Andrew's Blog

Its has been quite a 24 hours…
I got in to Black Rock City early Friday, jumping right into work.

Everything was going like a dream with the pavilion opening to the public by 6pm Monday night.
That night we had a total lunar eclipse and settled down to watch in lounge chairs. In mid eclipse there was a huge roar from the playa that I assumed was a reaction to the eclipse.
NO! IT WAS THE MAN BURNING!!!
Some nut had climbed inside the Man and set fire to him.
At daybreak, my boss and designer of the Man, Rod Garret, went to survey the damage. The pavilions and eco tech instalations are Ok, but the Man is toast.




From there, we went to an emergency meeting to decide what to do. Within 10 minutes a plan had been forged to build a new Man within 72 hours, turning this catastrophy into a triumph. This is also a great lesson for Ursula to take on board.


When the Man finally burns on Saturday night, there will be a huge release of primal energy that will be beyond belief.
This may be the best year ever.
Here are some live video links…
http://137.110.118.254/live.sdp (Web cast)

http://www.current.tv/burningman/

I just ran the Burningman Earth project at a very cool event called “Yuri’s Night” down at Nasa Ames Reserch Center in Mountain View.

It was to mark the aniversery of Yuri Gagarin’s first manned flight into space, and I anticipated a rather dry and academic event…..NOT!
It turned out to be a delcious mix of brains and creativity, with a large chunk of the Burningman geek infrastructure in place for the night. We trucked in several loads of projection systems, lasers, fire dancers chill domes, playa art, sound and light rigs and several thousand of our closest and wierdest friends to turn NASA’s cavernous hanger 11 into little piece of Burningman.



I got into a great conversation with a guy who wanted to know every detail and dream of the Burningman Earth project only later to find out that he was the director of NASA. Whats more, he was on the cusp of pulling the plug on the event earlier that day as he saw the installations going in and only had the notion of “rave” as a paradigm… he finally left the gig at 2am with hugs all round and promises of “lets do the again next year!”

This is a shot of me taken by my pal Greg MacNichol at 2am as I pray for photons as the projection system went down… Fun, fun, fun.

So our ultra pal Jerri had an urge to spin flaming poi round her head… well who dosn’t?
A quick call to the Barbster and they both jumped into poi class being run in Oakland by some of the Burningman fringe.
For five weeks they made practice poi, learned moves and wacked themselves in the head… a lot!
The last week was BIG SCARY FIRE week, and I got to go along and watch the show. It was awsome. They had come from “head wackin’ non-poi” to “sexy hot pyro goddesses” in a month and a half. I was totally knocked out.


BOOM BABY!!!!

I have been quietly given a huge honor.
I have been asked by Burningman this year to work with Larry Harvey and Rod Garret on the design of next years Burningman.
Burningman may be the current eye of the tornado of the worldwide art community, and the “Man” is the very jewel in the crown.
The theme next year will be “Hope and Fear” pointing a questioning finger towards the future. We have designed the Man to rise or fall in a shaft, its elevation depending upon general levels of optimism, (or otherwise)of the population of our temporary city in the desert (the fifth largest in Nevada last year).
This collective mood will be gaged by voting pods sprinkled through the city, where people are encouraged to scale their levels of hope or fear. This information is then fed by wi-fi to the Man and is translated into his being up on top, or down in the dumps.
The shaft is supported by eight flying buttresses which have a Fritz Lang/art deco feel, and lit at night with neon.
The outside enclosure forms a courtyard to a maze, the successful navigation of which will allow access to stairs taking you up to a top deck and the Man.
We have used my Virtual Playa software to model the Man as a computer 3d object and make changes to the design as we explore the structure in Virtual reality. These are day and night screen shot from the Virtual Playa project.


Next month, Burningman makes its presentation to the Federal bureau of Land Management, and the State of Nevada, which we will illustrate with my program projected onto a giant screen and take them on a virtual tour of Burningman 2006… It will knock them down!
Here is shot I took from a light aircraft of Burningman’s Black Rock City in its 2005 incarnation.

DPW (Department of Public Works) are a sunbaked and scabby crowd of practical mechanical genius that build Burningmans Black Rock City.
They have come up with a way of passing cheap shitty vodka through a Britta water filter a number of times to create drinkable vodka with noticeably fewer hangover effects… Nobel Prize?
For empirical proof, see:-
The other huge DPW contribution to Western boozing civilisation is, of course, the world famous Johnny on the Spot Cocktail.
JOTS cocktail
Blue Gatorade
Donation Vodka- serve in glass with 4 inch tootsie roll
Use a square of toilet paper as a coaster…
Serve with a shot of hard lemonade….. pour in glass….
blue turns green…..
tastes like shit…….
put the seat down….

A much anticipated movie “Burningman – Beyond Black Rock” has just been released, and to my delight it contains more than just a couple of frames of me…as if it couldn’t!
The movie has taken two years to make, and follows the planning, tears and love it takes to build the most magical community of radical expressionists this side of Pluto. Black Rock City boils out of the desert for the Burninman Festival, and for a moment… becomes the fifth largest city in Nevada.
Even without me, it is a “must see” if you are at all inspired by beauty, sprit and invention.
See you there next year.
http://www.beyondblackrock.com/

An unexpectedly whopping wheeze was had by all attending the Love Parade in downtown SF a couple of weeks ago.
Plenty of luvin’ vibes, bright sunshine and thumping tunes made for a great day..Omygodthegirlsweresofine!
The original Berlin love parade drew a crowd of 1.6 million, making our show of 25 thousand look rather meager, but I bet we had more fun.
Here is a shot of me in my crows nest on top of the famous “Magic Bus”.

Catch up on the official photo galleries at

http://www.loveparadesf.org/

Makes sure you catch this event next summer!!

Well hek!!!!
This is the first shot at putting content on the new Johnstone blog. And about time too!!!
We are all back safely and stoked-up from Burningman 2004. We were deeply embeded within the fabulous realm of “planet WOW”, a remarkable gathering of about 250 artists, techies, mystics, actors, musos and beautiful people.
What a time!

I still can’t believe the richness of spirit that surrounded us. Every soul a miracle by themselves, but together you were a force of nature.
Thank you especially for becoming Aunts and Uncles to Ursula. She is “bigger” this week, more switched on, anointed by your love.
So….. Once more around the Sun, and we will meet at the same place in time and space for Burningman 2005.