Burner Curious: 7 Reasons I’m Intrigued by Burning Man This Year...and You May Be, Too
This is the closest you'll get without heading to the desert.
Like any relevant, beloved gathering, Burning Man has had its share of existential crises. Over the past 35 years, the organizers have faced dangerous, out-of-control numbers, grappled with the introduction of a controversial lottery system for tickets, and worried about whether Plug-and-Play camps (where people could get around doing the work of setting up their own camps for a fee) were the beginning of the end of this so-called utopia. And then Covid hit. This week more than 80,000 people around the world are “going to” Burning Man from their homes. And I’m here for it.
In the midst of a pandemic, a tense national election, and a racial reckoning, it might feel obtuse to pay heed to a semi-nude week-long digital party. And yet, Burning Man is one of the largest repeated experiments of a group of people intentionally and collectively creating a temporary alternative world that can shed light (and give us the lived experience) of another way of being together. If you’ve ever wondered about Burning Man, but haven't had the time, budget, chutzpah, or energy to go, this is the year (perhaps dangerously for Burning Man) you can dip your toe in. It’s a huge experiment for them, and we’re invited to take part.
The theme for Burning Man 2020 is The Multiverse. There are eight “universes” you can digitally enter all week long to experience the Burn. As a non-Burner, I recently sat down with Ed Cooke and Karin Johnson, the hosts of one such universe called Sparkleverse, to better understand how they were thinking about designing this entirely virtual shared universe for thousands of strangers all sitting in their own bedrooms around the world, logging in to “camp”. Cooke and Johnson are two members of the CoReality Collective, one of the most innovative, fresh virtual experience-makers out there right now.
Here are 7 reasons I’m intrigued by Burning Man this year...and you may be, too.
You can still suffer to get there. Sparkleverse understands that the journey to reach any gathering is integral to the experience. Traditionally, the drive to Black Rock City is part of the passageway to the alternative universe, and the start of the shedding of the world you’re leaving behind. Thus, Sparkleverse has created “Hero Mode” for those who still want the journey. You can either just hit enter and join the universe, or, if you choose "Hero Mode," you’ll get placed into a virtual car with three other (real) passengers and be locked into a screen that shows you videos of cacti for an hour. Your only option is to then talk to your fellow passengers. (I think this is brilliant and hilarious.)
People are making 2020 Burning Man “road trip” playlists and sharing them online. Creating playlists for the drive is a big ritual for some Burners. This year, folks are marking the lack of road trip by creating fresh 2020 playlists like Andrew Horn's “The Road to NOT Burningman” and then just sharing them publicly for anyone to enjoy.
They’re tech open, specific and agnostic. In Sparkleverse, they use whichever technology or platform is best for the purpose of each gathering or experience. For the overall platform, they’ve built their own 2D universe. For costumes, knowing how important they are to the experience (and how many first-time Burners) may be coming, they’re encouraging folks to download the Snap Camera for desktop. And, they’re not afraid of a Zoom room to host shared performances.
Dust storms are (still) part of the magic. You’d think that the epic dust storms that come through the Playa at any moment would be something people would be glad not to deal with this year. Not so for the organizers of Sparkleverse. Cooke describes these storms as “a great source of positive ‘noise’ in one’s path through the Playa, as the scramble to the nearest place and the sense of being safely enshrouded often gives rise to rich and unexpected moments of connection.” Their solution? “At random, a digital sandstorm will power across the [digital] Playa rendering useless all navigational devices/schedules, etc. You will have one option and one option only: to head to the nearest space and hang out there for the duration of the sand storm. A wonderful chance to meet interesting people...”
You can talk to God.
You can also Burn your own Man. Instead of gathering around the iconic burning effigy, this Saturday evening there will be a livestreamed DIY Burn Night of people burning their own effigies (along with DIY kits and safety guidelines) around the world. Will it be glorious and surprisingly powerful or super awkward and lame? Who knows?!
It’s a massive, risky experiment. I asked Cooke what questions were on his mind as they began the week. He had quite a list: “Can we reproduce the temporal scarcities of Burning Man? Can we create a party that excites a sense of awe but at a scale online? Can we persuade/excite a stampede of enthusiasm for doing nutty things? Can we introduce people who haven’t experienced Burning Man to the enchantment of the possibilities of the offline one and online one? And, what does this teach us more generally about time-space creation for intimacy online, performances, schools, but can we keep those pragmatic matters for later?” They’ve shared more of their secret sauce here.
Why do I study parties? Because they are contexts where we have less hangups of what something has to look like and how we are supposed to behave, and therefore are wonderful learning sites to create temporary alternative worlds. (Also, they’re fun.) As Cooke told me by phone, “I think of parties as the greatest art forms.” (Check out this thoughtful piece on the first digital party he hosted after the pandemic hit.)
Inspirations
My husband, Anand Giridharadas, has launched a wonderful new newsletter. It’s called The.Ink. He shares everything from the octopus-shaped sausages he cooks for our kids for amusement to exclusive interviews with Noam Chomsky and Isabel Wilkerson and, most recently, Varshini Prakash. I’m (clearly) a fan. And you can be, too, here.
Hosted on August 28th, this powerful event is still available for all to watch and experience. Take note.
The Event Industry Is Being Confronted By Its Napster Moment
The world of events may be facing similar circumstances that the music industry was hit with in 2000. This article from Skift breaks it all down, and wow.
Photos From the March on Washington
Thousands gathered last weekend for the 2020 March on Washington to demand social justice and mark the 57th anniversary of the historic March on Washington.
Last summer, artist and activist Favianna Rodriguez’s camp, Que Viva Camp (a 7-year old Burning Man camp of BIPOC activists), created a campaign, along with Color of Change, to push Burning Man to take tangible steps to address the reality of the problem of its overwhelming whiteness. (Black people make up less than 1% of Burners.) The podcast, The Intersection, is sharing the story of that campaign and how the camp is holding Burning Man to one of their founding principles: "Radical Inclusion".
