Burning Man LIVE

This is one of those full-circle stories that makes our dusty hearts glow a little brighter. It’s the tale of big art that emerged from a fossil-filled trash heap, came to life in Black Rock City, then returned to its source as a proud symbol of what a community can accomplish together.

Tahoe Mack, a Las Vegas artist, tells the story of the Black Rock City Honoraria art piece she started when she was 15 years old. Her final Girl Scouts project became, oh, so much more. Over a few years, she learned to weld, fundraise, and work with acclaimed artists Dana Albany and Luis Varelo-Rico.

Her vision drew attention to an urban park with a rich archaeological history. Built from metal detritus that had accumulated there, “The Monumental Mammoth” dazzled Burners in Black Rock City 2019, and is now a permanent installation at a trailhead near the fossil field that inspired it all, and forged new connections between dozens of people.

https://www.tahoemariemack.com/themounumentalmammoth

https://protectorsoftulesprings.org/monumental-mammoth-project

https://www.danaalbanyart.com/mammoth

https://burningman.org/podcast/dana-albany-dreaming-in-metal-and-glass

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

The Tip of the Iceberg is a 30-foot tall clitoris of stone, steel, and cement, fabricated to be monumental like Stonehenge, thus the nickname Clit-Henge. It aroused a lot of conversation at Black Rock City 2023. It’s the phallic symbol’s sister. It’s highly sensitive and highly talked about, and according to the artist, the more we discover about what it does, the more we can celebrate the birthright of pleasure.

Melissa Barron, a.k.a. Syn, has traveled to many places around the world that informed her lens of creativity, sustainability, and gender equality. She co-creates art, from the 2013 Temple of Whollyness, to her decade-long regeneration project Art for Trees, to this new intimate inquiry, the Tip of the Iceberg.

Journey with Syn, Andie Grace, and Stuart Mangrum through the Clit Renaissance, the rethinking of pleasure inequities, the teachings of cancer, the wisdom of aging, and the intuition of radical reciprocity. They explore these complexities, and they keep it light and bright.

Tip of the Iceberg (Burning Man 2023 Art Installations)

Tip of the Iceberg (Burning Man Gallery)

The Temple of Whollyness (Burning Man Journal)

Art for Trees (Burning Man Journal)

Syn on Social Media (Crone of Arc)

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Black Rock City is a temporary metropolis of  80,000 people who inhabit 1,600 theme camps and support camps. That means nine out of 10 participants' plans are coordinated by the Placement team — a handful of dedicated staff who decide which camps go where, and why. This year-round process is an art and a science that takes many factors into consideration — from city dynamics, to campers’ Radical Self-expressions.

As Burning Man Project’s Associate Director of City Planning, Bryant Tan manages the Placement team, and oversees the city’s annual planning and placement process. Naturally, questions about Burning Man lead to more questions.

• How do we place like-minded folks together for harmony, not monotony?
• How are resources shared between camps in this new era?
• Can you tell me how to get to Center Camp Plaza?
• What rules cultivate a spirit of lawlessness?
• Is bigger actually better?

Let’s go behind the scenes, under the clipboard, and beyond the map, exploring opportunities and obligations to iterate in this experimental city. It’s a unique test case for urban planners and any humans who live in semi-civilized situations.

“We don't want this just to be an Instagrammable bucket list thing. It's an experiment in community. We want people to show up a certain way, and so I try to just have reasonable conversations with people to help them learn what Burning Man is, and learn how to distribute leadership and responsibility, how to empower people to be their most creative selves.”

BurningMan.org: Placement Team: Level

BurningMan.org: Placement Process

HUBS: Humans Uniting for Better Sustainability

PEERS: Placement’s Exploration and Engagement Research Squad

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

It's winter where we are. What are the coldest, most teeth-chattering, brrrr-iest of all the sanctioned Burning Man events around the world?

FrostBurn is one of them, and its participants make it happen in the dead of winter on purpose, annually since 2008. Subzero temperatures, rain, sleet, snow, and sometimes sunshine. Why? Because they can.

