You might not think Dr. Seuss and the wild, artistic, once-a-year pop-up community that is Burning Man would be a natural combination — but actually, if you thought about it for a few minutes, you probably would. This video by Tedshots, based on Dr. Seuss’s famous graduation present book Oh, the Places You’ll Go! is pretty all-around wonderful — it’s a lovely look at the vast, happy weirdness of Burning Man (you might even see a few familiar sights) and a reminder that you are free to go in any direction you choose, no matter how zany. After all, out there things can happen — and frequently do, to people as brainy and footsy as you. Click through to see just exactly what.
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Around 50,000 people gathered for this year’s Burning Man festival, and the desert landscape was an electrifying vision from space. The radar satellite photo of Black Rock City looks completely aflame, but the reflective red and yellow areas of the image are flat surfaces like cars and other structures that capture the radar signal strongly. [via reddit]
For those of us who have never experienced Burning Man firsthand, the annual happening in Black Rock City can feel mysterious. What does it mean to build a city from nothing? What do attendees do all week? What exactly is so magical about trudging around in the desert at the hottest time of year? James Cole provides a rare glimpse into the daily life of Burning Man in “Timelapse-icus Maximus,” a tilt-shift video filmed at this year’s event. In addition to gorgeous, overhead shots of Black Rock, we see participants constructing massive art projects, performing costumed rites, and riding around in crazy, homemade vehicles. The festival looks even more beautiful by neon-lit night — and, of course, the “Burn Night” footage (although some of it was apparently lost) is thrilling. Take a virtual trip to Nevada after the jump, and indulge your curiosity further by visiting our gallery of Burning Man 2011 photos.
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Once every summer, a city rises in the Black Rock Desert of northern Nevada. Artists, musicians, performers, DJs, and wild adventurers head out and join in the communal space. Surreal structures erupt — meditative mirrored Coliseums, fiery sculptures, and, of course, the Temple of Transition. This year, our favorites included Dalek’s robotic art car, the Steampunk Octopus, and a giant stroboscopic zoetrope by Peter Hudson. To say what happens here is “art” isn’t exactly accurate, as the spectacles, happenings, and experiences are so removed from society, it transcends labels. It has to be experienced… or spied, voyeuristically. Here are the photographic highlights from those that ventured out this year and came out Burning — a group that included Flavorpill co-founders Mark Mangan and Sascha Lewis.
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Today at Flavorpill, our friends at TIME schooled us on some things that we didn’t already know about Labor Day. We refused to participate in the new Batmanning trend. We fought back feelings of nostalgia while watching a reunited Temple of the Dog play “Hunger Strike,” “Say Hello 2 Heaven,” and “Reach Down.” We were frightened by the news that Perez Hilton is working on a children’s book. We tried to decide which one of these wonderful TV families we’d like to be part of. We craved a slice of candy corn cake. We listened to some of our all-time favorite female singers cover Bob Dylan. We wondered if there’s any truth to the idea that Close Encounters of the Third Kind launched post-modernism. We saw a photo of the burning of the man at this year’s Burning Man festival. We paid a visit to the air sickness bag virtual museum. And finally, we learned that the Mister Softee jingle has lyrics — and they’re mildly disturbing.
The largest funding platform for creative projects in the world, Kickstarter is the DIY artist’s dream-come-true. With a great idea, a fabulous video presentation, and some tempting swag, almost any project — regardless of how fanciful it may seem — can get off the ground. We dug deep into the site to pick the 10 best art projects, including some that are still open to contributions. From Spencer Tunick’s round up of nudes at the Dead Sea and Molly Crabapple’s five-day confinement making wall drawings to Swoon’s musical architecture in New Orleans and Eric Schwabel’s human light suit on the playa of Burning Man, Kickstarter helps make these imaginative projects a reality. Watch the highly entertaining video presentations that funded the projects and let us know if you’ve contributed to any Kickstarter dreams.
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Consider yourself brave? Outlandish? The kind of person who, in the privacy of your own home, contemplates trading it all in for a shot at competitive luge? Or do you prefer to read about the world in books, rather than experience it directly? A desk jockey with a Kayak/Qixo obsession, forever running the numbers on the ticket to Bangkok you’ll never buy?
Either way, you’ll find some serious inspiration in our list of the world’s most extreme art vacations. Use them for fuel for your next hijinks, or simply read on, and weep with relief in the knowledge that you’re safe at home.
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Burning Man is well known for its lawless nature, psychedelic atmosphere, and avant-garde spirit, with a reputation for everything experimental and no patience for spectators. For many it’s a spiritual quest. For others, a break from reality. It’s also arguably the largest organized coalescence of artists, engineers, architects, fire spinners, college professors, DJs, bankers, designers, doctors, shamans, students, and CEOs on the planet, where everyone is intimately connected to each other by the city that they build together — a city that temporarily provides a new kind of structure free from externally and self-imposed limits, through which citizens choose to live as they want.
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View the photo slideshow now>>
Each year, thousands flock to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert to create, participate, gawk, and gasp in marvel. A beautiful spectacle, Burning Man is like a Dali painting on one too many psychedelics. For one week, the playa is filled with bright, garish neon lights, sweeping and blinking to all; oversized sculptures or structures of every material, shape, and twisted design; bicycles wholly covered in plastic flowers, fur, and dangling balls of light; and art cars creatively re-imagined to resemble skulls, wagons, birthday cakes, and other creepy crawlies of the night. It is utter wonderment watching a city spring up from nothing into an endlessly colorful feast of pure sights, smells, and sounds… and then just as quickly, melting back into bleak emptiness. Read More »
