Burning Man 1 Burning Man Burning Man Burning "The Man," a large wooden effigy Location(s) Black Rock Desert, Nevada, U.S. [1] Website www.burningman.com Burning Man is a week-long annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, in the United States. The event begins on the last Monday in August, and ends on the first Monday in September, which coincides with the American Labor Day holiday. The 2012 Burning Man Festival took place between August 27 and September 3. It takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy on Saturday evening. The event is described as an experiment in community, art, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance.[2][][][] Burning Man is organized by Black Rock City, LLC. In 2010, 51,515 people attended Burning Man.[] 2011 attendance was capped at 50,000 participants and the event sold out on July 24.[3] In April 2011, Larry Harvey announced that the organization had begun the process of transitioning management of the festival over to a new non-profit organization called the "Burning Man Project". History 1986 to 1989 One of the roots of the annual event now known as Burning Man began as a bonfire ritual on the summer solstice in 1986 when Larry Harvey, Jerry James, and a few friends met on Baker Beach in San Francisco[4] and burned a 9-foot (2.7-meter) wooden man as well as a smaller wooden dog. Harvey has described his inspiration for burning these effigies as a spontaneous act of "radical self-expression".[5] The event did have earlier roots, though. Sculptor Mary Grauberger, a friend of Harvey's girlfriend Janet Lohr, held solstice bonfire gatherings on Baker Beach for several years prior to 1986, some of which Harvey attended. When Grauberger stopped organizing it, Harvey "picked up the torch and ran with it,"[5] so to speak. He and Jerry James built an 8-foot (2.4-meter) wooden effigy for 1986, which was much smaller and more crudely made than the neon-lit figure featured in the current ritual. In 1987, the effigy Wicker man on fire at the Archaeolink outdoor museum, Oyne, grew to almost 15 feet (4.6 meters) tall, and by 1988, it had grown to around 40 Aberdeenshire, Scotland feet (12 meters). Burning Man attendees informally called it "The Man," and this name was given to each successive effigy, every year since Burning Man began. Harvey states that he did not see the movie The Wicker Man until many years later, so it played no part in his inspiration. A wicker man was a large human-shaped wicker statue allegedly used in Celtic paganism for human sacrifice by burning it in effigy. Accordingly, rather than allow the name "Wicker Man" to become the name of the ritual, he started using the name "Burning Man".[6] Burning Man 2 1990 to 1996 In 1990, a separate event was planned by Kevin Evans and John Law on the remote and largely unknown dry lake known as Black Rock Desert, about 110 miles north of Reno.[7] Evans conceived it as a dadaist temporary autonomous zone with sculpture to be burned and situationist performance art. He asked John Law, who also had experience on the dry lake and was a defining founder of Cacophony Society, to take on central organizing functions. In the Cacophony Society's newsletter, it was announced as Zone Trip #4, A Bad Day at Black Rock (inspired by the movie of that name). Meanwhile, the beach burn was interrupted by the park police for not having a permit. After striking a deal to raise the Man but not to burn it, event organizers disassembled the effigy and returned it to the vacant lot where it had been built. Shortly thereafter, the legs and torso of the Man were chain-sawed and the pieces removed when the lot was unexpectedly leased as a parking lot. The effigy was reconstructed, led by Dan Miller, Harvey's then-housemate of many years, just in time to take it to Zone Trip #4.[8] Michael Mikel, another active Cacophonist, realized that a group unfamiliar with the environment of the dry lake would be helped by knowledgeable persons to ensure they did not get lost in the deep dry lake and risk dehydration and death. He took the name Danger Ranger and created the Black Rock Rangers. Thus the seed of Black Rock City was germinated, as a fellowship, organized by Law and Mikel, based on Evans' idea, along with Harvey and James' symbolic man. Drawing on experience in the sign business and with light sculpture, John Law prepared custom neon tubes for the Man in 1991 so it could be seen as a beacon at night. In its first years, the community grew by word of mouth alone, all were considered participants by the sheer veracity of surviving in the desolate surreal trackless plain of the Black Rock desert. There were no paid or scheduled performers or artists, no separation between art-space and living-space, no rules other than "Don't interfere with anyone else's immediate experience" and "no guns in central camp." 1991 marked the first year that the event had a legal permit, through the BLM (the Bureau of Land Management).