Photos, videos and thoughts from Burning Man 2018 – The Big WHY
It’s been four years since I first mutated XyloVan as “the Light Fandango” and cruised the playa dressed as a glowing ballroom ceiling.
This year’s journey to Burning Man proved just as magical as the 2014 outing, thanks to amazing new campmates at OKNOTOK who helped me build and light it, a couple of excellent percussion cruises, and an endless stream of beautiful people who came to play the instruments.
More thoughts – and a question for you – below the images and videos:
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- Building OKNOTOK
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- View of OKNOTOK’s tower, our bistro and our 4-foot-diameter disco ball
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- The body: draped. The bones: Passenger cage made of recycled security grates; a framework of 1.5-inch EMT bolted to the top.
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- The business end of things.
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- Adam and Bunny help bolt the wheel cover frames into place.
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- Finished and ready for inspection
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- In line at the Department of Mutant Vehicles
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- Day permit – approved!
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- Chatted with this excellent guy, Reckless, who spent some happy time working out scales and rehearsal tunes from when he played vibes back in school.
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- Portrait with the world’s largest disco ball, AKA The Orb.
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- Baba Yaga’s House – gorgeous.
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- A couple of windy afternoons kicked the hell out of the canopy and connections. I spent a couple hours rewiring snapped chandelier leads, yanked LED strip connectors and redraping the entire ship’s bow.
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- At one point it was so dusty I pulled up next to a half-dozen art cars just to sit out the blow. Turns out it was a formal portrait of Las Vegas-area mutant vehicles. So XyloVan inadvertently photobombed it.
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- One of the many robots posted around The Man
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- KillBot and Elmo
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- A little night music – chandeliers only
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- With chandeliers and LED strips lit.
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- With our mutant-vehicle campmates – Torch
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- Torch touches down briefly at home – OKNOTOK
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- Mesmerizing
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- Enjoying the view of 3:00 and A and the entire playa from OKNOTOK’s epic 3rd-story observation deck.
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- The Man Burn – the world’s gaudiest fireworks show – climaxes in massive fuel explosions.
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- Sunrise in the Sierras en route to home base in L.A..
Random notes from the keyboards.
Brief clip of art cars in line for night inspection at the Black Rock City Department of Mutant Vehicles.
The gorgeous RadiaLumia.
People question Burning Man – as they should.
Why bring millions of dollars of art, energy and resources into a godforsaken desert, run around like maniacs, burn a lot of it to the ground and then go home?
Why not put all that power and cash into solving problems, feeding the hungry, educating the young, improving humanity?
What the hell is all this for?
I think that, at some deep, cellular level, humanity needs to Burn. The immediate purposes – entertainment, inspiration, provocation, cross-pollination – are obvious, but the Long-Tail benefits remain hidden.
As a species, burning is a collaborative effort to evolve in some way as a species.
Whether it’s through living Ten Principles culture of participation, inclusion and immediacy, or trying to survive the brutally Darwinian process of designing an art car that won’t be kicked to pieces by 60mph winds or drug-crazed revelers, we’re trying to Go Somewhere Different with all that we bring to Burning Man.
Is Black Rock City’s increasingly global culture spiritual exploration, artistic experimentation, radical interaction, human stress-testing or just blatant, party-brained fuckery?
The answer is yes – all that and something more.
The question remains – why?
Your thoughts on this are welcome. (Just register to comment).