AFTERBURN REPORT 2003
THEME ART
A special category of Burning Man art encompasses works that relate to the event's official theme. The Project articulates a theme each year as a story that connects the work of artists to the actions of participants. The theme is a means of promoting widespread civic interaction, of merging the city's life and art into a shared experience.
This year's theme, Beyond Belief, evoked religion, metaphysics, belief systems, illusions, spirituality, worship, and immediate experience. We invited participants to create interactive rites, ritual processions, elaborate images, shrines, icons, temples, and visions. The theme generated more art installations than ever before, as the number of registered theme art projects jumped from 80 in 2002 to 120, a 50 percent increase.
The Man stood on a large, interactive temple ringed with sixteen niches
where participants could perform as living gods and goddesses. Our Temple
Guardians,
who were in charge of making up and placing the pantomime gods in the
niches, felt overwhelmed by other circumstances and left the event suddenly,
as
we were ready to open the temple niches. Fortunately, one of our trusted,
long-time
volunteers saved the day by jumping in to replace them, and did a splendid
job.
Participants could also climb the steep temple stairs to a tower that offered views of the playa in each of the cardinal directions. Two lovely altars became the sites of frequent pilgrimages, which often brought gifts and offerings. The back of the temple contained a stage on which Reverend Billy and his Stop Shopping Gospel Choir performed after dark. On Friday night, a performance of Hanumanville was scheduled as a following act, featuring Fabulous Monsters from Los Angeles. When we got word that the performers were on their way to the temple, we closed the steps to participants, which unfortunately prevented access during an unexpected delay of several hours while we awaited the Monsters. Meanwhile, belly dance troupe Ultra Gypsy performed.
In front of the temple, a large electroluminescent-wire labyrinth invited participants to walk and meditate. Thematic costumed processions seemed constantly to pass by and around the temple. It was a hive of activity, more interactive than ever before.
Four lamp lit promenades emanated from the Man's central site this
year. As usual, corridors extended to Center Camp and to David Best's Temple
of
Honor, and new ones extended from the 9 and 3 o'clock points to the
corresponding plazas on each side of the city. Theme art installations
were spaced along all of these walkways. The Keyhole was graced with a large
faux-stone
fortress, the Spheres of Transformation, on top of which a computer-controlled
gyroscope of light spun.
This year’s theme divided the playa into two realms. Within our city
was the Odd, Strange, and Weird, where one could find planetariums,
temples, altars, a burning bush, a Tesla coil, sacred geometry, prayer flags,
labyrinths,
reclining Buddha's, an illusory swimming pool, an oracle, the
hand of God, a numinous carousel, a phone booth to God, a gigantic spider
web, a metal
lotus, a 3,000 pound candle, and a glass-blowing studio. This area contained
an arcade of interactive religious installations, including prayer wheels,
confessionals, crucifixes, and shrines. For the first time, we placed
art installations in the plazas at 9 and 3 o'clock—a
flaming fountain and a mandala with banners. David Best's Temple of
Honor marked the boundary of the Odd, Strange, and Weird.
Beyond it was The Realm of the Wholly Other, reserved for things far
beyond our experience, including an enormous chandelier flung down
from the heavens,
the world's largest replica of a Marcel Duchamp object—R.
Mutt's Fountain, a temple in which five 15,000-pound slabs of granite
were suspended overhead, a house of cards, an interactive lyre of
sound and light,
a ladder to nowhere, a temple made of light, a walk-in hamburger,
and mysterious glowing x-rays. Details of these and other theme art
installations are found in our Theme
Art Listings.
Submitted by,
LadyBee and Larry Harvey 
