A guest post by reader Nick Heyming, who has been inspired by Burns to create something phenomenal.
Burner Holiday
In the spirit of the holidays, here’s a story to make you remember what gifting and communal effort is all about. If you’re more interested in the latest on the commodification crisis or tickets, don’t bother, but if you want to read about burners who are taking the principles to a new level, read on.
The first place Nickipedia heard about the burn was in Biloxi, Mississippi. He was standing next to a large dome, a decorated bus, and a newly rebuilt buddhist temple. The man in front of him was Big Stick, a civil engineer and the head of heavy equipment and last arbiter of safety for all the amazing and sometimes dodgy construction projects people bring out to the playa. He was explaining about the event, the temple, the art, and how a huge group of them had driven straight out from the festival in 2005 to help rebuild after Hurricane Katrina.
Nickipedia, being a noob and kind of a dork, said ‘Wow, sounds like a great party’.
Big Stick looked at him with a scowl, and said, ‘Yeah, you probably shouldn’t go’.
Nickipedia quickly corrected himself, ‘Um, I mean, it clearly is a lot more than just a party. Sounds like a rite of passage or a spiritual…’
Big Stick cut him off ‘If you need a rite of passage, stick around here’. He gestured to the piles of debris littering the vacant lots surrounding the encampment. “There’s plenty of opportunity to come of age helping these people out. When you’re done with that, maybe you should come out to the playa and see what we build with that blank canvas and no code enforcement or FEMA in our way.”
The blunt attitude of the Burners Without Borders didn’t dissuade young Nickipedia from venturing out to the playa 10 months later. The efforts of BWB have been well documented in such films as Burn on the Bayou:http://vimeo.com/8057642 . What many don’t realize is how many burners, both with BWB and on their own, have shown up to rebuild after disasters.
Ten years ago, when the tsunami hit Southeast Asia, thousands of volunteers from around the world poured into the area to lend their support. Many of them were backpackers and burners, looking to do more than just be tourists but to actually have meaningful exchange with the locals and leave a positive trace.
Founding members of Communitere (http://www.philippines-communitere.org/ and http://www.haiti.communitere.org ), Hands On Disaster Relief, International Disaster Volunteers (http://www.idvolunteers.org/ ), and of course Burners Without Borders (http://www.burnerswithoutborders.org/ )are regular attendees of Burning Man and go there not just to recharge but to connect with fellow volunteers they may not have an opportunity to see anywhere else.
The work the Burners do internationally is not just superficial: aside from serious engineering and sanitation projects, Burners frequently find themselves as hubs for interagency coordination. When well-spoken foreigners show up, doors open, and Burners are known for sneaking as many disenfranchised locals in when the opportunity presents itself. This can mean doing things like community-wide design charettes where people who never normally are heard get to voice their needs directly to decision-makers.
Burner making efforts for the greater good aren’t just limited to after disasters though. That little virgin Nickipedia who almost got told off at the beginning of our story? He ended up going to Burning Man in 2006, then again for a month with DPW and Black Rock Solar in 07, again with BRS and BWB in 08 (after appointing himself director of external relations for BWB in Peru for 4 months). He’s taking the lessons he learned rebuilding parks in Mississippi.
And creating community gardens in Peru.
To create a series of video games that educate people about sustainable gardening and farming practices. The goal is to mitigate climate change, solve world hunger, and help with internet and video game addiction. All using radical self-expression, communal effort, and leaving an awesome trace.
He’s in the last day of his crowdfunding campaign and they’re still a few thousand short, so if you think that sounds like something the world needs more of, support and share at www.igg.me/at/seeds
Let’s Go Outside and Play Together!
GrowGames has Three Goals for Food Action:
1. GAME: #SeedstheGame are mobile games that teach you how to grow and then get you gardening outside in real life
2. JAM: Game jams connect you to local players to form or join teams and clubs to design, garden, and play together
3. THRIVE: Receive useful tools and vibrant seeds through our rewards and for tackling challenges in the game and then use them to grow with your friends
Seeds is a Series of Mobile Games Created with YOU
Connect Gardens Worldwide & Play an Ecosystem of Experiences
Grow Food, Play with Friends, Save Money: GAME JAMS
Open Game Jam Access to Design with Us!
Soundtrack benefit album + free downloads with all rewards over $13
As a thank you for helping us build these games we are producing a mix of our game music together with our favorite musical artists. You, the perfect beta testers, get the perfect seed album to start your garden adventures.
A Gratitude Garden Jam for you to enjoy anywhere
Seed Packs & Special Gift Packs with Sensors
Early Bird Worm Specials & Farm to Table Play
Seeds Launch Party in Vista
This is our Gratitude Garden and You are Seeds in the Game.
We join you to host interactive events to activate your school or community play with food, water and soil systems -Your contribution now includes your first pass ticket in for events, music, games and experiences in 2015 and 2016 with Grow Games & #SeedstheGame. Take a pic and tag it now to start playing! We will be sharing your pictures in our supercuts throughout this campaign and game series.
Employee-Owned Social Benefit Game Company
Our biodiverse team is a Southern California Social Benefit Corp striving to be the first gaming B-Corp with a focus on global food and ecosystem resiliency:
- We love games and create/play together at game jam events
- Our team is a mix of women and men from all backgrounds and orientations
- We are disaster relief geeks with 25+ years experience working with nonprofits, government, education and sustainable business practices
- You can join us for events by sponsoring an award or bounty achievement at a development game jam in a city near you
Our nonprofit partners such as Growcology in Riverside and Project Nuevo Mundo host volunteer events where we partner to host a mix of game jam and educational events to level up real world gardening skills. We are happy to be working with great nonprofits such as the Seed Libraries Network and local food action and permaculture alliances. Join us at a game jam or local event to get started as a playtester, artist or game designer with Grow Games Interactive.
