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Not so Vogue?

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vogue 2012 bm

French Vogue, 2012

Earlier this year, the San Francisco Bay Guardian brought us a 5-page story about Burning Man, written by Burner Scribe. We covered the story in The Spark of Controversy . We also highlighted the apparent hypocrisy of the BMOrg profiting from a photo shoot featuring an art car while using legal threats to stop that same art car from even saying that they’re going to be at Burning Man on their Web site, and demanding that they take down photographs of the art car at Coachella – covered in The Fishy Smell of Corporate Excess.

Well, last night a pretty high-level BMOrg insider told me that the Guardian got it wrong. Way wrong. Here’s what the original story said:

When I asked Brown about whether he paid the LLC for access and the right to use footage they filmed on the playa — something I know it has demanded of other film and photo projects — Brown paused for almost a full minute before admitting he did.

“We saw it as location fees. We’re making an investment, they’re making an investment,” he said, refusing to provide details of the agreement. “The arrangement we had with Burning Man is similar to the arrangements anyone else has had out there.”

Goodell said the LLC’s standard agreement calls for all filmmakers to either pay a set site fee or a percentage of the profits. “It’s standard in all of the agreements to pay a site fee,” Goodell said, noting that the LLC recently charged Vogue Magazine $150,000 to do a photo shoot during the event.

According to our source, that story is not accurate. In fact, Vogue offered them this much money, and BMOrg turned it down. Or perhaps, BMOrg named their price, and Vogue turned them down. Anyway, the exchange of $150,000 for a photo shoot for Vogue, apparently never happened.

The source did not want to go on record with this , but gave me permission to publish. Read into that what you will. If this is true, then it’s surprising that BMOrg didn’t try to set the record straight with an official statement.

yvonne2008.jpg_article_gallery_slideshow_v2

The Pornj cone of Disorient – a beacon of high class debauchery

Vogue certainly seems to love Burning Man. They had a piece written by the lovely Disorient Burner Yvonne Force Villareal in 2009. There was a Burning Man photo shoot by David Mushegain in French Vogue in 2010. Burning Man was featured again in French Vogue in August 2012. There was also a Burning Man piece in British Vogue in 2010, and in Australian Vogue in 2011. A recent issue of Vogue has top designer Marc Jacobs naming Burning Man as his primary inspiration for his 2014 collection (fashion designer Manish Arora was also inspired by Burning Man for a collection he debuted at Paris Fashion Week in 2013).

Vogue has also just named Burning Man on it’s “New Social Calendar” of the places to be for the jet-set in 2014:

Burning Man, August 25-September 1
Once a hippy gathering in the desert, the Burning Man festival is now the number-one event to see and be seen at. Private jets fly in and out (with Google kingpins Larry Page and Sergey Brin sitting on two of them); Eugenie Niarchos, Bettina Santo Domingo and P Diddy frolic and play cricket in the sand; and everyone forms lifetime bonds.
Wear: As few clothes as possible.
Tip: Book a decent RV six months ahead of the festival.

8-august-burning-man-vogue-29nov13-alamy_b_1080x720 

google jet

Their 767 has hammocks and California King beds in each of their bedrooms. Seats up to 50.

There are almost no jets landing at the Black Rock City airport, out of 1000+ aircraft this year. I know of one Citation CJ2 that was brought in once, and there’s usually one or two Pilatus PC-12 turboprops. Larry and Sergei’s main plane is a converted ex_Qantas Boeing 767, called “a party airplane” by their CEO Eric Schmidt. They get discounted fuel from the Pentagon and NASA, and they have their own private landing strip close to their office, at Moffett Field (at least, until their own private terminal at San Jose airport is completed!)

Google's light attack jet - infrared detectors pick up Facebook grilled cheese sandwiches from miles away

Google’s light attack jet – infrared detectors pick up Facebook grilled cheese sandwiches from miles away

The 3 top Google executives own 8 private jets and two helicopters between them, they also have a 757, two Gulfstream V’s, and a fighter jet. I’m pretty sure they didn’t take any of this fleet to Burning Man this year. But hey, nobody reads Vogue for the articles, do they?

let me know if you see this landing at Burning Man

let me know if you see this bad boy landing at Burning Man. It would be quite the dust cloud

Personally I find Scribe to be a very credible journalist, and have difficulty believing that he could get something so important, so completely wrong. His book The Tribes of Burning Man is excellent. I know that he has recordings of the interviews he conducted for his story, and there is more that he did not yet publish.

Scribe this year wrote a piece from the Playa, saying that he was officially giving up his struggle to call for democratic leadership of Burning Man, or at least some form of representation of Burners in the decision making about our culture, as it relates to That Thing In The Desert.


this is the way it’s always going be, year after year, like a dusty Groundhog Day on acid. Only the numbers and faces of the citizens and the things we create for one another will change.

It’s perfect, right? No reason to change a thing. What God (or, rather, Larry Harvey) has created, let no burner presume to alter.

That’s an idea that most burners seem to embrace, despite the beloved pastime of veteran burners to kvetch and celebrate some storied golden age, whether it be 1986, 1996, or 2006. We all just appreciate the chance to build a city for ourselves each year and the leaders of Burning Man for giving us that opportunity, again and again.

And I’m now joining those who accept Burning Man as it is, hereby officially dropping my struggles against Larry, Maid Marian, and the rest of Black Rock City LLC board to create some form of representative or democratic leadership for the Burning Man and its culture.

me on bomb_0It’s been a lonely and frustrating crusade anyway, so I’m happy to be done with it (as I’m sure they are). I’ve been regularly covering Burning Man for my newspaper, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, since 2004. My reportage formed the basis of my book, The Tribes of Burning Man, which came out in 2011 just as the LLC board was being torn apart by internal divisions that they resolved by deciding to turn control of Burning Man over to a new nonprofit they were creating, The Burning Man Project.

“Why not act to change the world, a world that you won’t be in? And that’s what we want to do,” Larry told a roomful of grateful burners when he announced the plan in April 2011. “We want to get out of running Burning Man. We want to move on.”

The prospects of that change in leadership seemed exciting, and I imagined a council of veteran burners representing our community’s constituent communities – artists, DPW, sound camps, volunteers, art car makers, regional leaders, maybe the biggest villages – gathering around a table to plan the future of Burning Man. It might get messy, but things worth doing usually are.  

First, I took issue with Larry’s announced plans to create secret payouts for the six board members, but nobody except Chicken John seemed to care about that. The predominant view seemed to be that they had done us all a great service and they deserved whatever it was they wanted to pay themselves.

Fine, so then I publicly questioned the hand-picked nonprofit board, which seemed chosen for their fundraising ability more than the communities they represented. Again, no resonance, so I accepted it and moved on. Maybe money was what was important in the early stages, and new leadership would come later.

And I was totally willing to just let it go and move on, until earlier this year when I watched the new documentary, “Spark: A Burning Man Story,” which concludes with the claim “the organization is transitioning into a nonprofit to ‘gift’ the event back to the community.”

So I decided to plug back into covering Burning Man to check on the status of this gift with just a year to go until Larry had said that control of the event would be transferred to the new nonprofit. But rather than relaxing their grip on the event and entrusting it to the community, I learned that they consider their leadership “more important than ever,” as Marian put it.

Not only are The Burning Man Project board members still not representative of the overall community, but they have no authority over the event, which Larry wants to continue as is “without being unduly interfered with by the nonprofit organization.”

Sure, the LLC and its various fiefdoms can unilaterally change its contracts with artists, its policy on what kinds and how many art cars to license, its ticket pricing structure, and size of the city (the max population this year jumped to 68,000 from 60,000 last year), all without any input from the community. It can cut lucrative side deals with corporations and propagandists. But we can’t have the new nonprofit board making these sorts of decisions, that would be unthinkable. 

also heard last night: General Wesley Clark did NOT arrive at Burning Man on this Black Hawk. So which bad boy was rolling with this? A Blackhawk is some serious shiznit. Last seen in the direction of Disorient

also heard last night: General Wesley Clark did NOT arrive at Burning Man on this Black Hawk. So which bad boy was rolling with this? A Blackhawk is some serious shiznit. Last seen in the direction of Disorient

“The nonprofit is going well, and then we have to work out the terms of the relationship between the event and the nonprofit. We want the event to be protected from undue meddling and we want it to be a good fit,” Larry told me.

And when I wrote about these issues in the Guardian, where they were read by tens of thousands of people, few people seemed to care. Two articles I wrote on these issues this year got two online comments each, comparing to the 259 comments and vigorous public discussion that ensued after I wrote “Burning Man ticket fiasco creates uncertain future” in February of last year.

The lesson: as long as we can get to Black Rock City, we don’t really care who’s calling the shots. After all, it’s really all of us who create the city each year for our own enjoyment, and that’s what matters, not the six people who control the $23 million we all spent on tickets this year.

(from http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2013/08/23/how-i-learned-stop-worrying-and-just-trust-larry)

I think we’ll let Madonna have the last word on this one…


Filed under: News Tagged: 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, aircraft, aviation, bmorg, city, commerce, complaints, event, fashion, festival, google, plane, planes, press, scandal

Chaos in Manhattan: Reverend Billy Free!

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Photo by Kim Fraczek

Photo by Kim Fraczek

New York performance artist Reverend Billy Talen is an institution at Burning Man. He also takes his show on the road, throwing Cacophony Society-style protests all around the US with his Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir.

Recently Chaos Chase Manhattan did not like Reverend Billy one bit, his toad-masked singers accused of making people cry and starting a riot

From the Village Voice:

In September, longtime New York activist Reverend Billy and his Stop Shopping Gospel Choir, led by choir director Nehemiah Luckett, went into a Chase Bank in Midtown and made a little music. The two led a group of eight choir members in a musical protest against mountaintop removal, a controversial form of coal-mining that Chase helps to finance. The choir sang a song, then Reverend Billy preached a sermon on Chase’s fondness for fossil fuel investments. The whole thing lasted about fifteen minutes, according to the choir, who had on fetching yellow toad hats during the performance. 

reverend billyFor their trouble, as we told you at the time, Luckett and Reverend Billy (real name William Talen) were charged with riot in the second degree, menacing in the third degree, unlawful assembly, and two counts of disorderly conduct. The rioting and the menacing both carried a possible punishment of one year in prison. But in a hearing in Manhattan Criminal Court Monday morning, those charges were greatly reduced. According to the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, the prosecution reviewed the footage and decided that the whole thing looked more like a musical protest than a riot.

After we reported on the charges against Reverend Billy and Luckett, the story got picked up by a whole lot of other places, including WNYC, The Guardian, Vice, Democracy Now!, and Forbes (yes, that Forbes). The Worldwide Hippies were also very upset, declaring, “You fuck with Reverend Billy, you fuck with the Worldwide Hippies!” (Noted.) A Change.org petition calling for the charges to be dropped garnered 13,900 signatures so far, and a legal defense fund for the two men has raised $15,720, or 105 percent of its goal.

photo by Daniel Tovrov

photo by Daniel Tovrov

That petition was handed to the judge at this morning’s hearing. At the same time, the prosecution announced that after talking with eyewitnesses and reviewing security footage, they were amending their complaint against the two men. The new charges are criminal trespassing in the third degree, unlawful assembly, trespassing, and two counts of disorderly conduct.

In the previous complaint, the Chase branch manager, Robert Bongiorno, told David Bornstein, the Assistant District Attorney assigned to the case, that because of the people with frog hats jumping and singing and whatnot all over his bank, he “believed that the bank was being robbed, felt in fear for his physical safety, and observed at least one customer or employee inside of the bank break into tears.”

In the new complaint, Bongiorno no longer reports that he feared he was being robbed by a gang of frog-headed menaces. Instead, the complaint says, Bongiorno reports that he “observed many of the above individuals handing out yellow pieces of paper to the customers and employees in the bank.” (Those were leaflets on mountaintop removal.) At the time, he adds, “the bank was open for business and multiple customers were present inside of the bank in order to conduct business, but that Mr. Bongiorno observed that the defendants’ actions disrupted the bank’s ability to conduct business.”

The prosecution, led by ADA Bornstein, also have a new sentencing recommendation: they’d like Reverend Billy to plead guilty to disorderly conduct and perform one day of community service. For Luckett, they’ve recommended an Adjournment in Contemplation of Dismissal (ACD). An ACD means that if Luckett stayed out of trouble for six months — no menacing of fainthearted bank managers — the case would be dismissed and sealed. The next court date for both men is February 27th.

The choir began a run of shows at Joe’s Pub earlier this month. Reverend Billy, who has a pretty robust sense of humor, told Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman that the charges, upsetting though they were, hadn’t been bad for attendance.

“Well, Jesus taught us — I mean there are lots of things about Jesus that we can’t listen to, right?” he told Goodman. “But, one thing he did teach us is, if you can’t afford a press person, get arrested quickly.”

