDCwOF8w9ef4bfmzYpNdlO0GGTgu7Ab2il1fH_MxLbN_h3yf5AABbfh0R3G04kqBbd0p4pAFuT_TqNcW0enKQ3zig5PW5_Q8VQtl-UGb0NKLS5Ppi3ysG/s1600/P1080447.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGnGQbBiU2fkcQYcaaDCwOF8w9ef4bfmzYpNdlO0GGTgu7Ab2il1fH_MxLbN_h3yf5AABbfh0R3G04kqBbd0p4pAFuT_TqNcW0enKQ3zig5PW5_Q8VQtl-UGb0NKLS5Ppi3ysG/s1600/P1080447.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;">Space Cowboys Unimog<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But Black Rock City is one mother of distractions, and catching my eye in
deep playa there appeared a gigantic haystack winking in green luminescence. As
I orbited the mystery, I determined that it was no mirage. An object 20</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">0 feet long, 100 feet wide and 50
feet high, <i>Uchronia</i> was an
installation funded by Belgian artists and built using rejected timber from a
Canadian lumber mill by dozens of volunteers. Used in the title of Charles
Renouvier’s 1876 novel <i>Uchronie</i> (<i>L’Utopie dans l’histoire</i>) and replacing <i>topos</i> (from “utopia,” which literally
means “no place”) with <i>chronos</i> (time)
to generate a word that literally means <i>no
time</i>, “uchronic” refers to an “alternate history” that enables its
observers to challenge their “reality.” For its creators, <i>Uchronia</i> was a “portal, showing us what the world could be like if
creativity ruled supreme” and time is hung differently.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn9" name="_ednref9" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black;">9</span></span></span></a> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What one observer described as a “giant’s haystack twisted into a computer
model of a wave with curved entrances on three sides,”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn10" name="_ednref10" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black;">10</span></span></span></a>
was an intentional parallel-world posing the question to its Uchronian
occupants in the fashion alternate histories pose for their readers: “what if?”
With the desert night a welcome reprieve from the frying sun and whiteouts, and
its occupants bathed in neon-green, </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the Belgian Waffle was a dance club. And, on the
final night, it burned. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With its image seared into my retinas for weeks,
Uchronia became a cavernous conflagration, an allegory of impermanence, the
flaming whispers of which engulfed all who witnessed. In the wake of its
desolation, on the celebratory margins of its dissolution, sensual acts of
beauty transpired in blinking conclaves upon the playa. In its remarkably short
life, surely it was one of the most fabulous clubs ever created.</span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDZjrhAMAo3tjw_esoPDaNosELM-7FyiMF8p5t3cdkM_EBkoEfw-rX2blZW1SA3_aBAfaAWMwWVEOr9dLD-82NJMnDJTAs11PbG42YUGiEzilfaBO8eijj9lw1qJ9gYWM3ncOE/s1600/Waffle+-+scottlondon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDZjrhAMAo3tjw_esoPDaNosELM-7FyiMF8p5t3cdkM_EBkoEfw-rX2blZW1SA3_aBAfaAWMwWVEOr9dLD-82NJMnDJTAs11PbG42YUGiEzilfaBO8eijj9lw1qJ9gYWM3ncOE/s1600/Waffle+-+scottlondon.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Uchronia - Scott London</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-GB">Techno Ghetto</span></i><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">This on-playa electrosonic proliferation offers quite a contrast to
earlier years. EDM was first amplified at Burning Man in 1992 when a small
“rave camp” appeared a mile from the main encampment “glomming parasitically
onto the Porta-Johns.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn11" name="_ednref11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB">11</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
The camp was organized by Psychic TV member Craig Ellenwood of the early East
Oakland acid party crew Mr Floppy’s Flophouse. The headline act was Goa Gil,
who played from Aphex Twin’s “Digeridoo” on digital audio tape to no more than
25 people. Also playing to hardly anybody were Brad Tumbleweed, Dave Synthesis
(aka “Dsyn”), Craig and Terbo Ted, who has the mantle of being the first person
to play a DJ set at Burning Man.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn12" name="_ednref12" style="mso-endnote-id: edn12;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB">12</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
</span><span lang="EN-GB">Ted said he</span> played on Friday afternoon to literally no
one, with only ten miles of dust in front of him. "It was awesome.” While he
didn’t recall precisely, the first track was probably some “spacey stuff” from
a Jean Michel Jarre 12 inch from
Craig Ellenwood’s record pile, “a record he was willing to sacrifice to
the elements.” It was “literally a sound check.”<span class="EndnoteCharacters"> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn13" name="_ednref13" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-GB">13</span></span></a></span></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black;">The set up
the following year was equally primitive. Charles Gadeken recalled: “I remember
going out to the rave camp, it was five guys, a van, a couple of big speakers,
a card board box covered in tin foil, colored lights and a strobe light. It was
all cool.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn14" name="_ednref14" style="mso-endnote-id: edn14;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black;">14</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #c0504d;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black;">The
general reception, however, was much cooler. </span><span lang="EN-GB">Ted recalls that the
punk—add your own prefix:</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black;"> anarcho, cyber, steam, neuro, shotgun, etc.—</span><span lang="EN-GB">sensibility
predominating at Burning Man held DJ culture complicit with “consumer society
and a stain on an otherwise anarchistic, art-oriented event.” Ted recalled,<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 42.55pt; margin-right: -38.55pt; margin-top: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On one morning near sunrise in 1993, a hippy dude came up to me while I
was playing music on the sound system and held up a knife towards me and yelled
“are you crazy?” And I said “no, you’re the one with a knife.” Then he said he
was going to cut me or the speakers. So I turned the music down, ditched the
decks and circled far and wide off into the desert. He tried to cut the speaker
cones with his knife but they had metal grills on the front, he looked like a
fool and gave up and wandered off. I put on a cassette of Squeeze’s “Black
Coffee in Bed” as he walked away. <span style="color: #c0504d;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">The Organisation insisted that the techno reservationists maintain their
isolation a mile from Main Camp between 1992–96 during which time the camp
evolved into a kind of outlaw satellite of Black Rock City. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">Over the following
two years, </span><span lang="EN-GB">San Francisco’s DiY
music and culture collective SPaZ orchestrated the sounds exclusively.<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> It was extreme, eclectic and haphazard.
Cofounder Terbo Ted recalls that at one point in 1993 </span>“we put on a
cassette of the Eagles’ Hotel California by request of these two cowboys who
rode in from the desert on horseback, they were thrilled.” <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">According to fellow cofounder Aaron, </span><span style="color: black;">that same year “a wind storm blew down our speaker stacks,
but they were still plugged in and we never stopped playing.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn15" name="_ednref15" style="mso-endnote-id: edn15;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black;">15</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> </span></span></span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Listed as the official “rave” in the Burning Man brochure for 1994,</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> SPaZ would have a great influence on sound
system culture at the festival. In these years, SPaZ, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">members of which
later initiated the Autonomous Mutant Festival,</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> were effectively encouraging Burning Man to be “more like the UK
festival vibe where anybody could bring their sound, big or small.<b>”</b><span style="color: #c0504d;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In 1995, Wicked sound system, the </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">UK
derived </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">outfit </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">that held full
moon parties on beaches and parks around the Bay Area between 1991–96, </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">arrived with their turbo rig.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
Cofounder Garth recalled playing “for 4 days and nights through hail, wind,
rain and electrical storms.”</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn16" name="_ednref16" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-GB">16</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
North America's first free party tekno sound system, Pirate Audio, also
appeared that year. On the windblown frontiers of EDM, in this nascent vibrant
ghetto accommodating the eclectic, experimental and inclusive sounds of SPaZ,
the dionysian house sounds of Wicked, and other sounds besides, Burning Man had
begun to attract a variety of socio-sonic aesthetics, paving the way for the
mega-vibe it would later become.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiViIOM80MExoCVwVL8bt7UvNsVvds53snbX-AApD9oTir1Fw-Qvb-djuIJYP4hVW5FVDVmC5rnYxLM_6NupR5D5yhJxOBtX1LsIQwzOG8FLat1nwBvt3f9KOGtzPYytfEjPCIg/s1600/scaffolding+at+Techno+Ghetto+95+CCC.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="262" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiViIOM80MExoCVwVL8bt7UvNsVvds53snbX-AApD9oTir1Fw-Qvb-djuIJYP4hVW5FVDVmC5rnYxLM_6NupR5D5yhJxOBtX1LsIQwzOG8FLat1nwBvt3f9KOGtzPYytfEjPCIg/s1600/scaffolding+at+Techno+Ghetto+95+CCC.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Techno Ghetto - CCC</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Besides the sometimes sizable distinctions between habitués and
proponents of varying dance music aesthetics and practices—from the inclusive
to the more proprietary—a stand-off developed in this period between those
who’d fashioned themselves as more or less authentic denizens of the playa and
those they held as little more than raving interlopers. Ted remembers, “ravers
were always pariahs at Burning Man in my day. . . . It’s like we were the poor
people on the wrong side of the tracks and the wrong side of the man.” Ted’s
brainchild, the Techno Ghetto, appeared in 1996 as a legitimate outer suburb of
BRC. Gaining the support of organizers, Ted designed the Techno Ghetto as a
“fractalized imprint” of Main Camp. “We were into pre-planned zoning, using
surveying flags to plot out an orbital city with sound systems on the outer
ring and encampments in the center.” Ghetto sound systems included SPaZ, CCC,
Gateway and Wicked.</span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But things<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> didn’t go according to plan out in the
Ghetto. Ted recalled the Ghetto was an <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">abysmal failure. . . . DiY gone mad. . . . Music snobbery and
cliquishness and DiY anarchist tendencies prevented an orderly camp from
forming and the resulting spread-too-thin sprawl proved to be dangerous in an
era when cars were still driving at every vector on the playa at high speeds in
dust storm white outs.</span></blockquote>
</div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">He alluded to a tragic incident in 1996 when three people were seriously
injured sleeping in their tents near the Gateway sound system, one in a coma
for months, after their tents were collected by a night driver. Together with
an apparent perception that the “rave” was giving Burning Man a bad name in
official circles, and how electronic music was perceived as disturbing chatter
for many participants,</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn17" name="_ednref17" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-GB">17</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
this incident generated an unofficial “anti-rave policy.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What’s more, the
darkening mood was signalled by a “gift” that dropped out of the sky. In the
last days of the event, a gyrocopter passed over what remained of the Ghetto,
releasing its payload near the dance floor. At his first burn, Simon Ghahary took
up the story:</span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">everybody was in party
mood and happy, and everyone was waving and all of a sudden the gyrocopter
dropped this bag, which really took our imagination.” The delighted ravers
rushed over only to find that a fresh bag of shit had exploded at ground zero.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn18" name="_ednref18" style="mso-endnote-id: edn18;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-GB">18</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">According to Garth, Burning Man had the porta-potties removed from the
Techno Ghetto before the festival ended. “When people started crapping on the
desert for lack of options, someone carried over a bag to main camp. . . .
