Burning Man Festival:

Although I enjoy reading about folklore, especially proverb and folk tale analysis, my favorite pastime is to be a participant/observer on the front lines of folklore. Besides collecting jokes, proverbial sayings and urban legends, I attend local festivals when I can. A participant/observer at a festival can glean worthy insight into community values and customs. Not only can such research tell us much about the people observed, it can help us to better understand our own values and customs. Though most of the local festivals I have attended are quite small (Holy Ghost Festival, Horseradish Festival, Weed Carnavale--stereotypical small-town festivals), during the last few years I have had the chance to study a fairly large and interesting festival taking place about 230 miles from COS. Below I offer a few of my observations on the Burning Man Festival, some photographs I took at the festival, and a few sites for those wishing to explore the topic further.

Purpose of Burning Man:
Like other festivals, Burning Man is primarily a celebration of shared community values or beliefs. What makes Burning Man a bit different, however, is that the "community" exists out in the Black Rock desert of Nevada for only a week. Du photo of 1999 Burning Man ring those few days thousands of celebrants gather,create a city where none had existed, and share their values primarily through artistic expression and interaction. According to the original founder of Burning Man, the purpose behind the festival stems from the fact that "Today, as Americans, we live in a world in which the power of the individual seems dwarfed. Who or what is any one of us amid the impersonal forces which drive corporate business or government bureaucracy? We have become a passive people. Our freedom to choose has become the freedom to choose between products. Our inner lives, increasingly, do not belong to the world around us. We have been deprived of community. We live, as consumers, in isolation from one another, and our political liberties begin to seem trivial." In another article he continues the thought: "We have become a nation of dilettantes. We haven't anything to rally round. There's no ideal held high enough for everyone to see, and so we remain in our private worlds, our subcultures. Individuals are stranded, their experience trivialized because they can't make a broader connection. There is no whole to be a part of."

Although the above stated purpose makes sense, and it is quite likely the purpose as understood by Photo of Burning Man 1999 participant the organizers of Burning Man, I noted during the festival that the organizers had to sometimes remind attendees about the event's "official" function/purpose. I suppose this is no different than the "function" battle over other holidays in America (consider Labor Day or Memorial Day--while most of America sees Labor Day as a day to BBQ and relax, the unions see it as a day to promote their community values; Military groups also find they must work quite hard to reinvigorate the original purpose of the Memorial Day into public celebration).

Who Attends: Photo of Ministry of Statistics at Burning Man
Beside at least one folklorist and a plethora of news media, there were over 25,000 participants at Burning Man 2001. It did seem to be a populist phenomena, for those present could not be so easily pegged as simply belonging to America's counter culture. I observed young and old, rich and poor, hippie and yuppie, new-age hipsters and grounded empirical rationalists. Yes, the counter culture was well represented, but so were the silicon valley technologists. According to the Burning Man Ministry of Statistics, attendees at the 2000 festival were about 60% male; 58% were from California, 5% were from Canada, and 3% were from other countries; 36% earned more than $50,000 a year, 23% earned less than $20,000 per year; 22% were agnostic or atheist, 13% were Protestant or Catholic, and 7% were Jewish; 63% were sure that attending Burning Man had changed their life; 3% were Republicans, 21% were Democrats, 28% Green, and 11% Libertarian. Using an audio recorder at the 2002 festival, Stephanie Bullis asked a number of attendees why they came to Burning Man and what they liked about it. While the reasons were quite varied, most seemed to admire the community support for radical self expression, that the shared exposure to the playa's harsh elements produced a strong sense of community, and that the ritualistic creation and/or destruction of art could be a transformative experience. For a bit more on this, you can listen to a RealAudio file containing five very short interviews I selected from Stephanie's more complete audio project.

Shared Community Values of Attendees:
The shared community values of significance, at least according to my observations, consist of a positive attitude about self-expression, a belief that art should play a role in communicating values, and an acceptance of the claim that personal transformation can lead to social change. In fact, much of the art at Burning Man is interactive (role-playing, music making, finding one's way through a maze) and the interaction is expected to both transform the individual and eventually lead to a popularization of Burning Man values in mainstream society. There is also a generally negative attitude about the waste associated with Photo of free ice cream being given out at Burning Man uncontrolled consumerism, but neither technology or capitalism are viewed as specifically responsible for the problem. Lastly, there is a frustration with the social alienation common to mass culture, and the Burning Man participants show a high level of volunteerism, an eagerness to participate in interactive art, and a desire for "gifting" (the act of giving something of value to another person and not expecting a return gift or payment). Volunteers put out the daily newspapers, greet arriving attendees, light the streets at night, help set up art, and take care of the hundred other tasks associated with building and maintaining a city in a most inhospitable environment. Though bartering certainly does exist, it is viewed as just a step up from general commerce--where interaction is brief and and non-transforming. Gifting, on the other hand, is highly valued, and one might be offered a shampoo, an ice cream cone, a mixed drink or a massage. Those giving the gift seem content to vicariously enjoy happiness, though more than one informed me that they believe receiving a gift will likely cause the recipients to pass along some gift to others. The festival's general ban on vending and selling makes the gifts more valuable, for you can't purchase an ice cream cone or mixed drink anywhere, and anyone selling such an item would be removed from the festival.

