A close friend Eric “Buzzn” (and father to pretty much the cutest lit’l Burner around named Sophie) was a volunteer on the lovely Basura Sagrada project this year.
He’s a great photog too. Check out his excellent photoset: Basura Sagrada
Oh yeah, Eric was a major helper and all around do-it-all / sanity life preserver on our very own Ice-Flo art car project from 2007 too! See his photos in the Gallery Hop.
Zsu Zsu brings the princess out in me… sigh… I think I’m in love.
“Feelth” on the other hand fills me a mindless rage of jelousy. I’ll see that weasel BURN!
…Though, I must admit, Feelth is, like myself, a victim of the flighty charms and arduous enchantment that is Zsu Zsu…
The New York Times reports on a most inspirational slide show look at the art, preparation, and many artists and performers dedicating their time and energy to bring us “KKoney Island”:
I must admit that I’ve been remiss in my posts at CliffyPop lately.
However, my excuses are rich and plentiful as seen in the mushrooming popularity of The Great Handcar Regatta and Krank-Boom-Clank’s “Hennepin Crawler” construction that is coming along nicely (not to mention the many, many summer time events and parties to attend!).
Still there is one thing at least to post about B-Man, here’s a nice rundown of the 2008 Honorarium installations.
What: Exhibit of time lapse and more than 130 juried, large-format photographic prints of Burning Man.
When: May 30 to Aug. 3. Viewing hours are 1 to 5:30 p.m. Friday through Sunday.
Where: Marin French Cheese Company, 7500 Red Hill Road.
Admission: Free.
Information: www.reichek.org
“The idea for this exhibit came about many years ago when I was hunting for a legitimate excuse for getting into the Burning Man event early,” said Joshua Reichek, president of the exhibit’s sponsor, Creators Equity Foundation. “I had to come up with a project that would be interesting enough for folks to be willing to give up a slot for someone like me to come in. I decided to do a time lapse of the city being built out of the existing desert, through the event and its dismantling. The first frame is of empty desert, the next frames show the city growing and then finally disappearing. The first and last frames are the same.”
The result is the centerpiece of the exhibit, a 180-degree panoramic-view time-lapse of the rise, weeklong event and dissipation of Black Rock City — the Burning Man gathering, presented on three 50 inch, high-resolution plasma displays.
The time-lapse project consists of thousands of high-resolution sequenced images taken over a 21-day period by three cameras arranged in a 180-degree view of the Black Rock Desert of Nevada and captures Black Rock City from start to finish, all in a 40-minute program, synchronized and set to music.
Mercury News relays this story that “Homouroboros” by Peter Hudson has landed in San Jose for the 01SJ: “a global festival of art on the edge”.
Sunday, September 28, 2008 — Santa Rosa, CA
Erasmus P. Kitty Presents: The Great West End and Railroad Square Handcar Regatta and Exposition of Mechanical Wonders!
A SPLENDID CELEBRATION OF ART, SCIENCE AND INGENUITY, FOR THE DELIGHT AND EDIFICATION OF ALL WHO ATTEND.
A SPECTACLE FOR BOTH YOUNG AND OLD!
The Handcar Regatta invites Builders, Tinkerers and Artists to create and then race a Human Powered Rail Bound Vehicle for the adoring public.
The Handcar Regatta brings Art and Science out of the galleries, studios, and smokey laboratories, out among the People, where everyone can enjoy it and participate!
The Handcar Regatta will delight the senses with Melodious Music, Daring Diversions, Rollicking Games, Delectable Comestibles, and all manner of Adventurous Entertainments!
THE HANDCAR REGATTA IS NOT TO BE MISSED!
Michael Mccarthy of the Vancouver Courier has an in-depth article on the notion of “celebration arts”, or community participation arts in a party or entertainment scene, ala Burning Man style:
“Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic,” says the festival’s official statement on its website. “We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve through doing. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.”
I’m overjoyed to note that our own progressive town of Santa Rosa, and the Northbay Burner community of Sonoma County in general, has been leading the charge of dragging “art” from the conventional hallowed halls of museums and galleries and out into the streets for all to play with. I’m coining the new term du jour: “Play-ticipation“.
One such upcoming event is “The Great West End & Railroad Square Handcar Regatta & Exposition of Mechanical & Artistic Wonders” or, for short:
As the lengthy title suggests, on Sunday September 28, 2008, we’re bringing a DIY arts and mechanical invention street party to Rail Road Square as an old-timey railcar race with music and refreshment for all. Attendees are encouraged to participate in costume and other forms of creative revelry.
