Burningman 2005

[kvidell]

So, I did a search and couldn't find anything on the topic, so I'm making a thread on it.

Did anyone in the community go to Burningman this year? How was it?

I was supposed to go but there were some problems surrounding my last breakup so I moved away from the group that went, and I was supposed to go with, and a few other things thrown in the mix resulted in me having the opportunity to go, but with only a week or two to prepare... and that just doesn't work.

I'd love to see pictures! I've found a lot of really good galleries online, but I think it'd be neat to see Burningman from the Ubuntu User's perspective.

Besides, isn't the instantaneous building of a community that can sustain ~40,000 lives for a week the perfect embodiment of "Ubuntu"? ;)

- Kev

One of the better galleries I found for 2005: http://mvgals.net/gallery/bman05

[jdodson]

Might just be me, but what is Burningman?

[kvidell]

Might just be me, but what is Burningman?
The Site: http://www.burningman.com/

From said site:
Trying to explain what Burning Man is to someone who has never been to the event is a bit like trying to explain what a particular color looks like to someone who is blind.and
The Burning Man project has grown from a small group of people gathering spontaneously to a community of over 25,000 people. It is impossible to truly understand the event as it is now without understanding how it has evolved. See the first years page and Burning Man 1986 - 1996 for the legendary story of Burning Man's beginnings and to understand how the event has come to become what it is today. The timeline gives a short overview of what each year looked like. Please also check out the detailed archives for years 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004. Within each of these years are descriptions each year's art theme, theme camps, large art installations, as well as maps, journals of our city being built, the newsletters to the community for each year, issues of the Black Rock Gazette (a daily news publication produced and printed on the playa), and clean up reports for each year, including a list of those sites that failed to "leave no trace". These pages help understand the larger scope of the entire experience, from the planning that happens year-round to make each event possible, to the clean-up efforts which take place for sometimes months after the city has disappeared.
Direct source page: http://www.burningman.com/whatisburningman/

My synopsis?
Well, having never been I have a very limited view of it... but I did live with people who go every year. (I was supposed to go with them this year, sigh.)

Burningman is a yearly event that happens in the desert in Nevada. The town that's erected is known as "Black Rock City."
The foundation of BRC is laid in a day, and the city thrives for a week before being partially dismantled, and partially burnt to the playa. (Get it? Burnt to the ground, they hold it on a playa? huh? huh? yea...)

Roughly 40,000 people attend as of the last two or three events, but rarely less than 25,000 after it really got popular.
It was originally held on the beach in San Francisco, but as the vent grew in popularity, so did the size reqiurement.

Black Rock City has everything from a volunteer ranger corp (Black Rock Rangers, (it's cute, they have the whole two-way radio and golf-cart thing going on), a medical corp (Black Rock Medics (also in golf carts)), and a rented Ambulance service, just in case.
All of these services have a central dispatch at the main Ranger Tent and Medical Tents.

There's also a team of volunteer PhD physicians specialising in general medicine, pschiatrics, psychoactives, and a specialty staff known by their office, "The Sanctuary." (The Sanctuary is a safe place for people who are feeling over worked from anxiety, stress, or people who may have had a little "too much fun" with their chosen "poison." The doctors who staff this are the top in their field.)

There's also a dozen other volunteer groups, like "The Lamp Lighters" (What I was going to do) who walk the entirety of the Black Rock City perimiter, and the main veins of travel therein lightin the lamps to show the way at night and during dust storms.

You can also be a greeter (something else I was going to do, does my synopsis show?) who greets arrivals to the festival. They ask a few basic questions to make sure they know where they're going, what they're doing, and what they're getting in to. They also provide a fun synopsis of the even to people who proclaim to be First Timers to the community.

Within Burningman there are many smaller communities. (Like the one I'm a part of, The Illuminaughty and Friends and Family, plus many others like "Lemon Drops" and "Light of Life"). These are people who are friends all year around and hold small parties amongst themselves.

Of course, one of the highlights of Burningman are the Art Exhibits (See the link I posted in the original post).
Art exhibits range from Wacky and Weird to beautiful and amazing. The amount of time and effort put in to these things is emaculant and breath taking.
There's also art-car exhibits, and some times the people themselves are artistcally fun to watch.

Of course, the namesake of the event is the Temple/Chapel and The Man.
David Best, an industrial design artist (Whom I've had the pleasure of meeting) from California is the man behind The Temple(s).
Everyear he creates an enormous (and I mean it when I say that, think "just smaller than a mosque"), temple out of spare wood donated from a company that creates dinosaur sculpture and model car kits.
On the last day of Burningman, this and The Man are set ablaze during a breath taking ceremony that brings the week to a conclusion.

