Playa Æsthetics
Burners like to joke about the contrast between Black Rock City and Nevada's other famous cities—Reno and Las Vegas. Most of what we're referring to is consumerism, which is nowhere more celebrated than Las Vegas, and rarely more thoroughly repudiated than at Burningman.
The joke's on us, though—the similarities, from the right distance, are at least as great as the differences. There's the frantic hedonism, of course. But most of all, there's the taste for the grand gesture—the bright, the loud, the big, the opulent and extravagant.
The moment this similarity hit home to me was a Monday morning, just back from the playa, freshly showered and seated at the Pepprmill casino hotel's Island Buffet. Over the toqued servers, imitation tropical vines swayed in imitation tropical breezes whiile lite country music played over the speakers. Every half hour or so the lights dropped and an imitation tropical thunderstorm swept across the room. The total effect was of the Temple of Zara transgenically mated with an upscale Denny's.
Desert Art
I have a theory that helps to account for some of these parallels. In a way, it's the simplest possible theory. The reason that two very different communities of people, coming to the same place, create similar work is the influence of the place. The stark emptiness of the desert in general, and of the playa in particular, calls forth an urge to do something that cries out—as loudly and forcefully as possible—"I AM!"
Art on the playa has to go boom, has to light up, to shoot propane flames, and burn at the end of the week and send its sparks high into the chilly desert sky. Anything short of this would feel weak and tentative against the vast patient emptiness of that ancient lakebed.
Is this something deserts in general do to people? Well, I haven't visited any deserts outside North America, but the Great Pyramids and the Nazca Lines suggest that it's not inconceivable.
Forest Art
If this idea is true, then a different landscape calls for a different register of art. 2004 was the second year of Firefly, a New England festival based in Burner culture. The first year's was held on private land on the Maine/New Hampshire border; last year's on a similar site in Vermont.
And, hell, it's certainly not a perfect test case for my thesis. Large scale fire art isn't really prudent in the middle of the forest, for example, no matter how wet a spring is winding up. On the playa, open space is as abundant as water isn't; at Firefly, finding enough open space for just your tent can be a challenge. The core Burningman membership when the event first mutated from an afternoon on a San Francisco beach to a field trip to the Nevada desert already included a high proportion of pyro geeks and gun enthusiasts. The core of the Firefly crowd are primarily rave music fans.
Even with all this, though, the art that's most successful at Firefly has a distinct aesthetic better suited to the forest environment.
For Example
Firefly I had no actual fireflies, but that didn't stop artist Bob Rees. Through trial and errors, he found the perfect combination of capacitors and tiny white LEDs to imitate a firefly's distinctive rapid lighting and slow fading, so that a line of fireflies blinked in the woods along the path up to the lodge.
Further down the same parh, several bridges arced over rocky little streams. It was only on my third or fourth pass over the bridge that I noticed the little stone frog with gauzy wings sitting on one of the rocks. Prefab, purchased art from some garden store, but given grace and charm by its inspired placement.
At Firefly II, someone had strung multicolored banners around an otherwise unremarkable square patch of forest, with a sign advertising Fast Eddie's Used Trees.
Out by the beaver dams, a good half-mile away from where most attendees were congregated, I found two windows hung from trees by nylon cord, offering a Magritte-like opportunity to enjoy the scenic view through the comfortable mediation of a window frame. The artist, I later found out, was Ted Lyman.
Art and Place
Where the playa environment is an emptiness that one yearns to fill, the New England forest is already full. When you walk in the woods, all of your senses are getting a rich array of information. In this context, the most effective art uses small, elegant gestures to change the meaning of everything around it. Where the desert is something to be resisted, the forest is something to engage with.
Even with these differences in approach, it's possible to see hints of an underlying Burner æsthetic. Most of my favorite Burner art has an element of wit or humor, but it's not just a joke. it encourages the spectator to look at her entire environment in a new way, to respond not just with appreciation, but with reciprocal creation. In other words, Burner art is viral, it's contagious. And like all the most successful viruses, it mutates as it spreads.