Fortunately, Reverend Billy seems to have got the charges knocked down to a day’s raking. Thanks to Burner Kevin for bringing this latest update from the Rev earlier today to our attention:

SO THE PROSECUTOR IS NOW A MUSIC CRITIC? They tell the judge that by examining the surveillance tapes they determined that our action of Sept 12 did not constitute “Riot” and “Menace” and “Unlawful Assembly” but rather a “Musical Presentation,” and so the penalty they request for the plaintiffs Nehemiah and myself zooms from one year in jail down to a single day raking leaves in front of City Hall. Goes from 2nd and 3rd degree misdemeanors and criminal record down to a couple violations and community service. So, I’m sitting in a local cafe with Savi feeling much relief. We presented the 13,500 petitions to the judge and refused to accept even the much reduced charges… It was over in ten minutes. We thank our community of singing anti-consumerists and we are very grateful to our supporters from far and wide, and our neighbors and fellow activists here in NY, and also the press people who rallied to our cause. Something obviously happened in the last several weeks over at the District Atty’s office. At a minimum – the surveillance tapes the prosecutors looked at (finally) don’t have us hopping on desks, don’t record us threatening people. The riot and the menace didn’t show up there. Who knows, maybe earth-lovers in the DA’s office, people with kids who know that the banks have to stop the fossil fuel investments… maybe they hummed along with our toad-song. Earthalujah!

The Indypendent, billed as a Free Paper for Free People, interviewed Reverend Billy at Burning Man in 2009:

He paced back and forth, blond hair bobbing as he ducked and weaved and shouted his sermon. His white suit blazed in the sunlight, a black microphone coiled around his arm as he exhorted the audience.

“Changeallujah!”

I watched them bask in his fervor, quiet but curious. “Children…” he rolled his voice into a preacher’s rhythm. “We know the wonders of Burning Man. Here we see things seen nowhere else. Here the sun and moon set at the same time.” Voices whoop as the Reverend leans forward, “I know you want to take this fire into the world of big box stores. But children, without social change, we support, every day we support the statement of the American military culture. And that statement is, ‘If you threaten me I will kill you.’ And we support this statement with our taxes. We do most of our shopping, as Americans, not at Wal-Mart but at the Pentagon!”

People nod as if his words were weights tipping scales in their minds. His hands jumped around the air, “We need to be radical Americans like we’ve been before in the Labor Movement, in the Civil Rights Movement, in the Women’s Movement.” He dabbed his face with a sweat rag. “Children the earth is sending us messages. We see it in the typhoons that rip our coastal cities. We see it in the floods that sweep away towns and the earth is saying, we must be like the typhoons, we must be like the flood.”

Eyes lit up. His mythic words opened a door into a world of primal forces that could wash away our numbness. “All the life that is not human is calling us to join it in a duet of activism,” he crooned. “Children…” his voice darkened as he stopped and held out his hand as if gently parting a veil. “Some of us are going to have to die. In every great movement our freedom was earned by those died and there is life in death…”

A strange light glowed on their faces. He made visible a terrible truth that promised us a reality more powerful than our lives. I’ve heard preachers my whole life and many have said the same thing but I read about Reverend Billy and know that his campaign for mayor has taken a toll on his body. Recently his heart skipped and jumped. He missed campaign events until medicine thinned his blood, now he’s back on-stage, inviting the silent anxiety of people to shake him again until prophetic words cascade out and the audience can see the dream they buried inside themselves.

“Gradualism has taken over the world of social activism, there isn’t a 60’s movement that hasn’t become a Starbucks flavor. The earth is saying join in, join in your survival by participating in the survival of the earth. Change-a-lujah!”

Reverend Billy was brought to Burning Man in 2003 with a $6000 grant from BRAF, and was a big hit, according to the Chronicle:

Wal-Mart, Home Depot and Starbucks are frequent sites of the Rev. Billy’s sermons.

The Rev. Billy, who lived in San Francisco for many years, is a disciple of Burning Manwho received $6,000 last year from the Black Rock Arts Foundation, the nonprofit arts funding arm, for an evangelical anti- consumerism tour of California. He is among a handful of artists to be sponsored by the organization.

He was a big hit at Burning Man in 2003, with his nightly shows denouncing consumerism and the Bush administration. He was among the first artists to be openly political in the desert.

He has used art to force people to think about their consumer choices for more than a decade.

If you’re in New York you can catch his shows at 2:30pm at Joe’s Pub on December 22, and January 12. The December 15 show is sold out.


Filed under: News Tagged: 2003, 2013, art, commerce, complaints, cops, event, festival, funny, future, ideas, news, press, scandal

Gift Me Your Project!

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Before Burning Man starts telling Burners how to raise funds, they should clean their own act up internally.

Burning Man’s transition to a non-profit has sure been raising some eyebrows at Burners.Me HQ. The latest we hear, from Burning Man’s Social Alchemist Bear Kittay, is that the Burning Man Project is going to be the new, non-profit entity that encapsulates all of our values. We donate our money to it, and it owns the rights to all the content we provide to it.

1990 burning manThe party in the Black Rock desert, known as Burning Man, will continue – as a subsidiary division of the project. Right now, according to what we can piece together of Burning Man’s “almost transparent” finances, this event costs $8 million a year to put on, and brings in about $24 million in revenues. So, it should be contributing $16 million a year in tax-free donations to it’s new parent company.

Then, we have Black Rock City, LLC. Aka the BMOrg. This is currently the company with an exclusive monopoly to monetize our culture. Right now that comes mostly from photo agreements for their desert event. Presumably, in the future, the division of “The Project” that is getting the royalties from movies, albums, calendars etc will be a separate operating entity from the division that puts that one party on. In this structure the non-profit parent company would  own and monetize the Intellectual Property, not the party. The legal threats and lawsuits would be initiated by the non-profit company, not the party.

So, let’s think positive and believe BMOrg and their statements. This is being done for “us”, to preserve our culture into the future. Now that it’s going to be a non-profit, spreading Burner culture to the world, we can all participate by donating, we don’t have to even go to the party any more to save the world. Yes, we will be the new owners of our culture, through the non-profit Burning Man is planning to create for us “soon”, and our appointed representatives the 17-person Board of Directors (some of whom are married to each other, which good corporate governance suggests is a potential conflict of interest).

BMOrg’s financial statements say that the corporation itself costs $2.7 million a year to run; the “overlap”, the expenses that possibly relate to the party but also occur year round, are $10.6 million. And the non-party expenses, the “Outreach” that is going to bring Burning Man to the world, are only $264,000 – about 1% of the money they take in.

From what we know, Black Rock City LLC has about 50 full-time employees, splitting salaries of $8.6 million and eating $1.3 million of food every year (we believe most of this food is for volunteers at the event). They’ve just moved from multiple floors of an office building close to City Hall, to a new building in the hipster-friendly Mission district.

What that means, is that this organization costs $13.3 million to operate: a pretty freaking big overhead for a charity that’s raising $16 million a year. In fact, at 83 cents of every dollar being spent on overhead, that would be a new record for BMOrg. It even beats the atrocious performance of the Black Rock Arts Foundation, which despite all the millions of dollars of overhead costs that get billed to the party or the BMOrg, managed to spend 73 cents out of every dollar it raised on overheads, passing a mere 27% on to artists. Here’s the SF Chronicle writing about it:

 A combination of record ticket sales and a more efficient business helped create what [Larry Harvey] called “the nest egg we needed.” The profit, he said, will go back into the company.

Some of it will also go to the festival’s nonprofit arm, the Black Rock Arts Foundation. The charitable organization, which was founded in 2001 after Harvey loaned it $30,000 in cash according to tax documents, is dedicated to providing grants to artists who “promote and support community-based interactive art.”

But in an analysis of the organization’s tax filings by Charity Navigator, a New Jersey-based nonprofit watchdog group, the Black Rock Arts Foundation earned an “exceptionally poor” rating. The analyst found errors in reporting, a low revenue-to-grant ratio that showed artists receive on average 27 cents for every $1 spent – less than half the industry standard – and a conflict of interest involving David Best, a local artist best known for his intricate temples that rise at Burning Man.

Sandra Miniutti, an analyst at Charity Navigator who reviewed the filings at the request of The Chronicle, said donors to the foundation should be concerned by its poor practices.

“This is not a financially healthy organization,” Miniutti said. “If I were a donor, I’d think long and hard before I sent money their way.”

It seems somewhat unusual to create a new charity, and then “loan it” money. Why not donate? Was there interest involved? Does the charity still have this, or other outstanding liabilities to insiders? What sort of loans have gone between the existing organizations and the new charity? As a donor to a number of charities, these are all things that would cause me concern. We do not yet have any clarity on how the relationship between The Project and The Event will be managed in this new structure; the last interview of note was Scribe’s in the Chronicle earlier this year, which made it seem like even the founders weren’t sure. When in doubt, get it out! Since profit is no longer the motive behind Burning Man, will we finally get financial transparency?

Looking forward into the future, how big does this overlap have to be? Surely, some of the expenses that go on during the year, are needed for the party? Well, maybe so. And some, maybe not. I question, if the expense is really needed for the party, then why not account for it with the other party expenses?

I’m speculating here, so if anyone has more concrete information about the new operating plan and org structure, please share. I like charities that use most of the money they raise for the causes they support. A new, lean, focused organization, taking $16 million a year in profits from the annual spectacle Burners create for them, and using that to spread Burner culture and values could be a real positive force for the world. Just another charity, that takes our donations as “Gifts” and then spends the money  on fancy offices, travel, and entertainment for its workers – well, the world has enough of those already.


Filed under: Dark Path - Complaints Department, Light Path - Positive Thinking, Ideas Tagged: 2013, bmorg, commerce, complaints, event, festival, future, ideas, kickstarter, press, scandal, videos

The Old Bait-n-Switch

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Scribe got the scoop of the year this year, with the news that Burning Man is charging $150,000 for Vogue photo shoots, and profiting from DVD and soundtrack sales from their movie Spark: A Burning Man story. Then he decided he was going to just shut up and enjoy the Burn, trusting that Larry and Marian would do the right thing by all Burners. He still cares though, and took to his paper’s blog to point out to us that the latest BMOrg announcement of “What’s Up With The Burning Man Project?” is a disappointment:

In a series of stories earlier this year, I outlined how the board that controls Burning Man doesn’t appear to be “relinquishing our control” over the event, as founder Larry Harvey announced would be happening in 2014. And if you want more proof of his bait-and-switch, check out this new blog post by spokesperson Will Chase on the Burning Man Project. Far from taking over the $23 million business, the new entity seems to have less going on that its predecessor off-shoot,Black Rock Arts Foundation. As I previous wrote, I’ve moved on, but I thought you’d enjoy the links anyway.

..Best Of 2013...

photo by Peter Talbot

What is actually up? Well, if you donate your own money, you can help fund the “Founders” travelling around the world giving lectures:

Burning Man Project received its 501c3 status as a charitable organization in May 2012, has been getting its administrative house in order and is starting to make things happen. We’re wading into deeper waters now, taking on projects on a variety of topics. We wanted to take a minute to highlight a few of the recent ones.

 

New York City Symposium on Burning Man, Technology, Religion and the Future

Event flyerIn November, the Burning Man Project joined Columbia University’s Department of Religion and Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life to present a free forum on Burning Man, technology, religion and the future, featuring panelists Larry Harvey (founder of Burning Man), John Perry Barlow (founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation) and Peter Hirshberg (disruptive cultures and technology expert). Dr. David Kittay of Columbia’s Department of Religion moderated a lively conversation about Burning Man as a philosophical movement, its history, and its predicted global applications.

More than 300 turned out for the two hour-long discussion and Q&A session.

I met Dr Kittay at his first Burn, just a couple of years ago. It’s unclear to me exactly what role he, Barlow, and Hirshberg play in the Burning Man story as “Founders”. But, donate anyway.

We’re looking to offer traveling symposia like this in more cities around the world as part of the Project’s education programming. They’re an ideal way to share the wisdom of Burner values with the academic community and beyond.

“Share the wisdom of Burner values with the academic community”? Well, if you really think that’s the same as “taking Burning Man to the world”, donate.

Youth Education Spaceship (Y.E.S.) Project

Burning Man Project collaborated Black Rock Arts Foundation, Black Rock City, The CrucibleExploratorium, and Maker Faire to work with Burner artist Dana Albany and kids from San Francisco’s Tenderloin and Hunters Point neighborhoods to build a 12′ diameter 10′ high space ship from repurposed and found objects.

Y.E.S. is a mobile spaceship classroom and collaborative art project that gave the kids experience creating and exhibiting their creation, which has gone on tour to Burning Man, the Exploratorium, Hunter’s Point Open Studios, and Maker Faire in San Mateo.

