Desert collaboration
In just over a week, the desert encampment and social experiment known as Burning Man will rise from the northern Nevada sands, drawing roughly 35,000 people.
To the uninitiated, Burning Man is:
a) a drug-fueled hippie fest in the searing heat, or
b) the wildest art show in the world.
To those of us who have been there, Burning Man is:
c) all of the above.
Imagine a 17th-century Spanish galleon look-alike sailing across the desert, a dozen cars fashioned to look like cupcakes whirling around one another, and thousands of topless women riding in a parade on dusty bicycles. Picture a 50-foot mechanical flower lighting up the night and throngs of people – high on drugs or life – dancing wildly under it.
The week culminates in a night of fire shows, drumming, dancing and the burning of a 40-foot wooden “man.”
This is Burning Man.
The yearly ritual started small, 21 years ago, on the beaches of San Francisco. It’s now so big that an entire municipality – Black Rock City – is built each year, complete with temporary infrastructure: roads, a post office, a recycling center, an airport, and an informal, volunteer public safety department.
Entrance fees run from $185 to $280, depending on when the ticket is purchased. The bulk of the money goes to building infrastructure and subsidizing art installations.
For seasoned Burners, it’s one time in the year when they can focus on celebrating life and fantastic, fleeting art, bonding with friends old and new, living in a collaborative way and experimenting with new personas.
Kim Thompson, 31, of Sparks, Nev., who this year will be attending the festival for the fourth time, says when she left her son and daughter with her in-laws before heading to the playa last year, they told her, half-jokingly: “Just come home sober.”
They don’t get it, she says.
“You’re standing there in the desert, in the middle of something that’s built on sheer instinct,” she says.
“It’s like somebody builds you a beautiful painting and it’s seven miles wide. It’s like a playground but so much more than that, with feeling, soul, somebody’s guts and heart on display for you.”
The hot, dusty days are partly spent surviving: drinking water, finding shelter from the sun, protecting eyes from blasts of sandy wind. There are workshops, too, on everything from philosophy to how to better please your partner in bed.
Some people bring their own showers but many simply use baby wipes, especially if they are spending only a few days on the “playa” – a term Burners use to describe the expanse of festival land. There are rows of portable bathrooms at some intersections.
Besides ice and beverages, nothing can be sold on the playa. Art, food and other gifts are bartered or given away.
For instance, my friends and I prepared breakfast fajitas and guava drinks for our camp one morning, and I handed out Tic Tac mints as gifts. I was given various presents, including a laser pointer that displays messages like “I (heart) you.”
Burning Man offers people a chance to live and work collaboratively to survive – if only for a few days.
My friends and I built a geodesic dome from scratch last year. We spent about 10 days and evenings together before the festival, slicing steel rods into the right sizes, flattening the ends with a hammer, drilling holes into them and assembling the rods into a web of triangles. The dome was useful but more importantly, we made some meaningful memories building it.
The hope is that some of this communal spirit will have ripple effects back in “normal” life. Just as the first day or so in Black Rock City is a culture shock, coming home can be a culture shock.
This is especially true for the class of people for whom Burning Man is a Utopian society. For these people, much of the rest of the year is spent preparing for Burning Man. They start building their art months in advance. They throw and attend pre- and post-Burning Man parties. For them, joy and freedom happen 10 days a year.
Then there are people who see it simply as a party – an exotic party – but a party nonetheless.
San Franciscan Gleb Budman, 32, vice president of products at an e-mail security company, says this is what he tells people about Burning Man:
“You can get whatever you’re looking for from it. There’s amazing art, the kind you won’t see anywhere else: huge, moving, modern art. There are amazing parties. People are very open, they wear great outfits and are doing whatever they’re in the mood to do. For some people, it’s very spiritual; for some, creative; and some people just go to party.”
Inevitably, he says, the person he’s talking to will ask something to the effect of: “Isn’t that the thing where everyone’s naked?” or “Isn’t that the place where everyone is on drugs?”
“It’s all of that and much more,” Budman tells them.