Burning Man is an annual eight-day event taking place in the United States, the state of Nevada, in the Black Rock Desert. It collects more 50 thousand person every year. The event starts on the last Monday of August, at zero hours one minute. Burning Man challenges its guests to give up goods and money, take care of each other like family, and have a great time. Imagine - for eight days the participants of the grand party are freed from the daily routine in order to get into a fairy tale. For a whole year they are preparing to become what they only dream of being - incredible characters, bright freaks, each participating in his own, as well as in the general intricacies of the performance.
The organizers themselves define the event as an experiment in community building radical self-expression, while completely relying only on himself. Works are set for a week in the desert contemporary art, often fantastic forms. Some of them are burned by the creators before the end of Burning Man. There are hundreds of "mutated" machines the most incredible appearance, many participants walk around in costumes of art characters, animals, objects and so on. Artists who came to the desert give performances, various dances are popular. DJs music is played around the clock on several dance floors. At the same time, each participant is responsible for his own life support (which includes food, water, protection from heat, wind, cold, a place to sleep, possibly a shower) and cleaning the desert from any traces of his stay; All this must be taken care of in advance.
The first burning of a small wooden man was in 1986, then on one of the San Francisco beaches, with a small group of friends. Subsequently, the circle of participants expanded and moved to its current location in the desert in Nevada. In 2015, 70 thousand people participated in the festival.
The Burning Man festival does not have one single purpose of its holding. To a large extent, the festival is created by themselves burners(eng. burners) - ordinary participants who are called to express the community, art(in the form of so-called installations), absurdity, decommodification(English decommodification) and general fun. The organizers call for active participation in the festival, attending the event as an observer is not approved.
All participants live at the campsite. Each camp has its own themes and the basic rule is: "to give to society, not to take", - they can offer you something for free. For example, food camps are preparing breakfasts, lunches and dinners, they not only feed a huge number of people, but also have the appropriate names: "Pancake Theater", "Twilight Spaghetti Theater", "Cheese Camp" and so on. Other camps are responsible for providing various services: massage, foot spa, hairdresser, there is also a camp where everyone can fix their broken bike. There are those who are happy to offer you sleep or rest to wait out the hot hours. They have huge awnings, under which you can find couches, cozy hammocks and hundreds of pillows. But the most interesting are camps that arrange sex lectures, erotic performances and contests. Tent ”Orgy Dom” provides a huge number of services: sex with your partner, orgies, blind sex and so on.
Declared 10 core principles:
1) Radical inclusion
2) Donation
4) Radical self-sufficiency
5) Radical self-expression
6) Public efforts
7) Responsibility
8) Leave No Trace
9) Participation
10) Here and Now
How to participate
This 2016 Burning Man festival will take place in August 28 to September 5 in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada.
The organizers of Burning Man do not support passive participation in the festival, so each participant must contribute to the event by presenting their work of art, concert or other performance. To buy tickets, you need to register on the site and fill out a form in which to briefly present your project to the festival. Only then can you submit a ticket purchase request.
How to get there to Burning Man: by plane to San Francisco, then transfer to the festival (transfer cost 40 euros per person).
Accommodation: all participants live in the campsite.
20 facts you need to know about Burning Man: eyewitness opinion
1) Dust can get everywhere.
2) Your parents and the parents of your friends represent only a small part of all possible types of adult life.
3) How strongly and hopelessly dependent the majority of the members of society.
4) You have no idea how much meaning can be put into a costume.
5) Waiting in line at the entrance can turn into glee if you knew what was waiting for you outside the gate.
6) An art object can make you want to quit your job and spend the rest of your life with a welding torch in your hands.
7) Boredom is always your fault.
8) This trip can change your life forever.
9) Camping can radically change your relationship with the people you always travel with.
10) You won't be bothered by the fact that you only shower 2-3 times a week.
11) That you need a bike. You will simply exhaust yourself trying to walk everywhere, and catching one of the art cars is a real success.
12) There are no garbage containers here. And there's no trash here. Each visitor cleans up after himself and takes the packages with him.
13) You will understand that you have never experienced anything like this, even if your life is connected with art.
14) People bring a lot of things with them. In fact, they are building a city in the middle of the desert.
15) It's always noisy here. If you arrive at 3 am, don't worry about waking up the neighbors.
16) You actually need a lot less sleep than you thought.
17) You visit parallel reality right here on planet Earth.
18) Even an activity like washing dishes can make you feel like you're taking part in a higher purpose.
19) You can feel safe at 3am in the middle of a dark street filled with 50,000 drunken strangers.
20) The desert can be so beautiful.
70 thousand crazy eccentrics from all over the world, 500 incredible installations and art objects, 7 days without money in a dusty and hot desert, among the participants are millionaires, hipsters and world celebrities - something like this can describe the wildest and most shocking Burning Man festival (“ Burning Man"), which takes place annually in the US state of Nevada.
It all started in 1986 when two friends burned a 2.5-meter statue on the beach in San Francisco and decided to repeat it the following year. Every year the number of friends grew, the statues got taller, and the parties got more fun. So this spontaneous performance turned into a regular festival, which was destined to become one of the largest, crazy and desirable events in the world.
Every year, during the summer solstice in the Nevada desert, where not a single representative of flora and fauna survives in extremely difficult conditions for existence, several tens of thousands of people gather and build a temporary utopian city of Black Rock City, replete with the craziest installations, for a week. , art objects and mutant cars. On the last day of the festival, after sunset, the participants burn the 32-meter statue of a wooden man and disappear without leaving any trace.
This year's Burning Man took place from August 27 to September 4, and the theme was "Radical Ritual".
The temporary metropolis of Burning Man is a giant clock face. At six o'clock is the central camp of Playa, opposite it, at twelve o'clock, is the temple. Various art events and performances are held at three and nine o'clock. In a place where there is only dust and sand for kilometers around, once a year an oasis blooms, a mirage city with its bars, cafes, cinema, hospital, post office and even its own airport.
Each participant must independently provide himself with everything necessary, equip himself with a place to live, and after leaving, leave nothing in the desert. Money is prohibited at the festival, something can only be purchased through barter or received as a gift. You can only buy ice and coffee. Everything else you need to bring with you: food, water, stove, bed linen, tent, sleeping bag, vehicle.