Action Engine EXPERIENCE with Food Systems
Our team includes amazing leaders in biodiversity and permaculture, technology and game development, interactive storytelling and educational applications.
SOME OF OUR AMAZING ARTISTS (and more to be announced!)Daniel Goldman: Founder/systems designer with SimCity/Maxis
ADDITIONAL THANKS TO OUR GREAT TEAM AND GAME JAM CREATIVES!
How We Work with You & Your Guilds
- Our company will invest the first $20K raised in game jams to produce a series of design, strategy and development events with you where we produce game elements together with field experts.
- The next $40-50K is invested in staff cost for hiring developers and production team from game jam talent, internships and awards for events including sponsored awards for the game jam series.
- We aim to raise $100K for first app releases by 2015 from a mix of crowdfunding, angels and ecosystem product partners.
- We have raised $25K so far to start Grow Games as an employee-owned social benefit company over the last year starting with a team of 3 and featuring hundreds of volunteers, playtesters and guest stars.
Be the First Expert, Plant a New Field
- SOCIAL ACTION GAMING IS HOT: Ingress is challenging millions to make a map of the world’s art while losing weight taking portals.
- We start with the SEEDS geo-play social action engine + mapping local food systems + games + garden experiences and make it participatory for all ages.
- Field expert perks may include Grow Games moderator permissions for forums, sensors for community gardens and guilds, Eddefy expertise & knowledge sharing across the game network + honors and recognition in-game.
- Talk to us about your integrated projects! We love teaching gardens.
#SeedstheGame Global Impact
Have you ever wanted to play a game that creates real value?
Playing Seeds the Game apps over the last year has saved our playtesters an average of $100 in food! Our games connect games and gardening to grow healthy ecosystems starting at home and in our neighborhoods.
When challenged by disaster, drought, outbreaks and epidemics:
- Real-time data mapping of local food systems provides a lifeline
- Global play can help eradicate pest challenges and adapt to climate change
- Games and actions can be added to address specific, local, urgent needs
- Special games and actions address organizational challenges as they happen
We are happy to meet with your organization to discuss mods and gameplay on top of your existing data sets and challenges.
- Our storytellers Bianca (English/Native American) and Ursula (Peruvian) share the importance of food, soil, water and ecosystem care from indigenous voices as climate-appropriate landscape masters
- We are building on five years of educational experience in permaculture and food systems with Growcology, our partner for educational scholarships and design awards
- Our action engine includes nonprofit and local food actions, connecting people to community gardens and opportunities to do more together
Take control of your food system….and get in a great flow perk!
Send photos & videos #SeedstheGame to play
- Tag your best food systems & garden work #SeedstheGame to be featured on our site, in weekly video series and in gameplay.
- Indiegogo share tools make it easy to Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Pinterest us as much as you wish. Run amok, don’t be shy. We love you too.
- Join us at a game jam! We’re in Pasadena, San Francisco, Vista, Los Angeles and San Diego this month….Reach out and send us a message to join our crowdsourced game team @GrowGames and tag #SeedstheGame anywhere to share & connect.
Pingback: The Ten Year Anniversary of Burners Without Borders | Burners.Me: Me, Burners and The Man
I realize that BWB was probably named after Doctors Without Borders, but I also like to think of Burners Without Borders as Burners who aren’t confined by the Trash Fence/Perimeter/Borders of BRC. Does anybody recall BWB gathering lots of unburned wood at the end of BM’05 to take back to hurricane-affected areas?
Burner culture was of what manner might we throw an incredible party, constructing a city, numerous theme camps, mutant vehicles, art projects, and volunteering to assist the necessary efforts towards throwing the party, in a horrible desert, in a bottoms up crowd sourced manner, all the while telling the ministers, bureaucrats, and other useless rules makers, to remain the bloody hell out of our way. These efforts, by Nick, Burners Without Borders, and by numerous others, are an awesome illustration of Burner culture.
What Burning Man, and the Burning Man Project requires, to return towards the awesome culture, is brand new leadership, a new ‘tasked government’ as Larry termed it, that cares more in regards of the community and of supporting good efforts, than of their rubbish personal politics in regards of their cash out and of their top down control over a bottoms up crowd sourced event, community, and efforts, still acting in the manner of it is their personal private business, as opposed to a 501(c)3 organization purposed towards the public benefit of supporting the efforts of a community. That is my desire for the new year, purposed towards Burning Man, and the Burning Man Project, having a very bright future.
Apologies, I meant of this comment to be placed in reply to the comment below, of Nick and numerous people are deserving of our gratitude, their efforts are the true spirit of Burning Man, and of the Burning Man culture.
Awesome post, and efforts, Nick, kudos are deserved by everyone involved with these efforts. Integrating an app with real world efforts, purposed towards educating and assisting people in real world efforts, with the priority upon the real world efforts, as opposed to upon the game app, is a brilliant utilization of the technology. And, kudos are deserved by everyone whom has assisted Burners Without Borders and the other disaster relief organizations, in the US, and around the globe.
This is the true spirit of Burning Man, and of Burner culture, of what the event, and the culture was prior, and towards what it must return.