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Here are a few links over to the art project archives over on the official Burning Man site. Don't go over there thinking that you're going to find Leonardo Da Vinci's lost notebooks. Much of this was created by stoners for stoners, and it shows. But their site can occasionally make for interesting reading and is worth the trip. BE FOREWARNED. There is nudity and possibly other "adult" material elsewhere on that site. Click on the year which you want to see archived projects from : 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 1997 1996 1992-1995 Note : starting in 1998, BMORG apparently started announcing themes for each coming Burning Man. This development, while opening interesting creative possibilities in theory, has not met with anything resembling universal approval from their customers (the "burners"), or cooperation, either. In some ways, arguably, it has even become a problem. BMORG has, on at least one occasion (2002) stalled the announcement for months, cutting into the time that those who wished to take part in the theme had to work on their projects, which can't have done good things for the quality of what resulted. Even some in BMORG itself have, in the past, referred to Burning Man as being a place where one could see "a thousand grand ideas, executed poorly", which, indeed, is one of the reasons that you're even seeing this page - more than a few of these ideas deserve to be revisited. The theme might make little sense ("nebulous"), or be potentially interesting, up until the moment it gets dumbed down to a level which would please the drugged out masses ("the floating world"). Regardless, starting in 2000, BMORG started separating the theme from non-theme art projects on its page, and some would claim on the Playa as well, giving preferential placement to projects that fitted into themes which didn't necessarily make for good art. 1998 : Nebulous Theme art sections on the BM Homepage : 2000 2001 2002 One notices that Burning Man was well under way before the entire "theme" concept came up, which may be a historical accident, but if so, perhaps a good accident to recreate at a large event. Themes didn't appear until "Black Rock City" (the fictitious city that is created during Burning Man) had grown to the size of a fair-sized town. Any smaller, and for the "theme" concept to have worked at all, it would have had to have been a matter of coercion and not persuasion. With some tens of thousands of participants, though, and one can easily have thousands of them ignoring the theme without rendering it meaningless. Click here to return to main page for the Halls of Eternal Disbelief. |