In an ordinary tent, it is bitterly cold at night, and during the day it is scorching heat, in which it is impossible to breathe. Craftsmen build themselves futuristic houses, lined with foil, with ventilation and air conditioning. Extremely difficult conditions of survival strongly bring together. Burners, as the participants call themselves, often stray into packs and interest groups.
Burning Man is about art, self-expression and self-confidence. The famous festival has its own 10 principles-commandments, which are sacredly honored by its participants. They were invented and prescribed in 2004 by one of the founders Larry Harvey. They sound like this:
- Radical expression.
- Radical self-sufficiency.
- Radical inclusion in what is happening.
- The principle of "here and now".
- Willingness to give and receive gifts.
- Responsibility.
- Leaving no trace.
- public efforts.
- Participation principles.
- Decommodification - independence from capitalist values.
The Burning Man festival is a massive experiment that challenges reality. It's in the order of things to listen to a lecture in the morning Nobel laureate in quantum physics, and then attend a master class in oral sex, then dance in salsa lessons, learn a few asanas in yoga, compete with a coach in self-defense courses, go to a Russian bath, Thai massage, get a tattoo or epilation in an intimate place.
Absolute surrealism reigns in the desert all week long. Only here you can see unicorns with a five-story building, pink flamingos in the sand, giant ships on wheels and the craziest freaks from all over the world.
Each fanciful installation is thought out in advance and created by the participants, the list of art objects is published on the official website of the festival, you can donate money to any of them. Burning Man is not only a global exhibition of contemporary art. It is also a rich charitable foundation, from which millions of dollars of grants are annually allocated to talented craftsmen.
A ticket to Burning Man costs from $ 500, another $ 80-100 will have to be paid for the entry of one car. Only two tickets will be sold in one hand, and you still have to manage to buy them. Tickets sell out within minutes of the sale opening.
What makes the participants give away such a lot of money and fly to distant lands to breathe dust for seven days? Maybe the opportunity to meet the most amazing people in the world. Tech geniuses, creatives, millionaires, hipsters, creatives, engineers, professors, PhDs and world celebrities: all class divisions are lost in the desert.
Giant windshields could hide a California hippie or a Wall Street executive. A naked man with a pink rabbit on his penis could be a hairdresser from London, or maybe a banker from Sweden and a father of three children. And in the queue for coffee you can meet a 70-year-old crazy grandfather from Jamaica, or you can meet Leonardo DiCaprio or Lady Gaga.
Burning Man is a cult festival for IT businessmen: it was here that Elon Musk came up with the concept of SolarCity - an industrial giant in the field of installing solar panels. Sergey Brin and Larry Page met future Google CEO Eric Schmidt at the festival. Mark Zuckerberg flew here by helicopter in search of inspiration and handed out cheese sandwiches to those who wished all day.
Giving and giving is one of fundamental principles cities in the desert. Each thematic camp distributes something free of charge to all participants. It could be ice cream, red caviar pies, violin lessons or spa certificates. Once a group of enthusiasts brought Cirque du Soleil to their tent, which performed for everyone. Here you can personally give anything: baubles, a bicycle, a monstrous art object or a ticket to a rock concert.
Regular cars are prohibited on the festival grounds. Here they move either on bicycles or on art cars - creatively transformed mechanisms, mutant cars, appearance and the size of which is limited only by the imagination and capabilities of the participants. Enthusiasts buy or find old school buses in the trash and make shark cars out of them, space shuttles, pirate ships, irons with wings or octopuses on wheels. Surreal footage from the movie "Mad Max" suddenly comes to life and becomes real.
By the way, the cost of some makeshift mobile homes can be several million dollars. For such projects, money is often asked from sponsors or collected on crowdfunding platforms.
At Burning Man, these frilly art cars can act as public transport, taking everyone to events and installations during the day, and turning into mobile discos at night with the coolest sound systems and expensive fluorescent lighting that illuminates everything around with a myriad of lights.
One of the most prominent mutant machines of 2017 was the Frenzied Transit, which self-ignited on the fourth day of the festival.
Each participant must come up with an unusual costume for himself. And then the crazy, the cooler! A kind of carnival of funny freaks. After all, why wear ordinary clothes in such an unusual and wild place?
In the middle of the desert, you can see an academic orchestra, where musicians in tailcoats play symphonies by Mozart or Beethoven. But 100 meters away, a half-naked crowd is shaking their dreadlocks to acid techno. Just a few steps away, people dressed as superheroes are boxing in a real ring. Nearby is a parade of bare-breasted girls. Around the main square, everyone who wants to run an ultramarathon. Models dressed in haute couture walk down the runway set right on the sand. And nearby, someone from a catapult launches a thousand balloons or a flaming piano into the sky. This madness is happening all over the place at the same time.
Every year artists, singers and musicians come to the desert. Katy Perry, Infected Mushroom, Armin van Buuren, Carl Cox, François Kevorkian and FreQ Nasty were there. Many of them spontaneously, impressed by what was happening, arranged a concert. This year the festival was attended by Lena Perminova, Paris Hilton, Sara Sampaio and other celebrities.
Interview: Alexandra Savina
TEN YEARS AGO I SAW PHOTOS WITH ALIEN DAWNS: the sun rises from white dust and people in suits are lost in endless space. I then thought: “Lord, how lucky the photographer! This is some incredible world, another planet.” I didn’t even know that this was a festival and even more so how to get there. About three years ago, I learned more about Burning Man and decided that going there and seeing everything with my own eyes was my new crazy dream. When making a visa for a trip to America, I said that I was going to Burning Man, but in fact I didn’t go anywhere then.
BURNING MAN FESTIVAL takes place annually in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada, USA. For the first time, the wooden figure of a man, which gave the name to the festival, was burned in 1986: the Americans Larry Harvey and Jerry James burned an effigy on the beach in San Francisco, on the day of the summer solstice. This year the festival was held for the thirtieth time, and the number of participants has increased from a few dozen to 70,000.