I love this by bluepapercup:
I haven't been to the playa, but I have been to the forest. I think you're really touching on something core here, something that is central to what makes art work, not just artwork.
That sensitivity to surroundings, that awareness of the interplay, those are the magic tools for making that "click", that happens when the key of perception fits in the lock of creation.
Please write more things like this!
Walking the lit mushroom path,
bpc
Forest Art by Sebbo:
I have this image of an artist like Andy Goldsworthy having an opening waaaay out in the wilderness somewhere. Have guests backpack in for a couple days, then change into tuxedos and chitchat among the trees as they admire the pieces around them and nibble on hors d;œuvres. Anyone want to work with me on something like that for Firefly this year?
thanks for noticing by morninglove:
"art" takes on many forms, and whether one is in on the playa, in the forest or in the backyard, even digging a well is an art unto itself.
But as far as the Firefly installation art that you are referring to; I must thank you for noticing at least some of it. And thank you for understanding and sharing that understanding of at least my concept of installation art at Firefly: the art trails and installations came about from my own wanderings through the woods and realizing that it was unlikely for those unfamiliar with the woods to take on such a random wandering. Several installations were placed in highly energetic areas at the first Firefly...the purpose being to encourage people to wander, pause and take in the beauty. The same intent was put forth at Firefly II with unfortunately MUCH consideration having to be made for the mud and marshy areas (easily the most beautiful landscape onsite...but not for the ill-prepared sandle-wearer). You don't mention any of this, and I wonder if you ever saw it??? But this is part of the point isn't it... the beauty is there for those who are looking for it. There is beauty around every corner. I have a friend who sees amazing creatures in stains on the sidewalk. He makes them apparent to the rest of us blessed with sight by painting in the features. Still some people don't see what's right in front of their eyes. So thank you for seeing and for sharing. It makes it worth all the bruises and bugbites.
love,morninglove
Artpath by Sebbo:
No, I never managed to find the art trail, though I heard great stuff about it. The advantage of hiding or secluding one's art is that shock of finding it. The disadvantage is that it reduces the number of people who'll probably see it.
Being towards the less gregarious endfor a Burner, at Firefly, I'd find myself thinking, "Oh, I wonder if that group of people is heading somewhere interesting. I should go in that direction some other time and see what I find." As a way of finding stuff, this combines most of the disadvantages of the solitary approach with the disadvantages of the social one. Oh, well. I found neat stuf anyway. A few years of Burningman has taught me not to waste time regretting the stuff I missed.
Good point by Josh Kastorf:
Ecology teaches us that ecosystems behave in some ways like organisms, growing and adapting to the world around them. When we're in the wilderness we're in the belly of a creature much greater and older than ourselves. It's always effecting us but at nature's slow pace it may take us a while to notice.
I like the point you make about the desert demanding art that shouts "I AM." The one time I visited Las Vegas I took the elevator to the large tower there whose name I forget at the moment. I was disappointed by the view of the rather ugly city and the desert beyond. But from elsewhere in the city, the tower draws ones view inward and upward, refocusing it on the hieghts that human beings have attempted there.
One of the most important things I learned from the first firefly was the mind-blowing way in which natural and artficial beauty can interact, thanks in large part to morninglove's faux rose garden and the way the djs' beats sofetened as they flowed through the trees. Some of my favorite moments at the second firefly were spent lying on my back under the trees with my best friend. We saw above us what appeared to be a large neon orange inchworm-- it had to have been a trick of the morning light on the leaves but it really looked like a worm. The deep groaning of the swaying trees drowned out the bass from the djs and it occurred to us that all the sights and sounds we'd brought to the woods, some of which had been planned for months, were already there.
Josh
Ecosystems by Sebbo:
It's worth remembering that a city is also a creature much bigger and older than we.
The calm and gentleness that we twenty-first century urbanites experience in the forest (myself no exception) isn't an illusion, but it is a product as much of where we've come from as where we've gone, and it's certainly not the whole picture. The living things around us are engaged in a merciless life-or-death struggle.
Our artistic responses, then, reflect not just the forest, but our perceptions and expectations of the forest.