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13 Things 2008
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World
Brown University
Box 1837 / 60 George Street
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: (401) 863-3188
Fax: (401) 863-9423
[email protected]
Reading and talking about light, electricity, and power networks makes me think a lot about my time at burning man. For those of you who don't know what burning man is, it's pretty hard to describe. It is 50,000 people who converge in the middle of the desert in Nevada to form a temporary, week-long city dedicated to radical art, self-expression, and self-reliance. It is first and foremost an art venue; people use a lot of resources to bring amazing artwork, art cars, theme camps, and such into the middle of this barren desert. It is not, by any means, a "back to nature," "chilled out" or simplistic celebration. Radical self expression basically means that if you want to do something, and you can figure out how to bring it to the middle of nowhere in the desert, then you do it. So people bring generators, heavy duty construction equipment, electronics systems, etc. and the city is one of the most built, electrified, and astoundingly bright cities in the world. Literally, as someone who has been to both places, I can say that burning man is brighter and more electrified than times square. And there is no network of electricity out there! Power is decentralized (although it arguably is derived from generators that come from external power networks) and provided on a more individual basis. Furthermore, a big part of the event is dressing up in costume. At night, since there are expanses of the desert that get dark, everyone wears blinky lights and neon wiring as parts of their nighttime costumes; everyone who does this carries around at least one battery pack to enable their costume to light up, and thus be visible to the various art cars and art bicycles that drive around the city. Burning man is a city that only exists for one week each year, so the whole place is dismantled and there is no trace of it once the event is over. Here are some links to night time photos of the event: [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link] [link]