My second summer in New York was coming to an end, and I accidentally saw a photo on a friend’s Instagram with the caption “It will be dusty soon.” I wrote to her and found out that she was going to the Burning Man camp to build an art object. Tried to buy a ticket on sale for $390. Nothing happened, and I decided that, apparently, it was not fate. A week before Burning Man, after talking to a friend, I decided to try again and bought a ticket on Craigslist for $600 (which is unbelievable because tickets there cost $900-1200). Before last moment I didn't believe the ticket was real.
After all the fuss, I still ended up on the other side of the world, in the desert under the scorching sun. I thought that only young people go to Burning Man, but no - there was a 20-year-old girl who has been going to the festival for thirteen years, and an 80-year-old woman who came for the first time. It's almost "Futurama": there is no age, nationality and religion - there are only smiles and incredible costumes.
You can live at the festival in different ways. You can rent an RV - a giant bus for 3-10 thousand dollars with a toilet, shower and air conditioning. If you're traveling with a child or don't like camping, this makeshift hotel on wheels is a great option. There were guys who lived alone in tents, but this is not very comfortable: it is very hot in the desert during the day, and very cold at night. The six of us lived in a hexayurt that we had assembled ourselves. The camp had an awning, a kitchen and a shower for which water had to be brought.
Each camp is responsible for something. For example, there was a friendly Russian camp that made plov. There are camps that are in charge of art cars, clubs, bars and the like. You can come alone and come up with something to your liking - for example, after a hot day, I met a man who annually delivers cold beer around Playa. You can also be a volunteer - for example, pouring coffee or hanging lanterns. And when you are building an art object, an art car can easily drive up to you, the passengers of which will feed and water you for free. The only thing sold at Burning Man is coffee and ice; everything else can be obtained for free, because there is no money in the territory. There is a principle of giving gifts: you bring something with you, give it away for free in exchange for other things.
The main means of transportation on the territory is a bicycle: we bought them for ourselves at Walmart, and then just threw them away, because there is sand around Burning Man and everything breaks because of it. If you're tired of pedaling, you can hop on an art car and drive dancing merrily to your next destination. If you have fun in a different way, then you can move around on foot. I heard that Burning Man, although rare, does have fatalities - for example, those who fall asleep in the desert can be run over by an art car. To prevent this from happening, at night they hang everyone on themselves and on a bicycle. glowing garlands. Upon returning home, I woke up a couple of times at night: it seemed to me that I was lying on the Playa and that I was about to be crushed by a speeding art car.
At the beginning of the festival, everyone is given printed instructions, which say that you need to carry water with you all the time, that it is very difficult to be in the desert, that sunglasses are a must. One of the rules of Burning Man is to carry everything you need (water, warm clothes, goggles or a dust mask) and don't rely on anyone. At first we all observed it diligently, but in the end we relaxed. Yes, there are columns of caustic dust around, scorching heat and night cold, but you get used to everything - you squint, of course, but you can live. No incredible efforts to survive, as it seemed to me, do not need to be applied there. Perhaps simply because I have been hiking since childhood.
Like any other city Black Rock City has basic infrastructure - including emergency and security services - but the main concern for its condition falls on the shoulders of the participants themselves.
There is a rule at Burning Man: do not litter or leave anything behind on the Playa. When you gather camp, you pick up literally every speck and every hair. It turns out that there was nothing in the desert, then a giant city for 70-75 thousand people arrives for a week, and after it nothing remains - this, of course, is very cool. It's a shame this isn't common anywhere else.
We bought ourselves a lot of useful products: vegetables, fruits, nuts, cereals. Camping conditions don't mean you have to buy soups fast food. If you want healthy food, all in your hands. We slept from time to time - more often in the very heat or, for example, from ten in the evening until three in the morning, to meet crazy dawns. But I often thought that there was absolutely no time to sleep and rushed to take pictures on the Playa in the heat. But even if you do not sleep at all, you will have time to see at best a tenth of what is happening - too much is happening at the same time.
Many prepare costumes for six months or a year. Due to spontaneous gatherings, I turned out to be the most unprepared - the idea that a fur coat would be needed in California did not occur to me. When choosing an outfit, I would advise you to think about how things will look when the dust sits on them. I can say with confidence that you should not choose black, but shiny, white, light looks cool. Therefore, those who come to the festival usually have a strange costume flickering under a sand-colored fur coat, and someone simply wears fur coats on their naked bodies. During the day, everyone goes half-naked, and in the evening a masquerade extravaganza begins: hats, fur coats, flowers, masks, luminous garlands. Of course, when you look at it from the side, on a sober head, a lot of things look too theatrical. But it's still impressive.
FOR THE DESERT FESTIVAL its members are building the city of Black Rock City. From above, it resembles an incomplete dial or a giant web: the streets radiate from the center in rays. The center of the city is a huge Playa square, on which stands the figure of the Burning Man and other art objects.
In general, at Burning Man you just need to trust the moment - exactly what you need is happening around. Since I didn’t have the right costumes, and my friends had fifteen outfits with them, I also wanted something special. And I found second hand! It works on the same principle as everything at Burning Man: you leave something, and you take something for yourself. So I found a chic dress, which I also gave as a gift.
At Burning Man, everyone will find everything they want. If you want to do yoga, run in the morning, raise children, go to lectures on nuclear physics, you will find it. If you want to listen to music and dance - everything is for you. If you want to go to bars, arrange naked bike rides, wash in common showers - you will find this. Orgy camps are also at your service, drugs are welcome. In search of alcoholic adventures, you simply come to one of the free bars with your mug with a passport scan pasted on top. Despite the madness, this is still America, and without an ID they won’t pour you anything, even if you are over 80. Or you can just be alone and drive off into the desert, go around Playa in a circle where no one touches you - there is only you and a desert that seems endless. I don't know what kind of person you have to be to not like Burning Man.
There is a Time to burn application where you can see when what will happen, where and what time the DJ plays, where exactly the art objects are located, but I have never used it. There is no strict schedule at Burning Man - you just leave the camp, and everything happens by itself: you never know what will happen in a minute. This is some kind of concentrated version of life a few days long - especially in relationships. They say that it's not very good to go to the festival with a couple: everyone smiles at you and builds eyes - it's not so easy to be faithful. Although we had those in the camp who came in couples, and everything was fine with them.
