Barely visible in the background, -not a bad metaphor for the way the Burning Man project operates- the imposing Man to be set in flames at the peak of the 7 day event. In this strange 'neo-pagan' city, a non- spoken command stands: re-tribalize

The hour:

17:39

Internet address:

http://burningman.com/preparation/travel_info/gerlach_webcam.html

The camera flickers, the screen refreshes: an old pick up is captured as it parks at the front lot of Bruno’s. The playa, stretching its emptiness outside the eye’s scope, can be seen behind the low-rise buildings in the outskirts of Gerlach, Nevada.

There, in that apparent barrenness, a miracle of ingenuity takes place once a year: a mirage of radically unexpected possibilities materializes in defiance to every logi(sti)cal, social, political or religious law: there is another way and it’s called Burning Man.

Without a credo, without a cult-like behavior, with no pomp and hardly any circumstance, with nothing but the defiance of the believer who makes ‘himself available to visions without rationalizing it too much’, an almost secret organization behind the event makes it all unfold.

To play like a child you need to take yourself as seriously as an adult. Welcome to Burning Man: earth's largest playground for grown-ups

What is Burning Man you ask?

Well, you can’t just phrase it nice and neatly. Unlike most things you’ve heard, BM is not a 7 day rave. It’s not a nudist beach. It’s not a place to get laid or to see women topless. Burning Man is nothing short of social re-engineering in some level or another. Burning Man, like the alkaline dust that pervades its surface, intends and probably will stick to your clothes, to your skin and hopefully, to your interior-self. If all goes well, you’ll be back for more the year after.

Their growth isn’t accidental nor does it obey the laws of money. They shouldn’t be able to survive, and yet they do. They shouldn’t be able to pull it off so safely and sanely year after year, and yet they do. The government watches their asses closely and theirs is one of the cleanest. They have no choice but to grant them their legal right to congregate peacefully and celebrate one of their most important rights: the right to radical self expression and radical self-reliance. No edits. No moral conundrums. The right to experiment a bolder version of ourselves.

There, you go to learn a new brand of bravery and it’s not the boasting rights derived from surviving a tough camping experience. Burning Man is not a test to your physical endurance but a test to the endurance of your mediocre self. You won’t last there if you think you’ve got it all figured out. You’ll realize there that you were nowhere near: it’s still all today –thank god almighty- up for grabs. BM’s most important lesson is that there are still feasible alternatives in this jaded world of ours. For those willing to pay the price for this more adventurous kind of freedom, Burning Man reminds you that kindness and commitment can still carry us all in the end.

Burning man makes no one rich; it seems to cost a lot simply because it takes a mother’s load of money to present any realistic alternative of merit to a contingent of willing participants this large. There’s no other way a ‘neo-tribal city’ such as this can materialize –and then vanish without a trace- unless each attendant understands that they are in fact, secretly entering into a social re-engineering agreement to make this system obsolete at some point in the future.

 

Center Camp is where mostly everyone will coincide for a daily rest and a coffee fix. Not to mention all the incredibly talented and beautiful people that constantly populate it

You are paying to discover all the alternatives that this repressive system won’t finance for your private enlightenment. And you should: it’s your freedom that’s at stake; they already like their boxes and their manicured lawns. It’s you and me who are financing this, on the fringe, trying to make real a sense of community for ourselves. That’s again, social re-engineering and nothing costs more.

With the carrying capacity of the Earth close to its peak, we ourselves are at the pinnacle of our own demise. We can only go in so many directions from this point on. Am I implying that Burning Man is another way for the world to organize itself? Am I cursing this glorious effort by saying that it competes as an alternative to the way we live?

Yes to both, curse the non-believers: Burning Man wants you to take it home. To turn what you got from your visit there into a feasible lifestyle for you back where you reside –and I’m taking a personal position that should not be confused with that from their official spokesperson-.

And as you know, the idea is simple and it’s old: you and I only need to affect our immediate circles while everyone else does the same. You and I don’t have to save the world nor does anyone else for that matter. We only have to save ourselves. We just have to expand awareness in our immediate radius of influence. That’s a lot and close to enough by anyone’s standards, but you still need to do it. And you need a place where you learn that you need to do it. That’s Burning Man, the place to ask yourself: will my passing thru this world leave any other trace except the teeth marks from my consumption habits?

And that’s not an easy question to get out of safely if you mean it seriously. You and I can’t cheat the ingenious machinery of the universe: either we manifest our potential or our life is wasted.

