Yes!
Let's brand the Burning Man experience!
Let's have Burning Man Do-It-Yourself kits!
Let's have Burning Man stores in the malls!
Let's have a Burning Man line of hiking shoes and survival gear!
Burning Man regional film fests!
Burning Man Clif Bars!
Burning Man-> shark -> jump.
I, for one am more than a little disgusted.
Sorry for being an old-school purist.
Subject: RHIZOME_RAW: Burning Man counterculture seeks social, political
influence
> Two full-time employees of Black Rock City LLC are helping develop
> regional spinoffs beyond those already growing in places like New
> York, Seattle, Minneapolis-St. Paul and Austin, Tex., – and making
> sure they adhere to the philosophy of the original.
> Black Rock Arts Foundation, meanwhile, has been set up to raise
> money and to bring radical art to communities nationwide.
> Organizers also just distributed what they call a "Burning Man film
> festival in a box," a do-it-yourself kit that they expect will
> promote avant-garde cinematography.
>
> "Many people will have the Burning Man experience and feel a part
> of Burning Man without ever coming here," said Harvey, serially
> smoking cigarettes and sipping iced coffee as his aviator
> sunglasses turned opaque in the swirling dust. "We are growing at
> an exponential rate – just not here."
burning man (tm)
-
Type: discussion
Comments
This was my first time. It was a very multi-faceted/multi-channeled
experiece. I guess it depends on which channels you tune into. Most
media and about half the attendees seem to focus on the sex, drugs,
rock n' roll, and the danger of falling off an art car and getting
run over (not suprisingly, these people express concern that the
fair is not organized and regulated enough – missing the point
completely.) I notice a lot of old timers longing for the good old
days (meaningless to me, but good for them.)
I choose to tune into the art, the caring and giving community, the
idea of living creatively instead of passively, and the possibility
of bringing all to a wider audience (why not?)
Here are my unpolished descriptions of the projects I saw, mostly
with lasers shooting over my head under the waxing moon while mars
receded from earth. This thread can be found at
http://eplaya.burningman.com/viewtopic.php?t
Sure, I understand the desire for taking the Burning Man philosophy and
spreading it across the world. That's definitely not the point I make.
It's as if City Lights opened up a chain of alternative bookstores and
coffeeshops designed to give the 'beat' experience.
Make no bones about it; CL has made its dime, for sure. But is the logical
progression to the success of a project to franchise/brand it? I think that
there are times in which the iconic nature of an experience of a place or
event lies in the singular nature of it, either geographically, temporally,
or otherwise. Woodstock proved this - it couldn't work out of the context
of its time.
What you wind up with is an exhaustion of the symbol. WIth the propagation
of the signal it loses strength. Perhaps Burning Man can become a movement,
but I think that so much of it is tied to the experience of the place that
this is unlikely. Having been there a few years ago, I feel this quite
strongly.
For instance, there's a New Orleans BM correspondant who I believe is trying
to transfer it to Mardi Gras, which to me is really strange.
IMO, if you have BM outside of Black Rock, it isn't really Burning Man, it's
something else. BM can't exist as they want it (I believe) outside of its
locational context.
It seems to me we are both asking if it is possible to influence
mainstream society itself or if Burning Man should be kept to
ourselves, lest it get further corrupted.
On the other hand, I wonder if that is really what my goal is. I
have been tuning into the artist channels during the last two
years, coming from a programming/engineering background, and this
has been really eye-opening for me.
No, I am not really interested in the mainstream, but connecting
with more people on the fringe outside I am interested in how the
new communications technolgies are allowing the fringe have a
greater idea exchanges and cross-pollination effects.
It is appropriate that you bring up the beatnik experiment since we
are living in similar times of conservative extremism, fear, and
paranoia. It is appropriate to revist that movement and ask where
they went wrong. My own opinion is that the beatnik/hippie movement
was destroyed by hard drugs and alcohol, but that is just my
opinion.
— Patrick Lichty <[email protected]> wrote:
> Sure, I understand the desire for taking the Burning Man
> philosophy and
> spreading it across the world. That's definitely not the point I
> make.
> It's as if City Lights opened up a chain of alternative
> bookstores and
> coffeeshops designed to give the 'beat' experience.
>
> Make no bones about it; CL has made its dime, for sure. But is
> the logical
> progression to the success of a project to franchise/brand it? I
> think that
> there are times in which the iconic nature of an experience of a
> place or
> event lies in the singular nature of it, either geographically,
> temporally,
> or otherwise. Woodstock proved this - it couldn't work out of
> the context
> of its time.