Burning Man was so enraged by this they flew over and apparently dropped it on
one camp.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Out beyond the Man, deprived of sleep and sanity, denizens of the
Ghetto were deep in the playa, and even deeper inside the splatter radius of </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">reassigned </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">fecal discharge.</span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: 0cm; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>All’s Fair in Love
and Awe</b></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">Any decent history of the DJ would recognize his—for typically male—role
as an outlaw, a breaker of rules, in defiance of convention, pushing
boundaries, including those associated with aesthetics and decibel policies;
transgressions innovative for some, threatening to others. Culture hero or
serial pest, at Burning Man the cowboy DJ is an ambivalent figure. I can’t give
this issue the depth it deserves here, but the scrap between ravers and their
adversaries was dramatized in a performance in which Goa Gil came to
loggerheads with a giant pedal-powered flamethrowing drill </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black;">and margarita maker </span><span lang="EN-GB">called the Veg-O-Matic of
the Apocalypse—or more to the point, anti-rave crusader Jim Mason, who was pedaling
the beast.</span><span lang="EN-GB"> Robert Gelman
reported on this scene:<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It’s straight out of
hell, suggesting engineering from the industrial revolution transported to
Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Part vehicle, part flame-thrower, part earth drilling
device, I envision this machine being used to battle creatures in a 1950s
monster movie, or to torture souls of the damned in the realm of satan.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn19" name="_ednref19" style="mso-endnote-id: edn19;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB">19</span></span></span></span></a></span></blockquote>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjc2nFDYapPN-M_kWBkPjXQ9sGNPW5qJQkpC6klzYadLYzbB0ad7r8RmBO6j63TDXMPpgJbwRNJ_2r6UYzRCDcmWnYp9RWS6nsuD1siMhTY7rbdIG3kkk3HDNzktoBN_PySTji/s1600/vege2+Leo+Nash.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="327" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjc2nFDYapPN-M_kWBkPjXQ9sGNPW5qJQkpC6klzYadLYzbB0ad7r8RmBO6j63TDXMPpgJbwRNJ_2r6UYzRCDcmWnYp9RWS6nsuD1siMhTY7rbdIG3kkk3HDNzktoBN_PySTji/s1600/vege2+Leo+Nash.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Veg-O-Matic of the Apocalypse - Leo Nash</span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With a pressurized gas-charger blasting flames as far as seventy feet
from its barrel, and a gathering mob inciting it to greater acts of
destruction, the Veg-O-Matic was known to burn installations in its path
following the demise of the Man. On its post-Burn rampage, when the Veg-O-Matic
rolled into the first Community Dance in 1997, Mason found Goa Gil directly in
his path:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The crew
of the machine is tilting the flamethrower’s barrel up at the console. Gil is
staring down the 12-foot barrel of this jet powered char-broiler. I had to
remind myself that this is theatre, or is it? I’m still not sure. “Burn it!”
the mob chants, “Burn THEM!” Like an opposing pacifist army, the ravers are
standing their ground, some shouting in defiance of the threat, some in
disbelief that this could really be happening. Chicken John, like the demented
circus ringmaster that he is, issues his now-familiar warning over the bullhorn
[“Stand Aside”]. We seem to have travelled back centuries in time. I don’t
remember ever feeling farther from home than this.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn20" name="_ednref20" style="mso-endnote-id: edn20;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black;">20</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a></span></blockquote>
</div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAkG2lYmOT_L9LlCIfphEvVEB27wcZZiKVUoHp6KOV1KW40HBTbH3zdqz5i_HjmoL1LdFynTNWmGXryErXwtkLH38HDRsjc8pUf4yRS_U_2Yl9QXIDw-PYgWjUyt4BAEHiHrN6/s1600/GOA_GIL.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="272" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAkG2lYmOT_L9LlCIfphEvVEB27wcZZiKVUoHp6KOV1KW40HBTbH3zdqz5i_HjmoL1LdFynTNWmGXryErXwtkLH38HDRsjc8pUf4yRS_U_2Yl9QXIDw-PYgWjUyt4BAEHiHrN6/s1600/GOA_GIL.gif" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Goa Gil</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br /></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">Forty-six, a sadhu and legend of the Goa scene, </span><span lang="EN-GB">years before the emergence of “darkpsy”, <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Gil had been selecting from the darkest
entries in psychedelic trance</span>, in a ritual that he has characterized as <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">apocalyptic.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn21" name="_ednref21" style="mso-endnote-id: edn21;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB">21</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Loading up from his </span>“divine dozen” arsenal over seven hours, Gil was
doubtlessly inciting detractors to acts of symbolic, if not physical, violence.
<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">He may well have been playing from
Pleiadians’ <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">U.F.O</i>. or Psychopod’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Headlines </i>at the moment the mob arrived
to deliver their demand: Led Zeppelin <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">or</i>
the flame. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">But the scene Mason and his supporters crashed was no glowstick
picnic. The champion and his army of Anti-Ravers rode out to slay the dragon at
the gates, only to find the Dark Yogi summoning Kali the Destroyer. Little
wonder Gelman thought he’d landed amid an epic conflict. It was perhaps in this
moment—when Gil stood his ground, even turned the volume up, in the face of
obliteration—that ravers gained a foothold at Burning Man.</span> “Stairway to
Heaven” was never played. With that said, psychedelic trance maintained minimal
credence at Burning Man subsequent to this period. While Space Elevator became
the most well known dedicated psytrance camp, that sound was effectively
drowned out by a fusion of breaks, dub and electro house.</span></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That was some years off, for in
the late 1990s, the battle of the boombox was just beginning. Veteran of the
frontier shit-storm,</span><span class="MsoCommentReference" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US"> G</span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">hahary </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">was vaguely declarative after his first burn. “After that, you’d want
to put the Burning Man out wouldn’t you.” </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The playa appears to have been an
ideal laboratory for Ghahary, designer of the Pod speaker system and founder of
label-house Blue Room Released. Ghahary was drawn to Burning Man since, like
the psychedelic parties he’d been hosting in the UK and elsewhere since c1992,
the space “defies reason” because there, one’s experience is not proscribed.
Offering background on his design praxis, Ghahary explained “the vessels that
emit sound are just as important as the sound experience,” weighing in against
detractors: “people thought we just turned up partied and played music. But
everything was orchestrated as an art project, its just that it has sound. . .
. Sometimes people argue that sound is not as dramatic as sculpture or paint.
It simply just hasn’t got the history. But sound is a complete sensory experience.” </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;">In 1998, with the assistance of Nick Crayson, </span>Adam
Antennae Ohana,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cyril Noir</span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, <span style="color: black;">among
others, including crew from the Russ Street Warehouse, Ghahary designed the
geodesic </span>Blue Room Molecule dome.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">We imagined the Molecule to be highly
charged. We wanted to create a space within the Molecule to reflect the kinetic
and creative energy that the property of the Blue Room Molecule might contain.
Because we could not build a complete sphere, we built a submerged sphere, so
half we imagined was underground and one half overground. So we executed that
by creating a geodesic dome. So this idea of a molecule was manifested.</span></blockquote>
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOR2i2W7aErCqN-CJcVm2et5um170RDWtj0HSy8eGRsDPOBdgIcDvavQ0ALo3g2jE2XyPMX3V5DW9txdGHi06GnNgfP9eLWpv0xb-EflNZCCiaUoVthsIsh8k7aUm24wJtmNsy/s1600/Blue+Room+Molecule+-+Burning+Man+1998.+Photo+by+Simon+Ghahary.jpg+.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOR2i2W7aErCqN-CJcVm2et5um170RDWtj0HSy8eGRsDPOBdgIcDvavQ0ALo3g2jE2XyPMX3V5DW9txdGHi06GnNgfP9eLWpv0xb-EflNZCCiaUoVthsIsh8k7aUm24wJtmNsy/s1600/Blue+Room+Molecule+-+Burning+Man+1998.+Photo+by+Simon+Ghahary.jpg+.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: start;">Blue Room Molecule - </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: start;">Simon Ghahary </span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">That
year, <span style="color: black;">Ghahary arrived with a</span> San Francisco
style fire engine that he acquired with Crayson. Sprayed blue with intricate
decals and motifs like “play loud” and “CAUTION! HEAVY TECHNO,” it was a
vehicle of protest. Filled with water, the engine was used to create a mud bath
on the open playa near the Molecule. But the engine had another purpose.
Ghahary and Crayson trucked around the playa recruiting burners to their newly
established 420 Division, practicing fire drill procedures. Unfortunately for
them, on the night of the burn, the team dwindled down to Ghahary and Crayson,
who were left with their hoses dangling. En route to douse the Man, they “were
intercepted by two security cars that didn’t take it at all in good humor.”
Chuckling at the absurdity of the moment, Ghahary admits “in hindsight, it
probably wasn’t the cleverest idea, but it was quite funny.” Still laughing, he
added, “we got banned from Burning Man after that.” </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></span>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYSw8DtfekVPm9Ntz66_PeRu35RaqNWN5_XrBZ2tZqphQz7yZsW8Peinpv4K99UMUBn145g8DC-Oip-v7CzufavCKYSxz7Ka88SUoS5jXsK_4Bn94a67yPw-reauGpvWjcp2c-/s1600/Blue+Room+Firetruck+at+BRC+98.+Photo+by+Simon+Ghahary.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYSw8DtfekVPm9Ntz66_PeRu35RaqNWN5_XrBZ2tZqphQz7yZsW8Peinpv4K99UMUBn145g8DC-Oip-v7CzufavCKYSxz7Ka88SUoS5jXsK_4Bn94a67yPw-reauGpvWjcp2c-/s1600/Blue+Room+Firetruck+at+BRC+98.+Photo+by+Simon+Ghahary.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: start;">Blue Room Fire Engine - </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-align: start;">Simon Ghahary</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Credibility is hard
won on the frontiers of art. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A cultural war continued
to rage over the validity of arrant loudsters, “monotonous computer loop
music,” and</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> the presence of some of the highest paid EDM brand names
like Paul Oakenfold, Tiesto, Carl Cox and Infected Mushroom,</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn22" name="_ednref22" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-GB">22</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> many flying in on the rockstar-junket, and
departing quick smart to maintain touring schedules. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For many acts, appearances
at Burning Man serve to boost credence and </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">brand energy. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">the biggest names in commercial
dance music perform “45-minute showcase sets to massive crowds at
MTV-Beach-Party-style setups” before racing off to their next venue, we may
very well have arrived at “the EDM equivalent of putting a Starbucks or H&M
on the Esplanade.”</span><span class="MsoEndnoteReference" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn23" name="_ednref23" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB">23</span></span></a></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
Writer and musician </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ST Frequency—aka </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Stephen
C. Thomas—</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">went on to state that he’d
prefer</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> “</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">something a little more eclectic and
unexpected, like funky industrial bluegrass, or ambient dub-zydeco. . . [</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">to]
a cacophony of 22 different epic trance records ‘blowing up’ from every
imaginable direction.”</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn24" name="_ednref24" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB">24</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Observing </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">that which flickers in the
shadows in the “High Desert Carnival Realm,” Jonathan Zap meditates upon how a
successful journey through Burning Man requires hard work, or perhaps </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">hard play</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> in the form of intentional
self-incendiary actions. For Zap, this requires more than simply burning one’s
self up to yet “another of the golden oldies of the Babylon Matrix phonograph,
that . . . combo of blasting music and intoxication in a socially dense
environment.” With equal parts Jung and Crowley, he claims that this “is the
zone on the planet that comes closest to being a Logos Beheld—a place where our
psychic intentions become realized as communal dreamscapes. . . . As in a
communal telepathic dreamscape, where those with the most focused psychic
