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Burning Man is an eight-day-long festival organized by Black Rock City, LLC, under the guidance of founder Larry Harvey. The festival is held annually and ends on the American Labor Day holiday in September. The festival takes place on the playa of the Black Rock Desert in Nevada, 90 miles (150 km) north-northeast of Reno. Though the specific location on the playa changes from year to year, the location has been quite constant in recent years. The temporary city is an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance. The event takes its name from the ritual of burning a large wooden sculpture of a man on the sixth day.

Principles

Because of the variety of goals fostered by participatory attendees, Burning Man does not have a single focus. Features of the festival are subject to the participants and include community, artwork, absurdity, decommodification, and revelry. Participation is encouraged, and being a spectator is discouraged. The Burning Man event is governed by the 10 principles of Burning Man, which are radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation, and immediacy.

Gifting

Instead of cash, festival participants rely on a gift economy, a sort of potlatch. Since the earliest days of the event, an underground barter economy has also existed, in which burners exchange material goods and/or favors with each other. While this was originally supported by the Burning Man Organization, this now is largely discouraged by the event organizers.

Art

Art on the playa is assisted by the Artery, which helps artists place their art in the desert, and ensure lighting and burn platform reqirements are met. When available, art is funded by the Black Rock Arts Foundation (BRAF).

Since 1995, an different artistic theme has been announced for Burning Man each year, which influences the construction of the Man and art developed by the participants.

Burning Man primarily features outsider art and visionary art, though all forms of art are present during the event. Creative expression through the arts is encouraged at Burning Man. Large-scale art installations, theme camps, music, performance, and guerrilla street theatre are amongst the most common art forms shared at the event.

Art cars, vehicles that are creativley altered, are a common art form at Burning Man.

A growing number of participants bring bicycle rickshaws they've created or purchased, with the intention of providing free transportation as their gift to other attendees. Many participants also turn their off-the-shelf bicycle into an art bike through "garage engineering" and decoration with accessories including fake fur, reflective tape, stuffed animals, electroluminescent wire and other materials.

Temples

In addition to the burning of the Man, the burning of a temple has become ritual at the event. The ritual burning of David Best's temple projects from 2000 to 2004 rivaled the burning of the central Burning Man complex in community significance and popularity. The ornately designed temple buildings borrowed from Southeast Asian and Balinese architecture, and are used as repositories for the memories of deceased loved ones, who are often commemorated in writing on the temple. In 2005, Best stepped aside to allow for another artist, Mark Grieve, to build his own interpretation of a temple.

Black Rock City

Black Rock City, often abbreviated to BRC, is the name of the temporary urban phenomenon created by Burning Man participants. Much of the layout and general city infrastructure is constructed by Department of Public Works (DPW) volunteers who often reside in Black Rock city for several weeks before and after the festival. The remainder of the city including theme camps, art installations and individual camping, are all created by participants each year.

City Planning

The city is arranged as two-thirds of a 1.5 mile (2.4 km) diameter circle (resembling the layout of Poverty Point) with the Man complex at the very center. Avenues extend radially from the Man to the outermost circle. In recent years, these avenues are given a clock designation (for example, "3:00"), presenting the city as a clock in which the Man is at the center. In the past, the avenues have been identified as the degrees of a circle (for example, "300 degrees"); however, this proved unpopular with participants due to its confusing nature ("000 degree" actually refers to 030 degree on azimuth).

Within the semicircle of the city, arranged in concentric arcs around the Man, are the streets. Starting in 2005, the innermost street is named the Esplanade, and the remaining streets are named beginning with letters A through H to coincide with the overall theme of the burn to aid with navigation. In 2004, they corresponded with "The Vault of Heaven" theme, and the streets were named after the planets of the solar system. The outlines of these streets are visible on aerial photographs.

Center Camp

Center Camp is located along the midline of BRC, facing the Man at the 6:00 position on the Esplanade, and serves as a central meeting place for the entire city.

Villages and Theme Camps

Villages and Theme Camps are located along the innermost streets of Black Rock City, often offering entertainment or a service to the temporary residents.