Burning Man- this is a festival of contemporary art, and a lot of music venues, and numerous trainings that are arranged by the visitors of the festival themselves. Every year the festival has a specific theme - in 2016 it was "Da Vinci Workshop".
Despite the fact that Black Rock City is a utopian city, the Internet is here (for example, in the Artery building), so you can post a photo on Instagram and write to your mother that you are alive. But there's so much going on at the festival that you don't care at all virtual reality, even if you are an Internet maniac. I think it's silly to sit for two hours chatting with someone online when life is seething around you.
One of my most vivid impressions is the burning of the Temple. In it, people leave their memories, posters and letters about deceased loved ones. When it was burned, people really cried. It was strange for me: if you feel so bad, how could you come to the festival? I perceived Burning Man solely as fun, but everyone treats it differently - for some it's like a reboot of life. You find yourself in a completely different world, on another planet. I had nothing to burn, I did not leave anything in the Temple. But the action itself, of course, struck me.
One of the goals of my trip was to shoot an amazing photo essay. But in these two weeks I practically didn’t shoot anything: at first I was very afraid that the camera would break from dust, and then life began to spin in such a swift sandy hurricane that it was not up to the camera, and I stopped thinking about it altogether. And on the very last morning of the festival at dawn, a dust storm arose and the very picture appeared, for the sake of which I went to Burning Man. The one that I saw ten years ago in other people's photographs.
Festival starts at midnight on the last day of August and ends on the first Monday of September (in 2016 Burning Man took place from August 28 to September 5). The culmination of Burning Man is the burning of the wooden figure of a man, which takes place on Saturday night. Another important building that is erected every year is the Temple, where people come to say goodbye to their dead loved ones. The temple is burned on Sunday evening. Other art objects are often burned by their creators throughout the festival.
Incredible colors, objects drowning in dust, costumed characters that appeared from the void and immediately disappeared back. I jumped on my bike after a day without sleep, without a mask, without glasses, in frost and wind - just rushed with a camera at the ready, shooting without any bags and protection on the camera, in the middle of a dust storm. And I realized that this is why I came here. Not for the sake of electronic music, not for the sake of new friends, not for fun parties and friendly hugs, not to become part of the festival, building an art object, but for this. For a dream. At some point, the bike got stuck due to dust. Where I am? What to do? I can not see anything. The dust cleared a little, and it turned out that some guys were burning a fire nearby - just like in the fairy tale "Twelve Months". They hugged me, gave me tea - miracles always happen at Burning Man.
There was a huge queue to enter and exit Burning Man: we arrived almost a week before it began and stood for four hours. People who come on opening day can stand there for a day and a half. On the way back, we stood in line for about eleven hours - moreover, it was a five-kilometer drive. But Burning Man doesn't end when you get in line. Here someone knocks on your window, asks: “Do you want a melon?” - and hands you a sliced melon. The whole queue continues to live according to the principles of Burning Man, when you want to give everything, treat everyone, give gifts, dance and smile. It seems to me that in Russia it is customary to do this. For me, this was not something surprising, but someone will surely find it incredible.
When you come back to reality, you should probably pause first. Don't do drastic things. Reflect on the experience in silence. This is a very strong and vivid experience, to which everyone reacts differently. For those who are going to Burning Man, I would advise you to prepare for the festival more thoroughly than I do - because it suddenly turns out that you need a fur coat, luminous garlands and three times more money than originally planned. I would advise you to relax, disconnect from life and not make any plans.
I don't know if I'll go to Burning Man next year. Maybe I need a pause to take it all in. I did everything I wanted at the festival - and what I didn’t try, I probably don’t need.
a large number of people have come up, but real “burners” consider such people to be tourists and come to the very beginning of the festival, the last Monday of August – this year this first day fell on the 27th.
September 3-4 are already the days of collecting and cleaning the desert: it should remain as pristine as before the arrival of the "Burners". Everyone is leaving to wash off the lime-like white dust of Black Rock, and in a few days it will probably be hard to believe that until recently you indulged in radical self-expression among the sands (namely, “creating a society of radical self-expression” is one of the most frequently used formulations concept of action).
This festival counts its history - although many actively oppose such a designation Burning Man– has been going on since 1986, when 20 people burned an 8-foot figure on Baker Beach in San Francisco. As a sign in the makeshift Burning Man Museum in the black rock desert town that pops up for a week out of nowhere reads: “We don’t know why they burned a wooden statue: not in honor of the summer solstice ( most of the sources are sure of this option - approx. ed.), either on a tragic personal occasion, or on a joyful general occasion, well, or it was an act of collective artistic expression.
Alexander Boldachev
Danil Golovkin
Something else is known for certain - the authors of the first Burning Man with faces resembling an inverted triangle were Larry Harvey and Jerry James. As legend has it, Larry (now director Black Rock City LLC and president of the nonprofit Black Rock City Arts Foundation) called Jerry with this offer, he was surprised, but agreed to the offer. The following year, on the same Baker Beach, they, already in the company of almost eighty people, again decided to burn the wooden man, already 20 feet tall. From the second burning, there is even a photo taken by Stuart Harvey. He, the very next year, gave the wooden figure a name - Burning Man(as the museum plaque for this year says: “although, of course, there were many other options for the name for the wooden figure of a person that is burned”). In August 1990, when 800 people had already gathered on the California beach, the police only allowed the statue to be erected, but not burned. 90 enthusiasts decided later this summer, on Labor Day, to go to the Black Rock Desert to finish the job they started to ashes - and so the festival found its current location. Year after year, it acquired its other attributes: in 1990, the first musician played drums there, the next year, when there were already 600 participants, the Black Rock Ranger Volunteer Institute was established, and a year later the first themed camp appeared, eventually artists with the craziest art projects are also pulling up (now those who want to present art projects can apply to collect donations on the official website Burning Man). At least, that's what the plaques at the museum in Black Rock City say, but in this city-state, real and fictional can intertwine in the most bizarre way.