intentions create the most mutation.”</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn25" name="_ednref25" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB">25</span></span></span></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">But sound camps are themselves mutations, undergoing constant adaptations
in accordance with the social axioms of this incendiary<span style="color: #c0504d;">
</span>realm. The # 1 rule among these camps appears to be that DJs, as with
other artists, are never paid for their performances. Not unlike commercial
dance festivals, camps like Opulent Temple have announced line-ups in advance on
websites and Facebook pages, effectively promoting headline acts like Infected
Mushroom, who have drawn some of the most adulatory and </span><span class="queryh1"><span lang="EN-GB">sycophantic</span></span><span lang="EN-GB"> crowds. Such patronage has fed the ire of those who’ve long railed against the advent of the spectacle,
where participants grow to behave more like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">audiences</i>,
whose division from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">artists</i> is
consequential to an apparatus that lifts celebrities onto stages that expand in
size and height. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">The growing presence of party monsters and itinerant gawkers
was a problem raised by </span><span lang="EN-GB">art
critic <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Mark Van Proyen concerned about
the “Ibiza set” and other “tourists” swamping the city—i.e., those who behave
like <i>flâneurs</i> of the playa, are more like visitors than locals,
observers than participants.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn26" name="_ednref26" style="mso-endnote-id: edn26;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB">26</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
It has been noted that Larry Harvey has never been to Opulent Temple.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn27" name="_ednref27" style="mso-endnote-id: edn27;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB">27</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
But when entertainers like Infected Mushroom, who once appeared on a cover
story in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Vogue</i> <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Italia</i> wearing suits, boast of their appearances at Burning Man
alongside their sell-out headline shows at Miami’s Ultra Music Festival, as
they do on their website, is it any wonder? <span style="color: #c0504d;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Where Black Rock
City serves as a prestige-building export zone for some EDM artists whose
agendas compete with the noncommodified social art agenda of Burning Man, we
might begin to understand why Peter Lamborn Wilson</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">—</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">aka
Hakim Bey, scribe of the <i>Temporary
Autonomous Zone</i><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn28" name="_ednref28" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">28</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></a>—has
been reproachful of electronic music. Actually, Bey dislikes most recorded
music. The Opulent Temple et al. would be anathema to his “insurrectionary”
agenda—just further evidence of </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">the immiserating world of mediation from which one is entreated to
disappear. </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In Bey’s screed, a turntablist does not preside over the </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">festal</i><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">, i.e., the social grounds of that
which is characterized as “Immediatism,” an outsider art project with strong
Situationist influences aimed to dissolve “the gulf between the production and
consumption of art.”</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn29" name="_ednref29" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">29</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bey’s
“</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ontological anarchy”</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> had an
indubitable impact among burners.</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn30" name="_ednref30" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">30</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> It </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">provided the poetic architecture for many
ravers in the 1990s, despite the incompatibility of the techno rave’s artifice
with what Bey has held as appropriate responses to mediation. Consistent with
an apparent desire to return to pre-WWI technology, Wilson maintains his
contempt for recorded music that he characterizes as “a tombstone for live
performance.” In his “</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Back to 1911 Movement Manifesto,” he complains</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 36.0pt; margin-right: -38.6pt; margin-top: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">i</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">f we have to hear a recording let it be a 1911-style
shellac disc or even wax cylinder, cranked up by hand, not electricity—a magic
music box to baffle the dog with its master’s voice—a cabinet of aural marvels.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn31" name="_ednref31" style="mso-endnote-id: edn31;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">31</span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">In a jeremiad launched against “</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">headphones & computers,” he claimed that “we let stars sing for us—we let machines come
between us & the divine musician within us. . . . Music now lacks all <i>sociality</i>
except the ersatz of mass consumption to hear <i>live</i> music sometimes.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn32" name="_ednref32" style="mso-endnote-id: edn32;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">32</span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><span style="color: #c0504d;"> </span>Surely those EDM enthusiasts who’ve replayed and
remixed the poetry of the TAZ—a sizable population of his readers—deserve a
more nuanced critique, and yet for Bey no distinction is drawn between <span style="color: black;">styles of recorded music. Bey makes not acknowledgment of
independent music and event-industries, no attention to cultures of the remix,
the visionary depth of multimedia assemblages, nor an understanding of how EDM
technologies have been redirected from the purposes of control and command. Bey’s
approach may warrant an equal measure of reproach since the effort to
understand what protagonists have long been raving about is entirely absent
from writings subsequent to the TAZ. </span></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Just as
Harvey has apparently never visited OT, Bey has </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">apparently<span style="color: #c0504d;"> </span><span style="color: black;">never </span>been to a
rave. With his head in the sands of 1911, he consigns himself to history,
claiming that the “</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">full
play of Imagination becomes possible only <i>without</i>
modern technology, because tech has become the heartless <i>operation</i> of Capital, which hates all
forms of <i>sharing.</i>”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn33" name="_ednref33" style="mso-endnote-id: edn33;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">33</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> I
doubt this would be an acceptable, or even possible, position for the habitués
of the open source laboratory for ontological anarchism that is BRC, regardless
of their attitudes towards EDM.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">An implicit myth of authenticity comes into view as the whiteouts lift.
In electronic dance music <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">liveness</i> is
a hotly debated issue especially since production and performance practices are
inseparable and skilled DJs provide performances that are unique to each
occasion. This is not the place to revisit such debates, but these conversations
are not irrelevant to Burning Man where communities of volunteers collaborate
to facilitate these performances. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">It appears that long held views about
immediatism, community and interactivity have informed logics by which “dance
camps” are adjudicated illegitimate candidates for BRC arts funding. These views
are doubtlessly fuelled by the rising presence of rock star electrotainment,
whose audiences are anathema to the “</span><span lang="EN-GB">inclusive,
community logic” of artistic “prosumption” that has been intentionally
encouraged by Burning Man since 2000.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn34" name="_ednref34" style="mso-endnote-id: edn34;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB">34</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> This
is a complicated topic since th<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">e
democratisation of musicianship enabled by technics, DJ performance techniques,
the internet and optimised dancefloor “vibes” have augmented prosumer
environments unparalleled in popular music. </span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">Defenders of policy might
indicate that dance camps do not compare favorably with intentionally
interactive work like that of Peter Hudson, such as his 2007 Homouroboros, a
zoetrope of monkeys powered by drum beating and bike pedaling participants. <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Dance camps hosting artists who are feted,
elevated and inflated are held to contravene what are more than often implicit
working models of anarcho-folk community—communities that work under the tacit
assumption that, as expressed by </span></span><span lang="EN-GB">Ananda Coomraswamy in<i> Transformation of Nature
in Art</i>, and cribbed by Bey, the artist is not a special kind of person, but
each person is a special kind of artist.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn35" name="_ednref35" style="mso-endnote-id: edn35;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-GB">35</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> And
yet protagonists might well contend that in these interstices where occupants </span><span lang="EN-GB">are animate in dance and
altered together in wide-grinned abandon, the scene holds a carnivalesque and
improvisational logic of it its own. There appears to be something universally
artful about that. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>A Rhythm Remorseless
</b></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB">In the last gasp of
the 20<sup>th</sup> century, a host of EDM-oriented outfits with different
agendas and styles descended on the playa. The momentum picked up in 1998.
Several hardcore outfits, including New York’s Blackkat, The Army of Love, SPaZ
and Arcane—outfits who would subsequently head to the AMF—collaborated on a
community sound system that year. With its series of geodesic domes and bars,
including a large dance dome and a bar dome made of CDs, SpaceLounge also
appeared in 1998—a haven for funky SF house and new school breaks.<span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> Holding free Full Moon Gatherings in the
Mojave since 1993, LA’s Moontribe also threw down, with Moontribe artists
performing for three</span> consecutive nights next to The Temple of Rudra,
with the final party drawing 2,000 people following Pepe Ozan’s opera. </span><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></span>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTRgEvuv9BKG7LL0H89vBJ-eIGa4ctjSHGyfuzsc64XsJfX6XWCst1_GcuageUQgQ9R-dnSSidsbNYPShyphenhyphenrDZxqwgTs4riiYVpUFCvelKX4gL37bvPgBvfT0KnGknzb0lICtgJ/s1600/comdance99_site.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTRgEvuv9BKG7LL0H89vBJ-eIGa4ctjSHGyfuzsc64XsJfX6XWCst1_GcuageUQgQ9R-dnSSidsbNYPShyphenhyphenrDZxqwgTs4riiYVpUFCvelKX4gL37bvPgBvfT0KnGknzb0lICtgJ/s1600/comdance99_site.jpg" width="250" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Through this period, Michael Gosney resolved
to fuse <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">disparate sound outfits in a
united front called Community Dance, a compromise promoted on Gosney’s Radio-V
as a “techno tribal ritual celebration.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn36" name="_ednref36" style="mso-endnote-id: edn36;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">36</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Over three years (1997–99) these pre-millennial rituals saw the collaboration
of CCC, Anon Salon, Koinonea, Sacred Dance Society, Dimension 7, </span><span style="color: black;">LA’s Tonka sound system,</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"> Blue Room and other techno tribes hosting decidedly psychedelic
line-ups. </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After the incident with Gil, the 1998 Community Dance featured a
Flying Saucer installation. In 1999, the final Community Dance staged a</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">recreation
of the Banbury Crop Circle. The camp was a concerted response to claims that
“rave camps” were bereft of the artistic vision and principled behavior that
characterized Burning Man. According to designer </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Landon Elmore, the camp
was a full size replica of the original Banbury Crop Circle.</span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">We painted the circle onto the playa floor
using earth-based pigments mixed with water and a plant-based glue. . . . The
idea was to have the Community Dance on top of the painted crop circle, so that
all of the dancers would ‘erase’ the markings from the playa floor. ‘Leaving no
trace’, which worked perfectly!”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn37" name="_ednref37" style="mso-endnote-id: edn37;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US">37</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a></span></blockquote>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Rave camps had
transitioned to large scale sound-art camps in all but name.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The amplification of electronic
dance music was afforded legitimacy as a result of the innocuously titled
Community Dance, but the pranks did not let-up at the turn of the Millennium.
