Imagine, 47,000 people inhabiting a dried up lake bed in the middle of the Nevada desert. No power, water, or amenities. The occupants bring everything in; a large city is built in one week. This is the phenomenon know as ‘Burning Man’. The rules are simple: you’re not allowed to advertise or sell anything, free expression is encouraged to make the overall experience exciting, and most importantly, you must leave no trace.
Burning Man started in San Francisco in the mid eighties. An artist by the name of Larry Harvey had just broken up with a girlfriend and he was in need of some sort of release. He built a sculpture of a man and went down to Baker Beach and torched it. Realizing the cathartic effect of this ritual, it became an annual event attracting more people every year. In the late eighties, the event grew too big for the city and they moved it out to the current site of the Black Rock Desert in Nevada.
Two hours north of Reno and just north of the speck-on-the-map town of Gerlach lies the Black Rock Desert. Surrounded by mountains, the vast dried up lakebed is flat, creating a perfect horizontal canvas. Completely devoid of animals & vegetation, the line of sight is about three miles on a clear day. The weather is extreme, hot days, cold nights, and major wind and dust storms that can create instant whiteout conditions with little to no visibility. The lakebed contains a fine, powdery dust that seems to cling to everything.
The Burning Man site is referred to as ‘Black Rock City’, complete with a post office, radio station and medical staff. The city is laid out in a huge semicircle, with the large open area in the middle called the ‘Playa’. The Esplanade surrounds the Playa and twelve more parallel streets radiate outward. It’s in these concentric streets where the 47,000 ‘Burners’ live for the week. The open ‘Playa’ area is where the large art exhibits stand as well as the ‘Man’, which is directly in the middle of the semicircle. No cars are allowed on the Playa unless they’re decorated ‘Art Cars’. Bicycles are the preferred form of transportation, and many are decorated, resembling animals and breathing fire.
Each year, Burning Man has a different theme, which loosely dictates the focus of the art and theme camps. This year, the theme was ‘The Green Man’, which asked the question, ‘What is man’s connection to nature’. I can’t say all of the art focused on the theme, but it was a topic of discussion. The very nature of Burning Man isn’t very ‘Green’. 47,000 people driving in from all over the country in trucks, RV’s, and bringing in everything from huge diesel generators to trampolines. I think the ‘Green Man’ was an interesting concept, but I can’t say I noticed a decrease in consumption or burning of fossil fuels at the event in comparison to last year. In fact, this year saw the largest fireball in Burning Man history when the ‘Crude Awakening’ oil derrick was blown up right after the man was burned on Saturday night.
Due to the extreme heat during the day, most activities occur at night. Days are spent either sleeping or relaxing in the shade, and at the night, the entire place comes alive. Some of the events include fire twirling, trapeze performances, and all night dance parties. A typical night consists of illuminating ones body and bicycle with L-Wire blinky lights and heading out on the Playa with a loose plan. The options range from huge dance parties with massive sound systems, to a silent play resembling a previous time in history. Various art cars rove the flat desert floor creating mobile parties and the large art installations stand like landmarks in the temporary city. The colors and sounds cannot truly be described. Imagine thousands of people out and about with colorful blinking lights and the sound of fire being shot into in the sky. Throw in the elaborately decorated art cars and theme camps on the Esplanade and you have one heck of a party.
What I enjoyed the most about Burning Man is the fact that thousands of people leave their normal lives for a week and gather to express themselves. It’s an open environment where you can truly be yourself, free of social barriers. Everyone is self sufficient, so it’s a gifting culture where you’re encouraged to share with the other participants. In this day and age, it’s so refreshing to be in an environment that’s free of advertising of any sort. Nothing is for sale, so people just give everything away. I’m amazed that this sort of event can even exist in this age of fear and paranoia.
Burning Man is pretty difficult to describe. If you’re curious, you should just check it out. The elements can be very harsh, but the rewards far outweigh the challenges. It took me a couple weeks to recover due mostly to lack of sleep. I’m thinking I may take next year off, but when the time draws near to go back out to the Playa, I’ll probably start packing up all the dusty camping gear and get ready to ‘Burn’.