A bunch of kids re-cycled some existing materials to build an art car – cool. Please donate so Burning Man can take the Art Car to other cities. Of course, if you want to take your own art car to other cities, Do Not Use The Words Burning Man. 

I checked out this spaceship at Burning Man this year, I thought it was great. If I was going to kick money into a spaceship though, it would probably be my own art car that I would fund myself to bring to Burning Man. It’s hard to see how funding someone else’s art car to go to non-BM events, helps bring Burner culture to the world and makes the world a better place.

Crowdfunding: Trends in the Sharing Economy

Earlier this month, Burning Man Project hosted a free panel discussion on trends in the sharing economy. Crowdfunding and the sharing economy reflect our principles of gifting, communal effort, civic responsibility and decommodification, and we brought together Kate Drane from Indiegogo, Daniel Miller fromFundrise, and Harry Pottash from Kiva to talk about the future of crowdfunding.

More than 50 people turned out to discuss the state of crowdfunding, the challenges they’ve faced, and new ideas on how this movement can be used to empower underprivileged projects through the democratization of fundraising.

burning-bush50 people went to a panel discussion that has nothing to do with Burning Man. Crowdfunding is not Gifting or Decommodification. The topic, Crowd Funding, was recently heartily bashed on Burning Man’s official blog (unofficially, according to the author). Please donate to Burning Man’s not-so-new charity, so that people from Indiegogo can put on more panel discussions.

Really, BMOrg? After 3 years, this is it? This is your vision for how the big rave called Burning Man is going to help the world? Reinvest the profits back into Black Rock Solar and be done with it. Let Burners save their hard-earned money to spend on costumes, art cars, and art projects that we bring for free to increase the monetization potential of your party.


Filed under: Dark Path - Complaints Department Tagged: 2013, alternatives, art cars, art projects, arts, bmorg, commerce, complaints, event, festival, future, ideas, kickstarter, news, press, scandal

Judge Backs Off Pershing Roadblock: Deal is Done

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Judge Jones in Reno, who said the settlement deal cut between Burning Man and Pershing County was “illegal, unenforceable and absurd“, and suggested the lawyers involved should go back to school – has issued a new ruling on the case. Once again, he’s accused both sides of collusion, fraud, breaking the law, and abuse of process. The judge also acknowledged that he lacks the jurisdiction to void the contract – maybe it was him who went back to law school? However, he is still trying to get the nudity in front of children shut down:

He ordered the federal case closed but not before he again accused both sides of collusion, fraud and an abuse of process, and repeated his concerns about exposing children to public nudity

judge_turn_off_cell_phone_240245The judge said that the settlement was illegal – but he passed it into law anyway.

In a typical display of BMOrg humility, Burning Man’s lawyers told the media “the judge’s ruling has no legal effect” (wow!)

Here’s the full story, from Associated Press

RENO (AP) — A federal judge who refused to affirm a settlement agreement between a Nevada county and Burning Man organizers because he says it is “illegal, unenforceable and absurd” has issued a new ruling declaring the county the winner in a First Amendment fight that both sides insist was over long ago.

Lawyers for Burning Man’s Black Rock City LLC and Pershing County say they settled their differences in October over a proposed ordinance governing the counterculture festival and had been asking U.S. District Judge Robert C. Jones since then to give their agreement his blessing.

Both sides said late Friday they believe the deal intended to head off a legal showdown over constitutional limits on obscenity remains intact without Jones’ endorsement. Burning Man’s lawyers consider the judge’s latest ruling to be moot, while the county continues to review any potential legal ramifications.

Jones, who dressed down both sides’ lawyers and accused them of fraud before refusing their most recent request in his Reno courtroom Nov. 29, acknowledged in the new written order earlier this week he lacks jurisdiction to void the contract.

He ordered the federal case closed but not before he again accused both sides of collusion, fraud and an abuse of process, and repeated his concerns about exposing children to public nudity at the festival in the Black Rock Desert about 100 miles north of Reno.

young drunk stupid judgeIn an unorthodox move, he also granted a motion the county had filed July 31 seeking approval of its right to enact an ordinance banning children from attending the event. And he renewed his sharp criticism of the county’s legal team’s willingness to negotiate a deal that he says ensures no such ban will take place under a new 10-year-law enforcement agreement.

The annual weeklong celebration of self-expression and eclectic art leading up to Labor Day draws 60,000 free spirits to the desert playa, where costumed characters perform guerrilla theater and dancers spin — sometimes sans clothes.

Black Rock City filed suit in 2012 arguing the county’s proposed ordinance would be unconstitutional if it banned children, or prohibited “obscene, indecent, vulgar or lewd exhibitions” protected under the First Amendment as free speech.

Jones said in his ruling on Monday the county should have stuck to his guns because he would have upheld their right to pursue such rules.

“BRC, in collusion with the county’s counsel, filed and prosecuted this contrived, pre-textual lawsuit in order to obtain its new and illegal agreement with Pershing County, and in doing so, committed a fraud on this court, Pershing County and the Nevada Legislature,” Jones wrote.

County counsel mimicked BRC’s charade, encouraging its client to settle on such obviously unfavorable and illegal terms,” he said. “It raises serious questions regarding the county’s decision to settle.”

Jones said the agreement implies the county cannot prevent minors from attending the event “even when state and local laws concerning child endangerment, child delinquency or child trafficking are implicated.”

Such a contract is obviously illegal and no court would enforce it,” he said.

Jones said he recognizes he lacks jurisdiction to void the contract but that he does have jurisdiction “to declare an abuse of process and the commission of fraud upon the court in the filing and prosecution of this federal action.” He also said the county could revive the case in state court.

Annette Hurst, a San Francisco lawyer for Burning Man, said Jones’ order has “no legal effect” and the contract “remains valid, binding and in full effect.”

“BRC has every intention of performing in accordance with its terms,” she said in an email to AP on Friday.

Pershing County District Attorney Jim Shirley said he has not taken an official position on the effect the order has on the agreement, but believes Hurst is correct.

“At present time, there is an agreement in place and the parties intend to comply with the agreement,” he said.

The “moral” of this story? Money trumps the judicial process, in Northern Nevada.

Now that the deal’s been done, Pershing County gets paid $$$ per Burner, and traffic concerns have supposedly  been addressed…don’t be surprised if we end up with a larger population cap this year.


Filed under: News Tagged: 2013, 2014, bmorg, city, complaints, cops, event, festival, future, judge, kids, law, legal, legals, news, nudity, Pershing, press

Larry Harvey in The Independent

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Burning Man founder Larry Harvey has given a brief interview to Britain’s The Indpendent newspaper. It’s fairly juicy, managing in a single page to combine tales of child abuse, drug addiction, and necromancy. Hey, he said it, not me!

royal-festival-hall_0Larry’s in the UK for the BAM! (Being A Man) festival, which runs at the Southbank Centre from Jan 31 until February 2. The Southbank Centre is on the Thames river in London, and was called “Britain’s leading arts institution” by the Daily Telegraph.

You can catch Larry’s panel discussion at 11:15am on Saturday Feb 1, it’s £12 for a day pass.

Here’s the story from The Independent (emphasis mine):

Wilderness environments bring out the best in people At Burning Man [the annual week-long cultural event , held in Black Rock Desert, Nevada , which Harvey co-founded in 1986], people come prepared for survival in an extreme environment, and as you’re all in the same boat, you bond. There was a fellow who came out a few years ago, a wealthy lawyer, who brought all this newly bought high-end survival kit, laying everything out along the floor. Then a wind came and whipped them into oblivion; he had a nervous breakdown. But a giant dust storm brings home everyone’s mortality, and you come together: replacement items began to appear. He was overwhelmed by other people’s kindness.

I was raised to be radically self-reliant I was raised on a farm; my parents were farmers, though my father was a carpenter by trade. He regarded any unnecessary conversation as mouth-flap. I would have put my arm in a fire to get praise from my parents but I never felt I pleased him. But what I learnt to do was stand on my own two feet.

Being adopted means missing a level of intuitive rapport with your family Of course plenty of biological offspring say they feel no connection to their parents, but being adopted for me meant that substrate feeling of “I am you” was lacking. Years later, my brother, who was also adopted, and I both admitted how we felt like exchange students: everyone treated us well, but we didn’t quite fit or belong.

My son was the perfect miracle to me Being adopted meant I’d never met anyone genetically connected to me. My son had this look as a baby, a sort of “You will respect my boundaries.” People who came up to hold him would get this look and I thought, “Oh my god, that’s the look I’ve given people my whole life.” It was so deeply affirming and reassuring to see it. Though of course he wasn’t me at all; that’s the big mistake that parents make.

Sometimes children ask for more than you have to give I raised my son as a single father and one night I remember being alone with him as he cried and cried, and couldn’t be comforted. His need seemed to be devouring me and I surrendered to a very angry impulse: I tossed him three feet into this closet filled with wall-to-wall mattresses. It was a shocking act, and there’s no social reward for confessing being enraged by a baby.

The dead don’t really die They linger on as part of you. Once when I was repainting a friend’s house, I summoned up my father’s presence and talked to him. I wasn’t hallucinating and he wasn’t there, but somehow, pouring out all this grief, disappointment and yearning, I was able to talk to him in a way that I never could when he was alive.

I can’t write without the help of tobacco Somehow the chemistry of tobacco got mixed up in my addictive compulsion to write during my teen years, so when I quit smoking for eight months last year, I couldn’t write one line. I had to postpone every writing job I had until I brought back the cigarettes.

Freud is one of my heroes I started reading his work while going through something of a midlife crisis and each night I’d look down at his photo on the inside flap for 10 to 15 minutes: even through the dry rhetoric and his speciality in narcissistic illness, I’d see this benevolent-looking figure with white hair and he became the father I didn’t quite have: it was classic transference.

Perhaps Larry’s attempt to quit smoking, and the impairment to his creativity caused by that, explains the long delay in announcing this year’s theme and ticket prices?


Filed under: General Tagged: 2014, alternatives, arts, bmorg, festival, press, scandal, stories, uk

Reno Gazette Journal covers Pershing County Cops Settlement

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In a 3-page story entitled “Burning Man: As law enforcement moves in, Burners remain in Playa bliss” (a subtle warning, perhaps?), the Reno Gazette-Journal delves deeper into the agreement Burning Man reached with Pershing County.

A crowd gathered around Larry Harvey at Burning Man’s Center Camp last year, as he spoke about the history of the 28-year-old event.

The Burning Man founder’s stories detailed the early years of the festival, which started on a beach in San Francisco in 1986 and moved to the Black Rock Desert in 1994.

Harvey made mention of a couple of deaths on the playa in early years. His main point was to acknowledge law enforcement’s growing presence at the event, and the then-pending lawsuit between San Francisco-based Black Rock City LLC, the company that organizes Burning Man, and Pershing County.

“The first instance of working with authority gave us license to build a civilization out here,” Harvey said at the time. “It’s an ongoing conversation with the authorities and a crash course with real world issues, like politics, economics. This is a business and it takes money to create it. What we all have in common is general concern with public safety.”

He continued, “I wouldn’t go without police. You’re free to hate them all day, but when you need one, they’re here.”

It’s not just a party…it’s a civilization. Ruled not by democracy, but a weird combination of team-based despotism and crowd-sourcing.

The story reveals that the agreement reached between BMOrg and Pershing County specifically allows nudity and the presence of children. For 10 years, if we interpret Judge Jones’ comments correctly.

pershing county flagEarlier this month, BRC and Pershing Co. finally reached an agreement that ended a year-long dispute over fees, law enforcement, nudity and minors at the eight-day eclectic arts and culture event in Gerlach that brings roughly $35 million to the region each summer.

The county will continue to provide law enforcement services, which it did for the first time under the agreement — despite pending litigation — in 2013, and will work as an integrated police unit with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.


Burners in Reno get it. We make the party. Burners, not authorities.

in Reno’s burner community, the fight over money and police has not put a damper on the spirit of the event. They say the organization that operates Burning Man and being a burner are two separate things.

…“Burning Man is a lifestyle, a culture, an interest and way that we live our lives,” Bar said. “There is law enforcement at Burning Man for a reason and I know that they are there doing their jobs.”

 

The lawsuit started when BMOrg objected to the $1.50/person fee that Pershing was asking for. They capitulated after the police presence was noticed this year by Burners as the #1 issue in our post-Cargo Cult poll (it’s still open if you want to vote, you can put Exodus specifically under Other).

Black Rock City filed against Pershing Co. a year ago, challenging the constitutionality of a new county ordinance that required the company to pay a $1.50-per-head fee for festivalgoers.

In late November 2013, the Comprehensive Festival Ordinance Waiver, Law Enforcement and Settlement Agreement between BRC and the county, agreed on by both parties last October, was halted by residing U.S. District Senior Judge Robert C. Jones.