When the costumes are nothing less than comfy snow pants, when everyone is on the buddy system to ensure they survive the weather, no energy is wasted on facades and FOMO. People collaborate on Radical Self-reliance, Communal Effort, and all those cultural practices that got us where we are today.

Bexx is an event lead at FrostBurn, plays music in the Black Rock Philharmonic Orchestra, and writes academic papers about Black Rock City. She tells tales to kbot and Stuart of a winter wonderland happily crafted by hearty Burners. 

www.frostburn.org

BurningMan.org: Programs: Philosophical Center: Academics

Aural Substance: An Ethnographic Exploration of Regional Burn Soundscapes (ACADEMIA)

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Stories. This collection is from Burning Man’s oral history project, an ambitious endeavor to track down and record interviews with people who helped shape the culture as we now know it. 

Stuart and Andie “Actiongrl” Grace share some of the most memorable stories for your gratification and edification. 

• Lamplighters founder Steve Mobia talks about the San Francisco Suicide Club, the even-stranger start to the legendary Cacophony Society.
• Denzil Meyers recounts the earliest days of the Cacophony event now known as Santa Con.
• Lexie Tillotson remembers what it was like driving to Burning Man in the wayback days when you needed luck and a compass.
• Kimric Smythe recalls the year that the Man Burn into a hot mess.
• Stewart Harvey shares about traveling to Northern Ireland with artist David Best to build a Temple for “The Troubles.”

dispatch2022.burningman.org/the-philosophical-center

journal.burningman.org/category/philosophical-center

burningman.org/programs/philosophical-center

www.cacophony.org

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Many people are surprised to learn that Black Rock City is home to two full orchestras and a Playa Choir complete with a secular Sunday sermon. Since 2012 Madi has been organizing and arranging the choir’s harmonies and happenings, each year with more and more help. 

In this installment, kbot and Stuart talk with  

• Madi (Choir Director)
• Tory (Director of Dusty Productions)
• Leut (Preacher Man)

They have stories and more stories of inspiration and elevation. We get to hear many voices resonate with music, recorded live at Burning Man 2023 in the Black Rock Desert. Hallelujah!

https://playachoir.com

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Some people are surprised to learn that Black Rock City is home to not just one but two full-fledged symphony orchestras. While the Black Rock Philharmonic kicks out the classical jams, the Playa Pops brings the big-ensemble sound to popular music. 

Both are composed (ahem) of passionate volunteer musicians – classically trained, self-trained, and otherwise – who come together once a year to perform in the dust (or mud) the songs they have practiced all year at home.

In this installment, kbot and Stuart talk to members of the Playa Pops and the Black Rock Philharmonic about their process, their performances, and how the desert hates their instruments. And we get to hear some amazing live music performed by actual humans, recorded live at Burning Man 2023 in the Black Rock Desert.

https://www.playapops.com

https://blackrockphilharmonic.org

https://www.temple2023.com

https://www.michaelgarlington.com/chapel-of-babel

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Have you stumbled upon Midnight Poutine in Black Rock City? Maybe you listened to Québecois rock as you waited for some of that crispy, cheesy goodness? As with many camps on playa, Midnight Poutine is the cultural tip of the iceberg of a vast community of creativity and goings-on; this one in Montréal, Québec. 

Arno Robin, one of Montréal's cultural instigators, spoke with Stuart and kbot about his nine-year journey from Midnight Poutine, to co-creating Montréal's Burning Man Regional Event, to developing a bustling makerspace. 

It’s one of those stories we love — one that travels through Black Rock City and then keeps on going — carrying the Burning Man ethos back home to take root and sprout local mutations.

Plus… Stuart learns to swear in Québecois!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/arno-robin-9b903936

https://losstidburn.org/en/home/

https://www.lespacemaker.com/en/

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Dana Albany has come a long way since her first art project in the Black Rock Desert, a scrap-wood camel that got her started making things out of found materials, from discarded metal and broken glass to sun-bleached cattle bones and deer antlers. 

She has built flammable targets for notorious machine-art groups, worked as the artist-in-residence at a San Francisco dump, and had her large-scale metal and mixed-media sculptures exhibited around the world, most recently at the “Radical Horizons” show at England’s Chatsworth House. 