[9] 1992 saw the birth of a smaller, intensive (with 30 or so participants) near-by event named "Desert Siteworks," co-directed by William Binzen and Judy West. The annual, several weeks-long event, was held in the springtime at various fertile hot springs surrounding the desert. Participants built art and participated in self-directed performances. Some key organizers of Burning Man were also part of Desert Siteworks (John Law, Michael Mikel) and William Binzen was a friend of Larry Harvey. Hence, the two events saw lots of cross-pollination of ideas and participants.[10] Desert Siteworks lasted through 1994. 1996 was the first year a formal partnership was created to own the name "Burning Man" and was also the last year that the event was held in the middle of the Black Rock Desert with no fence around it. Burning Man 3 1997 to present 1997 marked another major pivotal year for the event. By 1996, the land-speed-record-holding open playa had grown to a critical mass with 8,000 attendees and was deemed too dangerous (marked with numerous vehicular incidents) to continue in the same way with unrestricted driving. To implement a ban on driving and re-create the event as a pedestrian/bicycle/art-car-only event, it was decided to move to private gated property. Fly Ranch, with the adjoining Hualapai mini dry lake-bed, just east of the Black Rock desert, was chosen. This moved Burning Man from Pershing county/federal BLM land into the jurisdiction of Washoe County, which brought a protracted list of permit requirements.[11] To comply with the new requirements and to manage the increased liability load, the organizers formed Black Rock City, LLC (a limited liability company). Will The neon-tubed Man at the 1999 Roger Peterson and Flynn Mauthe created the Department of Public Works event (DPW) to build the "city" grid layout (a requirement so that emergency vehicles could be directed to an "address") designed by Rod Garrett, an architect. Rod continued as the city designer through 2011 until his death at 76. He is also credited with the design of all of the man bases from 2001 through 2012, the center camp cafe and first camp.[12] With the success of the driving ban, having no vehicular incidents, 1998 saw a return to the Black Rock desert; along with a temporary perimeter fence. The event has remained there since. As the population of Black Rock City grew, further rules were established in relation to its survival. Some critics of the event cite the addition of these rules as impinging on the original freedoms, altering the experience unacceptably, while others find the increased level of activity more than balances out the changes. • A grid street structure.[13] • A speed limit of 5 mph (8 km/h).[] • A ban on driving, except for approved "mutant vehicles" and service vehicles.[14] • Safety standards on mutant vehicles.[] • Burning your own art must be done on an approved burn platform.[] • A ban on fireworks.[15] • A ban on firearms.[] • A ban on dogs.[16] Another notable restriction to attendees is the 7-mile-(11 km) long temporary plastic fence that surrounds the event and defines the pentagon of land used by the event on the southern edge of the Black Rock dry lake.[17] This 4-foot (1.2 meter) high barrier is known as the "trash fence" because its initial use was to catch wind-blown debris that might escape from campsites during the event. Since 2002, the area beyond this fence has not been accessible to Burning Man participants during the week of the event.[18] One visitor who was accidentally burned at the 2005 festival unsuccessfully sued Black Rock City, LLC in San Francisco County Superior Court. On June 30, 2009, the California Court of Appeal for the First District upheld the trial court's grant of summary judgment to Black Rock City, LLC on the basis that visitors who deliberately walk towards the Burning Man after it is lit assume the risk of getting burned by such an obviously hazardous object.[19] At 1:25 am on August 28, 2007, at the exact moment of the Total Lunar Eclipse, Paul Addis, a well known, longtime Burning Man participant and gadfly of BMorg (the Burning Man Organization), who had previously pranked the Man as early as 1997, set the Man on fire four days ahead of schedule.[20] Burning Man 4 Transition to a non-profit organization In April 2011, Larry Harvey announced that the LLC was beginning a three-year process to transfer ownership and control of the event over to a new non-profit organization called the "Burning Man Project".