In 2000, probably harboring memories of Blue Room’s forlorn attempt to “put the
man out”, as some kind of aesthetic reprisal, the Burning Scouts of America
decided to perform their community service at Radio-V’s Flying Saucer, where
they threatened to douse the sound equipment. The Burning Scouts enlisted among
their number those who were “too cool, dumb, weak, punk or gay to have made it
in the Boy or Girl Scouts.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn38" name="_ednref38" style="mso-endnote-id: edn38;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;">38</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Apparently they also
included those who weren’t into loud raves all night long. The CCC’s Brad
“Santosh” Olsen—founder of San Francisco’s annual How Weird Street
Faire—remembers the scene on Sunday morning:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">They appeared walking around our
camp, coming at us banging on pots and pans, no expressions on their faces, as
they slowly made their way over to our RV. They must have thought: Sunday
morning, we’re all crashed out and they were going to teach us what making a
racket was all about! We looked on in amazement. When [one assailant] attempted
to come into the RV, someone threw old bath water at him and we closed the
door. After they left we came out and noticed that they pulled down our art and
banners and vandalized the camp. We broke our camp and slowly drove over to the
CCC system on the other side where DJ Perez (Perry Ferrel from Jane’s
Addiction) was just coming on (& so were we).</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn39" name="_ednref39" style="mso-endnote-id: edn39;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US">39</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a></span></blockquote>
</div>
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<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">With the </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">indubitable ubiquity
of amplified electrosonics, the BORG had to find solutions with concessions to
all parties. Bass travels multi-directionally and carries easily across the
playa where it cannot be contained effectively. As is stated on Burning Man’s
“Sound Policy” page, this physical situation “gives sound as an art form an
unfair advantage over other art forms.” In recognition, in the early 2000s, the Organisation began implementing a policy restricting large sound installations to the </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Large-Scale Sound Art
Zone at the </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">city’s limits on both
sides where </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“a
maximum power amplification of 300 watts is permitted, producing sound
amplification not to exceed 90 decibels, when measured at 20 feet from the
source.”</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn40" name="_ednref40" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span class="EndnoteCharacters">40</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">W</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">hat was once a source
of absolute contempt—ghettoized one mile from Main Camp—was eventually
accommodated via zoning guidelines. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Excessive sound remains a persistent source of
disturbance among BRC residents, however. While Burning Man’s # 1 rule is that
“Neighbors should talk to one another when sound becomes a problem and try to
resolve the issue through direct communication,”</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn41" name="_ednref41" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">41</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> Black
Rock Rangers are frequently called in to perform volume checks and mediate
disputes, and they will disable sound equipment should their warnings go
unheeded.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black;">With names
like </span><span lang="EN-GB">Lush, Sol System, Sound of
Mind, House of Lotus, Oacious, Green Gorilla Lounge, and Pink Mammoth, <span style="color: black;">Large-Scale Sound Art camps became permanent fixtures of
BRC</span>. <span style="color: black;">The audio-visual aesthetics, style and
duration of venues have varied considerably. From Emerald City 2000, the
one-time extravaganza funded by eccentric inventor Patrick Flanagan with Joegh
Bullock and Michael Gosney providing the entertainment, to the long running
Root Society. From performance and fire art troupes like El Circo with their
post-apocalyptic “dreamtime imagery” and Bag End sound system to the afternoon
groovement at the Deep End. From salacious theme camps like Bianca’s Smut Shack
and Illuminaughty, to the Rhythm Society’s Blyss Abyss, Lemuria and Area 51. <o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div align="left" class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG3LWk2m1cMFd8Bnid5kWnm90CR3SHCpJvMfOzhRQ18HDETpyIzFehhTKX668t9u-4xzdSJSYFhNH8KA8ftKv1fwlAVqUwXvVRk319IJrqLEzMiIJgMqkkwC3VtmkbchK259S5/s1600/Opulent+Temple.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhG3LWk2m1cMFd8Bnid5kWnm90CR3SHCpJvMfOzhRQ18HDETpyIzFehhTKX668t9u-4xzdSJSYFhNH8KA8ftKv1fwlAVqUwXvVRk319IJrqLEzMiIJgMqkkwC3VtmkbchK259S5/s1600/Opulent+Temple.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Opulent Temple</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black;"><br /></span></span>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Opulent Temple is among BRC’s longest operating
and largest dance camps on the playa. Steered by Syd Gris with help from dozens
of core volunteers, the camp started in 2003, and moved to the corner of 2:00
and Esplanade by 2005. The OT was built on the perennial shores of tension and
release, and I surfed those waters in 2008 when English DJ Lee Coombs was
coming on. It was only Thursday night, but thousands had turned out to be
turned inside out. A master of the build, Coombs was aggregating immeasurable
tension, like a pressure cooker, before the floodgates finally opened and the
playa-massive erupted. At the OT, you know that moment has arrived as
DJ-controlled flames blast out from the O-pod, a special chamber that is part
steampunk time machine and alchemist’s laboratory. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Opulent Temple emerged in
the year of the theme Beyond Belief and has maintained its role as a “sacred
dance” camp. Other large-scale art and music camps with similar spiritual
pretences were encountered on the playa that year, including <span style="color: black;">the Church of WOW, the Sacred Water Temple, and </span>Connexus
Cathedral where weddings and parties were held inside a neon cathedral. In his
outline of the 2003 art theme, Harvey inquired: “</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">How does the sacred exist, and where might it be
found?”</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn42" name="_ednref42" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">42</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
Habitués of the night were answering with their feet, as the Opulent Temple
grew to be among the most popular venues on the playa. Paraphrasing Erik
Erikson, cited in Harvey’s 2003 art theme explanation, those gravitating to
these temples in which one could worship one’s own body and that of others were
being “lifted up to the very bosom of the divine.”</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn43" name="_ednref43" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference">43</span></span></a><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
Sound art camps flourished in this period, their success a combination of
ingenuity, shared vision, independent funding sources, and dedication to a
collective project operating on burner principles year round.</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Space Cowboys predate the Opulent Temple
by several years. Founded in 1997, the SC had allies in the SpaceLounge, with
whom they merged by the end of 2002. By 2012 SC had become sought after
proponents of breaks, house and nu-funk. Cofounder Peter Kimelman (aka pk)
offers insight on the way SC operate distinct from other outfits:</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The Space Cowboys, like SpaceLounge and other
early camps, threw parties that were much more than just a large sound system,
they had bars, artworks and tried to have a "vibe" that got people to
stay for hours on end (Distrikt and Disco Knights still follow that model). We
didn't publish line-ups as the focus was on the crew, even when international
celebrity djs played it was kept quiet as they were just friends we knew. We
still follow that tradition today.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn44" name="_ednref44" style="mso-endnote-id: edn44;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US">44</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">A week on the playa used to pan out rather
differently than it does today. In the late 1990s and early 2000s it was not
uncommon for camps to focus their energy on one night.<span style="color: #c0504d;">
</span>SpaceLounge did Thursdays, the Cowboys did Fridays, FalseProfit
eventually took Tuesday etc... Camps focused on a particular sound/vibe and
tried not to compete with each other. Plug 3 did hip-hop and the Church of Funk
did funk, Space Lounge did a funkier side of house/breaks and Space Cowboys had
a slightly harder style. <span style="color: #c0504d;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">pk further stated that the Space Cowboys are
“proud in our role as a strong element of the community that continues to
provide support to artists and is able to self-fund our activities through the
hard work of our collective members.” SC would become an exemplary sound art
organization that has successfully raised funds for its playa time operations
through year-round events in the Bay Area, hosting Breakfast of Champions on
New Year’s Day since 1999, and running SnowFest at Squaw Valley, GhostShip (the
annual Halloween party on Treasure Island) and their annual Cinco de Mayo
fundraiser. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The Space Cowboys’ UNIMOG was the first
large-scale sound vehicle on the playa (2001). With the UNIMOG, SC began their
practice of building sound installations on the open playa. Playing vinyl in
these conditions while mobile requires an enclosed area to protect equipment
from dust and a suspension system to prevent skipping. Since “the Mog” featured
these elements the SC held a design advantage over other art cars with DJs. <span style="color: black;">Over the next decade, with the advent of CDJs, mutant disco
vehicles had grown ubiquitous, from the </span>Garage Mahal, a double-decker
bus with DJ booth, dance floor and crows nest, to <span style="color: black;">the
shape and location shifting vehicles of the DI5ORIENT EXPRESS, to the massive
bass of Robot Heart. Some vehicles </span>feature stadium sized sound systems,
and their reception is mixed and not necessarily welcome, especially when rogue
units maraud quiet areas of BRC. To deal with this, the </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">DMV
implemented sound level ordinance for mutant vehicles with a100db limit at the
top end, and limit performance to areas beyond 10:00 and 2:00.</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>Instant Disco:
Rolling in Deep Playa</b></span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Space Cowboys UNIMOG was not
only the first mutant sound vehicle on the playa, it was the first to use an </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">FM transmitter, syncing its rig
with that of other mobile units. The transmitter was first used in 2003, when
the Hoe Down was transported out to Zach Coffin's Temple of Gravity. This
development allowed for radically versatile operations and mobilized immediacy.
Today, some of the most adored outfits on the playa are mobile mutants. Each
year the outlandish character of these moving multimedia installations exceeds
that experienced in previous years. These sound art armadas hump their thump
into deep playa, out past 10:00 and 2:00. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Years after the demise of the Techno
Ghetto, the deep has again become the canvas for alliances sounder than before.
Ranging out to drum up the sun, these mutant motorcades feature vehicles with
varying purposes. Some provide the sound, others lights and screens, others are
engines of fire, and yet others hold purposes left only to the imagination. In
recent times, many of the thousands who are moved to experience this itinerant
disco inferno gravitate to Robot Heart, a mobile </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">cabinet of aural marvels </span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">whose crystal clear bass blankets
the deep; a sound attracting a blush of mutant vehicles. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglBfEWYIhDxJX-ktLILoc8Kvazfs-ukolY3UjNYOfCs5e3934MFU1k7qBcrapCoylXLvfCr2APHQMRg0Gu8_1pigtmzgyI3yX1WsGFY_qd5NFfPmFEt6iZ_tA_WmiOZ8hxtElC/s1600/night+shot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglBfEWYIhDxJX-ktLILoc8Kvazfs-ukolY3UjNYOfCs5e3934MFU1k7qBcrapCoylXLvfCr2APHQMRg0Gu8_1pigtmzgyI3yX1WsGFY_qd5NFfPmFEt6iZ_tA_WmiOZ8hxtElC/s1600/night+shot.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">In 2012, Robot Heart
was linking up with the </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">DeepSbass sound system of the
Dancetronauts, the Disco Space Shuttle and others. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Some of these dalliances maybe as tasteless
as easycheese squeezed onto a stale crumpet. Australian burner Ben Dixon offered
me tales of such </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">obnoxious interventions that year,
which he said were “not helped by the fact that the smaller systems on some
cars were being pushed way into distortion in a stupid DJ look-at-me loud-off.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn45" name="_ednref45" style="mso-endnote-id: edn45;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">45</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
He was, however, impressed by the “instant party” like that
starring</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">El
Pulpo Mecanico, a giant motorized octopus belching flame in time to the beating
of the Heart Deco Express. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWs8wFkcWPqCLe-eR6XfO_KQsD3d5NNJAQDUNdy4BW58aGppG33iXF8hU5YVDRoeIoX8hBwhNi_sql-re4AffmhdFwEvk7b8VFzqdi8CNlAw4fY8pOCUvZpYIEeJ59bAnBH5W4/s1600/El+Pulpo+Mecanico+-+Created+by+Duane+Flatmo.+Steve+Orso.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWs8wFkcWPqCLe-eR6XfO_KQsD3d5NNJAQDUNdy4BW58aGppG33iXF8hU5YVDRoeIoX8hBwhNi_sql-re4AffmhdFwEvk7b8VFzqdi8CNlAw4fY8pOCUvZpYIEeJ59bAnBH5W4/s1600/El+Pulpo+Mecanico+-+Created+by+Duane+Flatmo.+Steve+Orso.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">El Pulpo Mecanico - Steve Orso</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Riding into the deep, waves of </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">BRC occupants capitulate to
multisensory broadsides to which a legion of decorated mutants have conspired. <span style="color: black;">In collaborative mobilisations, sound armadas have gathered
strength at the city limits, a theatre for frontier art as interactive as it is
intercorporeal. Military metaphors offer ebullient weight to this allied
objective—not so much to conquer the other, but to vanquish one’s fear of
others, and indeed otherness. </span>Launching a barrage of sonic and visual
transmissions from its inception in 2001, it is no small detail <span style="color: black;">that the Space Cowboy’s </span>ATAVAV was modified from a
1973 Mercedes-Benz NATO communications vehicle. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Modified and re-e<span style="color: black;">nlisted for service in this new theatre of awe, the Unimog does not
roll alone.</span> I'm thinking of the astounding and audacious Disco Duck, a
marvel I first encountered in 2008 at sunrise out beyond 10:00. A mobile three
level club in the form of a yellow bath-time duck had unloaded its cargo of
weird humanity to greet the rising sun. During the night, with green laser
eyes, fire-spitting Mohawk, and a blinking fur-lined double-decker auxiliary
bus, the Duck became a</span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> fabulous mobile beacon. </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">But now, with morning sunlight refracted off its golden glitter-ball
head, the Duck was exposed in all of its splendor. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">What wasn’t so apparent was that this marvel
was built on the chassis of an armored amphibious assault vehicle. Instruments
of warfare transmuted into pleasure machines, the UNIMOG and the Disco Duck
reminded me of the work of legendary industrial-sculpture collective Mutoid
Waste Co, renowned for recruiting war machines for radical assaults on the
senses. Throwing the first acid house warehouse raves in London at the old
Coach Station and mutating the refuse of modern culture into the marvelous,
these salvage-situationists had been instrumental conspirators in London’s
reclamational sensibility. Throughout the mid to late 1980s, and into the
1990s, the Mutoids had been busy revivifying obsolescence and transforming
forgotten landscapes into objects and sites of beauty, stirring those who came
to witness, and dance, with a passion to make some noise. In London and across
Europe, furnishing squatted buildings with anthropomorphic engines, mutated
bike parts, and transmuted Russian MiG 21s, and raising subterranean spaces of
difference where all became a spectacle to each other, they incited fellowship
and inspired the imagination.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I felt something of this energy in both the
ATAVAV and the Duck, but 2008 also saw the arrival of </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Mutoid
Waste Co artists themselves, including co-founder Joe Rush. It was an
auspicious occasion, especially since MWCo had been mutating cars, trucks and
tanks since the early 1980s, including a series of Car Henge projects that
started at Glastonbury and reached as far as Australia, in the work of Robin
Mutoid Cook. At Burning Man, their motorized animatronic fire-breathing horse
and covered wagon Spaghetti West 10, and a pair of dinosaur-like mechanical
beasts—the Dino-Dumper and the Clamp-O-Saurus—were imports </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">described as “</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">one-third
Little House On The Prairie and two-thirds Horseman Of The Apocalypse.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn46" name="_ednref46" style="mso-endnote-id: edn46;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">46</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3OryqK-Id05lKtNHlgkg3HBNBjhuwx7gHkllZQGIhRQWslRVuRoxvCiu3cTXjuVEF41mkbIeYfWp90maVp7cDifrBlJBkMk-Cp0dd_BzPUPCJ5h9IxtfasuKZC2ub8AR88H4c/s1600/P1080681.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3OryqK-Id05lKtNHlgkg3HBNBjhuwx7gHkllZQGIhRQWslRVuRoxvCiu3cTXjuVEF41mkbIeYfWp90maVp7cDifrBlJBkMk-Cp0dd_BzPUPCJ5h9IxtfasuKZC2ub8AR88H4c/s1600/P1080681.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dancetronauts</td></tr>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>Residual Burn </b><o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Finally, I’m drawn to discuss the
quintessentially <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">liminal</i> sensibility
of Burning Man. DJ Spooky once referred to Burning Man as a context for
"the prolonged present.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn47" name="_ednref47" style="mso-endnote-id: edn47;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">47</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> Out
there, he claimed, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">the demarcation lines we’ve all been
conditioned to accept dissolve. . . . Time blurs, you lose all of these
strictures of New York, waking up, or going back to sleep, people, parties,