She talks with Stuart about her path to becoming an artist, which began with a spur-of-the-moment trip to Burning Man in 1996, about her mentors and mentees along the way, and about the joys of working with children to create high-impact interactive art.

DanaAlbanyArt.com

chatsworth.org/news-media/news-blogs-press-releases/burning-man-about-the-sculptures

burningman.org/programs/civic-initiatives/youth-education-spaceship

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

We committed to be carbon-negative by 2030. How will we do it? We have “Burning” right in our name.

When it comes to solar, biofuels, and energy banks, we have many irons in the fire, or rather, we are planting many seeds. Hear how Black Rock City is a hotbed, or rather, a garden bed, for the innovation of clean energy.

Stuart talks with George B Reed III, Associate Director of Burning Man Project’s Off Fossil Fuels program about the progress we’re making for a brighter future, or rather... yeah, a brighter future.

George shares what Burning Man’s leadership has been developing to be in integrity with our principles, from composting organic waste for food cultivation, to making renewable diesel from captured carbon. He shares stories of our community preventing and reversing damage to the climate. 

Hear how we’re collectively rewiring reality, showing our work, and sharing what we know. Here’s how you can do it for your camp, your cohort, your city.

Burning Man Project: 2030 Environmental Sustainability Roadmap

burningman.org: About Us / Sustainability (updated Oct 2023) 

The Renewables for Artists Team

The Green Theme Camp Community & BLAST

Burning Man Journal: Your Checklist for LNT in BRC (2023)

Burning Man Journal: Waking Dreams: Evoking Greener Burns (2022)

Burning Man Journal: Sustainability Initiatives on the Road to Black Rock City (2022)

Burning Man LIVE: Burning Sustainably PART 1: We Can, We Will, We Must (Aug 2022)

Burning Man LIVE: Burning Sustainably PART 2: The Road to Regeneration (Aug 2022)

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

The desert seems lifeless, yet it’s home to a whole lifecycle of bugs and animals from bunnies to foxes, from lions to horses to – most dangerous of all – COWS! Hear about the hidden lives of all that’s alive around Black Rock City.

Stuart talks with biologist Dr Lisa Beers aka Sciprus. When she’s not teaching in remote villages on the other side of the planet, she’s Burning Man Project’s land fellow studying the Fly Hot Springs territory.

In the face of mystery, she has the surprising answers, or at least more questions, and aren’t questions as good as answers? Aren’t they?

How do butterflies know to ride the jet stream from Canada to Mexico and back? 

What do sea monkeys have to do with Fairy Shrimp Scampi?

How do feral Burners adapt from arid & dusty to moist & muddy?

journal.burningman.org/author/scirpus

Burning Man Live: Ep 25: Scirpus and the Majestic Fly Ranch

The Black Rock Desert of Nevada (wikipedia)

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

How would you overcome shyness at BRC?

How would you break people’s brains at SantaCon?

How would you acculturate museum docents to Burner culture?

Brody Scotland shares how she did it, and how she went from hating Black Rock City to working year round in the Burning Man Art department.

Brody and Stuart delve into the uncommon common sense of self-care and “feelings” in the emo roller coaster of BRC. They explore a style of pranking where no one is the butt of the joke. And they celebrate “Shit Dave X Says.”

From hand-crafting iconic costumes, to logistics-crafting “weird little odd art,” this is a string of lively stories about Brody’s bespoke approach to increasing happiness.

Brody Scotland (Burning Man Journal)

Brody Scotland (Burning Man Staff) 

No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man (Smithsonian Institution)

Dave X (Burning Man Journal) & Shit Dave X Says 

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Stuart and Burning Man’s Community Services head honcho Terry “Retro” Schoop riff on the streets of our fair city and the naming thereof, from the controversial to the miraculous to the misunderstood. Black Rock City has elaborate art themes, each with street names, each with curious conditions. Why does our recreational refugee camp even need street names? Were they always alphabetical around an imaginary clock face? And what’s a clock anyway? 