Theme Camps are usually a collective of people representing themselves under a single identity. Villages are usually a collection of smaller theme camps which have banded together in order to share resources and vie for better placement. Some Theme Camps and Villages have added links at the end of this article.

The Burning Man community

Terminology

There is specific terminology used by the Burning Man community.

• Burning Man participants often refer to themselves and other participants as "burners".
• A Burning Man "virgin" is someone who is attending Burning Man for the first time or is planning to attend Burning Man in the future.
• "Yahoo" or "tourist" are pejorative terms used to refer to people who come to Burning Man to spectate rather than participate in the event, often arriving not long before the Burning Man ritual.

Spectators and participants

As the stated purpose of Burning Man is to form community and to promote radical self-expression, non-participants are strongly frowned upon by many participants. This does not prevent spectators from attending the event, however; and in recent years, as attendance has swelled with growing awareness of Burning Man among the general public, friction between participants and spectators has been on the rise.

Self-expression

The event promotes self-expression, and participants express themselves in a variety of ways. The event is clothing-optional and public nudity is common. The event also has a reputation for sexual promiscuity.

Burning Man and the environment

"Leave No Trace" policy

Participants are encouraged to Leave No Trace of their visit to Black Rock City. Burning Man takes place in the middle of an uninhabited large desert playa. Participants are told to be very careful not to contaminate the playa with litter (commonly known as MOOP, or "matter out of place"). In addition, while fire is a primary component of many art exhibits and events, materials must be burned on burn platforms. At one time, burning was allowed to take place directly on the ground of the playa, but the formation of burn scars was observed.

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which maintains the desert, has very strict requirements for the festival. These stipulations include trash cleanup, removal of burn scars, dust abatement, and capture of fluid drippings from participant vehicles. Weeks after the festival has ended, a team of volunteers remains in the desert, cleaning up after the temporary city and making sure that no evidence of the festival remains.

A local environmental group, http://stopburningman.org has criticized the festival for the environmental impact left by the festival. Their criticisms include the following

• Despite the BLM and LLC insistence on the practice of LNT, the amount of residual trash at the site has increased over the years .

• The cleanup verification process is flawed
• According to ecologists Peter Brussard and Donald Sada, the cumulative effects of Burning Man on the complex playa ecosystem need to be more carefully investigated.("Stop Burning Man". Retrieved 2006-08-06.)

Burning Man and effect on global warming

A group of San Francisco scientists are calculating how much the event will contribute to Global Warming. They have created Cooling Man a system that will calculate how much greenhouse gasses the participants will create. The movement has inspired many to look for positive ways to get involved in the Global Warming movement by seeking out solutions. The Cooling Man website suggests ways the Burners can offset the damage by planting trees or investing in alternative energy solutions. Since this is a new development, the impact won't be noticed until Burning Man 2007, a year when ecological concerns will also be explored through the art theme of "The Green Man".

Safety, policing and regulations

BRC is patrolled by various local and state law enforcement agencies as well as the Bureau of Land Management Rangers. Burners refer to these people collectively as LEOs (Law Enforcement Officers). Burning Man also has its own in-house group of volunteers, the Black Rock Rangers, who act as informal mediators when disputes arise between burners. When the occasional eviction of a burner from BRC becomes necessary, volunteer rangers typically enlist the assistance of LEOs.

Burning Man has developed a reputation for drug use, which is not tolerated by law enforcement.

In 2001, local law enforcement objected to an art installation depicting a homosexual act at a camp called "Jiffy Lube." The art was moved to a more private area of the camp, giving rise to charges of censorship and homophobia from a number of quarters.

