Burning Man: Encyclopedia II - Burning Man - Primary focus of the festival

Burning Man - Primary focus of the festival

Participation. Burning Man is held to be a "spectator-free" zone—i.e., only participants are allowed. As such, all attendees are ostensibly expected to contribute to the community, but the nature of this participation is left up to each individual, and in reality a large number of spectators are present with cameras in hand.

Leave No Trace, an ecological concept. Burning Man takes place in the middle of a normally uninhabited desert environment known as a playa, which is deep in the middle of a large, prehistoric dry lake bed. Participants are told to be very careful not to contaminate the playa with litter (commonly known as MOOP, or "matter out of place"). In addition, while fire is a primary component of many art exhibits and events, materials must be burned on burn platforms. At one time, burning was allowed to take place directly on the ground of the playa, but the formation of burn scars was observed. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), which maintains the desert, has very strict requirements for the festival. Weeks after the festival has ended, a team of volunteers remains in the desert, cleaning up after the temporary city and making sure that no evidence of the festival remains. A similar mantra heard at Burning Man is, "Don't let it hit the ground." An important point to note is that the event survives only so long as the BLM is satisfied that the 10 day event "Leaves No Trace" upon the playa.

Commerce-free event. No cash transactions are allowed at Burning Man. The participants instead rely on a gift economy, a sort of potlatch. Since the earliest days of the event, an underground barter economy has also existed, in which burners exchange material goods and/or favors with each other; however, this is largely discouraged by the event organizers. The only commerce that has been allowed are sales of coffee and ice at Center Camp. Ice sales benefit the local Gerlach-Empire school system; coffee sales fund the structure and contents (including labor) of Center Camp. Additionally, the powers that be at Burning Man contract with Green Tortoise to provide a fee-based shuttle service that provides round trip bus rides into the nearby town of Gerlach, Nevada. In addition, Johnny on the Spot, the company which also services the event's portable toilets, is permitted to charge for the emptying of RV waste tanks. Besides this, participants must buy tickets to attend the event. Tickets are sold through the Burning Man ticket website.

Arts and crafts are featured, particularly outsider art and visionary art. Creative expression through the arts is encouraged at Burning Man. Large-scale art installations, theme camps, music, performance, and guerrilla street theatre are amongst the most common art forms shared at Burning Man. Sculptures and interactive installations are generally placed on the playa, in the open space surrounding the Man. Many are along specific art-walk pathways that lead to and from the central Burning Man complex, while others are scattered throughout the open playa. The largest and most active public theme camps are generally clustered on the Esplanade, Black Rock City's inner circle "main street." The Burning Man Opera was a significant interactive community performance that ran for over four consecutive years. Most recently, the ritual burning of David Best's temple projects have rivaled the burning of the central Burning Man complex in community significance and popularity. The ornately designed, three story high temple buildings borrow from Southeast Asian and Balinese architecture, and are used as repositories for the memories of deceased loved ones. A few years ago, local law enforcement objected to a gay-themed art installation at a camp called "Jiffy Lube." The art was moved to a more private area of the camp, giving rise to charges of censorship and homophobia from a number of quarters. [1]

Each year an art theme is declared by the Burning Man organization. The practice of annual themes began with the 1996 burn; a list of themes is included in the timeline within the history section.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Primary focus of the festival", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki