Tuesday 31 August
RAISING a thick column of dust, the cars and camper vans file slowly into the
salt plain. Dusk is falling and the temperature is dropping fast. It鈥檚 going to
be a cold night. At the head of this incongruous column of traffic, standing
alone in the middle of the desert, is a man wearing a scarlet silk ball gown. He
stops our car and asks to see tickets: 鈥淚s this your first time at Burning Man?
Do you have plenty of water?鈥� Satisfied with the answer, he waves us on. Our
destination is a camp site the size of a small city. For almost as far as we can
see across the desert, lanterns twinkle in the dusk. Our plan is to set up camp
and spend the next few days living out an alternative dream.
This is Burning Man鈥攁 festival held each year on the barren flats of
the Black Rock Desert, 120 miles northeast of Reno in Nevada. The event attracts
thousands of people from all over the world but most come from Silicon Valley
and San Francisco, where Burning Man was first held in the mid-1980s. Many of
the artists and participants at the festival are programmers, engineers and
scientists from the Valley.
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But the festival is anything but a reproduction of the success and
money-oriented culture of Silicon Valley. Far from it. The event is best known for its
sex, drugs and dancing culture but that is only part of the story. Take the
world鈥檚 most inventive programmers, engineers and scientists into the desert,
give them a free hand to create and the result is an extraordinary mix of
high-tech art, spectacular special effects and madcap pyrotechnics. In a way,
Burning Man is Silicon Valley鈥檚 alter ego.
The festival is also a giant social experiment. There are no spectators,
everybody, even the press, is expected to take part in the festivities. Everyone
must be self-sufficient: they have to bring with them all the food,
clothing, shelter and water they need to survive in the desert. None of these
things can be bought in Black Rock City, as this huge camp site is called.
Vending, for the most part, is banned. Instead the organisers encourage people
to bring gifts to trade with neighbours. Their idea is that status will accrue
to the artists and engineers who bring the coolest toys, build the best displays
and put on the best shows.
The climax is the burning of a 12-metre effigy made of wood and neon
lights鈥攈ence the name. Nobody knows what this act means or why it has
become so popular but the sense of anticipation is palpable. Come Saturday
night, more than 20 000 people will pour into the centre of Black Rock City to
take part in this strange ritual.
The Man is no mean engineering feat. Perched atop a pyramid 3-metres tall, he
stands high above the desert at the centre of the city. At night, the Man
becomes a stylised skeleton of red and gold neon light. To help with
maintenance, the Man鈥檚 ankles are hinged to allow him to be tipped over
backwards to the ground and then raised easily.
This year, the burning is expected to be bigger and more spectacular than
ever. The Man is stuffed with fireworks, thanks to Kimric Smythe and Crimson
Rose, two pyrotechnicians from San Francisco. But Smythe and Rose look worried
this evening. Despite months of work and meticulous planning, things are not
going well. Somebody has already stolen the Man鈥檚 head and now his wiring is
playing up.
Wednesday 1 September
Tim 鈥淭he Wizard鈥� Black is having a beer in the Pattern Buffer Lounge, a
small, circular room in the centre camp containing two old sofas and a computer
(see map).
This is his second Burning Man. 鈥淟ast year, I had a blast. But I
swore to myself I鈥檇 never work that hard at a party again,鈥� he says. But this
year, The Wizard has been working harder than ever preparing L2K, arguably the
festival鈥檚 most impressive installation. Last month, he gave up his job as a
computer programmer in Silicon Valley to add the finishing touches, helped by
Tim Childs. In San Francisco, Childs is known as the co-founder of a Web design
firm called Curve. Here he is known as Skysquid.
The Pattern Buffer Lounge is the nerve centre of the display. Around the
walls of the room is a ring of 2000 computer-controlled LEDs that light up
in sequence. The result is complex patterns of light that race round the walls.
Under each LED is a button which people can press to add their own patterns to
this race. People wander in, play for a while or just sit and watch.
The Pattern Buffer Lounge is only one part of the show. More than a kilometre
away is a ring of 2000 fist-sized lights buried in the sand. They make a circle
around the Man roughly 200 metres across. The lights are linked by underground
cable to the lounge. The same patterns that move round the walls are reproduced
here on a much grander scale as they race across the desert floor. The Wizard
and Skysquid are justifiably proud of their installation. 鈥淧eople say `It鈥檚 the
best toy I鈥檝e ever seen鈥�,鈥� says Skysquid.
Thursday 2 September
There is a six-legged robotic insect the size of a cat running around. A
small crowd gathers to watch. It鈥檚 built of programmable toy bricks called Lego
Mindstorm. No one knows whose it is.
Machine art is a common theme at Burning Man. This year, a group of 40
industrial artists calling themselves 鈥淭he Seemen鈥� have assembled a huge array
of weird devices and strange machines. They are led by Kal Spelletich, an artist
from San Francisco. One device is a full-scale rocking horse, made from
industrial refuse such as old car parts. You need a ladder just to get onto its
back, and when you rock, it vibrates. Another is a merry-go-round made of
bicycles. Throughout the night, people stop to play on the machines before
moving on to one of the many dance zones or campfires in the desert.
