My attempt at putting into words my experience at my first Burning Man
Six years ago, My friend Dan came back from Burning Man. At the time, I had seen and overheard about this Burning Man event, but sitting down with him and him attempting to explain his experience during those nine days in late August is what sparked my curiosity about what Burning Man really was.
Over time, I read more and more about it. A few other friends went and I got to hear their experiences. Finally, I decided that 2017 was the year I was going to attend. After eight days in that magical dusty desert, I am back and below I will try to explain what my first Burn meant to me.
The Place
Burning man was born in Baker Beach, San Fransisco, in 1986. In 1990, due to the size of the man and the crowd, law enforcement did not allow the man to burn. That same year, the burn was moved to the Black Rock Desert, which has been home to Burning Man ever since.
The Black Rock Desert is an alkali flat, or playa, located 160 kilometers north of Reno, Nevada. The playa is the dry lake bed remnant of ancient Lake Lahotan. The playa is unique in that it is not sandy; it is composed of alkali dust, a dust with similar consistency as baby powder or for those who climb, magnesium chalk. This makes things interesting as this dust seemingly gets on everything, acts as a sunscreen, and neutralizes smells and scents, making the majority of my time there odorless.
The desert is bordered by the Jackson Mountains to the east and the Calico Hills to the west. The endless flatness of the place bordered by these mountains tens of miles away in each direction makes the landscape very beautiful and unique.
The Black Rock Desert environment is very unforgiving. This year, temperatures ranged from a high of 39.5 degrees Celsius to a low of 12 degrees Celsius. The direct exposure to the sun, the low humidity, and the dust particles in the air can quickly lead to dry nostrils and eyes, making you very uncomfortable. And then there are the dust storms. According to some veterans, this year we were lucky as we only had two dust storms all week, both within 90 minutes of each other. During the dust storms, visibility dropped to 4 feet and it was difficult to breathe. Nonetheless, they pass and everyone is left very dusty.
Sometime in mid July, the Department of Public Works of Black Rock City begins to build the city. They set up the perimeter, create access points and roads, and place the porta-potties. A week (warmly known as Working Man) before the event, artists and builders come together to build the infrastructure that makes Black Rock City what it is: a wheel of time that goes from 2 O’clock to 10 O’clock, 12 blocks wide.
The city is composed of theme camps: Camps that range from 5 to 250 individuals that work together to bring interactivity to the event. No one gets paid to build theme camps; all camp members contribute in building, participating, then taking down the camp, leaving no trace.
Camp interactivity varies greatly. On one side of the spectrum you can have small camps that offer foot massages a couple of hours on select days of the event, to the other side of the spectrum where sound camps with hundreds of thousands of dollars in sound and light equipment host DJs 24 hours a day for the entirety of the event. You can find almost anything your imagination can come up with within the theme camps of Black Rock City. The creativity and ingenuity of theme camp leaders and members is one of the most amazing and unique parts of Burning Man.
A big part of Burning Man and Black Rock City is the art. Effigies and art installations dot the landscape of both the city and the open playa. Art comes in all shapes and sizes: from posters hung on the trash fence, to large scale art installations like Charon, a wheel of skeletons rowing where participants pulling ropes make it spin.
Another unique feature of Burning Man are mutant vehicles, or art cars. They come in all sizes and dot the landscape, especially at night. Art cars are encouraged to pick up burners as they go along, providing an unstructured form of transportation to the city. Most of the art cars have incredible sound systems and meticulous light displays.
I will never forget the first time I saw Black Rock City at night. After the sun hides behind the Calico Hills, it seems like the city and the playa go through a re-birth. All kinds of lights come on: LED, flood lights, lasers, strobes….you name it. All art installations, effigies, and art cars are illuminated. Participants are encouraged to light up their bikes and themselves. It truly is one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen.
The People
When you read about Burning Man, it’s hard to find writings about what I personally think its the best part of it: the people. Close to 70,000 people came to Black Rock City this year to participate, guided by The Ten Principles established by one of the founders in 2004. When the significant majority of Black Rock City’s inhabitants abide by these principles, a society like no other is created.
Burning Man does not discriminate by age, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, or race. In all of my travels, I don’t think I have ever been as warmly welcomed by strangers as I was at Burning Man.
This sense of inclusion, expression, and community that exists in Black Rock City during those nine days creates an environment of trust like I have never seen before. As a reserved and distrusting person, after a few days I found myself sharing deep, intimate thoughts (both positive and negative) with strangers that I will probably never see again. At the same time, many strangers also shared their deep, intimate thoughts with me. It was liberating.
At Black Rock City I had a home. After my accident back in March, I felt that the only way I was going to attend Burning Man safely was to join one of the many theme camps. I was accepted to join the Black Rock Center for Unlearning, a camp of about 100 people from all over the world, where we offered the community a 24 hour bar and activities throughout the week.