He blasted both sides, calling the agreement “absurd” and “illegal, unenforceable, fraud and an abuse of the judicial process.”

He further found fault with the inclusion of children at the event, stating the agreement “implies the County cannot prevent minors from attending the event even with state and local laws concern child endangerment, child delinquency or child trafficking are implicated.”

In a hearing Jan. 10, Jones concluded he did not have jurisdiction to void the agreement and therefore, the settlement stands.

“We have an agreement in place, but Black Rock City can appeal the decision,” Pershing County District Attorney Jim Shirley said. “If they do that, we can go back for an appeal on it. Ultimately when you do a settlement, you give and take a little from each side. The county commissioners gave and BRC gave and then you arrive at the (standing) settlement agreement.”

BMOrg chose to make a Constitutional stand on Freedom of Speech grounds, and supported State law being changed so that they would only have to deal with BLM. Instead of working out in their favor, this backfired when BLM and Pershing County joined forces, placing Pershing County in charge of the local operation and processing all arrests. Incidentally, we haven’t received any information this year about the arrest count. Perhaps the cops are happy with their deal? It doesn’t seem like BRC “gave” so much as they “caved”. Burners had to suffer and get busted as a result of their decision (and, of course, because they broke the law) to teach BMOrg that they could afford $1.50 per Burner. Their response? An average $15 per Burner ticket hike. Gotta cover legal costs too! And pay for all those arrests to be processed.

 Under the new fee schedule, BRC will pay Pershing Co. for law enforcement services for the next 10 years based on the number of participants. For 70,000 participants, for example, BRC would owe Pershing $240,000.

BMOrg obviously failed to take our advice that their lawyer criticizing the judge to the media, is not going to help any future Burning Man-related matter that ever comes before him. Now BMOrg’s PR spokesperson is weighing in on the Judge’s interpretation of the law in his Courtroom.

megan miller nbc“We are very pleased to have reached a mutually-beneficial settlement and to have ended litigation,” Burning Man’s public relations manager Megan Miller said in an e-mail. “While Judge Jones took issue with some aspects of the agreement, the Judge doesn’t have jurisdiction to void the agreement with Pershing County so it remains intact.”

Injure yourself at Burning Man, a $30 million annual event with 70,000 participants? In the past there have been deaths, severe burns, falls, rapes, all kinds of serious injuries. Well, the best you could hope for in a lawsuit would be $1 million:

In addition to the fee schedule, BRC also agreed to take out a $1 million insurance policy for the event and reimburse the sheriff and district attorney for costs related to prosecuting crimes at the festival, according to court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Reno last week.

It seems a little light on the insurance side, given the nature of the event.

Local Winnemucca BLM chief Gene Seidlitz says that the BLM’s 3% cut is only from ticket revenue, and that the event is quite profitable to them. I believe this is not actually correct, that in fact they get a cut of all Playa revenues such as Plug-n-Play camping fees.

Winnemucca District Field Manager Gene Seidlitz said the BLM provides BRC with an estimate that details the costs associated with pre-planning, implementation and monitoring of the event. He said the BRC pays the BLM 3 percent of the gross ticket receipts.

He estimates the federal agency typically makes from $500,000 to $600,000 a year on the event.

“A good chunk of money comes back locally,” Seidlitz said. “It goes toward projects, improvements, staffing and maintenance within our district, national conservation area and for the field office. Some of that money also goes to partnered groups that are passionate about that landscape and want to help us. We still have quality control. We can no longer do our jobs alone, these groups are really part of the BLM staff and part of our mission to improve the public lands.”

 The RGJ shares some Burner feedback:

morris hotelJim “Jungle Jim” Gibson is owner of the first burner hotel, the historic Morris Hotel on Fourth Street. He said the legal struggles of Burning Man affects burners in that they continue to add fees and costs to the event. He said it gets to where the average burner has a hard time coming up with $400 to go to the event (tickets cost $380 in 2014) [plus $30 vehicle pass - Ed]. On average, he said, a burner will spend $2,000 to $3,000 at Burning Man.

“This is also the largest single event in the Reno community for raising money,” Gibson said. “There is more money spent on Burning Man than any of the other event in Reno.

There is a lot of politics involved, and sometimes the burner community doesn’t always understand. There are people who understand Burning Man, the organization and what they do, and then there are people who think the organization is getting rich off of the event and it’s really not that true. They make money, they should.”…

...most burners don’t pay attention to what is happening. He said. they focusing on living life with the most potential, creating art and building communities. When things are happening in politics, he said, they let the people handling politics deal with it.

“We are artists and we are here to create art,” [hotel manager] Bar said. “We do what we do to bring the art and other people do what they do in politics to make sure we will be able to bring the art. It’s the principle of communal effort and everyone doing his part.

The burner culture is about community, art, leaving no trace. Then there are the people that do the paperwork, handle the lawsuits and meet with the judges. They are two separate things.

Oh dear. Leave the politics to the politicians, a recipe for disaster if ever I heard one. And so much for radical inclusion! The Burning Man lawyers and paperwork people who I’ve met go to Burning Man and get the culture.

Of course we understand that they make money from the event. That’s a prerequisite for understanding BMOrg. I’ve just been in remote parts of Thailand where anyone spending that much money on a ticket to a dance party would be considered obscenely rich, almost beyond comprehension. I’m sure that is the case everywhere along the Silk Road that we’re celebrating this year too. So “rich” is relative. There is absolutely no doubt that the Burning Man organization takes in tens of millions of dollars a year, more than it’s costs. Which is good, since it is supposed to be a non-profit by now. It should be out there doing a lot of good with all those millions, in the name of Burners.


Filed under: News Tagged: 2013, 2014, bmorg, commerce, complaints, cops, drugs, event, festival, news, press, rules, tickets

Bye, Bye USB Stick? Vegas Club bans DJs from playing Pre-Mixed sets, Dubstep, and other tricks

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About. Fucking. Time. Let’s hope this spreads.

evolution of a dj

From White Raver Rafting:

http://whiteraverrafting.com/new-las-vegas-club-will-ban-mainstream-records-and-lazy-artists/2014/02/01/

New Las Vegas Club Will Ban “Mainstream Records” And “Lazy Artists”

Post written by Sierra Rose
BfU6ejPCAAI3fbwA new after hours club will be opening February 1st on the infamous Las Vegas strip and they plan to put an end to all of the generic sounds in Sin CityAFTER, the club, will be holding it down for the underground by enforcing some strict rules on the kind of sound they want their party goers dancing to from 3:30 – 8:30AM on Saturday nights (Sunday mornings if we want to get technical). Check out AFTER’s list of “DJ Rules AFTER 3AM” above. [oh shit, what do they play before 3AM then! - Ed]Important Note: WhiteRaverRafting got in touch with the Mira, the Marketing Director for AFTER Las Vegas, to find out if this photo is legitimate. She was kind enough to inform us that the “DJ Rules AFTER 3AM” rules were created by AFTER’s Managing Partner, Thom Svast. She also said, “Yes, they are real (with a sense of dry humor of course), and they will be posted in our DJ booth, starting with our grand opening Saturday February 1st.”This picture of AFTER’s DJ booth rules has been circling Twitter and has people rejoicing:Screen Shot 2014-01-31 at 5.07.06 PMScreen Shot 2014-01-31 at 5.07.15 PM

Screen Shot 2014-01-31 at 5.07.30 PM

 AFTER’s grand opening is February 1st , tonight, and will offer sets from their two resident DJ’s, Black Boots and Spacebrydz. A set from Los Angelos DJ/producer Steve Prior is also on the menu. And once their patio opens in March, Brett Rubin will join the resident team. AFTER is located inside the Tommy Wind Theatre, formally known as the Utopia/Empire Ballroom. All locals and ladies will receive free entry, with a minuscule rate of $20 for non local males.

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Read more: http://whiteraverrafting.com/new-las-vegas-club-will-ban-mainstream-records-and-lazy-artists/2014/02/01/#ixzz2sHzBiGmC


Filed under: Music Tagged: 2014, alternatives, festival, funny, music, news, Party, press

Most Boring Image of Burning Man Ever

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So says the LA Times, in reviewing Kota Ezawa’s minimalist art show. Wonder if BMOrg gets their cut of this. The gallery describes it as “Burning Man-esque”. The acrylic on wood painting can be yours for $12,000; it measures 36″ x 52 7/8″

'Burning Man'

“Burning Man” by Kota Ezawa (2013); acrylic on wood panel. (LA Times/Christopher Grimes Gallery, Santa Monica)

 

Kota Ezawa’s re-creations of photographic images in flat, solid areas of color look as though they were run through a Photoshop filter, à la Shepard Fairey. This expressionless, deadpan aesthetic, evoking fashionable illustration techniques, has become a signature for the Japanese German artist. It might feel like a formula if it weren’t so effective.

Ezawa’s success owes in large part to his judicious choice of subjects, which in the past have included the Kennedy assassination and the O.J. Simpson trial. The current exhibition at Christopher Grimes, which features paintings and a single animated video, includes images of a sailing ship, a South Pole expedition and a disaster scene reminiscent of post-tsunami Japan.

Ezawa’s graphic flattening renders dramatic scenes banal, but it also creates archetypes at once familiar and otherworldly. These qualities are especially striking in a decidedly non-idyllic painting of surfers bobbing on the waves and in what is perhaps the most boring image ever created of the desert bacchanal, Burning Man. 

The works’ refusal of specifics suggests how certain images are burned into our collective consciousness. We don’t need to be told that the disaster is in Tohoku to recognize it. At the same time, Ezawa’s works make those images strange. Like an afterimage or a fuzzy memory, they’re an experience we’re not quite sure we had.

Christopher Grimes Gallery, 916 Colorado Ave., Santa Monica, (310) 587-3373, through March 8. Closed Sundays and Mondays. www.cgrimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-review-kota-ezawa-at-christopher-grimes-20140203,0,1762779.story#ixzz2sfGkoGWG

 


Filed under: General Tagged: 2013, 2014, art, art projects, arts, bmorg, commerce, event, press

Liquid Raving in the Casino Moshpit

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Topekas News describe themselves as “a progressive voice for the Free Thinker”. What passes for “progressive” in Topeka, Kansas seems to be somewhat different from San Francisco, California, as well shall see from Hayland Bynum III’s words of wisdom:

68471_171867299604127_714386990_n

The ethers of magic mint and cat dander clouding their minds, 1000s of college students descended into Sin City to attend the Burning Man Rave Festival, a giant indoor orgied-fest of liquid LSD, liquid marijuana and most terrifying, pregnancy.

Every year in the deserts of Las Vegas, college students receive secret invites to attend a rave party called The Burning Man.  On the surface, it may seem to be an innocent celebration of music and the ‘PLUR’, an acronym that makes parents shrug their shoulders in confusion and knowing college students to blush and smirk in abashed memories of spent passions.

The first thing to understand is this:  PLUR stands for Pleasure Lubing Untouched Rectals.  I know it is shocking and you may have heard PLUR stands for Peace, Love, Unity, Reefer, but that is all sadly not true.  At most raves across America, there is an area called a ‘moshed pit’ where the ground is saturated with liquid LSD and even worse liquid marijuana.  The ravers will roll around in the stuff and lick it off the floor, getting high and lucid all at once.  From there, it is only a matter of time before clothes are taken off, they are exploited and PLUR takes place.

With all the sloshing and rolling around to the weird electronica music that is popular this day and age, it is no wonder that raves yield a 70% pregnancy rate.   If you wonder why there are so many teen moms and college dropouts who go to Vegas, all the ravings that take place in the Burning Man Casino in the desert there are surely to blame.

I personally am too scared to go to Las Vegas and see it for myself, but I am told the Burning Man Casino looks like a giant N.A. with devil horns, and its body is actually a hotel.  The raves are usually held in a room called the Phallic Wonder, a rotating dome built right on the tip of the giant structures man thingy.

Satan’s personal concubines, cats, are also heavily present at these events.  The cats are gathered up from the streets and brought in, because the taxoplasmosis virus that naturally courses their veins is an aphrodisiac that increases the odds your college-aged son or daughter will deviate from morality and do the unthinkable.  And unlike all other animals, cats show affinity for shooting up on LSD and smack with the best of drug dealers.

If you have a son or daughter who have gone to a rave, statistics show that there is a 95% chance they lost their V-card.  They may not even remember it.

So all in all, keep your children away from Las Vegas and all these raves.  In my quick study of the EDM drug culture, all I can say is it is terrifying and I am so happy to know that my daughter at UCLA would never go to anything like this at all.  Amen.

