In the summer of 1994, David Ray and I built a website called sf/TeleCircus. Among the many individual sections dedicated to local arts groups was one for Burning Man - the first quasi-official BM website.

What I find quite remarkable after five years, allowing of course for the tremendous increase in the number of attendees, is how true to its origins the event has remained.

Unlike so many events which driven by marketing goals must constantly change and reinvent their message to keep pace with their sponsor and consumer demands, the organizers of Burning Man have from the beginning kept a very singular and simple focus.

The two facts that distinguish Burning Man from any even remotely comparable event are 1) that it remains in essence a COLLABORATIVE art/project, and 2) that it rejects all forms of commercialism.

With only the most general set of directives and suggestions, the "community" each year responds with a mountain of unpredictable, energetic, and often eloquent art.

With some 23,000 participants, Burning Man continues to remain unsponsored. Is there some other collective entity/public event out there that has rebuffed sponsored support money for this long? If you know, tell me who.

It was clear to me, even back in 1994, that the organizers of Burning Man (and Larry Harvey in particular) were intent on growing the event on its own terms. Instead of cashing in on the brand, the majority of control for it has been turned over to the community, which has responded to the subliminal challenge by creating ever more radical projects.

So, what are the triggers that set such expression into motion?

Here is what one friend of mine had to say on this subject.

Jim Gasparini is not the type of guy you'd expect to find full on pagan dancing on-stage, covered only in green body paint. He's a quiet intellectual fellow, a respected designer of artful CD-ROMs. But that was how he spent this last Burning Man - as part of the the Opera project, where he also camped and rehearsed with his sect of fellow performers.

I asked him what the Burning Man experience was about for him. Here is what he said.

"BM is a giant sandbox, in which adults get to play. They play with all sorts of things, but the most interesting play has to do with one or another of the Three Great No-no's: Fire, Sex, and Religion.

Many people play with fire on the Playa... many more with sexuality... others with rituals of one form or another. The Opera plays with all three, in a manner more sophisticated than most everything that goes on out there."

Fire, sex, and religion; are there any more charged triggers than these? Clearly, part of the popularity of the event is tied to the strong effect that results from working with such symbolic triggers. Making public some of these long submerged aspects of our invisibility (in a mutually supported environment like Black Rock, at least) is likely doing a whole lot of people a whole world of good. And along the way, it is also having a profound effect on our view of what constitutes public art.

The artistic values of the BM Community are very different from those of other communities of similar size. The values that are celebrated at Burning Man are those which have been embraced by the community and thus survive over its life span. These would be namely creative forms of self-definition, radical self-expression, and a visceral and humorous theatricality which encourages audience participation.

If BM proves anything, it's that there is an endless source of ritual within us. Being spoon-fed our rituals for so long has simply atrophied our ability to unearth and resurrect new ones for ourselves. Burning Man has managed to turn this passive condition on its ear. With all conventional media supports discarded, we are suddenly allowed to discover the roots of our own internal and celebratory truth.

Take away the profit motive, force people to find their own collaborators, and so build dependencies on each other. Then throw them into an environment that is at best neutral to their wishes, and see what happens. That which survives gets strong, while weaker forms fade away and die. Natural artistic selection in action.

How can the effect not be OuTragEouS and iNtoXicaTiNg?

The blank palette of the playa awaits anyone willing to raise the resources and gather the people necessary. It is not easy to make big work in the desert - not inexpensive either. But big work gets done because in the context of Burning Man, art assumes the mantle of a civic duty.

Who leads, who follows? Who's responsibility is it to know? Only vague answers suffice. It may not all be successful art, but it is all permitted. And for that reason alone, we should all be grateful for its existence.

The life I find is always more interesting than the one I was looking for.

Having lived in San Francisco for a long time now, I can tell you that the creative accelerator that cycles beneath this city is always charging. It may be harder to find affordable living and studio space in the Bay Area, but still that alternative current of experimentation pushes ahead.

From our vantage point at Anon Salon, we have watched our scene evolve while remaining similarly true to its origins. Our aim when we first began was to create events that different communities of people would want to make their own. That is still our aim today. A party is for those in attendance. New people bring with them new expectations and experiences which can dramatically and positively alter the shape of the event itself. More valuable than anything that an event producer can "install" in the space is a crowd that takes responsibility for propagating the spirit of the event to newcomers. Organizers of community-driven art/events must understand that the more you empower people, the more you serve them; and the greater will be their contributions as well as the artistic rewards.

Burning Man has become a treasured convergence of art and community. How that happened is not such a great mystery. Once we have seen the pattern that drives community participation, once we have understood the primacy and constancy of values to a community's growth, then we can begin to decode the message of Burning Man as well as the rest of life's many burning bushes. After that what else can we do but give it our all - to offer up again and again our body, our mind, and our soul in the name of that transforming force that keeps pushing us to reinvent ourselves inside this most dazzling of rituals - our daily life. In the end, it's just way more interesting that way.

Have something to add? Drop it in our guestbook. Or head back to the pictures.

Thanks,

- mp