History

The annual event now known as Burning Man began on the summer solstice in 1986 when Larry Harvey, Jerry James, and a few friends met on Baker Beach in San Francisco and burned an eight foot (2.4 m) tall wooden man as well as a smaller wooden dog. The inspiration for burning these effigy figures has been shrouded in mystery by Harvey, who described it as "a spontaneous act of radical self-expression." However, sculptor Mary Grauberger, a friend of Harvey's girlfriend Janet Lohr, had held spontaneous art-party gatherings on Baker Beach on or about the summer solstice for several years prior to 1986, and the burning of sculpture was a central theme. In addition to the burning of sculpture, a key ingredient to the pre-Burning Man gatherings was the fact that Baker Beach is a cove area frequented by nudists. Another notable US-based effigy-burning is Zozobra, which occurs every fall during Santa Fe, New Mexico's "fiestas"; an approximately 50 foot (15 m) ) tall "Old Man Gloom" has been burned every year at Zozobra since 1924.

Harvey attended some of the pre-Burning Man gatherings on Baker Beach, and when Grauberger stopped holding her parties, Harvey picked up the torch and ran with it, so to speak. Harvey asked Jerry James to build the first eight foot (2.4 m) wooden effigy with him, which was much smaller and less artsy than the neon figure featured in the current ritual. In 1987, the effigy had grown to almost fifteen feet (4.6 m) tall, and in 1988 it grew to around forty feet (12 m).

The name "Burning Man" came to Harvey when he was watching a video of the 1986 ritual. A member of the crowd watching the event shouted out "Wicker Man!", suggesting that the burning of the wooden effigy was somehow related to the ancient Celtic ritual of the Wicker Man, signifying rebirth. Harvey was the son of a Freemason, and (for Harvey) the use of wood in building the man had symbolic significance and was a critical part of the ritual; also, according to him, he did not see the movie The Wicker Man until many years later, so it played no part in his inspiration. Accordingly, rather than allow the name "Wicker Man" to become the name of the ritual, he started using the name "Burning Man."

John Law, as well as other members of the Cacophony Society, have been heavily involved in Burning Man since 1989. The event grew quickly, moving from Baker Beach in San Francisco to the Black Rock Desert of Nevada in 1990 after the burn scheduled for the summer solstice was shut down by police. After striking a deal to raise the Man but not to burn it on the beach, event organizers disassembled the effigy and returned it to a vacant lot where it had been stored. Shortly thereafter, the legs and torso of the Man were chain-sawed and the pieces removed when the lot was unexpectedly leased as a parking lot. The effigy was then reconstructed, led by Dan Miller, Harvey's then house-mate of many years. The Man found his new home in conjunction with the already scheduled Cacophony event sponsored by John Law and Kevin Evans, "Zone Trip #4" in the other worldly, remote and largely unknown, Black Rock desert.

As the event has grown, one of the challenges faced by the organizers has been balancing the freedom of participants with the requirements of various land management and law enforcement groups. Over the years, numerous restrictions have been put in place, such as bans on fireworks, firearms, dogs, and driving non-art cars. A notable restriction to attendees is the 7-mile (11 km) long temporary plastic fence which surrounds the event and defines the pentagon of land used by the event on the southern edge of the Black Rock playa. This 4-foot (1.2 m)high barrier is known as the "trash fence" because its initial use was to catch wind blown debris that may escape from campsites during the event. Since 1998, the playa beyond this fence is not available to burners during the week of event. Some artists and early attendees believe the underlying freedoms and concepts of the Burning Man event have been reduced or eliminated by these restrictions, leading to criticism of the current event as being too structured and controlled. Others contend that these restrictions are unfortunate but necessary to the survival of the event in the face of growth and notoriety and that in balance the original spark of creative invention is well alive and flourishing. Additionally, other recreational users of the desert believe the event's rapid growth and arid location (where the natural healing effect of the winter rains is not as effective) has caused the surface of the Black Rock Desert to change for the worse. The Burning Man organization strongly denies that the event has ever caused any damage. Several documentary films have been made about the event, some of which give a fair representation of the event. Most of these films are available through the Burning Man website.

A popular myth is that Larry Harvey had a girlfriend (sometimes it is a wife) that he caught in bed with a good friend. Not wanting to actually harm his former friend or end up in jail, he constructed an effigy which he burned on the beach, thus Burning Man was born. This myth has been discounted many times.