Black Rock City, 1996
What is known for certain is that the number of participants in the action is constantly growing. Because of this, the size of Black Rock City increased, and its infrastructure became more complicated.
“After 1995, and that was my third Burn,” recalls the newspaper’s publisher BRC Weekly“I was thinking about stopping coming, there were too many people, more than 3,000.” In 2013, the number of festival guests exceeded 60,000.
Veterans of the movement complain that the festival is no longer the same. But other veterans say that the "Burners" began to grumble that "the good old days were over" back in 1997, when the utopian city of Black Rock City, appearing out of nowhere and disappearing into nowhere, banned driving cars (now it is only art machines have the right) and carry firearms. "Old good times' continued to run out annually. In 1998, the streets created by trailers and headscarves have numbers and names, and the festival is declared thematic for the first time. The following year, the Burning Man moves to its current position- becomes the center of a city organized in the manner of a clock dial (aka playa from the Spanish "beach", also used in the American West to refer to beds of dry lakes, which is the Black Rock Desert) with names based on 15-minute sectors diverging from the figure and letter names (along the ring), then the participants are deprived of another ritual - lifting the figure by joint efforts.
Danil Golovkin
About which "burners" are real and which are not, and what annoys whom in modern Black Rock City, in my now favorite publication and the only reading for last week- already mentioned BRC Weekly(the newspaper, by the way, has only eight pages of A4 format, but the competing publication is a newspaper handed out at the entrance Black Rock Beacon- much more boring) even a sharply ironic controversy of contributors unfolds about this.
« Burning Man is a festival that you visit for transformation and seeking refuge from earthly life. The goal of this week-long utopian journey is to leave the playa with dignity, leaving no traces of your stay and change your attitude to reality. Simply put, it's gluten-free, with activated charcoal, and often fortified. chemical elements cocktail to cleanse the soul.
In the sands of the Black Rock desert, nations, subcultures, psychedelic lovers gather... the most humanistic aspect of all this is the mixing of different economic classes: technical geniuses like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, eccentric celebrities like P. Diddy with his famous pink umbrella are right here with the guys who think that healing crystals and olive oil can cure fibromyalgia.”
Danil Golovkin
Zuckerberg and Musk, according to the author's classification, are the one-percenters with their "super-packaged RVs ( residential vans - approx. ed.), water Fiji and Egyptian cotton linen. "They act like superstar DJs who had to take a commercial flight instead of a private jet, but they're sure it's just a temporary deprivation." The newspaper also goes over the veterans of the festival, who "will certainly tell you that it all ended in 1996." Other irritants to paper contributor Austin Gebbia (and in his annoyance he is often just and incredibly ironic) are lens-seeking Annie Leibovitz ("sparkle ponies"), techno-snobs who have been to Bergheim once but call it home, the stardust vagabonds (“organic, raw, non-GMO vegan souls brought to the desert by the universe itself”) and European tourists who bring “17 buses, a boat, a taxi and Noah’s Ark” to the playa.
As in a real democratic newspaper, another contributor under the funny nickname - Shutterslut - opposes the previous speaker on the next page: Zuckerberg was greedy last year and at his camp they gave everyone only half a cheese sandwich, not a whole one, really ruined your burn?!”
Publisher Adrian Roberts summarizes in his column: "As with most things in the world, the key here is to keep the balance."
Danil Golovkin
And the last quote from BRC Weekly, from the section "Overheard on the Playa": "I said that you will see something that you have never seen before, but I did not at all say that you would like it." In general, what is Burning Man what you will see here, why this pile of different people comes to the playa and why they like it - a question from the category "Who is to blame?" and "What to do?". It is difficult to answer it both before and after the “burn”. One of this year's art projects was even dedicated to who this Burning Man: three artists sat in a black cube for almost days and listened to the answer of everyone who wanted to this question, and then had to summarize and give a universal answer. I wouldn't be surprised if the answer is something along the lines of "it's all a group hallucination."
The unreal begins even before entering the desert. First, whether you're a vegan drifter or Zuckerberg, you need to get your ticket and stuff on the burner's survival list. Of course, an army of assistants can do this for Mark, but without these things it makes no sense to meddle in the desert. I, and this was my first “burn”, was sure that I was going to some rave festival-total art installation in the desert, where the main thing is to take a lot of incredible costumes, until I read this list. So that you understand exactly how much I did not understand where I was going at all: I bought boots Rick Owens to walk on the playa (rare shoes can survive the burn, and I, unfortunately, am still much poorer than Zuckerberg and cannot afford to throw out such shoes in a few days).
Among the things that are really necessary from the list: a ski mask (by the way, if you decide, take it with a yellow filter - ideal for sand), sunscreen with maximum protection, a mug with an ID printed or glued, thermal underwear, a down jacket, wet wipes, an impressive amount drugs, a bright flashlight, a respirator, sealed protection for the phone and other equipment, a sleeping bag, a bicycle and many other items of varying degrees of surprise. The camp provided us with part of the equipment, but the rest of the list was purchased by everyone on their own. In the sporting goods store where I bought most of it, the salesman stared at me in amazement: “Where are you going with such strange equipment?” - "To the desert." “And what will you do there?” - "Don't know". He thought I was out of my mind, and with good reason, but I really had a bad idea. I knew that a venture investor and co-founder of the company invited me to his camp SDVinterests Dmitry Volkov. Two years ago, he already did an art camp here with Oleg Kulik, now with Andrey Bartenev. And that we will not just observe everything, but will become direct participants: Bartenev made costumes for everyone and a certain performance prepared by Andrei together with Dmitry with our participation is expected. No more details. And a frightening list of things to survive. And no less frightening information that during the day in the desert the heat is over +40, and at night the temperature drops to plus five (and it feels even lower), and that the fine sand of Black Rock penetrates everywhere and everywhere.
Dmitry Volkov and Andrey Bartenev
Danil Golovkin
To finally finish myself off, I read stories and interviews about the event from past burns. What struck me was that none of the people seemed to have the enthusiasm to return to the desert again and many of the stories sounded like testimonies of survivors (maybe my fear did the selection of texts for me).
