For the last fifteen years a vast sandblasted plain in the middle of the Nevada desert has been home to a radical communal experiment responsible for redefining the lives of many of its participants. Having first attended ‘Burning Man’ in 2001 I found I could no longer return my factory settings to ‘normal’. More than a hedonistic festival, Burning Man tampers with your boundaries making nothing the same again once you have embraced its confines. The madness and contrary nature of what’s on offer is perfectly matched by the extremity of its location and the unpredictable harshness of the elements. Carrying a blunt warning the ticket proclaims; ‘by attending this event you voluntarily risk death or serious injury’. The stakes and rewards are as far-reaching as the event is ambitious and hazardous. Lasting for just over a week, a fluffy rainbow alliance of counter culture activists form a warped utopian society known as ‘Black Rock City’. Uniting twenty five thousand disparate protagonists Burning Man is a mirror of America, inverting its host by outlawing consumerism and making money illegal. You want to eat and drink? You pack in all your consumables and pack out your detritus. Survival is every individual’s primary responsibility. This doesn’t mean there are no amenities or available commodities – it’s just that you have to learn to trade for them;
‘You want a cocktail Sir? That will five minutes Pole Dancing please!’

Like certain corners of the Internet, Burning Man is a physical manifestation of the unbridled strangeness of the human mind. Humdrum existence is irrelevant, clothes are abandoned and Black Rock City rises out of the dust, a technotopia of shimmering brilliance. Structures of venerable ingenuity spiral into the sky, these creations complemented by the customised motors roving the site courtesy of the ‘Department of Mutant Vehicles’. Where else on earth can you cross the desert in a 20 meter long fire breathing dragon or board a slow moving giant illuminated whale serving margaritas? If faceless corporate America represents 9-5 daytime USA, then Burning Man is its lost weekend. A hallucinogenic celebration of perversity, libertarian polarities and artistic endeavour. A celebration of pure celebration. From all over the world the driven and divinely deranged converge on Nevada at the end of August with a shared passion for living in the moment, day-glo salmon swimming upstream to reclaim their rightful birthplace. At times I seriously contemplated the possibility that I had been kidnapped by extra-terrestrials, trepanned, then transported to a parallel superior universe.

Exploring this constantly shifting galaxy can be surreal, disorientating and full of surprises, even for the most experienced of cosmonauts. Everyone’s highlights vary, for me getting stranded in a dust whiteout was unforgettable. Out on the Playa baking winds whipped up out of nowhere, reducing daytime visibility to a few meters. Tinted ski goggles, purchased for such an occasion, turned this blank canvas of existence nuclear orange, a vision made increasingly apocalyptic by the wheeze of my respirator. Penetrating this dust choked void the throaty growl of a motorbike emerged, a sound augmented by two headlights. Evolving in turn into the illuminated eye sockets of a giant skull shaped vehicle, I was soon greeted by its Texan driver, a character who could’ve fronted a ZZ Top tribute band save for his florescent bodysuit.

“Good morning Sir, your iced vodka breakfast has arrived”, I was informed with perfunctory nonchalance, as if this was some kind of open air room service I had requested. Sure enough, from steaming panniers of crushed ice a bottle of perfectly chilled vodka was procured for me to imbibe with safety conscious sips. Disintegrating into the landscape, my anonymous friend left me to go about my business. I was neither perplexed nor surprised by his presence. Everything was exactly as it should be. After all, I had given up on recognisable existence after driving 70-miles north from Reno into an altogether different state of mind.

Spectators and freeloaders are positively discouraged. Everyone is expected to join the community and this includes partaking in the creation of works of art. Traditionally these are burnt with pagan relish at the festival’s culmination, when the vast neon lit ‘Man’, situated at the site’s heart, is consumed by fire. Artists spend all year thinking up mad structures and installations to challenge the perceptions of fellow ‘Burners’, their creations’ brilliance amplified because next week they will return to, and mingle with their environment. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. At Burning Man you don’t so much ‘go’, as ‘participate’. There is no Glastonbury style ‘main stage’ or ‘star attractions’ to be seen. Aside from a general theme, Centre Camp, and the promenade including the ‘Man’, the promoters provide little in the way of entertainment. Evolving in unrestricted organic style, the festival is the brainchild of the participants. The citizens of Black Rock are the engine, and with a thirst appropriate for the sweltering temperatures, it’s a full on, full steam ahead riot for twenty-four hours a day!