This story builds on the solid anthropological treatise into religious ecstasy we shared recently. Perhaps there is something to this…after all, from the moment you arrive, you realize that Burning Man is structured on identifying virgins and initiating them with  rituals. You can go there as a virgin, but you’re guaranteed not to leave as one!


Filed under: Funny Tagged: 2013, drugs, festival, funny, press, scandal, virgin

Federal Manager of Burning Man – Last Day to Apply!

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That’s right kiddies, Burning Man has grown up so much that it needs to have its own full-time, dedicated manager for the Bureau of Land Management. It pays up to $90k a year – could be a dream job for a Burner! You’d get to ride round in any cop car or art car you wanted. From the Reno Gazette-Journal:

blm logoOfficials said today that the Burning Man annual art festival is getting so large it demands a new, full-time position in the Bureau of Land Management to run contracts, coordinate law enforcement and maintain safety.

“In the past, all these duties were done collaterally by (BLM) Winnemucca District employees with their regular jobs,” said Mark Pirtle, who has worked as a part-time interim project manager since last year as the federal agency develops the new position. “The job (of organizing Burning Man) has gotten so complicated, so big, so time consuming there is no way we can keep doing it that way.”

Burning Man media relations did not immediately return phone calls in time for the posting of this story.

The position was posted earlier this month and the deadline to apply is today.
Pirtle described the new position as a “herder of all entities involved,” which includes law enforcement agencies, Humboldt General Hospital, sanitation, fire contracts and other mandatory stipulations.

According to the job description on USA JOBS, the position pays $69,497 to $90,344 per year as a member of the BLM’s Winnemucca District Office.

In all, about 69,000 attended Burning Man in 2013.

Burning Man is held each year on BLM land in Pershing County, Nevada through a special recreation permit.

 

 
 

Filed under: News Tagged: 2014, BLM, bmorg, city, cops, feds, future, news, press

NADAgras at the Burner

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Reno’s Morris Hotel is being turned into a Burner hotel – quite literally. They now answer the phone as “Morris Burner Hotel”, and the web site is morrisburnerhotel.com. From the Reno Gazette-Journal:

morris burnerThe neon purple sign glows “Burner” over the front entrance to the 85-year-old four-story, red-brick historic Morris Burner Hotel on Fourth Street.

The building, purchased last July by brothers Don and Jim “Jungle Jim” Gibson, has since undergone renovations removing its aged, yellow layers and turning it into the beginnings of a creative hub for Burning Man participants, artists and the community.

Next week, it will open its door in a soft-grand opening with artist group NadaDada for its second annual, three-day spring Dada art and music event, “NADAgras.” The event will include artwork, tours of the Morris, food, live music and performance art displays.

We’ve told you tales before of NadaDada and their motel shows.

nada dada motel“’NADAgras’ is a match made in heaven for us,” Gibson said. “NadaDada is one of my favorite events — I have wandered around for one or two days every year, visited with the artists; it’s so fun to see all the crazy art. Doing it here is an honor.”

During “NADAgras” the hotel’s third floor rooms will be filled with Nada artists and their work. He said hosting a grand opening during the event also offers exposure to both the hotel and Nada that the community may not have experienced before.

“The art part (at the Morris) has turned into such an important piece of the puzzle,” Gibson said. ”It’s not only how we’re decorating the place, but we have an art proposal and program that we put together that defines how we deal with the art in the hotel and in the community, and relationships with other art galleries and groups.”

On nearly a half an acre of land and with more than 30 rooms, the Morris is home to over a dozen residents, a series of themed art rooms, such as the Goddess of Creation room and the Sparkle Pony room, and the alternative media source, LoadedTV, featuring “Studio M” streaming interviews and segments about the Burning Man and art community.

“I didn’t go out intentionally looking to buy something like this — it kind of happened and the rest, as they say, is history,” Gibson said. “What has happened here is nothing short of amazing and it’s turning into what could be an incredibly-nice boutique hotel.”

morris signGibson said as the first phase of renovations comes together, there are future plans to create a coffee shop, an organic food restaurant and an aquaponics greenhouse and outdoor seating area in the backyard “playa” space.

He said he would also like to use the 18-foot high “M” from the 2009 Burning Man art installation piece, “MOM” created by California artist Laura Kimpton, as an entrance gate on Valley Road behind neighboring businesses Abby’s HWY 40 and Studio on 4th.

“We’re on the books as a hotel, but the reality is that we’re an art and a community space,” Gibson said. “It’s something for people who want to understand Burning Man and it’s for the greater Burning Man community around the world. When they come to Reno, they can stay here and they immediately get to know the burner community. That’s always been a real driver for doing this.”

In room 223, “NADAgras” coordinator and performing artist James Dilworth will present a silent, interactive performing art piece, “Room of Silence.”

He said holding the event at the Morris is ideal because there is the overlap between Nada and burners where anything can happen and people can come out of their normal world and experience something they’ve never experienced before.

morris burner sideThe Nada movement began in Reno four years ago with its “Dada Motel” exhibit featuring artists residing and exhibiting in the El Cortez Hotel on West Second Street for a weekend. The Nada artists’ work challenges conventional art politics and portrays a variety of more eccentric themes.

There’s an artistic revival going on in Reno, and there’s a lot of artistic things happening here,” Dillworth said. “I think the community at large should be aware of this. It’s something to experience, appreciate and be a part of it. It’s not just for artists; it’s for everyone and they need to participate.”

Last year’s first off-shoot of the main Nada event started in midtown with “NADAgras” in the Best Bet Motel. Dilworth said this year’s event is more extensive and features a wide-variety of activities to participate in.

“I think there is going to be a lot more buzz about NadaDada,” Dilworth said. “With this event, we’re testing the waters to expand the Nada movement. It isn’t just gallery shows; if you have an idea with Nada, try it out — get a room, put it up and see how it works.”

Displaying in the Oxbow Press group show, “Naughty, Taboo and Just Plain Wrong,” British artist Carole Anne Ricketts joined Nada in the summer of 2010. She said the magic of Nada is allowing the artist the opportunity to speak directly to the public in their own words.

“Nada is where the truth can be told or the outrageous can be put on display,” Ricketts said. “It’s not the words of a hanging committee or a curator looking for commercially viable items, then the show going up after the subject has lost its current cultural relevance.”

For this year’s “NADAgras” event, Ricketts along with the help of artist and musician Jill Marlene, created the Goddess room she hopes will inspire creativity in those that stay in it.

“It (”NADAgras”) is a perfect fit for the Morris Burner Hotel, where the show takes on a mini ephemeral art community, much like that of Burning Man on a way different scale,” Ricketts said. “Although Nada is non-exclusive, so tickets for entry have no place here. Within the rooms of the Morris, the exhibitions take on a level of intimacy, while the corridors, indoor spaces and outdoor area, provide an almost carnival banality with the possibilities of spontaneous entertainments of burner style revelry.”

 

Sounds great, I wanna go! If anyone in Reno could take a picture of the neon purple Burner sign for us, we’d be much obliged.

NADAgras starts March 7

‘NADAGRAS’ AT THE MORRIS BURNER HOTEL

WHEN: 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, March 7; 10 a.m. to 11 p.m., Saturday, March 8; 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, March 9
WHERE: 400 E. Fourth St.
COST: Free
DETAILS: www.nadadadamotel.weebly.com

 


Filed under: Alternatives to Burning Man Tagged: 2014, alternatives, art, event, future, hotel, ideas, press, reno

Sheriff Reserves Right to Protect Kids

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Guy Farmer of Carson City is a long-time critic of Burning Man. Recently in Nevada Appeal – the Lahontan Valley news – he shared his opinion about Burning Man’s “staring contest” with Pershing County.

Although both behemoth bureaucracy Black Rock City, LLC (aka BMOrg) and little-’ole gun-totin’ Pershing County recently reached an agreement out of court, two local Judges (Jones and Wagner) and the District Attorney still think that the party, with all of its sex acts and drug use, is not a suitable place for young children.

A complex legal battle between Black Rock City, LLC, the powerful Bay Area entity that operates Burning Man, and sparsely populated Pershing County has ended in a judicial standoff in federal court. But if this dispute was a boxing match, I’d give the decision to Pershing County on points.

It was a David (a small rural county) vs. Goliath (Burning Man) battle from the beginning. The Burners sued the county last year, claiming that local authorities had no jurisdiction over the annual naked drug festival, which is held on federal land near Gerlach, about 90 miles north of Reno. The Burners objected to additional charges for law enforcement expenses and claimed the county couldn’t regulate their behavior on a remote desert playa in a national conservation area.

At the time he filed a countersuit against the Burners, Pershing County District Attorney Jim Shirley told me that “public servants shouldn’t back down just because a large multimillion-dollar corporation wants to bully us into not following the law.” The corporation, which grosses more than $20 million a year from Burning Man, opposed a modest increase in law enforcement expenses proposed by Shirley and the county, and rejected suggestions that the county could bar underaged children from the X-rated event. As an aside, it’s relevant to note that the festival’s federal landlord, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), rakes in more than $1 million per year from the Burners.

As an aside, the event is not X-rated. First of all, that’s a voluntary rating applied to films by the movie industry. Secondly, it hasn’t existed since 1990. It’s also worth mentioning that the event currently pays more like $2 million to the Feds and other authorities.

Although Black Rock City unleashed hundreds of highly paid attorneys in the battle against Shirley and the county, both sides eventually reached an out-of-court settlement that gave the county most of what it wanted, starting with increased law enforcement expenses.

It was all about the money. Not freedom of speech and expression, not nudity and over-exposure to a Bacchanalian revel for thousands of underage Burners.

bondageAlthough Federal District Judge Robert C. Jones criticized the settlement, calling it “illegal, unenforceable and absurd,” he acknowledged that he lacks jurisdiction to void the contract and repeated his concerns about exposing children to public nudity at the annual festival.

The county’s concerns do not center on nudity, but rather on the blatant sexual conduct and the (illegal) drugs at the event,” Shirley told me in a recent email exchange. “The (Pershing County) sheriff still has all his rights to enforce Nevada law relating to children.” I sincerely hope the sheriff will exercise that authority when the 2014 edition of Burning Man rolls around in early September.

I’ve repeatedly objected to the presence of young children at the festival based on my own experience during a daylong visit to the event in 2008. That’s when I saw a naked middle-aged man cavorting dangerously near the area reserved for children. This occurred after several child molesters had been arrested at Burning Man in recent years.

rooster-art-car-burning-manWe told you about a pedophile who got busted, and was found to have made plans to attend Burning Man for a kidnapping. One of America’s Most Wanted is kite enthusiast Thomas Hanley, a child molester known to frequent Burning Man – a perfect place for someone who’s on the run, since no-one would think twice if they wear a mask.

We don’t know about any other arrests for this, but there are definitely registered sex offenders at Burning Man – and the presence of nubile, scantily clad teens is surely a case of statutory rape waiting to happen (age of consent in Nevada is 16 for straight sex and 18 for gay/bi).

My criticism has always been based on the widespread use of illegal drugs (not just marijuana) on public lands, and the highly inappropriate presence of children at an event featuring pornographic “art” and public performances. For example, there was the mechanized depiction of sodomy at the Jiffy Lube Camp a few years ago. You get the idea.

ROPEDThe issue is not just nudity. It’s tens of thousands of sexual freaks in a place where almost everyone is partying out of control for a week, on every kind of drug you can imagine, including Viagra. There are fetishes, polyamory, bondage, all kinds of freakery – and it could be going on anywhere. Last year I met some burgins whose first act at Burning Man was to slide down a rat’s ass into an art car – filled with gay guys tied to the wall wearing ball gags! They just thought they were going on a cool slide, boy did they get a shock.

Mr Farmer concludes that it’s all about the money:

A Reno newspaper recently estimated that Burning Man generates some $35 million worth of economic activity in Northern Nevada, and Reno Mayor Bob Cashell has warned Pershing County not to interfere with that sizeable cash flow. BLM remains silent on the issue. In other words, collect the money and forget about the children. My hope, however, is that Pershing County will exercise its authority to regulate public conduct at Burning Man, and that the more enlightened Burners will finally decide to leave the little kids at home, where they belong.

Make Burning Man an over 21 event, and suddenly the “sting” goes out of it. There’s no danger of statutory rape, and no need for any camps to check IDs. Leave your wallet at home when you go to Burning Man, showing a drivers license to be gifted a shot defeats the purpose of “Decommodification”.