The Arts District of Downtown Santa Rosa, along with other forward-thinking local organizations, are supporting this cause to bring a large dose of “celebratory arts” to a new wave of joining and doing with creativity and fun amongst like-minded folks.
Huzzah!
ITEM! See our railcar crew, Krank-Boom-Clank, hard at work on our 4-man, big wheels, hand-built, recycled, kinetic sculpture thingy-mobile, YEAH! More crews and their picts sure to come!
Along with this concept of creative celebration among peers, play and fun are inherent. I attended the explosion of DIY art at Maker Faire 2008 this weekend. If tens of thousands of ravenous participants are any sign, the wave of doer-hacker-artist movement is well into its lofty crest.
We Make Money Not Art folks, in tandem, recently posted an interesting article highlighting these ideas of play in contemporary society:
The human being used to be regarded as a Homo faber (man the smith or man the maker in latin) for the control they could exert on the environment through tools.
In 1938, however, Dutch historian Johan Huizinga introduced the idea that man is also an Homo Ludens (a “playing man”), a man for whom amusements, humour and leisure played an important role in both culture and society. Philosopher Vilém Flusser went further. For him, we are living in a society which, instead of working, generates information by playing with a technical apparatus, implying a transition from the myth of the creator towards a player. Playing can therefore be regarded as an act of emancipation.
This is most exciting! The 2008 “Honorariums” (grantees) have been posted! I could quite easily spend all day (and the next) greedily perusing the entire long list. Apparently, the kind folks at Burning Man have given a higher number of 38 total grants this year (up from the usual 30 or so). Also, they received more international proposals than ever before. Looks like an amazing year for art (as well as the usual WTF!? projects) on the Playa! See below from Jack Rabbit Speaks:
ANNOUNCING … THE 2008 BURNING MAN HONORARIUM PROJECTS
The Burning Man Art Department is pleased to announce the funded projects for 2008. This year we are funding 38 projects, an increase from our usual 30 or so, as we are funding more small projects. Less than 1/3 of the projects are from the Bay Area, and we received many more proposals from abroad than ever before. We have four overseas projects this year: two from London, one from Amsterdam, and one from Wales. (Note: grants for the Man Base art installations will be announced in a future JRS.)
The funded projects are:
Altered State, by Kate Raudenbush, New York, NY (Click on New: Altered State)
Amazing Jellyfish from Y12K (PDF), by Jared Gallardo, Salt Lake City, UT
Basura Sagrada, by Shrine, Tuktuk, and the Basura Sagrada Collaboratory - Pasadena, CA and Portland,
Bummer, by Myk Henry, New York, NY/Geneva, Switzerland
“Bummer” is a super size Humvee measuring 38 feet long x 18 feet wide x 16 feet high. Half of the Hummer will be painted in military khaki and the other half a bright sporty color. This sculpture epitomizes this country’s obsession with power and the Jekyll and Hyde nature of the American dream.
Celtic Forest, by Laura Kimpton, Bob Hoffman and Jeff Schomberg, Nicasio, CA
Chasing the American Dream, by Hedy Siroco, Wynnewood PA
DreamYourTopia Checkpoint (also at ePlaya), by DADARA, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Drum Wagons, by Quill Hyde, Brooklyn NY
Elevation, by Michael Christian, Berkeley, CA
Elevation is a fully climbable sculpture constructed of winding tube steel ladders that elevate to a seated perch for one, on its peak. The height of the piece will be 56 feet.
Fleeble Flobbler, by Charlie Smith and Jaime Laudet, Atlanta, GA
Free Flight, by David Boyer, Reno NV
“Free Flight” is a sculpture that celebrates the ultimate freedom, the escape from the bounds of earth. Consisting of six wind-driven kinetic birds, this sculpture is in constant flux as the winds of the Black Rock grow, recede, shift and change.