How can you do this? That’s a personal question that varies for each of us but think of the following statement by Larry Harvey, founder of the Burning Man Project: ‘Something within us has to coincide with the world outside so perfectly that we have nothing to do but to step into it…’

There are only so many chances you have in life to converge with so many like-minded siblings. Bring your heart and your kindest, most civilized attitude when you come to Burning Man. (Artwork displayed inside Center Camp at BM 2005, The Psyche)

For anyone who takes his or her search for lifestyle alternatives seriously, Burning Man is a must-stop in your world-trotting. Nothing comes close to its dimension, to its scope and overall ambition. Few other experiences, religious or otherwise, will mark you more profoundly if you’re paying close attention.

Of course, Burning Man for the casual passer-by, may amount to degenerate behavior and a pharmacy for freaks. Certainly, as a large population now, Burning Man will showcase some of that. But make no mistake, there aren’t millions of dollars invested so that you can experiment your darkest sexual experience in the comfort of total anonymity nor so that you can sport your newest and most radical rave costume.

For those behind it, -listen closely to their guidelines- this is their life project and they mean business. Since they happen to be in the business of radical self-expression, I would assume they expect some radical results from their endeavors. To quote founder Larry Harvey: ‘to affect the world by a mere gesture…’

And this is no small gesture here. This is butoh, radical, guts out, strained nerves and almost possession-like states. Real alternatives can not be vanilla nor bland if they are to serve at all. In fact, the world alternative wouldn’t apply otherwise.

I consider Burning Man one of only a handful of true lifestyle alternatives out there. I say a few because I believe that there are many other manifestations around the US and world in a similar vein… I myself and Alicia Villa co-produce what I would consider another alternative. It’s called Poetry Circus (Circo de Poesia, in Spanish). We’re based in LA and our tag-line for the last few years has been: social re-engineering. We, at a smaller scale than Burning Man, continue working to materialize a similar alternative for the LA underground or anyone interested.

In fact, it is my opinion that Burning Man is what it is today because it's the coinciding place for hundreds, perhaps thousands of individual producers. Many of the most elaborate events happening inside are the result of individual productions not always linked to the Burning Man project. Self-financed, they show up year after year to support the already massive infrastructure the BM project erects weeks before.

To have so many individual producers coincide at Burning Man yearly makes each event truly a non-repetitive experience. Why? Producers are one special breed of man. They ignore all about qualifications and see nothing in their heads but the precise shape of something staring at them from the end. From the end everything looks like a straight lane –what obstacles?- and so they chase it and sweat it and plan it

Tribes need drums... even drums on wheels. A couple heads toward the man with their massive drum on wheels ready for some serious banging.

and transport it and build it there. Sometimes, making a poignant statement about the transitory condition of all things, many of the most elaborate constructions will be set in flames including of course, the Man. Fire makes the tribe. Or is it the other way around?

The city’s glamour comes from its ingenuity and each participant somehow adds to this ingenuity factor. Burning Man is perhaps so important because it conglomerates and makes coincide so many apparently disperse viewpoints and lifestyles. Your credo there is your finest conduct. This city challenges your most tedious city habits. Leave No Trace it’s not a slogan. You go there to re-learn the impact of your consumption habits by having to pay attention to your own self-reliance methods.

Perhaps nothing will say more about what happens there than simply staring at the satellite picture shown here. Taken on September 3^rd, 2005, I flip thinking of myself and our entire camp on our Ego 7:20 address, … Realizing I’m one of the specks dotting the land precisely there, I get an immensely gratifying sense. That huge semi-circle of ingenuity in the barrenness of the desert shouldn’t be there. This picture should’ve shown what’s really there just a couple of weeks before or after: virtually nothing but dirt and dirt and dirt and dirt…

Burning Man: a magnet, a semi-circle and a miracle of ingenuity 'affecting the world by a mere gesture' as seen from space imaging satellite Ikonos on September 3rd, 2005 Photo courtesy of Space Imaging. Go to their site if you'd like to purchase this poster or download it as your computer background or wallpaper

If you pay close attention you’ll notice darker strips of dirt on certain streets: the scheduled watering trucks giving the entire city a fresh relief from the hard dust pounding of the early part of the day. As everyone goes about their pleasurable business, a silent organization makes it all run square… while a bunch of naked bodies materialize from nowhere and make it one of their showers of the day.

Burning Man: affecting the world even from the point of view of a satellite, by a mere gesture: watering the perfectly round and beautiful and impossible and inspiring streets of the private and self-vanishing world called Burning Man.

What transpires here, qualifies as an immensely kind effort on behalf of humanity. If you pray, pray for those behind it. If you don’t pray, worry not, if you ever come, you'll realize here what they themselves did: the will of many, in a yearly procession, will build a prayer.

visit www.burningman.com for more information