Friday 3 September
After a long night of revelry, the residents of Black Rock City are rudely
awakened by a huge explosion. It鈥檚 11 am and somebody has let off a propane bomb
leaving a crater a metre deep. Nobody has been hurt but the Black Rock Rangers,
Burning Man鈥檚 self-organised police force, and the local police take a dim view
of the situation. They call in the FBI and before long federal agents are
swarming all over the city, and a helicopter swoops low over the desert in a
vain attempt to flush out the culprits. Most people take no notice.
In the evening, there is a funeral procession to anticipate the death of the
20th century. The procession ends with a rocket launch. Throughout the day a
silver rocket the size of a coffin has sat on a giant ramp. The ramp has a
hydraulic launch mechanism to help the rocket鈥檚 built-in engines during liftoff.
Thousands of people gather to watch, and we climb on top of a camper van to get
a better view. There is an orange flash, the rocket makes its way painfully to
the top of its ramp, topples off the edge and drops like a stone. This is the
way the millennium ends鈥攏ot with a bang but a whimper.
Saturday 4 September
On Saturday morning the organisers report that 23 000 people have turned up
to Burning Man. For those who arrived early in the week, the absurdities of
Black Rock City have ceased to register as such. A radio-controlled car tootles
past, driven by a stuffed dinosaur. They are closely followed by a man on a
bicycle. Car and bicycle have identical antennas, so for a second it is hard to
figure out who is controlling whom.
This is Peter Cheeseman鈥檚 first Burning Man, and he is excitedly planning an
installation for next year. Cheeseman is a real-life rocket scientist at the
NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, and wants to build a rocket that
looks as if it has crashed into the desert. The idea is that exhaust from its
engines will shoot into the air to light up the desert nights. 鈥淭he real problem
is safety,鈥� he says airily. 鈥淥f course, the risk is very low, but you鈥檙e dealing
with immense pressures, so there鈥檚 always a small chance of an accident.鈥� He
mutters something about over-engineering the design and continues his
planning.
As the Sun sets, the citizens of Black Rock City stream towards the Man. By 9
pm, the crowd is ten deep around the flashing lights of L2K, forming a massive
doughnut round the Man. A van pulls up with a giant mushroom-shaped device on
its roof. A silver-suited spaceman climbs onto the roof and is immediately
enveloped in lightning bolts that snake out from the mushroom. This is 鈥淒octor
Megavolt鈥� and his mobile 鈥淭esla Coil鈥�, essentially a transformer that converts a
high current and low voltage into a low current and high voltage and generating
giant sparks in the process. The crowd cheers itself hoarse.
Meanwhile, all is not well with the Man. His head has been returned but there
are problems with his neon lights, which blink on and off. He is lying on his
back in the dark with a small team of technicians crawling over him, checking
connections. Satisfied that the problems are fixed, they hoist the Man to his
feet. But the yellow neon lights switch off and there is no time to fix them
now. A huge sense of anticipation hangs in the air.
The show starts. Four giant flame-throwers are wheeled into the circle,
spouting huge fountains of fire. You can feel the heat from each burst.
But suddenly all hell breaks loose. A neon light at the Man鈥檚 throat appears
to short-circuit sending sparks into the huge mass of fireworks. They begin to
crackle and flame and the show is cut short. From the fire in his throat, the
Man erupts into flames. Rockets spurt from his crotch. His magnesium core seems
as bright as the Sun. The Tesla Coil is cranking away, but you can hardly hear
it over the noise of the inferno. As the Man collapses, the crowd goes wild and
rushes towards the blaze.
Later, the desert lights up as artists all over the city burn their work.
Some of the bonfires are huge and attract many onlookers. Some burn all
night.
Meanwhile, as a community rave called the Eternal Return sends a primitive
drumbeat rolling across the desert, Paul Rosenberg begins a light show. He has
several remarkably powerful laser beams that reflect off the smoke, creating a
rippling green roof over the desert as far as the eye can see. 鈥淚 like science
and high-tech coming to the Man,鈥� says Rosenberg, who operates the lasers off
his car battery. 鈥淭hat is the reason I am here.鈥�
Sunday 5 September
The next morning the clean-up begins. The area around the Man is littered
with bottles, rubbish and the smouldering embers of fires. But the community
aims to leave no trace of its activities. The organisers need a permit to hold
the event and this may be withheld if the desert is littered. The clean-up will
be over in a few weeks.
The road leading away from the salt plains is jammed
all day Sunday and Monday as the artists and engineers head back to Reno,
Seattle or San Francisco. And if any more evidence were needed of Burning Man鈥檚
roots in the success of Silicon Valley, it comes now. A few avoid the traffic by
climbing into light aircraft and flying home. Yes, Black Rock City even has its
own temporary airport.