Filed under: General Tagged: 2013, 2014, art cars, burning man, city, kids, Party, press, scandal, virgin

Ticket Chaos: Vehicle Passes now $500+, Tickets $1500+ [Updates]

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People Waiting In LineWant to go to Burning Man 2014, Caravansary? Well, sorry, you’re SOL. Today’s “Individual Sale”, of 38,000 tickets at $380 each, sold out in about 42 minutes (according to the Huffington Post), or perhaps 20 minutes (according to Burners). Many Burners report logging on at seconds or minutes after Noon PST when the sale began, trying for an hour, only to be told that there were no more tickets available. Other Burners logged in at the same time and had “no problems”, with the process taking about 20 minutes – which seems like a long time to complete a fairly basic e-commerce transaction, particularly given that they already had captured most of our details in the pre-registration.

scalping politicianTickets are now available on the secondary market, with individual tickets priced as high as $1545. As we predicted, Burning Man has created a whole new black market around vehicle passes, which are selling for more than $500. Expect these prices to drop closer to the event date, once insiders scalpers have exhausted the pool of suckers and are left holding a glut of tickets. Also, don’t be surprised if the population cap increases this year and there are more tickets issued, now that the growth-impeding issue of vehicles on the road has been neutralized.

Did Burning Man really sell 38,000 tickets in 20 minutes today? Or did they just say they did, with the expectation that they can keep selling tickets all year long through STEP? We’ll never know, but we do know for a fact that in the past they’ve claimed a sold out event and then attendance actually dropped from the previous year.

Here’s some of the viewpoints of Burners about the sale process:

Luke  I’m heartbroken my 2 best friends scored tickets. I didn’t and we all clicked the link at the same time. I gotta say even though I didn’t get lucky the process was heaps better than last year. Great work guys!

Monique I logged on at exactly noon and 24 minutes later was told no more tickets available at this time. Bummed.

Stacey  I was only able to buy one. Not two. My boyfriend did not get one. We are truly bummed

Scott Nice work! I got on right at 12 and had my tickets in ten minutes

Lynsey  Got tickets within 8 mins clicked on at one second past ! Excited to go home 

John I got tickets, but punched in exactly on time. I had two computers going, the other for a close friend. No dice with his  I know of others who punched in punctually but came up empty-handed. Luck of the draw…STILL, PLENTY of other opportunities and SALES to come!

So Not fantastic .. Got this “code not valid” with my confirmed code for about 10mins before getting a sale is closed  

Cassie I want tickets so bad.. How frustrating to wait in line and not get any for 1 hour. Now I’m on the search! I need 2 with 1 car camping pass.

Adam logged in right on time, had 2 tickets in cart, when I went to check out, would not take my credit card info – for THREE different cards. called my bank, they told me ticketfly was rejecting the charge, not the bank. 0 tickets. so frustrated.

Lawrence  They double charged my account, then the sale didn’t go through. Missing 900$ from my account and have no tickets.

Farrah My entire camp secured tickets within the first 20 minutes. Very smooth and so much better than last year. Super excited to be in the official planning phase again!

Robert Well, I clicked on within a few seconds of noon, waited over a half hour till my turn came only to be told all tickets were already in shopping carts. Oh well, went 14 times, perhaps time to try something else this year.

Soleo Horrible! Servers crashed, half of my camp(long time burners) all sitting waiting since exactly 12:00 didn’t get tickets and already see tuns of tickets all over stubhub and ebay.

Jen  Nooooooooo. Screen refreshed for 54 minutes and I didn’t get my ticket. So unbelievably disappointed

Liz Got tickets it was a breeze. Last year I was online for 4 hours to get a ticket.

Kevin Got on at 12:04. told to not refresh for 45 minutes, then told to refresh every 15 seconds. got shut out. I’d like to think that 38,000 people were in front of me and that it was not computer error….oh well hello STEP!

Megan Submitted payment and everything but never got confirmation and money wasn’t taken from bank acct 

Nicolette No tickets. Sat in the ‘auto 30 sec refresh’ for an hour until I got a message that said no more tickets available. Most of the people I know did not get tickets.

Justin I was in line & all registered when i got kicked off.. went back to the site with code to find that all tickets were sold out! This new system (ticketfly) was a terrible idea to try to handle all of the ticket influx! Next time use a system that worked properly.

Blues Bob It sucked. An hour in line and all I got was the “sold-out” message”. I’ll try other avenues, but I hate the unpredictability of not having one. It’s fucked planning for a trip you’re uncertain you’re actually taking. And this was going to be my last year for awhile.

Simon No joy here, I’m just stuck with “We’re currently processing a high volume of orders” in a loop that goes round and round forever, for the last 17 minutes.

Holly I have 9 withdrawals from account of 399.00 for individual tickets starting at 301 pm transaction 2nd approved by bank then ticket fly kicked back I called them they say banks fault no they put money right back ticket fly blamed bank then burning man …. I can’t even begin to tell u how upset I am … After money being held by ticket fly for 22 minutes then getting look for confirmation email from us in 2 minutes or try again …. no email try again and same bs …. I held back in 2011 to give others chance to go and 2012 for personal reasons to deal with this …. I just want to know why the fuck it happened that I didn’t score a ticket when money was withdrawn and I have proof at 301 pm … wow

Seems like Ticketfly is maybe not so fly after all.

Last year we helped Burners deal with this with our story “Help! I Didn’t Get a Ticket – 7 Ways You Can Still Go”. Most of the information still applies. We don’t know yet when STEP opens, but the dates for the OMG sale are:

Thursday, July 31, 2014 12pm (noon) PDT: OMG Sale ($380) registration begins
Monday, August 4, 2014 12pm (noon) PDT: OMG Sale ($380) registration closes
Wednesday, August 6, 2014 12pm (noon) PDT: OMG Sale ($380) starts

(source: official Burning Man site).

[Updated 2/26/14 5:03pm]

So far 62,000 tickets have been sold (or reserved to be sold). Many tickets are gifted to volunteers and regionals. The 2013 Special Recreation Permit specified a maximum population of 68,000. According to Wikipedia, that’s exactly how many were there last year, no more, no less. Burning Man themselves disclosed the number as 69,613. The 4-year environmental assessment supported a population of 70,000. Bottom line: there are more tickets out there. In the past, the longer you waited, the less you paid – our prediction is that this year’s pattern will be the same.

Thanks to Burner Art LAescapist for this image – looks like some sucker paid $5000 for a ticket. Probably a stolen credit card!

5000 ticket


Filed under: News Tagged: 2014, bmorg, burning man, commerce, complaints, event, festival, news, press, scandal, tickets

Misting Vagina and Penis Slide: Celeb Invasion Continues

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rosario costume_1Burning Man has become THE place for celebs to show their cool factor. Last year we had first time visits from P.Diddy, Susan Sarandon, and General Wesley Clark…amongst others.

Actress Rosario Dawson is in a different league, though: she has been to the burn 9 times, and created several art projects for it. The star of “Sin City” built her own major art installation for the 2011 theme “Rites of Passage”: a 30 foot long installation with a penis slide into a misting vagina tent. As you do! Visitors strolled through this misting vagina tunnel, but anyone who missed the g-spot had to make a second trip through. Once you found and pressed it, “a doorbell would ring and lights would flash.”

art installation Burning Man 2011

rosario vag

art installation Burning Man 2011

 

 

She has taken to the talk show circuit to display her hipness profess her love for Burning Man, bringing the heart-warming story to Jimmy Kimmel, Chelsea Handler, and now Conan O’Brien.

Jimmy Kimmel Interview:

 

Chelsea Lately:

Last week’s Conan interview has been taken down from YouTube but you can find it here.

Penis slide uncovered, or just some random cock?

Penis slide unmasked…or just some random cock?

We look forward to seeing more of Rosario’s art at future burns, as well as in the upcoming Sin City 2 – due for release right before the burn, on August 22, 2014.


Filed under: Art Tagged: art, art projects, celebrities, celebrity, city, event, festival, funny, playa love, press, rosario dawson, videos

Elon Musk: “Burning Man IS Silicon Valley”

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Mike Judge is one of this country’s comic greats.

As well as Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill, he made the classic movie Idiocracy.

Now he’s back with a terrific new show on HBO, a sardonic look at Silicon Valley called “Silicon Valley”. It has been called “Entourage with Asperger’s”. It debuted last night, I just watched it with a friend who also has a lot of experience in the Valley, and we both found it hilarious. They’ve totally nailed it, and I can’t wait for the show to develop.

Trailer:

Here’s the whole first episode:

spacex-headquarters-main-office-4Being San Francisco, of course, not everyone is happy about it: including Burner and Tesla founder Elon Musk, who has judged Judge for not radically including himself in our shenanigans. He should be a Burner more like Elon, who flies in by private plane to his plug-n-play Segway model RV compound. Does that put you in a position to be saying “Silicon Valley is Burning Man”?  Hey, when your plane takes off from your office which has 5 Spaceships and you bring the Lucent Dossier Experience to the party, that’s fine by us! You clearly know how to do it better than the fresh-from-Crimea virgins who (shock! horror!) wore a t-shirt with some sort of logo on it, or had to hitch a ride because they couldn’t score a vehicle pass.

Recode brings us the full story, of Elon’s comments over bacon and waffles:

If the crowd reactions at the Silicon Valley premiere of HBO’s comedy series “Silicon Valley” are any indication, the show will hit a nerve with tech’s power players.

Young programmers said they saw themselves in the show. Lawyers and venture capitalists were happy that people would finally see how much power engineers have these days. And Tesla founder Elon Musk, whose name was dropped in the first few minutes of the first episode, hated it.

vice-mike-judge-talks-beavis-butthead-2Created by Mike Judge, Dave Krinsky and John Altschuler, and filmed on location in Palo Alto, the show, which debuts on April 6, follows six roommates, all programmers, as they try to strike it rich in Silicon Valley. During the first two 30-minute episodes at Redwood City’s Fox Theatre, the audience of around 400 locals responded with laughs and sighs as the characters enacted the constant pitching, striving and inanity that felt familiar to those in the recent tech boom.

Afterward, the audience and cast filed uneasily together down Broadway to an after-party at the Fox Forum banquet hall, where a group of Silicon Valley lawyers and venture capitalists formed a tight circle.

“It was no more unreal than real life here,” said Selwyn B. Goldberg, a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. “Since the last bubble, it’s been complete insanity.”

Simon Roy, president of Jemstep, agreed, and said the show captures the enormous power that engineers have today.

“In the ’90s, in the 2000s, it wasn’t like this.”

If the VCs and law firm partners were fans, serial entrepreneur Musk was less so. He sees the Valley through Playa-dust encrusted glasses:

Elon Musk, whose high-profile companies SpaceX and Tesla have made him a very big star of tech, recognized a friend in the VC scrum, and joined in.

“The truth? It’s stranger than the fiction,” Musk declared, as the large group debated the verisimilitude of the show and also tech versus Hollywood in general. “Most startups are a soap opera, but not that kind of soap opera.”

Musk did not much like the show and continued talking about the issue of truth versus fiction, in what was an instant television review of “Silicon Valley.”

The verdict of the digital Roger Ebert? Thumbs very much down.

“None of those characters were software engineers. Software engineers are more helpful, thoughtful, and smarter. They’re weird, but not in the same way,” he insisted. “I was just having a meeting with my information security team, and they’re great but they’re pretty fucking weird — one used to be a dude, one’s super small, one’s hyper-smart — that’s actually what it is.”

Musk continued his lively assessment, as waiters passed trays of sweetbread, truffled potatoes, Brussels sprouts and bacon and waffles around them, making larger points about the tech landscape and offering a kind of on-the-fly script notes session for those gathered.

“I really feel like Mike Judge has never been to Burning Man, which is Silicon Valley,” opined Musk. “If you haven’t been, you just don’t get it. You could take the craziest L.A. party and multiply it by a thousand, and it doesn’t even get fucking close to what’s in Silicon Valley. The show didn’t have any of that.”

An early Tesla prototype spotted at Burning Man in 2007

An early Tesla prototype spotted at Burning Man in 2007

Musk looked around the circle and asked who had been to colorful annual desert festival that is a favorite of tech’s elite. Not a one answered in the affirmative.

Then, Musk made the observation that the geeks are without the same social aspirations as those in the entertainment industry, an aspect which he thought the show completely missed.

“The parties in Silicon Valley are amazing because people don’t care about how they’re perceived socially, which I don’t think Mike [Judge] got. Hollywood is a place where people always care about what the public will think of them … and the show felt more like that,” he said. “I’ve lived in Hollywood 12 years, and I’ve never been to a fucking good party.”

Musk reached for a bacon waffle and proclaimed that he would take Judge to Burning Man this year.

We look forward to seeing a Beavis and Butthead art car (at least). Huh huh huh huh. These people are naked. Huh huh. Or at least, a Silicon Valley episode set at Burning Man. Starring Elon, natch.

If Elon thinks that there aren’t just as many celebrities at Burning Man as at your typical Hollywood party, then clearly he hasn’t been reading our coverage of the event.

After his film review, the twice-divorced billionaire Musk was forced to deal with the bevy of young hotties wanting to learn about the latest in SULEV technologies.

musk girl geeksDespite some misgivings about the show, it was clear that Musk was definitely more of a star than anyone present at the premiere. A coterie of millennial women, waiting for him to break away from the group, circled him.

