B u r n l o g

Afrika Burns

I’d love to hear about this regional burn!

Here’s an amazing success story straight out of Green Man:

Burning Man sponsor’s project is energy plan worth emulating

Burning Man organizers and volunteers are setting a wonderful example with their gift of solar panels to Lovelock’s Pershing General Hospital and to Gerlach schools. The group is acting on justifiable concern for the environment. They’re also working smart by creating this partnership with the hospital and the general community to encourage the manufacture and use of renewable energy technology.

On its face, the gift of solar panels used to power the neon under The Man at the annual Burning Man festival seems a small thing. The implications, however, are huge. This project will generate 60,000 kilowatt hours of electricity a year and savings of about $130,000. The panels should supply about half the hospital’s needs for the next 20 years.

Special thanks to all of those involved in such good work! It truly is a gift that keeps on giving.

The whole lightsaber thing is warping out of control…

Torontoist: May the Force Be With You

This Friday, November 16, we (Newmindspace) will be hosting our very first lightsaber battle! This summer at Burning Man, we witnessed a 10,000-person lightsaber battle put on by a camp called Watto’s Junkyard, easily the largest lightsaber battle since the Jedi Civil War…

Ignition Northwest hosts “Seacompression” in Seattle.

Get Tickets
November 10, 7PM - 2AM
Hangar 30 @ Sand Point Magnuson Park
7400 Sand Point Way NE, Seattle, WA
See Map

Presale tickets are $15.
Presale ends at 11:59PM on 11/06.
Tickets at the door are $20.
This event is 21 and older.

Event layout:
Lo-res JPEG (108k)
Hi-res PDF (460k)

The commercialism or popularity sell-out of the Burn may be true in so many ways, it’s just that it sometimes feels like that’s all anyone wants to talk about these days.

Burning Man festival raises up from underground by John Lauinger

Not that this Lauinger chap is guilty really, however I get that feeling the vocal folks enjoy trying to topple any house of cards or standing dominoes wherever they can be found for the malicious joy of childish destruction. Or, at least they like to speculate along these destructive lines.

And then it seems as though some veterans are just bitter and complaining for the heady days of old. I can’t blame them, I suppose. The Burn must have been a radically different experience way back when and so crazy. It must seem sprawling, faceless, and less intimate now to the old-timers.

I just wonder if perhaps progress and change are not so bad. Everything has to move and grow or stagnate and wither. I don’t see Burning Man as withering. Do you?

“Power Plant”, recycled bottle caps, by Andrew Grinberg and Max Poynton, Burning Man 2007 — photo by benignpxl

I’ve lately been tracking Kinetic Sculpture Racing (KSR) and the derby-like DIY race events it fosters around the country. This struck me as an interesting mutual influence scenario with artists’ kinetic sculptures off the Playa influencing art at the Burn and vice versa.

Wikipedia has an entry describing the advent of KSR:

The Kinetic Sculpture Race has been an annual event in Ferndale, California since 1969. It began when local sculptor Hobart Brown “improved” the appearance of his son’s tricycle, and was challenged to a race down Main Street by Jack Mays. Soon, another twelve machines entered to inaugurate the first race. Neither Hobart nor Jack won; instead, the first winner of the Kinetic Sculpture Race was Bob Brown of Eureka, California whose sculpture was a smoke-emitting Turtle that laid eggs.

Today, KSR is usually about a hearty race over pavement, water, sand, dirt, and even mud. More general info about KSR can be found at Kinetic Kingdom which also features the Kinetic Grand Championship race.

Here are a few links to sites and galleries of these amazing projects. Go out to a race near you and bring a bit of the Burn to the “default world” and support your local kinetic sculpture racers! Better, yet, build your own.

• ePlaya’s Kinetic Sculpture Racing Camp, BRC: “Only once did we lose a Kontraption in 2007, and we found it near The Man within hours. The dust storm was no doubt a factor, which we understand. But do try your very best to bring the silly thing back, and if you cannot, PLEASE tell us where it is — absolutely no hard feelings.”
• Laughing Squid’s tracking of Bernal Heights Hill Soap Box Derby 2007 Photos and Bike Kill V, Chaotic Bicycle Olympics in Brooklyn
• da Vinci Days Kinetic Challenge, Oregon: “…get ready for our human-powered, all-terrain competition with road-worthy, mud-sloshing, water-slogging kinetic sculptures!”
• Kinetic Universe, Inc., Arcata, California: sports the motto “Adults having fun so children desire to grow older”.
• Baltimore Kinetic Sculpture Race, Maryland: “The eight-hour race covers 15 miles–mostly on pavement, but also including a trip into the Chesapeake Bay and through mud and sand.”
• Prescott Valley Kinetic Sculpture Race, Arizona: “…while the judges cast a critical eye on all entries for any infractions. Bribes were generously doled out and readily accepted.”
• Klamath Kinetic Challenge, Washington: “If you missed the 2007 Klamath Kinetic Challenge you must be kicking yourself. It was great.”
• Port Townsend Kinetic Skulpture Race, Oregon: Celebrating its 25th year of races!
• 10th Annual Kinetic Sculpture Race, Ventura, California: “Where Art and Engineering Collide”

This just in from Laughing Squid: Black Rock Arts Foundation (BRAF) presents the First Annual ARTumnal Gathering

Join us for a Special Gathering of the Clan
on November 3rd for a sumptuous autumnal evening immersed in a savory harvest of delights, beguiling libations, and a caravan of elegant and outlandish live performers. For this BRAF benefit, dress to mingle with the glitter-art-i while perusing unique creations of ‘Wearable Art’ for your bidding pleasure. Dinner and open bar all evening.

The Lodge at The Regency Center - 1290 Sutter Street at Van Ness - SF
Special Preview 7:00 pm ~ $250
Gathering 8:00 pm - 1:00 am ~ $150
(Tickets include dinner & open bar.)