Hear this year’s art theme (ANIMALIA) express itself through cryptids (animals that no one can prove are real). Folklore and fandom brought us our new ABC street names: Afanc, Bigfoot, Chupacabra, Dingbat… and NOT the Easter Bunny, thanks to Encantados, which are were-dolphins that shape-shift into dapper dancers in search of a party.  

This is an episode with literature, lore, and laughter — and a pile of BRC trivia for street cred.

Streets of BRC 2023: Cavalcade of Cryptids | Burning Man Journal

Burning Man 2023: ANIMALIA

Terry “Retro” Schoop | Burning Man Journal

Burning Man Staff: Terry Schoop

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Yes, Burning Man has a Chief Technology Officer, and his name is Steven Blumenfeld. In this episode Stuart chats with “Bloom” about art, innovation, immediacy, and the power of the unexpected, with trippy side trips into AR, VR, and AI (and TLA).

Yes, we have a CTO. We have all the enterprise tech needs of any not-small non-profit, with the added complications of ridiculously challenging work sites, a staff that’s mostly seasonal volunteers, and an ethos rooted in Ten Principles that don’t always line up with ideals of Big Tech or engineering efficiency. You don’t build a city of 80,000 in the desert — or a global community of dreamers and doers — without bending a few bits and bytes. Or stepping on a few tech-bro toes.

Bloom shares stories from his colorful career at the intersection of art and technology, from working with Al Gore at Current Media to pioneering the “always two years away” world of virtual reality. And he does his best to reassure Stuart that AI will not be taking his job… yet.

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Psychedelics advocate and amateur Burning Man scholar John Turner’s two passions come together in one interdimensional rabbit-hole of a website: Trippingly.net. In compiling the ultimate fan site of Burning Man history, John has captured a lot of great playa stories, and he shares some of the best in this conversation with Stuart.

He explores the subjective unknowns of Burning Man events and psychedelics as same-same-but-different. Bring your neural nets to be plasticized. Bring your ego to be dissolved. It’s a trip through the past, and a trip through presence.

But when an interviewer interviews another interviewer, things can get weird. Together they explore the power of story (good and bad), who remembers what, who takes credit, and the subjective nature of consciousness. It’s a reflection on memory, serendipity, and the power of not knowing.

“Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.” ~Mark Twain (as quoted by Larry Harvey)

trippingly.net

John B Turner (LinkedIn)

shulginresearch.net

cacophony.org

Cacophony Society (Wikipedia)

Burning Man 2023 art theme: ANIMALIA

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

She traveled to six continents for Burning Man Regional Events, to get to the heart of an ever-evolving global culture that creates community in a disconnected world. She wrote a book about it, and we published it!

It chronicles her odyssey to

• Afrikaburn (South Africa)
• Black Rock City (USA)
• Blazing Swan (Australia)
• Burning Japan (Japan)
• Fuego Austral (Argentina)
• Midburn (Israel)
• Nowhere (Spain)

Hear Roxane's impressions of each wildly unique event in this audio travelog. She talks with Stuart about how she would work, Burn, write, repeat. They explore how Burning Man culture rubs up against other cultures as it spreads. 

As an aid worker, Roxane sees first hand how vibrant Burner networks create positive impact. Burning Man events transform people, AND some people become Burners before ever attending a Burning Man event, by resonating with the 10 Principles and crossing paths with Burners up to new good. 

Once Upon a Time in the Dust: Burning Man Around the World (the Book)

Burning Man Journal: Books About Burning Man: Roxane Jessi

Regionals Reawaken: A Blog Series by Roxane Jessi

BurnersWithoutBorders.org

regionals.burningman.org

Roxane Jessi

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Most people in Black Rock City live together in placed camps, aka theme camps, the most unique aspect of a most unique event. There are almost 1300 camps in BRC. 

The annual Camp Symposium brought together dozens of staff and volunteers to talk out what they do to gift their interactive camp to BRC.

Hear (or read) highlights from the Plenary, many voices sharing knowledge and exploring ideas. 