events, blur, scenes blur, camps blur.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn48" name="_ednref48" style="mso-endnote-id: edn48;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">48</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The experience is typical. Playa life is an
altered reality in which day and night, waking consciousness and dream states,
domestic space and public thoroughfares, wicked laughter and familiar faces,
merge in a disorienting carnivalesque. Dwelling inside this cauldron for a week
one can feel the atmosphere, taste color, see sound. On the playa, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">now</i> is an extended experience lasting
longer than most other moments in the lives of participants, generating a
powerful compulsion among the devoted to replay the playa, time and again, year
after year, often sculpting, modifying and optimizing this liminality to suit
their personal pleasures, dreams and visions. </span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">In making the return journey,
pilgrims are not only revisiting the same place but are re-accessing the same
time. But it is a "time" that is not so much a duration as a
"time out of time,” an "eternal presence" reminiscent of that
explored by Roy Rappaport in those intensive ritual phases in which one
experiences “the sheer successionless duration of the absolute changelessness
of what recurs, the successionless duration of what is neither preceded nor
succeeded, which is ‘neither coming nor passing away,’ but always was and
always will be.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn49" name="_ednref49" style="mso-endnote-id: edn49;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">49</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Awash with synchronized melodies and off-beat rhythms, under the rule of the
sun and the heat of controlled burns, in the ambience of electroluminescent
wire, playing chicken with a fleet of motorized tarts, in the cool stare of an
indigenous androgyne, in this “successionless duration,” one returns, to
revisit Rappaport, "ever again to what never changes”: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">playa time</i>.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn50" name="_ednref50" style="mso-endnote-id: edn50;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">50</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">In Black Rock City, one grows acutely aware
that what never changes is change itself. But what happens when banana time
sneaks out at carnival's end? When elements of "the quick and the
changeless" steal back to the "default" world? When impermanence
gets an encore? Burning Man clearly leaves a compelling impression on its inhabitants,
many of whom reboot eternity the year round in a proliferation of Burn-inspired
intercalary events. The event is at the center of a burgeoning creative
counter-cultural industry whose mission is to make now last longer, to
facilitate the distribution of playa time across time and space. As the
commitment to extending artistic practices, ethos and identity beyond Burning
Man possesses a reverse correspondence to that of "leaving no trace"
on the playa, fundraisers, </span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">fêtes, spores</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> and other residual burns immolate
and mutate the present across the continent and further afield. Bay Area dance
clubs are integral to prolonging the sounds and styles of BRC, from venues like
1015 Folsom, Sublounge and Mighty in SOMISSPRO, </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">EndUp,
The Independent and Kelly’s Mission Rock, to </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">art spaces like SomArts Cultural Center and
CELLspace, the Sand by Ton parties at the American Steel warehouse in Oakland,
along with parties in countless warehouse spaces.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Drunk on playa time, wrapped in glow fur
under dusty lampshade hats, the burn’d—think learn’d—parade the streets of San
Francisco, from the How Weird Street Faire in May to the Heat the Street Faire
(Decompression) in October, a begoggled masquerade where the “second life” of
Mikhail Bakhtin’s carnivalesque floods the thoroughfares and habitats of the
first.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn51" name="_ednref51" style="mso-endnote-id: edn51;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">51</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> As this
strange pedagogy revivifies local lifestyle it seems reasonable to assume that
one's "social time,” to again cite Rappaport, becomes enchanted by the
ecstatic theater of "cosmic time.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn52" name="_ednref52" style="mso-endnote-id: edn52;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">52</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
Details have begun emerging on the dissemination of Burning Man’s inclusive
community logic beyond its geographic boundaries<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn53" name="_ednref53" style="mso-endnote-id: edn53;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">53</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> about
how the neotribal </span><i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-style: normal; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">jouissance</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> ebbs back into its progenitor,<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn54" name="_ednref54" style="mso-endnote-id: edn54;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">54</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a> a city
revivified by social art projects that are ecstatic, utopian, gnostic, geek,
queer, punk and much much more. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">While “post-Burnum Depression” is a common
feature of re-entry, “a fragile rainbow covenant still lingers in the Burner's
imagination.”<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_edn55" name="_ednref55" style="mso-endnote-id: edn55;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">55</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></a>
As burner-tribes have cultivated variant socio-aesthetics re/optimized annually
for more than a quarter of a century, and as burner sensibilities proliferate
beyond an event horizon charted and scaled repeatedly over this period, a great
deal more can be articulated about the expanding liminal horizons of Burning
Man. The name of Vancouver's regional event, Recompression, or Recom, the OT’s
after party, might reveal something of the protracted liminality sought and
lived. New York's Freak Factory, Santa Barbara's Clan Destino, Montreal’s
taBURNak!, and collectives like Space Cowboys, regional events
like Australia’s Burning Seed, Spain’s Nowhere, </span></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">AkfrikaBurn</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> and more nascent initiatives in an </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">increasingly crowded regionals calendar</span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> such as Sweden's The Borderland, Israel's Midburn, and Japan's Burninja might illustrate what post-burn liminalisation looks,
sounds and feels like. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Behind this efflorescence, in torrents of blogged data and on networked social media the Ten Principles and its codes for living are translated regionally through optimised processes orchestrated by the Burning Man Project and illuminating, perhaps, how Burner culture persists through its mutations. </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Amidst this expanding mutant presence, this acceleration of the
prolonged present, this vexatious virtualization of the vibe, what becomes of
Burning Man, whose spirit is its own ephemerality?</span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><b>Notes</b><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<!--[if !supportEndnotes]--><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br clear="all" /></span>
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<br />
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[i]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">St
John, Graham. ed. 2004. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rave Culture and
Religion</i>. New York: Routledge.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn2" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.55pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref2" name="_edn2" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[ii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Davis, Erik. 2005. “Beyond Belief: The
Cults of Burning Man.” In Lee Gilmore and Mark Van Proyen, eds., <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Afterburn: Reflections on Burning Man</i>,
pp. 15–40. Albuquerque: The University of New Mexico Press. (p. 17).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div id="edn3" style="mso-element: endnote;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref3" name="_edn3" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[iii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</div>
</div>
<div id="edn4" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.55pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref4" name="_edn4" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[iv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>See Bowditch, Rachel. 2010. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On the Edge of Utopia: Performance and
Ritual at Burning Man</i>. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; and Gilmore,
Lee. 2010. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Theater in a Crowded Fire:
Ritual and Spirituality at the Burning Man Festival.</i> Berkeley: University
of California Press.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</div>
</div>
<div id="edn5" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.55pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref5" name="_edn5" style="mso-endnote-id: edn5;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US">[v]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>Jones, Steven T. 2011. <i>The Tribes of Burning Man: </i><span class="st"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US">How
an Experimental City in the Desert Is Shaping the New American Counterculture</span></i></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">.</i> CCC Publishing.<span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref6" name="_edn6" style="mso-endnote-id: edn6;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[vi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Gosney, Michael. 1998. “Community Dance
Genesis.” <http: 10="" 2007="" accessed="" communitydance="" genesis.htm="" november="" o:p="" www.radiov.com=""></http:></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn7" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref7" name="_edn7" style="mso-endnote-id: edn7;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[vii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Kozinets, Robert V. and John F. Sherry,
Jr. 2004. “Dancing on Common Ground: Exploring the Sacred at Burning Man.” In
Graham St John, ed., <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rave Culture and
Religion</i>, pp. 287–303. New York and London: Routledge (p. 293).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn8" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref8" name="_edn8" style="mso-endnote-id: edn8;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US">[viii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.spacecowboys.org/pages/about">http://www.spacecowboys.org/pages/about</a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;">> </span><span lang="EN-US">(accessed 12
October 2012).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn9" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-right: -34.7pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref9" name="_edn9" style="mso-endnote-id: edn9;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US">[ix]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.uchronians.org/">http://www.uchronians.org/</a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;">> </span><span lang="EN-US">(accessed 12
October 2012).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn10" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref10" name="_edn10" style="mso-endnote-id: edn10;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[x]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>May, Meredith. 2006. The Burning Man
Festival: Hot Spots at the Burn.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">San
Francisco Chronicle</i>. September 3.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn11" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref11" name="_edn11" style="mso-endnote-id: edn11;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Doherty, Brian. 2004. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This is Burning Man: The Rise of a New
American Underground</i>. New York: Little, Brown and Company (p. 66).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn12" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref12" name="_edn12" style="mso-endnote-id: edn12;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>We’ve come a long way from that moment to
2013 when hundreds of playa-recorded DJ sets are uploaded on Soundcloud and
listed at <</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.rockstarlibrarian.com/?p=1713">http://www.rockstarlibrarian.com/?p=1713</a></span><span lang="EN-US">>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn13" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -34.7pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref13" name="_edn13" style="mso-endnote-id: edn13;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-GB">[xiii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Terbo Ted, all email correspondence, 13–17
February 2007. </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn14" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref14" name="_edn14" style="mso-endnote-id: edn14;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xiv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Gadeken, Charles, A. 1993. “Burning Man
93” <</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.burningart.com/ch/burningman93.html">http://www.burningart.com/ch/burningman93.html</a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;">> </span><span lang="EN-US">(accessed 12
October 2012).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn15" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-right: -34.7pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref15" name="_edn15" style="mso-endnote-id: edn15;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US">[xv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="color: black;">Aaron, all
email correspondence, 11 February 2007.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn16" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-right: -34.7pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref16" name="_edn16" style="mso-endnote-id: edn16;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US">[xvi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Garth, all email correspondence, 17
January 2007.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn17" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -34.7pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref17" name="_edn17" style="mso-endnote-id: edn17;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-GB">[xvii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Including Brian Doherty, who recounts
hostilities in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">This is Burning Man </i>(2004:
171–173)</span>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn18" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="GrahamsStyle" style="line-height: normal; margin-right: -38.6pt; text-align: left; text-indent: -1cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref18" name="_edn18" style="mso-endnote-id: edn18;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-GB">[xviii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-GB"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Simon
Ghahary, interviewed on Skype, 21 January 2012. In 1996, Ghahary, founder of
Blue Room Recordings, had flown in Danish psychedelic artists Koxbox to shoot a
promotional video. I’m not sure about the video<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">,</b> but they did record <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Live at
Burning Man 1996</i> (of which no more than 20 vinyl test pressings were made).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn19" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref19" name="_edn19" style="mso-endnote-id: edn19;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xix]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Gelman, Robert, B. 1997. “Trial by Fire: A
Burning Man Experience.” <</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://bgamedia.com/writing/trialbyfire.html">http://bgamedia.com/writing/trialbyfire.html</a></span><span lang="EN-US">>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn20" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref20" name="_edn20" style="mso-endnote-id: edn20;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xx]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>ibid<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn21" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref21" name="_edn21" style="mso-endnote-id: edn21;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xxi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>See St John, Graham. 2011<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">. </i>“DJ Goa Gil: Kalifornian Exile, Dark
Yogi and Dreaded Anomaly.”<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Dancecult:
Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture </i>3(1): 97–128. < </span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="https://dj.dancecult.net/index.php/dancecult/article/view/318">https://dj.dancecult.net/index.php/dancecult/article/view/318</a></span><span lang="EN-US">> (accessed, 4
December 2013).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn22" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -34.7pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref22" name="_edn22" style="mso-endnote-id: edn22;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US">[xxii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>See, for instance, the 2005 post-Burn
discussion “Rave Camps Too Loud” on tribe.net: <</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://bm.tribe.net/m/thread/281d6446-efd8-4356-b6f7-3b79e650a419">http://bm.tribe.net/m/thread/281d6446-efd8-4356-b6f7-3b79e650a419</a></span><span lang="EN-US">> (accessed 10
October 2012).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn23" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref23" name="_edn23" style="mso-endnote-id: edn23;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xxiii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>ST Frequency. 2007. A comment “The musical
burn,” on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Reality Sandwich</i>: <</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.realitysandwich.com/node/574">http://www.realitysandwich.com/node/574</a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;">>
(accessed 10 October 2012).</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn24" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref24" name="_edn24" style="mso-endnote-id: edn24;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xxiv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ibid. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn25" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref25" name="_edn25" style="mso-endnote-id: edn25;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xxv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Zap, Jonathan. 2012 (20 August).