But fear and boots Rick Owens stayed at home, and I flew into the desert. Or rather, first to Los Angeles, and then to the casino city of Reno, from which most of the "burners" begin their journey to Black Rock City. Many of them, who are completely unbearable to start expressing themselves, can be identified already at the baggage belt, and then met more than once in the hotel and on the streets. In Reno, everyone finally cleans up, picks up rented RVs, stocks up on groceries and essentials, and just hangs around a rather pretty, especially in the non-casino part, provincial town 40 minutes from the famous Lake Tahoe and surrounded by many ski resorts. Here is one of the factories Tesla office will open soon Google, so Reno is a prosperous place. About 300 thousand people live here, and, by the way, none of the people we met asked if you were on Burning Man did not respond positively.
We are with two members of our camp, while most of the group, who arrived in Reno earlier, buys food and glues the windows of the RV from sand, we decide to have a good meal before leaving for the unknown and buy what we forgot. The question of food is decided by an authentic Vietnamese cafe golden flower(We will run into it first thing, as we return from the desert). We buy more medicines, protein bars, snacks, flasks (by the way, an incredibly useful item, and it would be better to transfer the ID or stick it directly on it, because, as it turns out, this item is needed from the list of necessary things for you to pour alcohol in bars). We also buy warm pop clothes in Antiques & Treasures- a vintage store that makes probably half of its revenue before Burning Man, and aesthetic jewelry in Hudson Vintage where at a reasonable price you can buy at least Tiffany 1940s though Lanvin 1990s
Danil Golovkin
The next day we leave with a group "second race" by a caravan of several RVs. Most of them are here for the first time, so it’s impossible to scare or encourage yourself with the details of what’s to come. Surprisingly, Andrey Bartenev is going to the festival for the first time. Although, as it will become obvious later, he should be an honorary citizen of Black Rock City. When other people break out of the gray house and express themselves radically in the desert, this magnificent eccentric artist escapes from our boring world home to a bright and amazing universe Burning Man.
Of the unusual items that travel with us on the RV is a giant inflatable figure of a green alien (we brought it at the request of Bartenev with the editor-in-chief GQ Igor Garanin and photographer Danil Golovkin, with whom they flew together from Moscow) and a harp. Or rather, two. One classical and one electric harp with a backpack-style speaker. The well-known harpist and composer Alexander Boldachev is carrying them. And all this and much more - for the performance of our art camp - Aliens? Yes!” at 9:15 Fire. We will arrange a procession of aliens to the accompaniment of a harp, we ourselves will also play some mysterious instruments. “There will be such sticks, they will have to be waved and make a sound,” Bartenev instructs. “Sasha, the harpist, will teach everyone how to wave properly.”
From Reno to Black Rock - 150 km, drive without traffic jams 2.5-3 hours, but at the entrance to Burning Man traffic jams are formed simply gigantic. We stood at the entrance for five hours. During this time, we study our RV. I'm interested in the economics of traveling with my fellow campers. Rent an 8-seater RV, in which no more than five people can live comfortably, for a week Burning Man cost 3-4 times more than regular time(from $2,000 according to official data, but more than $10,000 according to experience), but this is only part of the expenses: camp rental for an amount of $150 to ten thousand per person (so, according to Bloomberg$16,500 was priced at a private camp with air conditioning and wi-fi in 2014) if you don’t want to sleep in a hammock on the pier or on the foam in Central Camp for free, a car pass ($80), a ticket (from a couple of hundred to $1200 depending on whether you participate in the lottery or buy a ticket without it, and whether you have benefits), and other expenses for provisions.
Danil Golovkin
True, commodity-money relations will end at the entrance to the playa: then you will need money only to buy coffee and ice in Central Camp Cafe or pay for the services of filling and pumping water and the operation of the vacuum trucks in your RV (the latter are the kings of the desert).
In a traffic jam, we also master the main skill: we learn to save this very water, because its reserves in tanks are limited, and, in general, the first rule of the desert is not to spill a single drop of water in vain (pouring water, especially dirty water on the sand, is generally the most serious crime) . An equally serious crime is to litter, everything that is yours must be carried with you, disposed of in your own camp and taken out of the desert at the end.
By eight o'clock we were in the camp, the territory and everything around looks surreal, but not dangerous. The desert quickly explains why respirators and masks are needed: a storm is rising and the men of the camp are about to hold a kitchen tent. From the side it looks amusing, like in a cartoon "Wind" Robert Loebel.
In the evening we go for a walk and look at art objects. They are located in an uninhabited part of the playa, and the most incredible art cars drive along it, which you can jump on and ride. There are very beautiful installations like "The Tree" with luminous petals, but in general, the first impression is Disneyland for adults. Obviously, you need to find the right places and participate in everything. In general, participation is one of the main principles of the Burner, here one cannot be a passive spectator, one must certainly bring something. Someone gives lectures or reads Tarot, someone treats you to pizza or cocktails, arranges performances or concerts. What you will not find in the gigantic territory of Black Rock City. Burning Man for each his own. If you ask someone who has been, then someone will say that there is a lot of art here, someone will talk about shamans, someone about sex drugs, rock and roll. In fact, 60-70 thousand people come here and create a dystopian world for a week, in which there is everything: art, raves, orgies, as well as morning yoga, tea ceremonies, barbecues and origami master classes. Everyone chooses his own. You can see in advance what you are interested in using the booklet issued at the entrance or mobile application iburn. Or you can just trust the moment - and this is the most interesting thing. Mark only the beginning of the route, and then walk or ride a bike across a vast territory, following the advice of random oncoming people or simply moving towards the lights.
For some, everything that happens reminds "Mad Max", but for a Russian person all this is undoubted - "Kin-Dza-Dza". Both aesthetically and because conditional matches cost much more than money.
Danil Golovkin
On the morning of the second day, we help Andrey Bartenev hang up the costumes and choose props for ourselves. I am quickly drawn in. “You choose my favorite things,” Andrey says. He was preparing for a trip to the festival for three months, he closed his gallery for a month "Here on Taganka" and made a temporary Burning Man Station. He brought 40 suitcases of costumes to the playa - both for the procession and for our self-expression outside of it.