Bryant Tan, aka Level, Associate Director of Placement, and a spaghettification of speakers: 

• Breedlove: Director of Civic Engagement
• Charlie: Director of Event Operations
• Claire of the Green Theme Camp Community
• DA: Environmental Restoration Manager
• Marian: CEO of Burning Man Project
• Trixxie of the Placement Team
• Yeti of the Camp Support Team

Here is how to 

• enjoy Leaving No Trace
• make frameworks for leaders
• build boundaries of community
• hold a center for our cultural vision
• make sense of mysterious acronyms!

“We build the hive, they bring the honey.” ~Larry Harvey

Camps and Placement | Burning Man

Cultural Direction Setting & Decommodification

Placement: About Us & Volunteering

Camp Support Team | Burning Man

Waking Dreams: Evoking Greener Burns

greentheme.camp

thrival.guide

Leaving No Trace 2022: MOOP Maps, Inspection, and the #1 MOOP

Charlie Dolman · The Dust is in the Details (Burning Man LIVE 2022)

Dark Angel of Black Rock & Restoration Destiny (Burning Man LIVE 2020)

Why People Dress Funny at Burning Man (2003)

Peter Doty Obituary (San Francisco Chronicle)

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Katie Hazard leads Art Management for Burning Man and the committee that grants more than a million dollars to artists each year to create art that’s first stop (and sometimes only stop) is Black Rock City.

She shares about some of the grant recipients that align with this year’s Black Rock City art theme (ANIMALIA). She and Stuart Mangrum discuss Burning Man’s art movement in relation to, and sometimes in opposition to, “capital-A art,” and the default art world's manufactured scarcity and opaqueness. They explore how to grant accessibility and agency to artists, professional and amateur, personally and collectively.

“Many people come for the art, and they stay for the community.” ~Larry Harvey

Slides of the Art Projects Mentioned (in the order discussed) 

Introducing the 2023 Black Rock City Honoraria (Burning Man Journal)

Katie Hazard (Burning Man Journal)

2023 Art Theme: ANIMALIA

The ARTery at Black Rock City

Desert Arts Preview: Artists of Waking Dreams (2022 podcast)

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

As a founder and co-producer of one of the largest and oldest Burning Man events, Monique Shiess has a lot going on. AfrikaBurn does too. Started in 2007, it averages 10,000 participants annually in recent years. 

Monique shares its origins with Stuart and Andie. From the EDM scene, gallery spaces, queer community, and producers of “weird gatherings,” they birthed AfrikaBurn with roots in anarchy, trickster energy and hippie-dom. 

They explore how to be welcoming, not just radically inclusive, in the aftermath of Apartheid, and the context of global trends, on the land of indigenous people.

Then there’s the fun part. Monique says that play is the vector for changing the world by accessing aspects of yourself that go dormant in the default world, and that all Burn movements have paradigm shifting potential while also having a ton of fun with “the best humans that exist.”

www.afrikaburn.org

AfrikaBurn (Wikipedia)

Practising Imagining (TEDx Cape Town)

Events Change Lives: AfrikaBurn Legacy Case Study

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG

Athena is a wanderer, an adventurer, a muse. She is Regional Contact emerita from Los Angeles, founder of their nonprofit The LA League of Arts, and a founder of BRCvr — a crown jewel in the tiara of our multiversal experiences online.

Athena talks with Stuart about how Radical Inclusion and Immediacy foster human connection, and about how a balance of decommodified spaces and commercial spaces can lead to true Gifting. 

She says that BRCvr conjured a tight-knit community of creators who love helping each other. See for yourself while you still can. BRCvr co-creates events (like RE-BURN-23) on AltspaceVR, the social VR platform that’s about to have its plug pulled. 

Hear her adventures from Black Rock City to South Central LA, and heed the call to infuse Burning Man's Principles into the fabric of gatherings IRL and in VR.

BRCvr

RE-BURN-23

The 10 Principles of Burning Man

Los Angeles League of Arts (LALA)

Burning Man LIVE: The 10 Principles in Modern Times IRL and in VR

Burning Man LIVE: Mike Zuckerman: Culture Hacking and Gonzo Humanitarianism

The Mutaytor

NiNo’s ATABEY

LIVE.BURNINGMAN.ORG