Outside on the street, actor T.J. Miller was having a cigarette. Was he having a good time at the party?


“Yeah, but, and I’m not gonna name names, but if the billionaire power players don’t get the joke, it’s because they’re not comfortable being satirized,” said Miller, who plays a buffoonish character named Erlich, who owns the hacker house. “And they don’t remember that to be a target of humor is an honor — you have to be venerated to be satirized. Like, I’m sorry, but you could tell everything was true. You guys do have bike meetings, motherfucker.”

Also outside smoking was one of the show’s writers, Clay Tarver, who said he had been anxious about having the premiere in the heart of the Valley.

“We knew this would be either a lovely evening or the worst night of our lives,” Tarver said. “I’m still not sure which it is.”

musk_and_obamaTarver said he felt that Silicon Valley was a perfect topic for satire — and that the increasing public resentment toward tech means that the show didn’t even feel that mean anymore (after all, earlier that morning, protesters had vomited on a Yahoo shuttle in Oakland).

“When I first read the pilot, I thought maybe it was too harsh,” he said. “But even just in the last four months, the resentment toward the Valley has come through the roof, so I think it works.”

The HBO jet was docked at an airstrip nearby, and the media execs started filing out to head back to Los Angeles. By the photo booth in the back of the banquet hall, the stars of the show were dancing with their girlfriends.

“The Valley is a place that takes itself too seriously, and it has yet to be properly lampooned,” said lead character Thomas Middleditch. “So it’s time for … it’s time for a wedgie.

It sure is. And I can think of another San Francisco subculture of self-important hipsters who could use a wedgie or three also. Let’s hope Elon gives Mike Judge a LOT of inspiration at Caravansery.

Elon’s comments got some feedback from the show’s creators in the Hollywood Reporter:

producer Alec Berg was still trying to make sense of Musk’s criticisms. “I’m not quite sure what going to Burning Man has to do with anything that was in the show,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “I feel like [Musk] may have a slightly skewed opinion of people because he’s a billionaire and everyone wants to be helpful to him. It’s like he’s the most beautiful woman in the world and he’s saying, ‘Gosh, men are so helpful. They carry your bag and they get the door for you.’ If no one ever says ‘no’ to you and everyone is following around trying to help you, you probably lose perspective pretty f—ing fast.”

He added: “I also feel like the people that disliked it the most are the ones we were most going after, so it seemed like we probably hit the target if they got irked.”

Judge appeared less bothered by Musk’s remarks. “I would not claim to know Silicon Valley better than he does. I’m just going off of what I’ve observed,” he told THR, joking: “Maybe I’ll go to Burning Man with him and smooth it over.”

The show — which has been dubbed “Entourage with Asperger’s” by those involved — follows Richard (Middleditch), a young, socially awkward programmer who creates a search engine that allows musicians to see if their songs are too similar to existing ones. When a bidding war erupts between two tech billionaires over the algorithm behind the app, Richard has to decide between $10 million or taking a risk and possibly making billions. Judge relied on his past experiences working as a test engineer for a Silicon Valley start-up and a few tours of modern tech companies, including Google, to create the series.

While Musk may not have found the satire entirely accurate, he still was able to appreciate the humor. “Some of these billionaires, we have to poke fun at them. That’s the idea,” noted actor T.J. Miller. “They may not love that we’re pocking fun at them, but I said to [Musk], ‘Did you think it was funny?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, it was funny. I was laughing.’ ”

The biggest laugh at the Silicon Valley screening came with one of Kumail Nanjiani‘s (Dinesh) lines, in which he joked that Google co-founder Sergey Brin‘s partner, Larry Page, actually does nothing. (The line didn’t play quite as well with Thursday’s Hollywood audience.) 

“What was neat is all the inside-baseball tech stuff – all stuff we were thinking, ‘Is this right? Are people going to get this?’ – they got all that stuff,” added star Thomas Middleditchof a reception he found rewarding, acknowledging: “We were kind of nervous premiering Silicon Valley to the Silicon Valley.” 


Filed under: General Tagged: 2014, alternatives, news, Party, playa love, press, san francisco, scandal, silicon valley, space, tech, technology, tv, videos

Aurora Palo Alto: BM Tree Comes to City Hall

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Aurora is a 3-story high art-ificial tree made up of more than 40,000 LED lights. It was created by Bay Area artist Charles Gadeken. After debuting at Burning Man in 2011, it has been re-constructed as a temporary art installation outside Palo Alto’s city hall. The project was funded by a Kickstarter project promoted by the Black Rock Arts Foundation.

Aurora

Aurora is an opalescent willow with hand-beaten copper leaves that chime in the wind. At night, the tree comes alive with light, rotating through the spectrum of colors and providing spectacular illumination. It is a fairy tree that re-ignites our childhood imaginations, full of wonder and endless possibility.
The installation illuminates the area around City Hall, and invigorates the civic heart of Palo Alto. Aurora draws Palo Alto citizens, creating a welcome place for the public to gather beneath its canopy.  This piece provides branches to read under, benches to sit on, and momentarily transports viewers into a fantastical world of endless possibility. By installing this work in front of City Hall, Aurora captures Palo Alto’s distinctive social and cultural history as a thriving center for innovation, art, and technology.
Aurora runs a year-long full color light display that changes every day with the seasons. An interactive mobile app will allow the public to play with the tree, modifying the color and pattern of 40,000 LED lights that bring the tree to life and making it an ever-changing, collaborative work of public art.
Sam-Julia-Aurora-328x440The idea to re-assemble the tree for public display came from two young kids who saw photos of it from Burning Man:

The initiative to display Aurora in Palo Alto began with local residents Sam and Julia Hirschman (ages 10 and 8) who have been working on the project for over a year.  With the support of their Father, Harry, they have engaged local civic and business organizations to support the project as well as gathering petitions to support the project. They have secured the support of the Palo Alto Art Commission and the Palo Alto Business Association.

The artist described the project as a magical wardrobe/secret clubhouse:

With this piece, I am creating an environment of mythical beauty that instills a sense of awe, wonder and joy to those who experience it. It acts as a unique and unexpected element placed in the world that empowers and transforms the viewer at the moment of participation. Viewers become enveloped in the magic of the experience and are taken out of the everyday. This work brings light to the darkness, making nature come alive in the desert night. This piece provides branches to read under, a forest in which to play or fight, waging a war full of knights and princesses, a fairy tree to re-ignite our childhood imaginations, full of wonder and endless possibility.

This tree represents the secret clubhouse, the magical wardrobe, the portal from a practical reality into a real life fairy tale. It is the barrier between waking and dreaming. The tree enacts a time outside of time, and a place outside of place. It is a universe all your own, that responds to your presence and an alternate reality that connects and inspires all of us to play.

Here’s the CBS Local story on the project.


Filed under: Alternatives to Burning Man, Art Tagged: 2014, alternatives, art, art projects, environment, news, press, stories, videos

This Is Your Brain On Drugs

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In 1995, artist Bryan Lewis Saunders decided he would paint a self-portrait every single day for the rest of his life. He’s up to about 10,000 so far – and more than 50 of them are based on different drug experiences. The results are fascinating, and sometimes beautiful. The Guardian said this:

photo credit: Troy Stains for the Guardian

photo credit: Troy Stains/Guardian

Bryan is an artist. For the past 17 years he’s been sitting in this room – or somewhere like it – drawing a self-portrait or two every day. “I’ve done 8,700,” he says. “Every day is different. Like snowflakes and DNA and fingerprints, no two are the same.”

The thing is, 50 of these 8,700 self-portraits have lately become very famous – celebrated all over the world, with millions of Google hits and a forthcoming exhibition alongside Damien Hirst at the influential Maison Rouge gallery in Paris. They’re the 50 he drew while he was on drugs. Each was created under the influence of a different substance, from marijuana and cocaine through lighter fluid and “bath salts” – “They’re what everybody says are causing people to eat each other’s faces” – to prescription pills with names like Cephalexin and Risperdal. In fact, most of the 50 were prescription pharmaceuticals. “That’s the popular thing today,” Bryan says. He says he hates drugs but feels obliged to try new ones, “just for the drawing”

The exhibition at Paris’ Maison Rouge took place last year. He also recent had an exhibition of his work in Washington, DC, at the Catalyst Projects gallery.

From Alternet:

photo credit: Sean Carnage

photo credit: Sean Carnage

Bryan Lewis Saunders likes to take drugs, both legal and illegal, and then draw pictures of himself. The results are strikingly different from drug to drug, and they vary from beautiful to grotesque, abstract and just plain bizarre.

An artist in his mid-40s from Virginia, now living in Tennessee, Saunders has completed more than 9,930 self-portraits to date (though not all under the influence of a drug).

He said he explored tragedy and social problems for a couple years, then switched to exploring sleep, pain and personality assessment—then drugs. He’s most interested in the “things that are still a mystery to us all,” he said in an email.

In 2012 Saunders told Wired magazine he’d decided to do a self-portrait every day for the rest of his life so that he “could die knowing that I tried to experience as much as possible when I was alive.”

“All day every day, images and feelings of the world come into me and it’s inescapable,” he wrote to Wired. “So I thought if I did a self-portrait every day for the rest of my life, with no rules, the world and I could be more linked to my nervous system.”

On his website, in an explanation of the “Drugs” portraits, Saunders writes:

“After experiencing drastic changes in my environment, I looked for other experiences that might profoundly affect my perception of self.”

He devised an experiment in which every day he took a different drug and drew himself under the influence.

“Within weeks I became lethargic and suffered mild brain damage. I am still conducting this experiment but over greater lapses of time. I only take drugs that are given to me.”

Saunders said in an email that, lately it’s rare that he creates a new “drugs” portrait.

“I don’t like all of these synthetic [drugs] they keep creating,” he said. “It is rare that I’m offered something new to me nowadays.”

From Fastcocreate.com:

“Self-portraiture is biased in its very nature,” says Saunders. “The more informed the bias the more interesting the image is, usually. Memories, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, behaviors are all but impossible to separate from the making of a self-portrait. If I was to attempt to render the same exact image on each different substance in essence denying what the drug means to me personally, the only thing I would be expressing were the degrees in which my motor skills, or visual processes were effected thus entirely undermining the purpose of doing a self-portrait in the first place.”

Here are 51 drug-fuelled paintings from his series Self Portraits Under the Influence of Love and Other Drugs

 

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25I-NBOMe

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Abilify / Xanax / Ativan (dosage unknown in hospital)

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90mg Abilify (after 3 months usage 3x maximum dose)

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1 sm Glass of “real” Absinth (not the fake crap)

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10mg Adderall

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10mg Ambien

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Bath Salts

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15mg Buspar (snorted)

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4 Butalbitals (doseage unknown)

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Butane Honey Oil

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250mg Cephalexin (painted w/ watercolor pencil, water and cephalexin)

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1/2 gram Cocaine

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Computer Duster (2 squirts)

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2 bottles of Cough Syrup

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1 “Bump” of Crystalmeth

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4mg Dilaudid

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1 shot of Dilaudid / 3 shots of Morphine (In the ER with kidney stones)

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DMT (during and after)

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60mg Geodon

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Hash

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Heroin (Snorted)

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Huffing Gas (during and right after)

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Huffing Lighter Fluid (during and right after)

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7.5mg Hydrocodone / 7.5mg Oxycodone / 3mg Xanax

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3mg Klonopin

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10mg Lortab

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Marijuana (Kine Bud)

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G13 Marijuana

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Morphine IV (doseage unknown)

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Psilocybin Mushrooms (2 caps onset)

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2mg Nicotine Gum (after quitting smoking for 2 months)

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Nitrous Oxide

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Nitrous Oxide / Valium I.V. (doseage unknown in hospital)

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PCP

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7.5mg Percocet

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2 Pot Brownies

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1 Glass of Pruno

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Marijuana Resin

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4mg Risperdol

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Ritilin (doseage unknown-snorted)

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Salvia Divinorum (right before but mostly right after)

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100mg Seroquel

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100mg Tramadol

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100mg Trazadone

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20mg Valium

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Valium I.V. (doseage unknown in hospital)

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Valium IV, (Albuterol, Saline & Oxygen mixture)

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2mg Xanax

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50mg Zoloft (after 2 weeks)

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10mg Zyprexa (after 2 weeks in hospital)

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Ativan / Haloperidol (doseage unknown in hospital)

 


Filed under: Art Tagged: 2012, 2013, 2014, alternatives, art, arts, drugs, press

Escape Velocity: Back Story of Coachella Astronaut

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You didn’t have to go to Coachella this year to hear about the #coachellaastronaut. It reminds me of the Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters, which is maybe lost as a reference on most of the born in the 80′s-and-90′s Coachella audience. Although the astronaut appears to be inflatable, it is actually a giant machine, based around a forklift. Did someone say “art car”?