Our camp at first resembles a pioneer camp. Communities and coalitions are being formed, only the choice of costumes unites and captivates everyone. I take a gold short dress with bulls and a cap with a gold cockscomb. It seems to me that I look extremely extravagant (by the last day I will be surprised by this inconspicuous casual outfit). In this form, I go on a bicycle to watch art objects on the playa during the day, until the very heat - and personally I like them much more in the sunlight.
We return to the camp, Bartenev still continues to sort something out. People periodically come into the tent and ask if this is a distribution of costumes (and giving away or changing things is another tradition of the “Burners”). He explains that this is the props of the camp, but gives everyone little things so that they do not get upset. I get involved in the process and take a lot of plastic beads from Bartenev to give to those I meet. It's accepted here.
Meanwhile, Bartenev moves on to decorating the camp. Many are willing to help him. One of the decor elements of the tent-dining room is green flags, someone cuts the colored threads found and hangs the flags on them. As it turns out later, these were harp strings worth about €800. It's good that there are spares - the performance will still be.
At night, we go for a walk again, approaching the issue of outfit more responsibly: I’m wearing something complex on top of another eccentric one, a bunch of accessories, a headband with an alien’s head and false eyelashes in the form of feathers. In general, false eyelashes and the most incredible luminous accessories for the night should be added to the list of essentials (the latter, by the way, really make life much safer when you walk or ride a bicycle through the dark desert from one art object to another or ply between raves: without lights, you may not be noticed and simply knocked down).
Danil Golovki
I would like to add a fur coat to the costume, which Bartenev brought several dozen, but we are both unlucky and lucky with the weather - it is very warm at night. As old-timers tell us, for the first time since 2006. Two men over 50 at the festival for the 17th time and in their memory this is only the second case of such heat.
There are generally a lot of "burners" in age, and not all of them are veterans, some began to radically express themselves already at a respectable age. The youngest "Burners" look about six years old. While I think about the children here, we are crossing the desert at night on a giant sheep. We pass a climbing wall with a bar at the top. A man dressed as a pink plush bunny with an unpublishable inscription on the back is climbing the wall. For some reason I think that he is a clerk, and what a thrill it must be when you sit in the office 358 days a year, turn into a bunny at seven, which climbs to the bar along the sheer wall.
Dmitry Volkov advises watching playa not at night, but at dawn - and the light is the most beautiful, and the most persistent ravers return from parties in different states of altered consciousness across the desert. Looking ahead, I will say that we will go to the playa at dawn in a couple of days with a girl from our camp. Moreover, we will take yoga mats, put on alien costumes and go to the installation in the form of a giant pink flamingo. And there will be nothing too strange or exalted in this. Here you won’t shock or attract attention with this, you can only cause a smile, approval, they will tell you how beautiful it is. And this “beautiful” may be about the asana, not the costume. They can hug. Hugs are generally one of the main currencies here, and main value Burning Man- People. Those who, even for a week, can build a world that lives on completely different principles. A world where they do not litter and truly conserve water. A world in which neither the telephone, nor the Internet, nor just communication works (in the coffee line, the guy in dreadlocks shouted: “What are you staring at your phones for? Trump, unfortunately, is still president and you don’t need to know anything more from the news” ). Here the money is worth very little. Of course, if you live in the comfort of an RV, you've already spent money, but that's not the point. A very illustrative example is a cafe with paid coffee. A couple of years ago, guys came to this cafe in the morning and in the evening and put a box with $ 500, exchanged $ 5 bills - "for your drinks." And so every day.
Danil Golovkin
This story is told to me by a volunteer from Michigan (and historically from Leningrad), who has been flying here by plane for many years and offers anyone who wants to ride it on the playa. And he is not the only one here - many pilots offer free tours.
Michigan volunteer donates patches and recaps the coffee situation: services ruin Burning Man.
Another random stranger, a photographer from Chicago who has been coming here since 2009, thinks otherwise:
“People say that everything deteriorates because they come for the first time and believe in an ideal world, admire it. Then they come back and see that the world is not perfect, and they begin to say that everything is deteriorating. But those who come for the first time are still delighted. Burning Man changes and stays the same. It grows and becomes more diverse. In the first year, I made a list of everything I want to see, and then I just threw it away - here you have to go with the flow ("let everything go by itself").
us it go with the flow sometimes to the carousel, then to the “beaver eating show” (as a girl from our camp mistakenly translated the erotic performance found in the book, not understanding American slang), then to the temple of the dead. The last one is an impression. amazing strength. Among the noise of parties and performances, the hum of art machines driving around the desert, you find yourself in the absolute silence of this temple. memento mori.
On the third day, we arrange the first procession of aliens. Bartenev seems to be a little nervous. Volkov is calm and waving the flag. We learn to play strange things that have to be swung quite hard to make an otherworldly sound. We go to the statue "Burning Man", which this year is installed inside a wooden temple (the theme of the year is Radical Rituals), column. It is closed by those carrying a giant inflatable head of an alien, and Volkov himself with a flag on a pole is at the head. Watching everything that happened through the mesh of the alien mask to the sounds of a strange contraption and a beautiful harp was one of the most powerful impressions. We have a strong competition Area 51.
Then I ask Volkov how he is doing here. He says that for him everything is not like for a simple "burner" - a lot of preparation. On the playa, he is sure, a unique situation is being created: it covers you physically and psychologically, both because of radical self-expression and because of the really difficult conditions of the desert.
“When I return from here, work begins abruptly and there is no exit period,” Volkov continues, “but photos remain, then memories pop up.”
With Bartenev before preparing for Burning Man As it turns out, they did not personally know each other, although they had many common acquaintances. “I also wanted to purchase Bartenev’s works for my collection, and now they will have their own very personal story,” Dmitry continues. “Bartenev generally suits the place very well: he is a master of performance.”
The next day we arrange a second procession - it seems to us that we worked better than yesterday. And at some point I'm already generally more of a green man than creative directorRBC Style or an expert in cut diamonds.
But you have to get out of the image and turn in the costume: the little green men will then go to Shanghai, where an exhibition will be arranged.