The camp provided me with basic survival needs like water and food, but above all, it provided me a family throughout the week. Our camp was special in the sense that it was always up; meaning that whenever you showed up to the communal area, there would always be a camp mate hanging around.
We were a family for eight days,and I know that I will become lifelong friends with some of my camp mates. Being part of BRCU enhanced my first Burn like I never thought it would. Thank you Emily for accepting me into this beautiful family.
The Moments
There’s a saying that goes around in Black Rock City:
You only see 5% of Burning Man every year
With so much going on at any given moment, you miss a lot of what happens there. And everybody’s Burning Man is different. Below I will try to describe some of the most memorable moments of my Burn (In chronological order).
The first night I was there, a camp mate and I decided to go check out the Esplanade at night for the first time. Our plan was to walk around for a bit then head back to camp to relax after a long day of travel and set up. On our way back we found an art car ran by folks dressed as gnomes. They kindly invited us up and along with them and a bunch of Aussies, we toured the city and the playa while listening to great music and checking out many of the art pieces. We didn’t relax much our first night there.
After riding to the Man solo to watch the sunset, I spotted a black box in the middle of the desert. It was an interactive art piece / scientific experiment named The Solipmission. Inside the box, three scientists lived for the entirety of the event, having never seen or heard of Burning Man before. I went into the room and my purpose was to spend 20 minutes describing to one of the scientists my Burning Man reality. I was surreal trying to explain what Burning Man has been to me to a Dutch scientist. The experience was made even more surreal by the fact that I walked in at dusk and walked out at night.
I spent Tuesday afternoon riding our camps art car (shout out to TurtleBot!) with the purpose of checking out a camp mates’ friend art piece called MegaPrayer, among others. As we drove out of the city into the playa, we spotted a massive dust cloud coming our way. The dust cloud engulfed us as we arrived to the art piece. We huddled in the car, put our goggles and masks on, and spent the dust storm drinking scotch and chatting. I made some good friends during that dust storm.
One of the things I really wanted to do that week was a to go on scenic flight. To get a scenic flight, you have to line up early at the Black Rock City Municipal Airport and wait until the generous pilots start waking up to give flights away. Thursday morning I watched the sunrise from the airport and as I waited, I met a prominent festival photographer who confided to me that he struggles to keep monotony out of his job. He also taught me how to not get your drone confiscated on no-fly zones. Unfortunately, the scenic flights never came due to fires in the surrounding areas.
Two good friends and I decided to go on an all-night adventure on Thursday. We began our adventure by watching from the front row the burn of Mucaro the Owl.
We then continued our journey through the deep, dark playa, finding amazing tunes being played from Mayan Warrior, the most impressive mobile sound and light installation I have ever seen.
Our journey ended with us chilling at a nice plounge at a sound camp, drinking and sharing stories of our lives.
Friday, September 1st sunrise is something I will never forget. I met a beautiful girl and with my arms around her, we watched the sun rise from the flat horizon, surrounded by beautiful people and dancing to the tunes of deep playa tech coming from Robot Heart, yet another amazing sound car. The moment was absolutely perfect.
Friday night, two of our camp mates decided to fight each other at the ThunderDome, the only violent place at the playa. Inside the ThunderDome, two rivals are strapped to a harness attached by stretch ropes hanging from the top of the dome, they then get released and they fight each other using foam swords. My camp mates didn’t get to fight, but I managed to watch two participants each dressed as the Wacky Inflatable Waving Arm Man fight each other, never breaking character. It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
Saturday afternoon I accompanied a camp mate to Temple as she was going to deliver her offering. As you walk inside the Temple, you feel as if someone places a 100 pound vest on your torso. The emotions of that place are heavy. Scribbled and stapled inside the structure are heart breaking messages to loved ones that have left this earth. I read many of those messages, and a sense of sadness engulfed me. It was an emotional moment. On the way back, my camp mate and I had a great discussion on the philosophical meaning of Burning Man 2017 theme: Radical Ritual. It was an amazing chat while we rode our bikes back to the city.
Watching the set up of the burn of the Man was one of the most surreal things I have seen in my life. A few hours prior to the start of the burn, art cars begin to form a circle around the structure, and they start blasting sounds and lights to set the mood. Tens of thousands of participants then hang inside this circle to watch the burn. Everyone has lights on them and the general aura of the place is one of euphoria. The spectacle of the man burning is one of the greatest fire shows I have ever seen.
It took me a long time to put into words what my experience at Burning Man was all about. Burning Man is a very unique experience: it is next to impossible to find something remotely comparable. If you were to ask me to describe Burning Man in one word, I would say that Burning Man is Magical.
I enjoyed the experience so much that I strive to work hard to make the pilgrimage to the event every year a reality.