Timeline

Statistics shown below illustrate the growth of the Burning Man festival, according to a timeline on BurningMan.com and other sources:

(Note: the man has remained close to 40 feet (12 m) tall since 1989, the height and structure of the base has changed, thus the following referenced height figures are misleading)

The event has changed considerably as it grew from a small handful of people on a beach in San Francisco to over 39,000 people attending the festival in 2006. The scale of the event has increased enormously, and Black Rock City, LLC has in turn become more structured. In 1997 a group of people began a much smaller festival both as an alternative to and as a parody of Burning Man. The so-called Burning Shithead Festival takes place in Joshua Tree National Park every year at the same time as Burning Man. An Anti-BurningMan also formed with an emphasis on fewer restrictions, occurring just before Burning Man such that the less-ironic could still attend both.

Regional events

The popularity of Burning Man has encouraged other groups and organizations to hold festivals similar to Burning Man, such as Xara Dulzura, Fuego de los Muertos in San Diego, Playa del Fuego in Delaware, Firefly in Vermont, Toast! the Arizona Regional Burn, Burning Flipside in Texas, Nutopia in Toronto, Recompression near Vancouver, BC, SOAK in Oregon, and June's 4-day festival Critical Massive in Washington. In recent years, burners wishing to experience Burning Man more frequently than once per year have banded together to create local regional events. These events are typically much smaller than Burning Man itself, often consisting of no more than a few hundred participants. Some of the events are officially affiliated with the Burning Man organization via the Burning Man Regional Network, while others are organized and created by burners independent of the LLC. A good example of the latter is InterFuse in Missouri, Firefly in Vermont, and Transformus in North Carolina.

One type of event is popular with those that find returning to the "default world" to be a little jarring after having enjoyed the experiences of the burn. To relieve this culture shock, burners may participate in decompression events to recapture the spirit of the original festival.

Other regional events have been established that connect and grow localized communities of burners. These events build upon the cultural bond of Burning Man, yet add a particular unique flavor of their own. Most regional events last a few days, occur annually, and are much less formal than Burning Man itself.

Burning Man in the media

• Television Burning Man has been featured in both fictional and non-fictional accounts on American television including plots centering around the event on Comedy Central's Reno 911! ("Burning Man Festival" first aired 09/24/03) and Tech TV's Unscrewed with Martin Sargent. There was also a parody of Burning Man, entitled "Burning Duck" in one episode of The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius.

• Malcolm in the Middle When Hal and Lois discover Malcolm and Reese's plan to sneak off to the Burning Man festival, they decide to make it a family outing, with predictably disastrous results. Hal sets up a barbecue grill and curious observers assume that he's actually engaged in some kind of "suburban dad" performance art. Reese and Lois embrace the true spirit of the event and Malcolm loses his virginity to an older woman. The episode was the season premiere of the show's final season (Season 7, Episode 1, aired 10/30/05).

• The Simpsons In episode 4 (Lisa the Tree Hugger), Season 12, a guest character called Jesse Grass mentions the Burning Man festival at an environmentalist meeting.

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer In the season 2 premiere episode (When She Was Bad (Buffy episode)), Sunnydale High's computer science teacher Jenny Calendar describes her summer vacation (which included attending Burning Man) to Buffy's watcher, Rupert Giles. "I did Burning Man in Black Rock, ohhh, such a great festival, you should've been there. They had drum rituals, mobile sculptures, raves, naked mud dances, you would've just... hated it with a fiery passion!"

• American Dad! In episode 3 (Stan Knows Best), former president Bill Clinton commandeers Air Force One in order to attend the festival. Later, in episode 5 (Francine's Flashback), Stan and Hayley actually attend the festival in order to rescue their brainwashed mother.

• South Park In episode 902 (Die Hippie, Die), Eric Cartman briefly makes references to Burning Man while talking about hippie festivals. Also, in the background at the hippie festival, a large neon man, similar to the one at Burning Man, can be seen.

• Film Several documentaries have been made about the event, including Burning Man: Beyond Black Rock and Juicy Danger Meets Burning Man. A short documentary on Discovery: Times's Only in America hosted by Charlie Leduff. A clip from the 1998 burning of the man can be seen in Bodysong, a full length documentary about human life on earth.