Other costumes are given to us. According to the Burner tradition, Bartenev distributes some things to those who look into the camp - so that some "Burners" now have real imaginations of art.
10 Burner Principles
One evening, when everyone is already much more aliens than those who were before, Dmitry offers to introduce himself. “I am a venture capitalist and a philosopher,” he says, standing in a cap with a colander on his head. “Lawyer,” continues the performance of a man in a fur coat with mechanical plush hares. “The head of an investment fund,” says another in a gray felt porcupine jacket. And now it all seems much more surreal than what it was before, when everyone was just little green men. Or chasing the RV dewatering machine to try to lure it into our camp on bikes wearing elaborately painted suits and tinfoil hats on their heads, or... The list is endless.
It's only when you leave that you realize how cool it was. This is better than Vipassana and generally the perfect digital detox. Yes, I started to monitor my trash more and stopped constantly grabbing the phone in my eternal work hysteria. And all this is trifles compared to the main conclusions and changes, which I will leave as something intimate to myself - and this is only the result of the first hours outside the playa.
In general, the moment of entering reality from the desert is very interesting: the appearance of a telephone signal, the first store at a gas station where you have to pay with money, but out of habit you want to give the cashier Bartenev's beads and hug him.
I receive three SMS, while 3G has not yet turned on and everything else has not fallen: the bank about replenishing the account, my mother with a text about the fact that my friend cannot get through to me and is very nervous, and mailing from LeForm— here she comes back, my real life.
You won't see this anywhere else. EVERYTHING is possible at this party.
Far back in 1986 small company friends, led by artist Larry Harvey, made a small figure out of scrap metal and wood, dragged it to one of the beaches of San Francisco, doused it with gasoline and burned it in public. Such an unusual spontaneous art event interested the public, many wondered - what else would the organizers come up with cool?
The fantasy of friends turned out to be limitless, as a result, the world received an annual colorful festival called Burning Man (English - a burning man).
We tell you important facts that you need to know about the Burning Man festival - why you should visit it (at least once in your life), what you should be afraid of, how to prepare for it, and who you can meet there.
1. Ghost town in the desert
Burning Man is unlike any other festival in the world. This is a large-scale fantastic event, during which every year participants and organizers build a real tent city in the Nevada desert.
A temporary "settlement" with an area of several hectares is being built in a semicircle. It has a mandatory infrastructure with streets, dozens of dance floors, art objects and installations of unrealistic forms.
The symbol of the event is the same wooden statue of a man - Burning Man.
2. Every year - a variety
Since 1995, the festival has different themes, and, accordingly, the "Burning Man" is also different. For example, last year the theme was "Leonardo Da Vinci's Workshop", a year earlier "Carnival of Mirrors" and so on.
This year the theme of the event is "Radical Ritual". Will tie everything to religions.
3. The most harmless holiday for the outside world
Environmental friendliness- one of the most important principles of the festival "Burning Man".
Interestingly, after the completion of the eight-day holiday absolutely all garbage, parts from the installation are taken away participants and organizers.
Littering in the tent-car camp is strictly prohibited. After the end, nothing should remain on the territory that would remind of the festival.
4. All-consuming madness
Only here you will find orgy tent. Anyone can enter there, but only in pairs. Alas, there are no pictures from there, but it is there and every time it collects a full house.
It is curious that the number of those present at the festival is noted in the column "population" (English population), and not "visitors", as at any other festival. This is the main feature of the event.
The organizers encourage visitors to be participants, not observers.
Every year the "population" is growing, in 2005 it was 25 thousand people, in 2016 already 75 thousand.
5. The perfect place for creative people to express themselves
Those who think that freaks from all over the world gather here are deeply mistaken.
"Burning Man" allows you to reveal the talent of absolutely anyone: an artist, inventor, architect, designer, musician.
Each visitor carefully thinks over his image, I repeat, personal involvement in what is happening is an indispensable condition of the festival. Here the rule works perfectly - they are met by clothes and the more creative the outfit, the better.
Each sculpture, costume, installation is symbolic and reflects the spirit of the holiday itself.
The most interesting thing is that in a suit, first of all, the image, originality and idea are highly valued than the quality of workmanship.
6. No money relations and commerce
On "Burning Man" you can forget about money. At all. Relationships are based on exchange original gifts. For example, you can get a drink at a bar for a dance or an interesting story. Barter that you will not find anywhere else.
For money, you can only buy coffee at the central camp and ice at the Arktika camp.
7. Here you can meet a billionaire or a pop star
Over the years of its existence, Burning Man has been visited by many world famous people. Names that pop up most often major figures IT world. Sergey Brin (one of the founders of Google), Mark Zuckerberg (creator of Facebook), Elon Musk (founder of Tesla) have been here.
Since 2012, top managers of leading companies in Silicon Valley have been coming here. Apparently, to get inspiration for their future projects.
Thanks to "Burning Man" search system Google got its famous themed doodles, those very funny "animals" on home page search engine. Their history can be read at separate Google page.
Among the famous DJs who performed at the festival, one can single out, for example, Paul Oakenfold. Participants for last years were model Heidi Klum, actress Cara Delevingne, Ann Hataway, Susan Sarandon, singer Katy Perry, actor Scott Eastwood, singer Puff Daddy, actor and singer Jared Leto and many others.
8. Everyone prepares for the holiday, otherwise you won’t survive
You should also not think that the preparation is associated exclusively with costumes or art objects.
In connection with the sandy wind, it is necessary to have an anti-dust mask (or face mask) and special glasses with you. The "city" lives around the clock, for night movements you need a reliable and powerful flashlight (best of all, one that can be fixed on your head). All phones and cameras, respectively, must be in dust- and moisture-proof cases.
In addition, you should always have a whole flask of water, dehydration occurs very quickly.
On the official website of the holiday you can find the corresponding instructions for survival.
Burning Man is a festival-phenomenon, an atmosphere of freedom of expression and emancipation. The participants claim that there is no similar art event in the world in terms of energy. People come here for emotions and inspiration. It's worth driving.
If you're not sure yet, here's another photo.