“Incendiary Person in the Desert Carnival Realm (A Burning Man Story).” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Reality Sandwich</i>: <</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.realitysandwich.com/incendiary_person_desert_carnival_realm">http://www.realitysandwich.com/incendiary_person_desert_carnival_realm</a></span><span lang="EN-US">>. <span style="color: black;">(accessed 20 October 2012).</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn26" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref26" name="_edn26" style="mso-endnote-id: edn26;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xxvi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Gilmore, Lee. 2006. “Desert Pilgrimage:
Liminality, Transformation, and the Other at the Burning Man Festival.” In
William H. Swatos, Jr. ed., <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On the Road
to Being There: Studies in Pilgrimage and Tourism in Late Modernity</i>, pp.
125–158. Leiden: Brill.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn27" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref27" name="_edn27" style="mso-endnote-id: edn27;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xxvii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><i>The Tribes of Burning Man</i><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn28" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref28" name="_edn28" style="mso-endnote-id: edn28;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xxviii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Bey, Hakim. 1991. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">TAZ: The Temporary Autonomous Zone - Ontological Anarchy and Poetic
Terrorism</i>. New York: Autonomedia.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn29" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref29" name="_edn29" style="mso-endnote-id: edn29;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xxix]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Bey, Hakim. 1994. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Immediatism</i>. Scotland: AK Press (p. 8). <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn30" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref30" name="_edn30" style="mso-endnote-id: edn30;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xxx]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">See
Gilmore </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Theater in a Crowded Fire,
</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">p.22.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn31" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref31" name="_edn31" style="mso-endnote-id: edn31;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xxxi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>Wilson,
Peter Lamborn. 2011. “Back to 1911 Movement Manifesto: Music.” OVO, 4 <span lang="EN-US">November, 2011.
<</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://ovo127.com/2011/11/04/peter-lamborn-wilson-back-to-1911-movement-manifesto-music/"><span lang="EN-US"><span lang="EN-US">http://ovo127.com/2011/11/04/peter-lamborn-wilson-back-to-1911-movement-manifesto-music/</span></span></a></span>> <span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;">(accessed
20 October 2012).</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn32" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref32" name="_edn32" style="mso-endnote-id: edn32;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xxxii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>Ibid.<span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn33" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref33" name="_edn33" style="mso-endnote-id: edn33;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xxxiii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span>Wilson,
Peter Lamborn. 2011. “Back to 1911 Movement Manifesto: Telephone.” OVO, 4 <span lang="EN-US">November, 2011.
<</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://ovo127.com/2011/11/04/peter-lamborn-wilson-%D0-back-to-1911-movement-manifesto-telephone/">http://ovo127.com/2011/11/04/peter-lamborn-wilson-%E2%80%93-back-to-1911-movement-manifesto-telephone/</a></span><span lang="EN-US">> <span style="color: black;">(accessed 20 October 2012).</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn34" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref34" name="_edn34" style="mso-endnote-id: edn34;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xxxiv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Chen, Katherine K. 2012. “Artistic
Prosumption: Cocreative Destruction at Burning Man.” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">American Behavioral Scientist</i> 56(4): 570–595.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn35" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref35" name="_edn35" style="mso-endnote-id: edn35;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xxxv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ananda Coomraswamy,<i> Transformation of
Nature in Art</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">.</span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn36" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref36" name="_edn36" style="mso-endnote-id: edn36;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xxxvi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Gosney, Michael. 1998. “Community Dance
Genesis.” <</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.radiov.com/communitydance/genesis.htm">http://www.radiov.com/communitydance/genesis.htm</a></span><span lang="EN-US">> (accessed 10
November 2007).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn37" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref37" name="_edn37" style="mso-endnote-id: edn37;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US">[xxxvii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Landon Elmore, email correspondence, 5
November 2007.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn38" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="margin-right: -36.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref38" name="_edn38" style="mso-endnote-id: edn38;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US">[xxxviii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/2000/00_camp_vill.html">http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/2000/00_camp_vill.html</a></span><span lang="EN-US" style="color: black;">>
(accessed 8 October 2012).</span><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn39" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref39" name="_edn39" style="mso-endnote-id: edn39;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US">[xxxix]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Brad “Santosh” Olsen, all email
correspondence, 8 November 2007.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn40" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref40" name="_edn40" style="mso-endnote-id: edn40;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US">[xl]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.burningman.com/on_the_playa/sound_systems/policy.html">http://www.burningman.com/on_the_playa/sound_systems/policy.html</a></span><span lang="EN-US">>. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn41" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref41" name="_edn41" style="mso-endnote-id: edn41;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xli]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn42" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref42" name="_edn42" style="mso-endnote-id: edn42;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xlii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“2003 Art Theme: Beyond Belief” <</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/2003/03_theme.html">http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/2003/03_theme.html</a></span><span lang="EN-US">>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn43" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref43" name="_edn43" style="mso-endnote-id: edn43;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xliii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn44" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref44" name="_edn44" style="mso-endnote-id: edn44;" title=""><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="EndnoteCharacters"><span lang="EN-US">[xliv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Peter Kimelman (pk), all email
correspondence 31 October 2012.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn45" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref45" name="_edn45" style="mso-endnote-id: edn45;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xlv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ben Dickson, email correspondence, 25
October 2012.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn46" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref46" name="_edn46" style="mso-endnote-id: edn46;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xlvi]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><</span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/2008/08_art_funded.html#mutoid">http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/2008/08_art_funded.html#mutoid</a></span><span lang="EN-US">>.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn47" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref47" name="_edn47" style="mso-endnote-id: edn47;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xlvii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Miller,
Paul (aka DJ Spooky). 2007. “The Prolonged Present”: </span></span><span lang="EN-US"><a href="http://www.realitysandwich.com/node/574">http://www.realitysandwich.com/node/574</a></span><span lang="EN-US"> (</span><span lang="EN-US">accessed
10 October 2012).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn48" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref48" name="_edn48" style="mso-endnote-id: edn48;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xlviii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn49" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref49" name="_edn49" style="mso-endnote-id: edn49;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[xlix]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Rappaport, Roy. 1999. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity</i>. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press (p. 231).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn50" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref50" name="_edn50" style="mso-endnote-id: edn50;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[l]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Ibid.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn51" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -38.6pt; text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref51" name="_edn51" style="mso-endnote-id: edn51;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[li]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Bakhtin, Mikhail. 1968 [1944].<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Rabelais and His World</i>. MIT Press (p.
7).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn52" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref52" name="_edn52" style="mso-endnote-id: edn52;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[lii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ritual
and Religion in the Making of Humanity</i><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn53" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref53" name="_edn53" style="mso-endnote-id: edn53;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[liii]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Chen, 2012. p. 586.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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</div>
<div id="edn54" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref54" name="_edn54" style="mso-endnote-id: edn54;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[liv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>See Jones, 2011, </span><i>The
Tribes of Burning Man</i><span lang="EN-US"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="edn55" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText" style="text-indent: -1.0cm;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=26035536&pli=1#_ednref55" name="_edn55" style="mso-endnote-id: edn55;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><!--[if !supportFootnotes]--><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span lang="EN-US">[lv]</span></span><!--[endif]--></span></span></span></a><span lang="EN-US"> <span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Zap, 2012. “Incendiary Person in the
Desert Carnival Realm</span></span></div>
</div>
<span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Bows to all my campmates at Camplo, BLD, and the city that never sleeps. Deep thanks to Genevieve Von Lob for reading an early version and editor Samantha Krukowski for realising this excellent volume which you can get direct from the author ($15) at her link below.</span><br />
<div style="text-indent: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Published in <i><a href="http://www.playa-dust.net/">Playa Dust: Collected Stories from Burning Man</a> </i>(Edited by <span style="orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;">Samantha Krukowski)</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; widows: 2;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18.3999996185303px;">See also </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Playa-Dust-Collected-Stories-from-Burning-Man/269609039871347?ref=br_tf" style="line-height: 1.15; text-indent: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Playa Dust </i>Facebook page</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">About Playa Dust:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; text-indent: -1cm;">Burning Man’s in-your-face, counterculture vibe has meant that the
festival has always been something of a media darling. But when the
event sold out for the first time in 2011, there was a marked increase
in the commentary about its history, current status and future. When, in
2012, a new random lottery system for tickets left so many long-time
attendees ticketless, that commentary deepened. Questions about the
evolution, meaning and value of Burning Man as an experiment in
community, self-sufficiency and anti-capitalism are being raised, and
Playa Dust seeks to answer them.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>Playa Dust</i> is a
compilation of essays by authors who are part of the universe of Burning
Man or who envisage the many ideas and landscapes on its periphery. By
juxtaposing an unusually array of voices and stories, the volume reveals
the complex nature and range of this annual pilgrimage to the desert,
now in its 27th year.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Contributors include those who built the
first wooden effigies on San Francisco’s Baker Beach from 1986 to 1990,
in the gatherings that would later become Burning Man; artists who have
installed works at the festival; musicologists, photographers and
filmmakers who have made work there; writers who have written about
their Burning Man experience; architects who have built there,
sociologists who have studied Burning Man’s experimental nature and even
lawyers who have brokered Burning Man’s controversial existence.</span></div>
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Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-37326075980659899962014-02-27T11:21:00.001+01:002014-02-27T11:21:22.892+01:00Researching the Burning Man Diaspora
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Graham
St John </span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo_DMgvxvVK_DjrKjJzF4iBEbkIeVVkMg55ZBzplTYl8Eabmm63FoPhFhgTw-ZvdtW8s0sapInZbJf60nF2Dfd50mSkHPtxvAROmcJ0HSXnt3m92jkHNnccFBbSXQ_uljg24bQ/s1600/the_temple_of_juno_at_burning_man_at_full_moon_by_bluedogsd-d5if300.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo_DMgvxvVK_DjrKjJzF4iBEbkIeVVkMg55ZBzplTYl8Eabmm63FoPhFhgTw-ZvdtW8s0sapInZbJf60nF2Dfd50mSkHPtxvAROmcJ0HSXnt3m92jkHNnccFBbSXQ_uljg24bQ/s1600/the_temple_of_juno_at_burning_man_at_full_moon_by_bluedogsd-d5if300.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
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Temple of Juno 2012 by <a href="http://www.deviantart.com/art/The-Temple-Of-Juno-at-Burning-Man-at-Full-Moon-333267696" target="_blank">bluedogsd</a></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">After
my first encounter with Burning Man in 2003, I grew intrigued by its
global reach over the subsequent decade. This trend is reflected in
the 2012 Black Rock City Census results (BRC Census 2012) in which we
learn that 24% of the population of Black Rock City are reported to
be non-US residents (about 10% European). There is no reason to
believe that this global gravitation to the quintessential do-ocracy
in the desert will abate any time soon. While this trend is
fascinating in itself, of corollary interest is the stimulus that
descending upon the Man is having back in the world. By 2014,
pilgrimage to the world's largest temporary city has triggered a
global diaspora, with regional developments worldwide, stoked and
nurtured by the Burning Man Project. Across the planet, official
Regional Events (adopting the Ten Principles), as well as other
event-communities, art initiatives and “transformational festivals”
are being influenced, if not directly inspired, by Burning Man and
its ethos. </span></span></span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">While
the Burning Man Regional Network in North America has been growing
steadily since the 1990s</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">,
</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">the <a href="http://regionals.burningman.com/" target="_blank">global regional network</a> builds apace</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">.
