Keeping the fire of curiosity burning for the Burning Man

For people who hear the “Burning Man” for the first time will probably find themselves in the most bizarre expressions in their own history of facial reactions in their whole life.

Days after the main event, the Burning Man does not really leave the news section of news sites for a while, but why and what exactly is it?

Fortunately, no, it does not include burning men alive. Traditionally speaking though, it involves burning of the “man” – an effigy made of wood to mark the end of the annual event.

Contrary to popular belief, it is also not a ‘festival’ as what other people often called it before.

“Burning Man is not a festival. Burning Man is a community. A temporary city. A global cultural movement based on 10 practical principles,” this is what welcomes a reader to the Burning Man website’s First-Timer’s Guide.

This in itself can already answer a lot of questions thrown to the ember of ignited curiosity among non-participants. But let us have a closer look at the Burning Man event.

Expect the unexpected

Perhaps the Burning Man experience if to be described in one word, the best to fit would be “ephemeral” as used in theater.

While staged plays follow a fixed script, direction, and plot, with the same characters and scenarios, no performance is ever the same. This applies well to the Burning Man event as anything goes depending on its participants called the “burners.”

Situated in the temporary erected Black Rock City of Black Rock Dessert in Western United States, the event values the participation and role of each for everyone’s uniqueness. Burners are to spend days in this dry lake called the playa” – to express themselves, be with the community, and survive.

As the community spends days in the desert, one can only expect the unexpected from the weather conditions that could possibly occur, to the rising and lowering temperatures as the hour passes.

“We don’t book acts or provide entertainment. What happens here is up to you! There is no corporate sponsorship. You are entering a ‘decommodified’ space that values who you are, not what you have. You are expected to collaborate, be inclusive, creative, connective, and clean up after yourself,” the community’s website reminded its dear online lurkers.

Sounds vague? The event is meant to be vague to give lots of space for the creative mind to do its part of exuding colors and visions of art – “the ways to participate are as unlimited as one’s imagination.”

The Burning Man encourages its burners to participate in the guidance of ten principles written by co-founder Larry Harvey, namely: radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation, and immediacy.

Leave no Trace

The leave-no-trace movement is probably one of the cores that the community is highlighting.

As per the Burning Man Journal on October 1 this year, it seems that the events last August 26 to September 3 already turned into desert dust… almost literally.

The Playa Restoration team fills the post-event clean-up job. Though everyone is expected to try their best in keeping the playa clean, this is a very essential task as being unable to keep the playa from its state before the event would mean the cancellation of the annual event next year.

“Resto is 180 people wandering in rough lines across each and every square inch of Black Rock City, all of them looking down at the playa, inspecting every square foot that’s inside the nine-mile perimeter of the city,” the Burning Man Journal wrote.

Burners

As a citizen of Black Rock City, a burner is expected to follow the ten principles. But more than these, a burner has to know how vital their role and participation in the community is.

“Burning Man isn’t your usual event. It’s a vibrant participatory metropolis generated by its citizens,” says the website.

Not necessarily leaning to the moral of the cliché “no man is an island,” the event literally sets its gears moving depending on what the burners wish to do. While the event has its organizers and the community has its leaders serving as guides, everyone’s participation still deeply affects the whole outcome of the Burning Man.

Like a typical city, Black Rock City also has its own census done annually. For the preliminary results that were released on October 4, the community found that for 2018, “the average burner is around 33 to 34 years old” and most burners identified themselves as men at 59 percent.

I, Robot

Though the event is meant to be ephemeral, each year gives birth to a new theme, with 2018 falling on “I, Robot.”

Burners, inspired by the science fiction series by Isaac Asimov, filled the Black Rock City with a whole plethora of interactive art installations and sculptures that explored, of course, robot arts, effigies, and androids.

As a whole, the Burning Man is not just the event that people look forward to every year. It is not a festival that simply revolves around the burning of effigies. It is a culture that invites anyone to be part and this is what makes the Burning Man a community that is alive up to this day.