Monthly Archives: January 2015

Jan 15 2015
Video

Fight, Fuck, or Philosophize

Another Burning Man documentary. “The only things that are going to save us are the arts”…there are some interesting statements and ideas expressed here, but unfortunately they are not really explained with anything approaching logic. YMMV. One guy collects signs from the homeless, presumably to burn at the Temple; “I nee weed” was my favorite.

Short documentary on the culture of Burning Man, featuring interviews with Federico Pistono, Lara Edge, Sean Cusack, Mark W Swizee, Dan Harder, Bernhard Popovic, Nino Bino, Andreas Ribarits, [Mike Zuckerman] and Yasmine Blair.

Directed by: Robert Styblo.
Produced for science program “TM Wissen” for the Austrian channel ServusTV/Red Bull TV.

Jan 7 2015
Video

Awaken: A Story of Dreams [Update]

A new video documentary of Burning Man. Spot your friends!

We covered Project Dreambox earlier: St Art Ups Posing As Playa Art

You can read more about their Dreamus venture in Ever Widening Circles:

what if your “dream” isn’t that of an item to be sold or…put out into the world free of charge? That’s where Dreamus comes in. Dreamus.com allows their users to follow dreams they feel are important, add fellow dreamers to friendship lists for private communication, and comment on a users dream. On your own dream page you can also add any number of goals you hope to attain and check them off as they’re completed, giving viewers a clear of where you are in terms of your overall goal.

The Dreambox was the vision of Teddy Saunders, who created the popular “Oh The Places You’ll Go” Dr Seuss-themed viral video, which was blamed by BMOrg for causing the ticket lottery debacle. Saunders was happy to use the Burning Man connection to promote his startup in the media, saying this year to Daily Dot:

 “I think we’re one of the first art installations that gave birth to an online Web platform that reaches beyond the borders of the playa and connects Burning Man participants to the outside world in a timeless way that lasts after Burning Man.”

The Dreambox has been going to Burning Man since 2012, when it raised an initial $29,277 from Burners in a successful Kickstarter campaign. It has now been to Burning Man 3 times.  This year it received further funding in the form of an Art Honorarium grant from Burning Man Arts.

Despite all this, there are no dreams from Burning Man on their web site. Perhaps because these days even dreams need a license from Decommodification LLC…

You think I’m kidding, or being snarky? From Daily Dot:

“Our plan with DreamBox 3.0 was to put a satellite on the DreamBox so that people could immediately share dreams,” Saunders recalls. “However, at the last minute Burning Man’s media department put the brakes on us after their art department already gave us full support as an honorarium project. It’s pretty embarrassing actually. We’re saddened that they are hesitant to allow their participants to share such beautiful intentions.”

Saunders also says there are 12 short films he created about the Dreambox project that the media team won’t allow him to release because Dreamus features a donations option—and that this is an act of “commodifying” the festival.  

Is it really commodifying Burning Man, by sharing Burners’ dreams and helping them come true? Maybe the competition for donation dollars that might otherwise go to the Burning Man Project is the real reason for BMOrg’s media department putting the brakes on something their art department fully supported.

[Update 1/12/15 11:49am Australia]

Paola Baldion, who previously had spoken to us in relation to the Dreambox but asked for her comments to be confidential, has contacted us with this information:

Although (as my previous message states) I am not part of DreamBox anymore, Teddy and I were the creators of it. It was actually my original idea and vision and then Teddy joined me in the project… We both worked together really hard for a month and raised 29k on Kickstarted. Even in the Awaken video Teddy says that we created the Dreambox together. Just so in the future you can say that it was ‘teddy saunders and Paola Baldion’s vision’.

image: Ian Kennedy/Flickr (Creative Commons)

image: Ian Kennedy/Flickr (Creative Commons)

Jan 5 2015

Gerlach School Community Garden

This Kickstarter seems like a good way for Burners to support our local community. Some of us might take fresh food for granted, but in Gerlach it’s 100 miles to the nearest school. All they want is water to get their garden back. There are 5 days to go and so far there’s been very little help – where’s the Burning Man Project when they’re needed?

Thanks to Burner MLewis for bringing this to our attention. Click here to support the project.

 

 

re-blogged from Kickstarter.com:

About this project

Gerlach Community School garden project.

Gerlach, Nevada is a small village situated next to the Black Rock desert (well known because of the Burning Man festival). At the turn of the century the town still inhabited up to 900 people, but when the nearby gypsum plant closed down in 2011 and economy went down in the region and people started to move away and presently the town inhabits 100 people. Eight years ago schoolteacher Elizabeth Jackson and her colleagues started an educational community school garden and greenhouse project in this barren environment. The management of the school acknowledged the importance and adopted the project as fresh vegetables are not widely available in this desert environment. The start of the project was promising and the school garden was so successful that even the town’s elderly benefited from the project as they were served the freshly grown vegetables from the garden during the town’s daily community center senior’s lunch.

Presently the number of children attending the Gerlach school is reduced down to only fourteen in 2014. As the number of kids reduced rapidly, the school board had to take the unfortunate decision to terminate the community garden project as funds were lacking and the water supply was cut off. Now the garden project has been abandoned and people have to travel over 90 miles in order to buy fresh produce at the nearest supermarket.


Why does the Gerlach School community garden need your help? Fresh vegetables are becoming more and more important as part of our daily nutrition, especially for children and senior citizens. Through school gardens children are educated in how their food grows and what is needed to produce and maintain healthy fresh food on a small scale. But the project is not just educational, it’s also fun to see things grow from a tiny seed to something delicious and tasteful. In order to keep children healthy it’s essential to teach them that fresh vegetables are essential in your daily meals.

Role of the Laboratory for Microclimates:
Next to raising funds for the re-development of the school garden the Laboratory for Microclimates wants to explore alternative solutions concerning the collection of dew and rainwater. Nowadays there are different systems to collect dew water, however, the production process is expensive and can be done in a more sustainable way. Our water collection system consists of recycled PET bottles, grouped circle wise around a plant; the ‘Desert Flower’. A simple and gentle way to capture the maximum dew in the night and make it useful for irrigation of plants in dry regions like Black Rock Desert.
Goal: The Laboratory for Microclimates wants to raise enough money to revitalize the project and supply them with enough water to continue the project for the next five years. To increase the sustainability the Laboratory for Microclimates install desert-flower irrigation system to reduce the use of water.

Risks and challenges

The only risk in this project is that we don’t succeed in raising the money to fund the project, in that case people who invested in this project won’t be charged.
As we speak about the financial part, here’s what’s needed:
1: us$ 800 to jump-start the project the garden and greenhouse by having the gardens reconnected to the town’s water system.
2: US$ 100 for a period of 5 years for the payment of the monthly water bill.
3: US$ 800 to install a sustainable desert-flower hydration system by artist Annechien Meier of the Laboratory through which water-use will be reduced.
4: an additional 8% for the Kickstarter organization (5% to host this campaign and 3% for payment and processing fees).
In total this comes down to an amount of US$ 8,208.00
What will happen to your contribution?
1: Both connections to the town’s watersystem and desertflower irrigation system will be installed.
2: Through the Gerlach School a trust/bank account will be opened to facilitate the monthly payment for the water delivery.
3: A Facebook account will be initiated through which you can watch the progress of the project.
Initiative:
The project is initiated by the Laboratory for Microclimates, an art collective from the Netherlands. Through art and film projects they encourage people to change their own social and ecological environment; www.microclimates.nl. One of its members, filmmaker Gert-Jan Gerlach, visited the town of Gerlach this summer and decided that help was needed to revitalize the school’s project.