In February 2014, adopting successful procedures, along with skilled
facilitators, from the annual Burning Man Global Leadership
Conference format, the first European Leadership Summit was held in
Berlin, with participants from 25 countries. Larry Harvey, Marian
Goodell and James Hanusa were among the speakers, and Meghan
Rutigliano a most capable co-ordinator. As an Australian, I was
myself fortunate to be among the EuroBurner participants converging
in Berlin. </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">I’ve
rarely had the privilege of sharing a room with such an ensemble of
activated individuals, who while representing various regions,
initiatives and projects, were united by their experience and
challenges transposing Burning Man to regions across Europe. Like
bright-eyed and barefoot ambassadors, each participant appeared to me
a condensate of good will conveyed from those regions to join their
spirit to the flame. There is great potential for this Summit to
evolve into a fully fledged annual Conference.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In
Berlin, I was given the opportunity to introduce Burning Progeny: The
European Efflorescence of Burning Man, a cultural research project
supported by the University of Fribourg and the Swiss National
Science Foundation, designed to gauge the evolution of the Ten
Principles in the European Burning Man movement. This project, in
which I am collaborating with my Burner-colleague Prof Dr Francois
Gauthier in the Dept of Social Science at UniFribourg, involves a
survey of EuroBurners developed partly in collaboration with the
Black Rock City Census team, and projected to expand into a
comparative ethnographic phase of European Regional Events. <a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/burningprogeny" target="_blank">The Burning Progeny survey</a></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
(closes on March 7). </span></span></span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Among
the difficulties undertaking this kind of research is that, as far as
I know, there has been no comparable study of the Burning Man
movement, including in the US, where the regional development is
prolific. It is somewhat alarming that, despite its flourishing in
North America and elsewhere around the world, and per contra to the
annual growth of media profiles (see the up-to-date aggregator of
Burning Man news reports and blogs over at <a href="http://www.voxignis.com/burnernews)" target="_blank">Vox Ignis</a><u>)</u></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">
the movement has attracted comparatively little interest among social
and cultural researchers</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">—</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">at
least compared with the mammoth blinking mirage in the desert, which
of course continues to attract student researchers like flies to a
carcass.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Black
Rock City should clearly remain an object of study, year after year.
And, in my view such studies will ideally be informed by
auto-ethnographic methods driving the continual evaluation of one’s
self, or indeed one’s </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>other</i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
self, in the desert of the surreal. Such approaches are preferable
to, say, documenting an event history already raked over 1001 times,
or revisiting the very same theoretical model applied with a similar
conclusion by another graduate student a few years ago, begging
questions about the value and usefulness of the research …. or
whether playa theory was better last year. </span></span></span></span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Don’t take me the wrong way. I’m familiar with
the confrontational, and even overwhelming, conditions faced by those
committing to document, datamine, excavate Black Rock City and its
populations during their moment under the sun. But Burning Man is a
Bermuda Triangle of Research (BTR). Anthropology graduates
brandishing golden passes to an ethnographic Wonkaland, data creeps,
Syntheists on radical sabbatical, surveyors of burnoir couture,
purveyors of occult mathematics, have disappeared in heavy whiteouts,
never to be seen again. And that’s to say nothing of the missional
evangelist last sighted busting moves out at DISTRIKT, the embedded
Deleuzian who deterritorialised in the deep, or the would-be novelist
who haunts every camp on the playa (you know who you are). Every one
a victim of the BTR.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Actually, there have been
numerous quality researches telegraphed back from “the front” in
Nevada, with true grit accumulating at the coalface converted into
various books on, and indeed films depicting, Burning Man. But as
Burning Man has evolved into a movement that has long extended its
reach beyond the Black Rock Desert and its temporary metropolis,
actual research commitments (if measured by research publications,
for example) are strongly disproportionate to the growth of the
global regional network and its mushrooming diaspora. Researchers
</span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>have</i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">
turned their attentions to the outward expansion of Burning Man and
its flourishing ethos in the default world. And yet </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">while
details are emerging on the dissemination of Burning Man’s
inclusive community logic in collectivities beyond its geographic and
temporal boundaries (Chen 2011), quality and innovation experts
figure how the Ten Principles can catalyse radical innovation in
organizations, especially higher education (Radziwill and Benton
2013), sociologists celebrate the impact of a “living model of
commons-based peer production” on the San Francisco Bay Area's new
media industries like Google (Turner 2009), and journalists field reports
on the status of Burner “neotribalism” flowing between San
Francisco and Black Rock City (Jones 2011), little if any research on
the proliferation of the Burning Man movement and its founding
principles, either in North America or globally, has been undertaken.
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">There
are probably a host of reasons for this silence, including </span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">highly
competitive academic funding environments preventing the turnover of
otherwise feasible projects. Perhaps its simply a matter of
motivation. Burner researchers are Burners first and foremost, and
who wants to spend their time inside the trash fence of Black Rock
City or Burn-inspired events “doing research”? I guess some of us
just can't help ourselves. And some might rightly ask what's in it
for Burning Man? What is the usefulness of research to the Burning
Man community? These are good questions at a time when The Burning
Man Project is promoting its pedagogies of practice and seeking
philosophical exchanges in ever widening circles. </span></span></span></span>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;">In
a recent article in the 10 Principles Blog Series, Larry Harvey
(2013) has written that “the Ten Principles have proven to be
useful, durable and productive; they have enabled us to think and
communicate, they have enabled us to act, and they have helped us to
project our culture into the world. However, this could cease to
happen unless we remain ready to constantly exercise and examine
them.” As a study of the translation, adaptation and mutation of
the Burning Man ethos abroad, Burning Progeny is a project responsive
to this endeavour. And in this way, while remaining independent, it
aims to be in service of the Burning Man community. </span></span></span></span>
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<b><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-size: small;">References</span> </span></span></b></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">BRC
Census. “<a href="http://blackrockcitycensus.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/results-from-the-2012-black-rock-city-census/" target="_blank">Results from the 2012 Black Rock City Census</a>”.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.25cm; orphans: 0; page-break-before: auto; text-indent: -1.27cm; widows: 0;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Chen,
Katherine K. 2011. “Lessons for Creative Cities from Burning Man:
How Organizations can Sustain and Disseminate a Creative Context.”
<i>City, Culture and Society </i>2(2): 93–100.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.25cm; orphans: 0; text-indent: -1.27cm; widows: 0;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Harvey,
Larry. 2013. “Introduction: The Philosophical Center”. Nov 12. </span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.25cm; orphans: 0; page-break-before: auto; widows: 0;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">https://blog.burningman.com/2013/11/tenprinciples/introduction-the-philosophical-center
</span></span></span>
</div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.25cm; orphans: 0; page-break-before: auto; text-indent: -1.27cm; widows: 0;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Jones,
Steven T. 2011. <i>The Tribes of Burning Man: How an Experimental
City in the Desert Is Shaping the New American Counterculture</i>.
CCC Publishing.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.25cm; orphans: 0; text-indent: -1.27cm; widows: 0;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Radziwill,
Nicole M., and Morgan C. Benton. 2013. “Burning Man: Quality and
Innovation in the Spirit of Deming.” <i>Journal for Quality and
Participation.</i> 36(1): 7–11.</span></span></span></div>
<div style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0cm; margin-left: 1.25cm; orphans: 0; text-indent: -1.27cm; widows: 0;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Turner,
Fred. 2009. “Burning Man at Google: A Cultural Infrastructure for
New Media Production.” <i>New Media and Society</i> 11(1–2):
73–94.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></span><div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
</div>
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<span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">If
you are a EuroBurner, we'd appreciate your participation in our survey: </span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/burningprogeny" target="_blank">Burning Progeny: The European Efflorescence of Burning Man</a>, integral
to a cultural research project supported by the University of
Fribourg and the Swiss National Science Foundation. The survey is
open until March 7. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Dr
Graham St John is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of
Fribourg, Switzerland, where he is working in collaboration with Prof
Dr Francois Gauthier in the Dept of Social Sciences researching the
global Burning Man movement as a religion beyond religion. His
website is </span></span></span><span style="color: navy;"><span lang="zxx"><u><a href="http://www.edgecentral.net/"><span style="font-family: Cambria, serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">www.edgecentral.net</span></span></a></u></span></span></div>
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Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-46244811416127440902013-11-04T12:13:00.004+01:002013-11-04T12:13:48.615+01:00Dancecult 5.2 - Afrofuturism, guest edited by tobias c. van Veen<span class="userContent"></span><span class="userContent"></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2GX8v1UeNNg9VSj_ojmti-85Woo9hEGVlKYyI0QLo6pErvx18lPlqQ58XJ7nw1TysJe6DI7VhM_bEmrsoJ7y4BLwQSTm7iNavaExdL67ckmyg-i0-S7l8am8t9vDmx4RTnn0E/s1600/cover_issue_50_en_US.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2GX8v1UeNNg9VSj_ojmti-85Woo9hEGVlKYyI0QLo6pErvx18lPlqQ58XJ7nw1TysJe6DI7VhM_bEmrsoJ7y4BLwQSTm7iNavaExdL67ckmyg-i0-S7l8am8t9vDmx4RTnn0E/s1600/cover_issue_50_en_US.jpg" height="320" width="164" /></a></div>
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<span class="userContent">Dancecult issue 5.2 - </span><span class="userContent">Afrofuturism, guest edited by tobias c. van Veen</span><br />
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<span class="userContent"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdj.dancecult.net%2F&h=lAQFKCIOM&enc=AZNAZBIwrZ9o-naAcaDpercwLqID2fpbV-WzjqgO4SHe46Yn3sViEKJIGNOCCTo3H_yifnLp4QwYRRTLAacJCxD1xwPCaKjs9PsLjyIxNh5ezHv9ajwf2HhixwpYRdt0EP_i418ccXfhRcKK8tcajH03&s=1" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank">http://dj.dancecult.net/</a><br /> <span class="text_exposed_show"><br /> CONTENTS<br /> <br /> Executive Editor's Introduction.<br /> <br /> Guest Editor's Introduction. tobias c. van Veen<br /> <br /> Feature Articles<br /> <br /> Vessels of Transfer: Allegories of Afrofuturism in Jeff Mills and Janelle Monáe. tobias c. van Veen<br /> <br /> The Metaphysics of Crackle: Afrofuturism and Hauntology. Mark Fisher<br /> <br /> The Vibe of the Exiles: Aliens, Afropsychedelia and Psyculture. Graham St John<br /> <br /> Ethnoforgery and Outsider Afrofuturism. Trace Reddell<br /> <br /> Ethnography From the Inside: Industry-based Research in the Commercial Sydney EDM Scene. Ed Montano<br /> <br /> "Stay in Synch!": Performing Cosmopolitanism in an Athens Festival. Vassiliki Lalioti<br /> <br /> From the Floor<br /> <br /> Afrofuturism Unbound: tobias c. van Veen in conversation with Paul D. Miller. tobias c. van Veen<br /> <br /> Vocalizing: MC culture in the UK. Nabeel Zuberi<br /> <br /> Fabulous: Sylvester James, Black Queer Afrofuturism, and the Black Fantastic. Reynaldo Anderson<br /> <br /> Reviews<br /> <br /> Afrofuturism: The World of Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy Culture. tobias c. van Veen<br /> <br /> MP3: The Meaning of a Format. Nabeel Zuberi<br /> <br /> Electronica, Dance and Club Music. Hillegonda C Rietveld<br /> <br /> Electronic Awakening. Garth Sheridan<br /> <br /> Showtime. Philip Ronald Kirby<br /> <br /> <br /> <a href="http://dj.dancecult.net/" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank">http://dj.dancecult.net/</a></span></span>Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-83183250794615378862013-10-09T21:52:00.001+02:002013-10-11T15:18:33.475+02:00New article : Aliens Are Us: Cosmic Liminality, Remixticism, and Alienation in Psytrance <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioxWlrJo7FhHKBA9ULZKmPkgOYVsSMHz3vrxbIFSlX6jdnh1XnStePWSEVEjk01ngCGnY3jNBQI63BP4AOqHNslIR1t0a8HEygEtt2-TgKblP1sCCJhZ__Eb6FyU0b8SCP231H/s1600/2001child2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioxWlrJo7FhHKBA9ULZKmPkgOYVsSMHz3vrxbIFSlX6jdnh1XnStePWSEVEjk01ngCGnY3jNBQI63BP4AOqHNslIR1t0a8HEygEtt2-TgKblP1sCCJhZ__Eb6FyU0b8SCP231H/s1600/2001child2.JPG" height="130" width="320" /></a></div>