Every year there are literally hundreds of communities to engage with. You can get married at ‘Aaron’s Plastic Chapel’ with gnome Elvis, or cover your naked body with paint and interact with light emitting sculptures at the ‘Age of Illumination’. How about partying the night away in a techno frenzy at the ‘Alien Love Nest’ or getting it on like a sex machine at ‘The Church of Funk’, complete with Jams Brown stained glass window? For that new look try ‘Barbershop Roulette Camp’ where a spinning wheel determines the haircut you will receive. For the literati there’s always a visit to the ‘Antenna Theatre’ where you can walk through an opium induced dream world and experience the visions that led Coleridge to write ‘Kubla Khan’. Assuming all this decadence leads you astray, worry not for ‘Atonement at Father Nick’s 24 hour Confessional’ is at hand. Here Father Nick offers not only absolution, but also free beer if your confession is entertaining enough. Amazingly, a pure soul can be augmented by a clean body. ‘Astral’s Salon’ is run entirely on donated H2O so you can wash that dust right outta your hair. Getting increasingly surreal there’s the ‘Barbie Death Camp and Wine Bistro’ – exchange unwanted dolls for the finest Cabernet Sauvignon whilst admiring a Jake & Dinos Chapman-esque Barbie genocide extravaganza. Alternatively at ‘Burning Scouts’ you can get de programmed from the conformity of your youth. How would you like to earn demerit badges for lap-dancing, unfocused rage and homosexuality? If all this is making your head reel you should definitely insert it into ‘The Anus of Truth’, a puckered red woolen orifice at the business end of a five metre high hessian goat. Inside I was confronted by the spectacle of a scantily clad couple who told me my fortune. These are some of my favourites from just the A’s, B’s & C’s previously on offer, 2003 will be different again.

So who populates this makeshift Madhatten? Age wise the spectrum ranges from elderly toddlers to toddling elders. This is not an American take on Ibiza, focusing on youth pursuing a path to unconsciousness. Burning Man is about expanding rather than addling your mind. Those that take up this challenge include raucous ravers, city slickers, cyber geeks & chic freaks, Castro clones, thrash metal rockers, theatrical troupes, acid circus acrobats, performance artists, septuagenarian sculptors, pyrotechnic engineers, anarchic architects, spiritual leaders, show stealers, faith healers and wheeler dealers to name but a few. All coming together, technicolor pioneers pitted against a blighted future, each and every one of us an integral part of the main act.

Such diversity allows Burning Man to elude categorisation and places it on the cutting edge of 21st Century culture. Whatever claim is made concerning its objectives and existence, the opposite will almost certainly be equally as true. Here art, politics, technology, entertainment, theatre, mysticism and every conceivable genre of music meet and merge to form an arid Arcadia. Although nobody lives there, Black Rock City is a spiritual and creative home to thousands and the catalyst of the largest and most extraordinary gallery of outsider art available to humanity. Installations like 01’s awe-inspiring ‘Temple of Memory’ and 02’s ‘Temple of Joy’, three-story mausoleums constructed of intricate fretwork panels, bear testimony to the community’s aspirations. Dedicated particularly to suicides and infant mortality, these temples were marked by a constant vigil of healing tears and heartfelt offerings. A focal point of mass grieving, they united and cleansed our society. Witnessing their burning was both epic and intensely personal with individuals calling out the names of departed loved ones as flames danced over 30 meters into the air, marking the dying moments of each year with appropriate pathos.

But if elements like these makes Burning Man more of a pilgrimage than a festival, it’s the elements themselves that are responsible for the most lasting impressions. Fire, the giver and taker of life, is celebrated and venerated by one and all, binding us all together. Air is absolutely everywhere in the abundance of space, at 27 miles in diameter the playa liberates our very beings. Water becomes our most valuable possession, more valuable even than gold, in our unforgiving environment. And earth, earth is represented by the dust beneath our feet, in-between our toes, covering our bodies, clogging our very senses and slowly engulfing our entire community. Learning to love its intrusion is all part of the initiation of Black Rock City. Long after returning home I find myself extracting it from rucksacks, clothes, sleeping bags and cameras, its persistent presence filling me with wistful emotions. I will probably never be able to fully eradicate it from my life. From dust I have come, and to dust I shall most certainly return.
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