Wired News: Burning Man Never Gets Old
Another piece on burningman, the reason I am not in LA this weekend, tanks to one of my friends attending the event. After reading all about it, I can't wait to hear the stories. Plus I am just delaying my trip to LA till later in the month.
Ask any participating "burner" what Burning Man is, and you're likely to hear the same response: The event is more than the sum of its art cars, kinetic sculptures or suntanned bodies clad in body paint and glitter (and sometimes not much else).
You just have to experience it in person, they always say.
"I can't explain it," replies Dimitri Timohovich, the licensed pyrotechnician responsible for the burning of the Man, who has as an entertainment industry pyro-effects day job in Los Angeles. "It's what you make of it. I just enjoy going out there, seeing all the cool stuff and doing the show."
Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Perry Barlow has been making the yearly pilgrimage since 1997.
"The important thing about Burning Man is that it is the most experiential phenomenon I can think of," says Barlow. "It can't be turned into data in any useful way. You can't informatize it by blogging it, filming it or taking pictures of it, because so much of it can't be translated into information."
Burning Man volunteer Jim Graham isn't fazed when he hears the event derided by some as "Girls Gone Wild" with extra helpings of sand and drugs.
"Any time someone makes that kind of generalization, I say 'Yeah! It's exactly like that,' and smile. In the beginning, I came for the spectacle. Now, I come back for the opportunity to interact with so many people who possess such mind-boggling creativity."
Another piece on burningman, the reason I am not in LA this weekend, tanks to one of my friends attending the event. After reading all about it, I can't wait to hear the stories. Plus I am just delaying my trip to LA till later in the month.
Ask any participating "burner" what Burning Man is, and you're likely to hear the same response: The event is more than the sum of its art cars, kinetic sculptures or suntanned bodies clad in body paint and glitter (and sometimes not much else).
You just have to experience it in person, they always say.
"I can't explain it," replies Dimitri Timohovich, the licensed pyrotechnician responsible for the burning of the Man, who has as an entertainment industry pyro-effects day job in Los Angeles. "It's what you make of it. I just enjoy going out there, seeing all the cool stuff and doing the show."
Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Perry Barlow has been making the yearly pilgrimage since 1997.
"The important thing about Burning Man is that it is the most experiential phenomenon I can think of," says Barlow. "It can't be turned into data in any useful way. You can't informatize it by blogging it, filming it or taking pictures of it, because so much of it can't be translated into information."
Burning Man volunteer Jim Graham isn't fazed when he hears the event derided by some as "Girls Gone Wild" with extra helpings of sand and drugs.
"Any time someone makes that kind of generalization, I say 'Yeah! It's exactly like that,' and smile. In the beginning, I came for the spectacle. Now, I come back for the opportunity to interact with so many people who possess such mind-boggling creativity."
posted by Champion at 11:37 PM
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