What I Observed: Photo of sub rising from the playa sand
At Burning Man, like so many other festivals, there was both the conscious and unconscious borrowing of rituals and symbols from other holidays and historical festivals. Many components common to other festivals (parades, costumes, dancing, food, alcohol consumption, contests, pageantry, and music) were also observed at Burning Man, though other common components (selling of arts and crafts, events for seniors, crowning of king and queen, carnival rides, and farm-related events) were not observed. Of course, even the most common festival component takes on a different look at Burning Man (where a parade might include hundreds of men and women in red lingerie). Also, unlike so many local festivals that cater to children (as children are often a significant part of the shared community values), Burning Man's main appeal was to the child within the adult, i.e., a miniature golf course with a very adult theme, and free body painting rather than just face painting. At times, I also observed what seemed to be a heavy-handed attempt to incorporate some sort of sacred meaning into wh Photo of tree made of bones at Burning Man at I would consider a mainly secular festival.

The material objects and events held were often most creative, showed wit, and many made a social comment. At any moment, one is as likely to come across an alien opera or satirical puppet show as encounter a 5000 watt rave or a parade of nudes. The art on the playa can be staggering in its size and mesmerizing in its message. Giant fire-breathing dragons, lost ships rising from the sands, and multistoried temples captivate the eye; your body can actually feel the riotous beat from an interactive percussion sculpture, and the smell of smoke and incense ride the warm breeze (view a few images of art enjoyed on the playa during BM 2002). At night, there is a compelling chaos where one feels, rightly, that just about anything can happen (view Real Media video clip and images of night scenes during the 8/31/02 burn). Participants, far away from their ordered lives, take advantage of the anonymity and pockets of disorder erupt. The bizarre costumes and cacophony of sounds create a dreamlike atmosphere, and walking through the theme camps is a feast of unexpected scenes and sounds, every bit as nonlinear as the Internet. Perhaps most interesting was how the "created community" maintained a supportive environment for even the most outlandish creative endeavors and artistic expression--nothing seemed to be judged solely by appearance, and I must admit that my own perceptions about art and community were broadened by the experience.

Operating at a less significant level, but still quite interesting for me, is the Burning Man vocabulary--a mix of words and phrases that mostly evolve from the somewhat unusual situations common to the festival on the playa. Here are a few words and phrases I collected:
Civilization or photo of long lines at the porta potties

Playa Hair--the dusty, wind-blown, and sweaty look common on the playa.
Playa Platforms--the inches-thick mud sticking to you shoes from walking on the playa after a rain.
Playa Time--lots of scheduled events start late, sometimes hours late, on the playa.
Piss Clear--the refrain used to remind others to drink water until their urine is clear (also name of newspaper).
The Burn--the culminating burn of The Man statue on the playa.
Theme Camp: a concept camp that is somehow interactive and welcomes participants.
El Wire--electroluminescent wire--a very popular nighttime accessory.
Pissography--the half-finished words or lame art created by those that urinate on the playa.
Dicket--the ticket one gets for engaging in pissography.
Civilization--the long line at the porta-potties.
Burnocrat: an official at BM who is obsessed that everyone follow all the rules.
Black Rock Geyser--water truck that sprays attendees as it drives around the streets.
Obtainium--certainly not a new element; it's all the free stuff used by BM participants to build the camps and city.
Buzzkill--a stupid behavior that forces one to return to reality, i.e., not drinking enough water.
MOOP--Matter Out Of Place: refers to anything on the playa that should not be there, i.e., cigarette butts on ground, gum wrappers blowing around, and in 2004 the "No MOOP in the POOP" slogan came about because MOOP in the porta-potties (AKA Blue Room) was plugging up the pumps.
Default world--the day-to-day world where burners must live until the next BM.

What I still would like to know: I would like to find out whether any of the shared values on display at Burning Man exist in attendee behavior when they return to their home environment. I do know that a number of participants have gone home and created smaller get-togethers (Burning Mooseman in Toronto). Also, although Burning Man has lots of regulations and rules, there is a significant amount of rebellion, and I would like to try to better understand the role the "uncontrolled events" play in creating or destroying a sense of community.

Burning Man Links:
The Official Burning Man Site
The Burning Man Archive Site
The Civilized Explorer Burning Man Site