After The Burn, (The Afterburn), a few last day ceremonies and parties are held, and the city is taken down, leaving nothing but embers behind on The Playa.

Other events during the week are the various parties held by each camp (My group usually has DJs going most of the week, as does Friends and Family), and the Opulant Temple.

The past few years, The Opulant Temple has had the pleasure of hosting Paul Oakenfold and Sasha and Digweed, along with other big-namers.

There's also some of the fun games, like the various FunHouses and Carnival Rides that are constructed or purchased by attendees and brought to entertain.

This year there was "Dance Dance Immolation".
Which was two platforms with RedOctane dance pads and an ENORMOUS projector and screen to play on. The catch? You had to wear a government grade fire protection suit, because if your dancing started to get too poor, you'd be hit with a pretty serious flame(see bottom of this post)

All in all, I think burningman is a really fun experience to see at least once.
I'd like to go regularly, but it's a lot of effort and I've sadly begun to gain distance from the group(s) I was going to go with.

Though again, did anyone from the Ubuntu community go this year?

Also, here's another link (the source of the following images, even) with a really fun write-up of events and pictures to boot: http://marc.merlins.org/perso/bm/2005/

http://marc.merlins.org/perso/bm/2005/Pix/107_DDI.jpg
http://marc.merlins.org/perso/bm/2005/Pix/108_DDI.jpg

[kvidell]

How was that? ;)
- Kev

[skoal]

Holy smokage! I'm still a little vague what it's all about, but two guys in NASA spacesuits dousing eachother in flames while playing an interactive video game on a wide screen projector seems like the wave of the future to me...

I'll attend next years event. By the way, If I held up my lighter for an encore, would anybody even notice?

\\//_

[gerbman]

Holy smokage! I'm still a little vague what it's all about, but two guys in NASA spacesuits dousing eachother in flames while playing an interactive video game on a wide screen projector seems like the wave of the future to me...

I'll attend next years event. By the way, If I held up my lighter for an encore, would anybody even notice?

\\//_

Never been there, but I think the main point is that there isn't any strict definition of what the event is. It's all about individual expression, yada yada yada. Wanna ride a bike naked through the desert? Awesome, so do hundreds of other people! The art is cool, too ;-)

[kvidell]

Never been there, but I think the main point is that there isn't any strict definition of what the event is. It's all about individual expression, yada yada yada. Wanna ride a bike naked through the desert? Awesome, so do hundreds of other people! The art is cool, too ;-)
Very true. I like all the art exhibits, my friends take good pictures of them for me when I can't go.
I also wanna check out the SolSystem Audio Lounge. 8 point positional surround sound headed by a homebrew linux box with homebrew software doing some neat effects with the audio, which is either live or a DJ.

[nrwilk]

I've never been to burning man, but I have several groups of friends that go every year. I think I have a really good idea about the mood and mindset. At first I thought of it as a very large rave, because that's the scene I'm into myself. But, now I understand a bit deeper what it's about.

To those of you who have never been, don't take this as a stereotype or a "warning," but you may want to know before you find yourself there that the event is very intense. Many people partake of controlled substances, and it is very common to see people hanging out in the nude. It can be one of the most significant experiences in a person's life.

The reason why it is actually very relevant to this forum is that it can be very closely commpared to an Open Source Community. The art exhibits which people work on year round to display there are not considered personal property, but public domain. The point is that no one who goes is allowed to think of themselves as observers or audience to the activities. Anyone is allowed to be a part of anything they feel like they want to participate in.

The Introduction to the book "Open Sources 2.0," edited by Chris DiBona, Mark Stone, and Danese Cooper, actually makes this analogy, and describes Burning Man a bit better than I have.


At the dusk of every night, when the sun goes down, the city is filled with cheers and howls. The community flourishes in the night. It's mostly nocturnal.

It's a gallery of art, a festival of life, a demonstartion of creativity. Currency exchange is not allowed within the city limit of Black Rock City, either. All exchange of goods is only to be done through bartering. And in the middle of the desert, water is the most valuable commodity.

I cannot wait to go now. I hate explaining it, because it just really makes me want to be there.

[kvidell]

I cannot wait to go now. I hate explaining it, because it just really makes me want to be there.I feel precisely the same.

Also, it applies to Ubuntu specifically because it's well... Ubuntu.
You have to get along with the community to survive in it. Trying to be a loner there can get you in some trouble, really.
Sometimes you have to rely on your neighbours, unless you really brought enough food and water, which is kind of hard to do...
Although the groups themselves sometimes bring enough food and water to keep a military deployment satisfied for some time.

I wanna go -.- *whines*
- Kev