A couple of days ago I came back from camping at Burning Man for the n-th time with a group of the usual extended Friendsters. It was a lot of fun, but not as artistically original as previous years. Partly I think that this year's theme—a vague nod to all-inclusive spirituality—was too difficult for people to wrap their heads around. "The Floating World," last year's theme was easier for people to visualize: it was either about Japan (the literal desert-as-ocean theme was pretty easy to grasp, and the Ukiyo-e interpretation even got some play). "Beyond Belief," although an amusing pun was hard to latch onto and too self-referential: on the one hand explicit "God stuff" is a bit icky even for the spiritually-enlightened post-hippies in the audience, on the other hand the point of the event is to make things that are beyond belief, but if the expectation is set that things are supposed to be that way, it's a lot less fun to actually make them.
Hindsight is 20/20 of course, and I'm glad they're trying different things every year (though it's amusing to see people do what they were going to do regardless of theme and then just name it so that it fits—but I guess that's true of any art show). I'm used to being completely floored by half a dozen or so pieces, but this time there were only a couple, which is still pretty damn good.
My favorites:
I also liked
(fyi, since I don't know the names of all the artists and the works, feel free to comment with the names, or drop me a note, and I'll update this page appropriately—I mean no disrespect by not naming people or their work)
In the end, I'm as always glad I went and I feel like a scrooge for saying bad things about the event, but I do feel like the event—for whatever reason—did not attract as much great art as it has in the past. This is especially sad because it was treated as a goofball hippie event by the art establishment when it was actually quite serious; now that it's getting respectability, it's loosing the edge and quality it had and risks becoming a goofball hippie event. I hope they figure out how to avoid that. (on that note, there's a hilarious Craig's List post by a disillusioned idealist, which makes several good points).
Posted by mikek at September 5, 2003 06:12 PMHey there. I saw your link to my page regarding Shadow Engine and my new wall of LEDs this year, which is called Tensor. I'll eventually have a page for Tensor at http://sub-zero.mit.edu/fbyte/projects/tensor/ but for now I have plenty of good pictures of my whole Burning Man 2003 trip at http://sub-zero.mit.edu/fbyte/pics/bm2003/ .
Thanks for your compliments!
Posted by: Kevin "Frostbyte" McCormick at September 8, 2003 10:50 AMThanks! I've updated it in the main entry.
Posted by: Mike at September 9, 2003 11:42 PMMike, what is even more impressive about the roller coaster is that the Snowflake Villagers that built it are from our own hometown of Detroit, which makes getting it to the playa logistically all that much more impressive. This was its second year there, but its first in a well deserved spot on the Esplanade.
The flame thrower that appeared to shoot through the structure between passes of the car (though was actually in front, and not a danger) was an especially nice touch.
Posted by: Ray Koltys at September 10, 2003 01:25 PM