Hand of Man, by Christian Ristow, Taos, New Mexico
Harmonic Geometry, by Glenn Easley and Rikk Carey, Vashon, WA
glenn.Easley at gmail.com
Hydrogen Economy, by False Profit Labs, San Francisco, CA
Illusion, by Benson Trent, Provo, UT
Ketchup, by Bruce Bender, Marshall, NC
Legends of America, by James Cole, Auburn, CA
Lepidodgera, by Rachel Norman, Mike Thielvoldt, Lira Filippini, and Jake Haskell, Palo Alto, CA
Man Gwyn Man Draw?, by Defaid Daf a Joe, Wales
McEnlightenment, by Michael Brown and Violet McKeon, San Diego, CA
Mutopia, by the Flaming Lotus Girls, San Francisco, CA
Net Work, by David Bengali, New York, NY
Nowhere Ominibus, by Pete Johnson, London, UK
Pictures of You – Images from Iran, by Yechdosay Chahar, Crested Butte, CO
Pool, by Jen Lewin, Boulder, CO
Popaver Rubrum Giganticum, by Gary Miller, Wyndmoor, PA
Popaver rubrum giganteum (giant red poppy) consists of three hundred 10′ tall poppies in various shades of red. The design allows for variation in the layout and placement of the individual elements.
Pswarm (PDF), by the Dept. of Spontaneous Combustion, Oakland, CA
Pyrocardium, by False Profit Labs, San Francisco, CA
Shiva Vista, by Dave King, Reno, NV
Shrine of Fortuna, by Art Farm, Graton, CA
Shrine to the Oven Mitt, by Steven Goodman, Mountain View, CA
Spaghetti West Ten, by the Mutoid Waste Co., London, UK
A 12′ long, by 15′ tall motorized apocalyptic horse, part beast, part rust-ravaged machine, pulls a punked-out parody of a pioneer’s covered wagon, which contains a stage for musical acts and performance.
Swarm, by Michael Prados, San Francisco, CA
Tantalus, by Peter Hudson, San Francisco, CA
Tantalus is Peter’s fourth large scale zoetrope. Participants must engage a laboriously intense mechanism that puts a modern spin on the myth of Tantalus while reflecting on the seemingly dwindling fruits of such labor.
The Cave, by Chassy Cleland and Henya Emmer, New York, NY
Wheel of Thwarted Ambition, by Anton Viditz-Ward, Telluride, CO
This kinetic fire sculpture represents change, rebirth and creation. Driven by a hand crank, a wheel containing buckets of burning wood is spun around, creating a ring of fire and producing lots of fireflies.
You are All so Many of Me, by Michael Emery, Santa Cruz, CA
A multitude of small cut mirrors provides the opportunity for both literal and metaphorical reflection. During the day, the viewer perceives a cubist self-portrait smiling back. At certain points during the night this reflection will be enhanced with a variety of images projected by LCD upon the mirrors. The viewer is invited to interact with images of fire and water as well as a racial/gender spectrum of other humans. The viewer is invited to contemplate, and perhaps to help create the American Dream of FREEDOM FOR ALL.
Zsu Zsu: The Crybaby Drama Queen, by Mister Jellyfish, Sparks, NV
Who Is Zsu Zsu?
“Zsu Zsu the crybaby drama queen won’t you come play with meeee,
I built you this trailer for Burning Man so you would care for meee.”
“Zsuuu Zsu, Zsuuu Zsu… Leeeve me a geeft then go ahwey!
…Zsuuu Zsu, Zsuuu Zsu… Eetz so fuckeeng HOT.”
UPDATE - More Zsu Zsu madness
“Zsu Zsu noooo! No Zsu Zsu, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO….”
RESPECT THE ART: IF YOU DIDN’T MAKE IT, DON’T BREAK IT!!
Over the last several years, Burning Man has seen a disturbing trend growing in Black Rock City: more and more art installations are getting vandalized or damaged every year, including everything from tagging to outright destruction.
Artists work exceptionally hard to create artwork for the playa at great personal expense. Understandably, they are deeply affected when their work is destroyed or damaged … and participants who would have otherwise experienced the piece as it was intended are also affected. While some participants may see vandalism as their personal form of “radical self-expression”, ultimately, personal expression needs to be tempered by the realities of co-existing within a community, which requires mutual respect to thrive.
Please help us spread the word: if you didn’t make it, don’t break it! Help stop mindless vandalism to artwork on the playa.
Some of the artists tell their stories below, in a letter to our community from Kate Raudenbush, who created the Guardian of Eden last year. We reprint them for you here, in the hopes that their words speak more persuasively than any missive we could craft. We know that most JRS readers are unlikely to be the culprits of vandalism; we hope you will help by taking time to share in watching out for the artwork in our city.
The same folks who brought us the lovely Tasseograph Tea Temple in 2007 have received a grant to build the 2008 Temple!
The Basura Sagrada (”sacred trash”) is a recycled trash project and they are looking for materials donations as well as elbow grease.
Got something interesting rumbling beneath them goggles? Suck @ CliffyPop
21 Days of Black Rock City