• Naked States a documentary about and directed by the photographer, Spencer Tunick (http://www.hbo.com/nakedstates/cmp/main.html) also features burning man, where he organized thousands of participants to pose for an epic artistic nude photograph.

• Comics In X-Force (issue #75), the characters visited a thinly disguised Burning Man festival entitled "Exploding Colossal Man."

• Music One Electric Apricot song is called "Hey Are You Going To Burning Man?".

• Music One Floppias (Sacramento, CA) song is called "Staying at the Bruno Hotel", a reference to the only hotel in Gerlach, NV - near the site of the festival. The band had attempted to purchase tickets at the gate of the event, but was turned away, leading to the inspiration for the song.

• The Onion The popular daily newspaper parody has published several jabs at the festival, including 1998's 'Local Teen Definitely Going to Burning Man Next Year'and 2003's 'No One Makes It to Burning Man Festival'.

• The Google Story by David A. Vise and Mark Malseed, contains an entire chapter describing how Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the two creators of the Google search engine, were regular attendees of the event.

See also

• Larry Harvey
• Black Rock Ranger
• Art Car
• List of regional Burning Man events
• Neo-Tribalism
• Green Tortoise
• Dreamtime Festival
• Rainbow Gathering
• Stoner Culture

Notes

1. What is Burning Man?
2. What is Burning Man?
3. 10 principles of Burning Man
4. Burning Man Principles
5. Event Archives
6. Art of Burning Man
7. Theme Camps
8. Burningman.com Event Preparation
9. What I Saw at Burning Man
10. Bureau of Land Management
11. Trash Concerns
12. Global Warming
13. Cooling Man
14. Cooling Man Calculator
15. One more Pagan Orgy, Sex Drugs and Glow Sticks
16. Jiffy Lube
17. Malcolm in the Middle

External links

Template:Geolinks-US-hoodscale

General

• Official Website
• Wikitravel article on Black Rock City
• Category at Open Directory Project
• Thorough tour of Burning Man 2002 to 2006, for the first timer to the curious person (by Marc MERLIN)
• BORG2 - "The Burning Man Renaissance".
• Burning Man, song by Canadian rock/reggae singer Yuya
• Burning Man 2006 Events - Burning Man 2006 Google Maps Mashup for camps, events, art installations.
• Piss Clear - Black Rock City's independent alternative newspaper
• Artists Republic Fremont: BurningMan - includes information about coolers and ice, surviving the wind, and shade structures
• Packing Lists for what to bring to Burning Man.
• MarXidad.com - Burning Man - includes quotations of burners' descriptions of the event, as well as some related humor
• Burning Man’s Piano Moverby Brian Doherty, excerpted from the book This Is Burning Man
• Globe Trekker - Justine Shapiro of Globe Trekker ends up at Burning Man
• - The Ecstasy of Exile - A New York journalist experiments with drugs at the event.
• Flame On - A British journalist's account of Burning Man 1997
• BurningMan - A Report From The Front Lines - 1999 - PhyreSeed aka Adam Wells, www.SacTownPyros.com
• Google Maps satellite view of the Black Rock City site
• Hand-drawn map of Burning Man 2005 (Psyche)
• A 14-minute audio journey through Burning Man 2002, from public radio's 'The Savvy Traveler'

Photo collections

• Burning Man Image Galleries
• Burning Man photographs by Scott London
• Burning Man 2006 – 1998 photos by Gabe Kirchheimer
• Patrick Roddie's photos from Burning Man 1998 to 2006
• Waldemar's Burning Man 2005 collection
• Burning Man 3-D - ten years of stereoscopic photographs
• Playalicious Burning Man Pictures - Burning Man photos from 2001-2005
• Photo essay from a Burning Man virgin's perspective
• Photos and reports from Burning Man 2002-2006 by Marc Merlin
• Burning Man pictures from 2003-2006 by MV Galleries
• People, Art and The Burn - Photos from Burning Man 2006 by Andrew Hoshkiw
• Burning Man photography from 1998 to 2006 by NK Guy

Video

• Journey to the Flames - 8 years of Burningman
• Confessions of a Burning Man - Documentary about the Burning Man Festival.
• Flaming Lotus Girls, Burning Man documentary by MADNOMAD FILMS.
• Burning Man: Beyond Black rock (documentary)
• This Strange Eventful History: The Art of Burning Man 2001
• Gifting It by Renea Roberts
• Bright Path Video is an audio project on transformative experiences of people who attend BurningMan. CD version available soon.
• TV Free Burning Man 2006.