>
> What you wind up with is an exhaustion of the symbol. WIth the
> propagation
> of the signal it loses strength. Perhaps Burning Man can become
> a movement,
> but I think that so much of it is tied to the experience of the
> place that
> this is unlikely. Having been there a few years ago, I feel this
> quite
> strongly.
>
> For instance, there's a New Orleans BM correspondant who I
> believe is trying
> to transfer it to Mardi Gras, which to me is really strange.
>
> IMO, if you have BM outside of Black Rock, it isn't really
> Burning Man, it's
> something else. BM can't exist as they want it (I believe)
> outside of its
> locational context.
>
>
> + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
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> -> questions: [email protected]
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> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at
> http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>
>
>
>
> It seems to me we are both asking if it is possible to influence
> mainstream society itself or if Burning Man should be kept to
> ourselves, lest it get further corrupted.
No, not at all. Burning Man was never 'pure', ever. It was what it was.
The problem as I see it is that Burning Man out of its context isn't really
Burning Man, to export it diminishes the power of the originating source,
and franchising is is just so cheesy. Why go to Black Rock when you can go
to Austin? Hell of a lot easier. I'd go to Austin and have dinner at
Jovita's after romping in Circleville for a while.
Forgive my harshness here, but it just seems sort of stupid. I could see
having one in Eastern Colorado…
> It is appropriate that you bring up the beatnik experiment since we
> are living in similar times of conservative extremism, fear, and
> paranoia.
On the surface - but the times now are totally different, and IMO, much less
innocent.
It is appropriate to revist that movement and ask where
> they went wrong. My own opinion is that the beatnik/hippie movement was
destroyed by hard drugs and alcohol, but that is just my
> opinion.
Much more than that, but that's another conversation.
"I was organizing this boss techno-art project called 'Off The Grid.'
We were going to set up computer terminals in various parts of the
playa and have people use them. Then we'd feed the binary data from
those terminals into this fractals program that [Silver Lake, CA
software designer] Ricky [Thomas-Slater] wrote. Those fractals would
be sent, on the fly, to a group of exiled Buddhist monks I befriended
online. The monks would transform the fractals into a temporal sand
painting, the making of which we would webcast live to everyone on
the playa. But I had to stop working on the monk thing to finish up
this 'Pam's Country Crafts' web site I'm working on. I really need
the money."
http://www.theonion.com/previous_top_story.html
_
_
Curt, your idea sounds interesting and I may want to talk to you
about. It's a bummer that you had to put it off for Pam but I am
sure it was worth it. I took a quick look at The Onion story but
frankly, I think they make things up, because I was there and there
were 30,000 attendees! They have must have a few Jason Blairs on
their staff calling stories in and having a good laugh at our
expense. The Weekly World News rarely makes these kinds of gross
errors. I spoke to the officer involved in this story after I was
pulled over for doing 15 in a 70 mph zone on the way out of Burning
Man, and he told me that not only was the alien drunk, he wasn't
even wearing pants!
http://www.weeklyworldnews.com/features/aliens_story.cfm?instanceidY134
— Curt Cloninger <[email protected]> wrote:
> "I was organizing this boss techno-art project called 'Off The
> Grid.'
> We were going to set up computer terminals in various parts of
> the
> playa and have people use them. Then we'd feed the binary data
> from
> those terminals into this fractals program that [Silver Lake, CA
> software designer] Ricky [Thomas-Slater] wrote. Those fractals
> would
> be sent, on the fly, to a group of exiled Buddhist monks I
> befriended
> online. The monks would transform the fractals into a temporal
> sand
> painting, the making of which we would webcast live to everyone
> on
> the playa. But I had to stop working on the monk thing to finish
> up
> this 'Pam's Country Crafts' web site I'm working on. I really
> need
> the money."
>
> http://www.theonion.com/previous_top_story.html
>
> _
> _
> + ti esrever dna ti pilf nwod gniht ym tup
> -> post: [email protected]
> -> questions: [email protected]
> -> subscribe/unsubscribe:
> http://rhizome.org/preferences/subscribe.rhiz
> -> give: http://rhizome.org/support
> +
> Subscribers to Rhizome are subject to the terms set out in the
> Membership Agreement available online at
> http://rhizome.org/info/29.php
>
>
>
>