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Aliens Are Us: Cosmic Liminality, Remixticism, and <i>Alien</i>ation in Psytrance, in<i> Journal of Religion and Popular Culture</i>, Volume 25, Number 2 /2013.<br />
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Graham St John<br />
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This article examines how popular culture is remixed for the purposes of facilitating mystical experiences within a global electronic dance music culture. In particular, it investigates the sampling of space travel and alien contact narratives within psytrance, whose DJ-producers are like media shamans remixing fragments from cinema, TV series, documentaries, NASA's lunar program and other popular cultural sources for gnostic purposes. I explore ways outer space travel becomes a narrative device for interior travels, the "hero's journey," and how the figure of the alien other allegorizes the potential for the discovery of the self. In the artifice of remixticism, the alien is a device for universal consciousness and self-empowerment, a process I dub <i>alien</i>ation.<br />
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<a href="http://www.academia.edu/4744039/Aliens_Are_Us._Cosmic_Liminality_Remixticism_and_Alienation_in_Psytrance._The_Journal_of_Religion_and_Popular_Culture_25_2_._2013" target="_blank">Find full article at academia</a>Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-37803538276951104782013-10-04T17:56:00.001+02:002013-10-04T17:56:22.940+02:00SOUND VERTIGOS: GLOBAL SCENES AND CULTURES OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span class="userContent">Bologna's 6th RoBOt Festival is on right now. I'm part of a panel</span> SOUND VERTIGOS: GLOBAL SCENES AND CULTURES OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC <span class="userContent">organised and chaired by my host Paolo Maguadda on
Sat at 6-9 pm <br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.robotfestival.it/2013/ita/workshop/3/vertigini-sonore-scene-e-culture-globali-della-musica-elettronica.html" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.robotfestival.it/2013/ita/workshop/3/vertigini-sonore-scene-e-culture-globali-della-musica-elettronica.html</a></span><br />
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<span class="userContent">Paulo has the summary translated over on his page http://www.paomag.net/archives/870</span><br />
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<span class="userContent"> </span>Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-37910839729802766182013-09-04T17:57:00.003+02:002013-09-04T17:57:48.935+02:00Graham St John interviewed by Geert Lovink: <h2>
<a href="http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/geert/2013/08/30/886/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Psycultures: The Globalization of Goatrance">Psycultures: The Globalization of Goatrance</a></h2>
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<span class="userContent">Graham St John interviewed by Geert Lovink</span><br />
<span class="userContent"><a href="http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/geert/?p=886&preview=true" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank"></a></span><br />
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<span class="userContent">Australian cultural critic Graham St John has written a groundbreaking study on the way the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_dance_music">electronic dance music</a> (EDM) genre called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goa_trance">Goatrance</a> globalized itself as a movement. In <a href="https://www.equinoxpub.com/equinox/books/showbook.asp?bkid=485">Global Tribe: Technology, Spirituality and Psytrance</a> (Equinox, 2012), he describes Goatrance not merely as a subcategory of EDM. </span>Psytrance, as it is also called, is first and foremost a culture that
is celebrated through events such as parties and festivals. The
emphasis here is not on regular clubs or labels but on personal
transformation which is celebrated in a collective fashion. Music has a
supportive role here, it is literally a medium, a transportative vehicle
to carry us into another realm of consciousness. As Graham points out
in the intro, “Enabling departures from dominant codes of practice and
arrivals at alternative modes of being, the dance floor and the
community proliferating around its verges, are built according to the
design of a radical utopian imagination.” The traveller-scholar St John
has given himself the task to articulate, theorize and popularize that
imagination. Because of the ‘serving’ task of the music, music criticism
plays less of a role in this case.<br />
<br />
If
anything, Graham St John is a Critic of the Cosmic Event. I’d love to
see him as a contemporary organic intellectual (as Gramsci defined it)
of the psytrance movement. His intimate knowledge of the festivals and
their ‘architechtonics of transition’ has put Graham St John at odds
with traditional (Anglo-Saxon) academia that has a hard time
understanding underground cultures which position themselves outside of
the pop mainstream.<br />
Read on ---> <span class="userContent"><a href="http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/geert/?p=886&preview=true" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank">http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/geert/?p=886&preview=true</a></span><br />
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<span class="userContent"><br /> </span>Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-8183232646145736792013-06-14T14:36:00.002+02:002013-06-14T14:36:34.550+02:00<span class="userContent">This weekend (June 14-16) in Frankfurt, the 2013 Sonics Gathering at the former police prison Klapperfeld, central Frankfurt.</span><br />
<span class="userContent"><span class="userContent"><a href="http://www.klapperfeld.de/" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.klapperfeld.de/</a><br /> <br /> SONICS-GATHERING 2013<br /> DANCE FOR CHANGE</span><a href="http://www.sterneck.net/sonics/2013/" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank">http://www.sterneck.net/sonics/2013/</a></span><br />
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Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-29846964804721364932013-05-21T16:16:00.002+02:002013-05-21T16:16:55.181+02:00Dancecult issue 5.1 now published<span class="userContent"><i>Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture </i>issue 5.1 </span><br />
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<span class="userContent">Doing Nightlife and EDMC Fieldwork, Guest Edited by Luis-Manuel Garcia<br /> </span><br />
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<span class="userContent"><br /></span><span class="userContent"><span class="text_exposed_show"><a href="http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdj.dancecult.net%2F&h=bAQHU_W3P&s=1" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank">http://dj.dancecult.net/</a></span></span><br />
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<span class="userContent">CONTENTS<br /> <br /> Executive Editor's Introduction, Graham St John<br /><span class="text_exposed_show"> <br /> Editor's Introduction, Luis-Manuel Garcia<br /> <br /> Feature Articles<br /> <br /> Interrupting Flow: Researching Play, Performance and Immersion in Festival<br /> Scenes. Alice O'Grady<br /> <br /> Alone, Asian and Female: The Unspoken Challenges of Conducting Fieldwork in<br /> Dance Settings. Bina Bhadwa<br /> <br /> Looks: Studio 54 and the Production of Fabulous Nightlife. madison moore<br /> <br /> Transpositions<br /> <br /> Focused Ethnography as Research Method: A Case Study of Techno Music<br /> Producers in Home-Recording Studios. Jan-Michael Kühn (trans. Luis-Manuel<br /> Garcia)<br /> <br /> Conversations<br /> <br /> Writing the Vibe: Arts of Representation in Electronic Dance Music Culture.<br /> Graham St John<br /> <br /> From the Floor<br /> <br /> Techno Intersections: An Aural Account of Research in Edinburgh. Tami Gadir<br /> <br /> Wasta Capital: Ethnographic Reflexivity at a Rooftop Nightclub in Beirut.<br /> Caitlin Robinson<br /> <br /> Dance Floors of the Mind: Performing Nightlife Research During the Day.<br /> Sheena Hyndman<br /> <br /> Negotiating Salient Identities in Queer EDM Spaces. Todd J. Rosendahl<br /> <br /> Describing Experience: Working Actively with Fieldnote Genres in<br /> Anthropological Fieldwork. Lars Nørr Mikkelsen<br /> <br /> Reviews<br /> <br /> Flashback: Drugs and Dealing in the Golden Age of the London Rave Scene<br /> (Jennifer R. Ward). Sean Leneghan<br /> <br /> The Art of Record Production: An Introductory Reader for a New Academic<br /> Field (eds. Simon Frith and Simon Zagorski-Thomas). Pat O'Grady<br /> <br /> The Sound Studies Reader (ed. Jonathan Sterne). Carlo Nardi<br /> <br /> Musical Rhythms in the Age of Digital Reproduction (ed. Anne Danielsen).<br /> Stefanie Alisch<br /> <br /> The International Recording Industries (ed. Lee Marshall). Paul Oldham<br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdj.dancecult.net%2F&h=bAQHU_W3P&s=1" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank">http://dj.dancecult.net/</a><br /> <br /> Cover image by Remysh (<a href="http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.remysh.com&h=bAQHU_W3P&s=1" rel="nofollow nofollow" target="_blank">www.remysh.com</a>)</span></span>Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-14232558690220630022013-01-16T12:59:00.001+01:002013-01-16T12:59:23.620+01:00Help save Dancecult - Crowdfunding campaign at Indiegogo<iframe frameborder="0" height="439px" scrolling="no" src="http://www.indiegogo.com/project/293256/widget/879188" width="224px"></iframe><br />Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26035536.post-7264605829525188912012-12-20T10:21:00.001+01:002012-12-20T10:22:44.181+01:00[New Book] Global Tribe: Technology, Spirituality and Psytrance<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In his new book <i>Global Tribe: Technology, Spirituality and Psytrance </i>(Equinox, 2012), Graham St John presents a vivid account of
the visionary dance culture of psytrance, mushrooming globally
following its beginnings in Goa, India in the 1970s/1980s. Based on
extensive international research, as the first detailed work on
psychedelic trance, the book explores the diverse roots and global
proliferation of this music and festival culture. Consideration o<span class="text_exposed_show">f
comparative aesthetics, spiritual technologies and controversies with
studied attention to internal dynamics will strike appeal among those
holding scholarly and popular interests in ritual, music and culture. <br /> <br /> 400 pages / 45 B&W images / 10 years work<br /> <br /> Available from <a href="http://www.equinoxpub.com/equinox/books/showbook.asp?bkid=485&keyword" target="_blank">Equinox</a><br /> <br /> </span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"> <a href="mailto:g.stjohn@warpmail.net" target="_blank">Contact the author</a> for signed/personalised copies</span><br />
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<span class="text_exposed_show">Global Tribe on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/technoccult/" target="_blank">Facebook </a></span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show"> Reviews<br /> <br />
"From the esoteric traveler jams of Goa to the liminal zones of Boom
and Burning Man, Graham St John guides us through the cosmic carnival of
global psytrance with an intoxicating blend of deep research, empathic
ethnography, and edge-dancing cultural analysis. This is the definitive
book on what has become, from the perspective of planetary spiritual
culture, the most resonant music scene of our transhuman century."<br /> Erik Davis, author of <i>The Visionary State</i> and <i>Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica</i>.<br /> <br />
"Graham St John writes more insightfully about psytrance than any other
academic. He provides a sophisticated understanding of that subtle
relationship between contemporary spirituality, dance and music. The
festival and the party are also a window into broader cultural trends.
He understands both the intensity and transformative experience of
psytrance, and draws on, and develops, contemporary academic theory to
interpret psytrance in a way that is both respectful and incisive. We
need more work like this."<br /> Douglas Ezzy, Associate Professor, Sociology, University of Tasmania<br /> <br /> </span>Graham St Johnhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09545913904376455915noreply@blogger.com0