Theme camps

• Disorient - an art collective and a camp at Burning Man with a large sound system
• Uchronia 'Belgian waffle 2006' - Uchronians time modem at BRC, message out of the future, : Jan Kriekels and Arne Quinze starting a new creative community - Visit the uchronians burningexperience.
• Fandango - Fandango is one of the oldest and largest villages in BRC, yet they have tended to keep a relatively low profile. In recent years they have hosted the Slowburn Lounge, a low-key, comfortable, barter-free bar.
• Fear No Martini - Fear No Martini serves martinis at its pre-determined and/or unplanned parties and events. Features a massive art car the "Martini A Go Go", often lovingly referred to as "The Kracken".
• Funkcamp - based out of San Francisco, Black Rock City, a sub-division of one of the oldest villages called Fandango. Funkcampers returned to the playa in 2006 as Roadhouse featuring house-band, "Southern Frost."
• Fairyland - based out of San Francisco, Fairyland conducts classes in making tutu's, sock poi and white trash fashion with all materials provided. Fairyland is in the Avalon village.
• Flight To Mars - Seattle-based organization dedicated to art and performance in Seattle and at Burning Man. Typically host to a continually reinvented funhouse containing on various years a maze, a ballpit, interactive art, a dance floor, a spinning disc of death and a bar.
• Golden Cafe - a sidewalk bistro offering cocktails in real glassware, live improvised music by day, and a gourmet supper club by night. The Golden Cafe currently draws its membership from Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Boston, Boulder, Toronto, Ontario, and San Diego.
• Pink Mammoth - a San Francisco-based not-for-profit artist collective that provides an underground (i.e. unregistered) pink-themed bar and club, notably operating only during the daylight hours. (See also Misplaced Pages entry at Pink Mammoth)
• Quixote's Cabaret Club & Bar - an international theme camp inhabited mainly by people from the UK and Germany, Quixote's run a Cabaret theater that gives homeless artists a stage on which to perform and showcase their talents, in front of a well-watered audience. QCCB is part of the Avalon village.
• Space Cowboys - a San Francisco collective and Burning Man theme camp, featuring DJs and performers, and a large, mobile sound system, mounted to a customized Unimog.
• Hair of the Dog Lounge (HOTD) - Bay area theme camp proudly serving booze and live music on the playa.
• Space Virgins - Seattle-based arts collective dedicated to freeing people from constraining guilt
• Hookahdome - Exploring extreme arts of pleasure through flavored tobacco smoking, belly dancing, and fire performances.
• Radio Electra 89.9 FM - One of several FM radio stations located inside Burning Man that broadcast during the event.
• K-SVERT 106.5 FM - "The Ten Watt Flame Thrower..." Providing both an on-air and live stage experience, K-SVERT is located on the Esplanade @ 4:00 during BM2006.
• Pangea - San Diego based collective of smaller, specialized camps organized into a larger more complete whole.
• Cypress Lounge Bingo The Cypress Lounge has been providing BINGO services since 2003, now offering "flogging" bingo.
• Honi Soit Croquet - Based out of California, Oregon and Idaho. Serving up drinks and croquet since 2001.
• Camp E.Z.R.A. Exchange Zone for Registered Aliens - Based out of Reno Nevada, Bringing Aliens and Hosts together for a brand new burning experience.
• Ultra Stunt Danger Academy - (USDA) - an evolution of subsets of camps over many years, home to lifesize Rock'Em Sock'Em Robots, and creator of multiple small fire projects and social mischief.

• Burning Man
• Festivals in Nevada
• Cacophony Society
• Great Basin
• Nudity
• Public nudity