Here’s their official announcement:

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April 11, 2014- Poetic Kinetics Inc., known for their large-scale interactive kinetic art, is introducing “Escape Velocity” to this year’s Coachella Music and Arts Festival on April 11-20.

This year they are shooting for the stars with “Escape Velocity”, a 36’ tall x 57’ long x 40’ wide mobile Astronaut. This gigantic kinetic sculpture features radio-controlled animatronics, giving it the ability to articulate life-like gestures, such as peace and thumbs up signs.  The visor of the Astronaut is equipped with video projection mapping, allowing for video content as well as a live, interactive facial and name capture system. This will allow participants to interact with the Astronaut and have their face projected into the helmet visor as well as have their name appear on the suit’s name-tag.

Festivalgoers and artists can follow the astronaut’s adventures via Instagram @CoachellaAstronaut. They are also encouraged to use #CoachellaAstronaut to document their festival experience and interact directly with the astronaut.

3028987-slide-s-5-a-coachella-astronaut“Escape Velocity” is the highly anticipated follow up to “Helix Poeticus,” widely known by festival-goers as #CoachellaSnail.  The Snail garnered critical praise and worldwide attention after debuting at last year’s sold-out festival.

Poetic Kinetics Inc. has created art pieces for the festival consecutively for the past 3 years. Aiming to capture the true creative spirit and ingenuity that Coachella represents, Patrick Shearn and the Poetic Kinetics team poured themselves into crafting this work of art over the last three months. They embraced a broad range of technologies and materials, utilizing modern day digital fabrication processes.

After “Escape Velocity” makes its big debut at Coachella, it will be searching for a new adventure.  It would love to find a home, be it a Space and Science museum or a really, really big backyard.  There are rumors of an eBay bidding war after the first weekend…

Follow this friendly giant and its adventures all festival long via socials.

www.PoeticKinetics.com  
http://instagram.com/coachellaastronaut 
https://www.facebook.com/PoeticKineticsArt 
Tumbler 
#CoachellaAstronaut
 

Story and photos from Fast Company:

3028987-slide-s-2-a-coachella-astronautAs the hordes of festival-goers descend on the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, they’ve got a friend from outer space there to greet them.Last year, at Coachella, the star of the festival wasn’t Blur, or Phoenix, or the Red Hot Chili Peppers: It was the snail. The Coachella Snail, a three-story-tall art piece, is still a trending topic on Twitter (#CoachellaSnail) and fans were given instructions on how to build their own miniature versions at home.

So how do you follow up the success of an art project like the Snail? You build an even bigger piece–this time, the #CoachellaAstronaut.

The Coachella Astronaut (aka “Escape Velocity”) is a 36-foot tall, 57-foot long, 40-foot wide creation, built on a forklift, that will traverse the Coachella crowd both weekends of the festival. He (or she?) is an astronaut who got lost in space and found himself in another dimension (aka the Coachella festival). “It’s massive,” says Tyler Hanson, of Poetic Kinetics Inc,, who was responsible for both the Coachella Snail and the Astronaut. “It’s a really fucking cool thing. At night, the helmet and visor turn into a video screen–there’s going to be some interesting content, and there are also going to be Instagram competitions, where kids can get their face put into the helmet. They can be the astronaut for a moment.”

3028987-slide-s-1-a-coachella-astronautThe idea of building a kinetic art piece that roams through the crowd appeals to Hanson, who spends a lot of time working on brand activations at other festivals (he worked on the Lady Gaga show and the Doritos Vending Machine stage at SXSW last month). But what Coachella does is different–more akin to a proper arts grant than a branded piece of content. The festival commissions nearly $2.2 million worth of art for the attendees each year.

“Coachella is really unique,” Hanson says. “They’re one of the largest budgets of large-scale art in the world, at a festival or anything else. They have always been commissioning awesome artists to build one-of-a-kind, unique installations. It’s definitely art-for-art’s-sake. It’s for the kids.”

Ultimately, Hanson hopes that the Astronaut ends up being what he calls an “analog meme,” something that travels the grounds of the festival and finds itself discussed by the attendees in real time and in real space, so his giant animatronic float–or perhaps puppet–finds its way onto social networks organically. With the base being a 12k variable-reach forklift and the body components being made out of steel tubing, chicken wire, and pin rods–with the clothing and skin created with fabric and batting–the astronaut looks like something most people rarely see on that scale. Plus, with the animatronics, he can flash peace signs to the Coachella crowds.

“The only thing you could compare it to is like a Macy’s Day Parade or something like that,” Hanson says. “But those are all inflatables. This thing is a massive machine, and an art piece in and of itself.”

To that end, it’s also going to be for sale: the last piece of the #CoachellaAstronaut puzzle is that it’s going to be looking for a home. “We’ve joked about putting it on eBay, just for fun,” Hanson says, but theyare looking for a giant warehouse, or maybe a really, really big backyard, that wants an iconic piece to display. By the time the two weekends of Coachella are a wrap, if it has the impact that Hanson and his team want it to, this thing is going to belong in a museum.

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astronaut balloons

It deserves to be in a museum…or my back yard! Let’s hope they go ahead with this eBay auction, should be interesting.

This video shows some of the projection on its visor. Rad. Congratulations to Tyler and the rest of his team.


Filed under: Alternatives to Burning Man, Art Tagged: 2014, alternatives, art, art projects, event, festival, future, Party, press

“TED meet Burning Man meet SXSW”– Tony Hsieh’s Playboy Vision

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936057460-Zappos-Founder-Tony-Hsieh-On-Google-Snapchat-BurningZappo’s founder Tony Hsieh sold his company to Amazon for more than a billion dollars. This wasn’t his first success – he also came up with LinkExchange (and their social networking subsidiary event, DrinkExchange), which was sold for tens of millions to Microsoft in the “dot com” hey day of the late 90′s. He’s investing $350 million of his own money on “The Downtown Project“. These initiatives are re-vitalizing downtown Las Vegas. His vision of transformation includes large public art installations, a shipping container park, thumping electronic music til late in the night, ziplines, and a cultural mix between Burning Man, TED (which hosts TED talks at Burning Man), and Austin’s South By SouthWest festival (where BMOrg premiered their Spark movie).

mantis-300x216Hsieh bought sculptor Kirk Jellum’s 40×30 foot, fire-spewing “The Mantis,” which was at Burning Man in 2011 and 2012. It is at the Container Park development at 7th & Fremont Streets.

 

Hsieh is a big-time Burner, and his recent interview with Playboy is excellent, well worth reading in its entirety. Here’s the core bit for Burners:

PLAYBOY: You spent a lot of time at raves when you were younger. What did you get out of those all-night dance parties?

HSIEH: A huge amount. In the beginning, it was this idea of peace, love, unity and respect—the guiding principles of the culture. You could talk to anyone, with no ulterior motive; it was about being open to people. But the most important understanding was about something called the hive switch. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt writes about it in The Righteous Mind. Basically, if you look at nature, you discover that certain animals, like chimpanzees and wolves, compete for food and mates, while others—bees are the best example—organize themselves for the greater good. They live together as a unified force because the DNA is the same. Bees are always working together for the benefit of the hive.

hsieh balloon animalAs humans, we go back and forth between both states. Serving our self-interest is kind of the default mode. But certain things trigger the hive switch and cause us to behave in a way that makes us care about the greater good. When you experience it, it is pure awe, like when you see something in nature that’s bigger than yourself. A synchronized movement does that as well, which is why when you join the military you spend the first six weeks just learning how to march in units.

For me, the hive switch got turned on by raves. It was a feeling of unity with the other people in the space, unity with the music and with one another. That’s why I go to Burning Man. The art, especially at night, just puts you in a state of awe. These things are hard to describe until you’ve experienced them, I guess.

PLAYBOY: You really have an open mind. The question has to be asked: How much weed do you smoke?

HSIEH: [Laughs and pauses] Let me answer this way: I think there’s a lot of interesting research that looks at the health effects of pot versus alcohol, and pot certainly doesn’t have a negative health impact. And since Washington and Colorado have legalized its use, it’s something to keep an eye on.

PLAYBOY: You’re avoiding the question. What about ecstasy? Nobody was going to raves in those days without it, right?

zip lineHSIEH: Okay, my hesitation in answering questions like these is that there’s a perception that you need to do drugs in order to have certain experiences. People have a visceral reaction to that idea, so I don’t like to state a preference one way or the other. People think with raves, for instance, that ecstasy is what that scene was all about. I mean, there were definitely people who went to raves in those years and were on ecstasy. I don’t have a judgment about that, but for me it was really the feeling of unity I described.

Did you ever see the movie Milk? I generally don’t get teary-eyed or cry out of sadness in movies. In that movie there’s the scene where gay rights activist Harvey Milk gets shot. That didn’t make me cry. What made me teary-eyed was the scene toward the end when thousands of people show up for a candlelight vigil. That was really uplifting. To me, it wasn’t about Milk; it wasn’t about his politics; it wasn’t about his death. It was about the response he triggered in all those people.

PLAYBOY: Incidentally, you’ve been rather ambiguous in discussing your sex life. Can you explain what you meant when you told The New York Times, “I hang out with a lot of people, guys and girls. I don’t really have this one person I am dating right now. I am hanging out with multiple people, and some people I hang out with more than others”?

HSIEH: Oh that. Because of the way it was worded, everyone started assuming I’m bisexual, which I’m not. I meant it as an analogy.

PLAYBOY: You’re 40 and single. Is monogamy overrated?

HSIEH: I think, biologically, from a Darwinian perspective, it is. From a purely evolutionary point of view, the guy who’s monogamous will have fewer copies of his genes in the next generation than a guy who’s not. I think it’s pretty hard to find one partner and call it a day. Using the analogy of friends, why not find just one friend and call it a day? The answer is because you get a different type of connection, different conversations, different experiences with different friends. I would say the same thing is true on the dating side.

PLAYBOY: You’ve mentioned before that you’re a fan of the literature of pickup artistry, including Neil Strauss’s The Game. Do those techniques work for you?

tony-hsieh-crazy-hat-3HSIEH: I think I have different goals. The Game is more focused on how to pick up girls, but I found it interesting in thinking about how to use similar concepts to build relationships in general. I’ve read a lot of stuff by people in that world, so I don’t remember who said what, but I remember hearing that if you’re going on a date with a girl, the best thing to do is change locations every half hour or hour and do something different. Basically, at the end, if you’ve gone to seven different locations, it will have the same effect on memory as going on seven dates in single locations. So it’s about time compression and memory and so on. The point is to seduce a girl faster, but that technique has other applications as well. It’s part of what I’m trying to do with Downtown Project. When people come visit us we basically hop from location to location to location, so even though they’ve been here only two or three nights, it will seem as though they’ve been here two weeks. It’ll have a big impact on their memory. Humans remember things in terms of geography and number of stories. I want a city where all this stuff is within walking distance so you can have a bunch of different experiences.

PLAYBOY: Just to confirm: You’re designing a city based on techniques used to get into women’s pants?

HSIEH: Well, we’re not using the techniques to pick up girls. But I did have someone here from that world who said what we’re trying to do is basically seduce people into moving to downtown Vegas.

PLAYBOY: And have a Tesla in every garage.

HSIEH: It’s true. We placed the largest order in the United States for Teslas. Project 100 is going to have car sharing and bike sharing, and we’ll also have a bunch of ultracompact electric vehicles called Twizys. But yeah, we bought 100 Teslas.

PLAYBOY: What’s your opinion of Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk?

HSIEH: He’s not doing enough, that slacker. He’s got to think bigger. That was sarcasm, if you couldn’t tell. I have huge respect for all he’s doing. It’s definitely a company I admire.

PLAYBOY: What other companies make the list?

HSIEH: I definitely like and appreciate the Virgin brand. I’ve always been interested in anything that’s a consumer-facing brand. Red Bull, Apple, In-N-Out Burger. Great service for the masses. Consistency. The employees seem happy; the customers seem happy.

PLAYBOY: By the way, did you really order the “100 by 100” off the secret menu at In-N-Out?

HSIEH: Absolutely. I like a challenge. It was Halloween; we were hungry. If you don’t know about it, the 100 by 100 is a massive burger. It’s 100 patties and 100 cheese slices, all within two buns. There were eight of us, and we ate the whole thing. The plan was to go out and party the rest of the night, but we just ended up lying on the apartment floor in a collective food coma. But we were happy.

It’s good to see Burners sticking together, ordering from each other. Conducting commerce, off the Playa. The Burner ecosystem, thriving.

 


Filed under: Alternatives to Burning Man Tagged: alternatives, art, city, press
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